Training Report - Asari Pass

The temperature was around 8 degrees Celsius below zero at the Asari Pass. We had a special guest this day: Mister Takahashi of the Team Otaru AC, who is one of the best athletes in Hokkaido. Mr.Takahashi, Dr.K and Tesseract participated in this training.



Our training began at the parking next to the dam wall of the Asari Dam.


We were getting altitude warming up.


At the point the road getting steep, we began to ride competitively. Passengers in passing cars have encouraged us. We can hardly see such a scene in summer. We might be so rare for them. The climbing velocity was always around 11-12km/h. The road to the Asari Pass from Otaru is pretty steep for heavy studded tires. Mr.Takahashi and Tesseract competed hardly up to the summit. After the last avalanche shelter, they did a long sprint. Tesseract won barely. However, Mr.Takahashi had no clipless pedal. It was a big disadvantage for him. If he had had a pair of clipless pedals, he would have beaten Tesseract.

After passing the summit, we descended in the direction of Sapporo and reached Sapporo Kokusai Skiing Resort. Dr.K (left) and Mr.Takahashi (right).


We climbed up the Asari Pass again from the other side.


In this climbing, we didn't pedal hard but were climbing slowly talking together. The second passage to the highest point of this day: 675m. A typical landscape of Hokkaido.


We began to descend. We have agreed not to do Switchback Descent(refer to: Switchback Descent) this time. So we descended directly to the foot of the Asari Pass.


During the descent, the speed was very high. So the wind-chill fell down significantly. Other than face was ok as they were highly covered by cloth against the coldness. Dr.K had a face mask to protect the face from the coldness. But the others didn't. So it was absolutely freezing to the face. Tesseract has impression that his contact lenses were momentarily frozen. According to a calculation, the sensory temperature of this moment was around minus 23 degrees Celsius. Next time, we'll do a Switchback Descent or bring a face mask.

Our special guest Mr.Takahashi commented after the training that he had never thought the training on snow would be so fun.


Tesseract's traveled distance was 28.04km, the average velocity was 17.2km/h, the maximal velocity was 62.0km/h.


The Asari Pass Profile