Training Report - Kenashi Pass 6

Mr.Takahashi and Tesseract participated in this training.

This day, both were tired because of the training of the previous day. They had ridden the road bike on the plain the previous day. So they were not in the best condition.

The photos of the previous day (taken in Oyafuru).


This year, the transition of the atmospheric pressure distribution from that of winter to spring's was much earlier than usual. So we had very little snowfall and it was difficult to predict when roads would be snow covered. In such cases, we spend a lot of time to observe the data of rainfall radar and upper level weather charts (mostly 850 and 300 hPa) to predict in which regions it will snow considering the shape of mountains etc. The meteorology is an interesting part of the snowbiking. We've foreseen that it would be snowing the precedent night in this area and the snow on the road would be gone at 10. So this day, we have chosen specific two hours where the roads would be snow covered between 8:00 and 10:00 to train. The speed of snow melting is very high in this season because of the warm sunlight despite the low temperature. Our prediction was almost perfect that about 50 percent of snow on road was gone at 10.

The temperature was around minus 10 degrees Celsius at the Kenashi Pass (648m). It was a fine day. We did a time trial of 6.84km from the car parking at 510m up to the summit of the Kenashi Pass at 648m.

In the warming-up. The view of Otaru was magnificent.


At the start point. We could see the rainfall radar on the Mt.Kenashi this day. Mr.Takahashi started at first, 30 seconds later Tesseract started.


Just after the start, on the uphill that is not so steep, Tesseract decreased the gap considerably. However, the decrease of gap slowed down in the steep climbing and the distance between Mr.Takahashi and Tesseract was almost steady. Tesseract was decreasing the gap little by little. But he couldn't catch Mr.Takahashi before the finish. This day, as the ice on the road was very hard, the studs of the tires didn't grasp the road well. Therefore, during the descent, the rear wheels of both of us skidded many times.

Mr.Takahashi finished at first. His record was 21 minutes 35 seconds. (The average speed was 19.0km/h)


About 8 seconds later, Tesseract arrived. His record was 21 minutes 13 seconds. (The average speed was 19.3km/h)


Tesseract is drinking the water after the finish.


We descended in the direction of Akaigawa up to the altitude of 320m in Ochiai.


We climbed again the Kenashi Pass from the Akaigawa side.

This day's Mt.Yoichidake (The highest mountain in Sapporo: 1488m). This photo was taken at 9:36. The snow on the opposite lane was getting melted. We had to hurry to reach the finish line of this day's training before the snow is gone.


We didn't have so much snow even in the last snow season which had the record snow depth.




Tesseract's traveled distance was 30.41km (excluding the warming-up: Tesseract reset the cycle-computer after the warming-up), the average speed was 18.3km/h and the maximal velocity was 55.5km/h.


The Kenashi Pass Profile

Routes Introduction/Kenashi Pass 1/2
Routes Introduction/Kenashi Pass 2/2