Training Report - Mt.Teine 4

It was almost end of March. In march, we usually ride with road bikes. However, this season was different. The temperature was low for this period of year and it had snowed like January. You can say that in this March, it was colder than January where it was hot at the record level (ref. Trainintg reports/Tohmaru Pass 2, Trainintg reports/Kenashi Pass 9 and Trainintg reports/Kenashi Pass 11). You could say nature was compensating such meteorological glitch. The temperature was low but the sunlight was much stronger than January. Therefore, the snow on the road would be gone in the daytime. So we came to the foot of the Mt.Teine in the early morning. Tesseract slept only four hours and Cairn slept only two hours. It's hardly said that both were in good form.

However, although our training was supposed to begin at 7 a.m. we began our training at 9 a.m.

Our usual member Dr.K didn't come because he was already in the off-season. He already took off the studded tires as he had thought they wouldn't be necessary in the end of March. So only Cairn and Tesseract participated in this training.

The temperature was about minus 5 degrees Celsius on the Mt.Teine.

Before the training, we had comfirmed that on the road from the foot up to 150m, there was no snow. So we rode on a not snow-removed road from the foot of the mountain up to 240m to bypass it.

At the beginning of the training, we rode talking together. This uphill is very steep, Cairn detached at 160m. We regrouped at 240m and rode at a slow tempo.

Children on a Ski School Bus waved their hands to us and Tesseract risponded waving back. In consequence, Tesseract's speed increased behind this bus and Cairn detached from him at 330m. Tesseract began to ride on his tempo and the gap was increasing.

At the altitude 500m, Tesseract was climbing. It was very hot and his goggles were getting fogged. So he turned his visor onto the upright position to ventilate inside the goggles.


Cairn was still in the rehabilitation session because of the injury in a car accident we had mentioned in the Trainintg reports/Kenashi Pass 8. So he couldn't force himself. Furthermore, he was overwhelmed by hunger. At this point, the gap to Tesseract riding ahead of him became about 5 minutes. Do you see the difference of the snow on the road which thawed during 5 minutes alone? The sunlight was strong in the end of March.


The final approach of Tesseract to the Aerial Cableway Station. Tesseract was hungry as well. But he was never overwhelmed by hunger. So there was no problem for him.


The final approach of Cairn to the Aerial Cableway Station. The gap increased further about 2 minutes after the 500m point although usually Cairn is good at uphill. We hope he'll recover soon from the injury of the car accident.


As the snow already began to thaw, we commenced to descent soon.

Tesseract passed the 520m point at first.


Cairn passed here about 40 seconds later. He tried to descent in the style of Marco Pantani. But with the MTB handlebar, it's strange and it caused further slowdown.


We stopped at the rest house at 420m to eat something. However, we had no courage to eat amongst skiers. So we resumed our course.


Cairn said:

"Here on the descent, as usual, you'll be gone from my sight within seconds like a Disappearing Magic Ball (Name of a breking ball in a Japanese baseball comic: Kyojin-no Hoshi) Right?"

Tesseract replied:

"You think so?"

As Cairn had predicted, Tesseract wasn't in the Cairn's sight after passing only a single curve as the descent velocity is completely different between two (about 30km/h for Cairn and about 50km/h for Tesseract).

The snow on the ascent lane was gone because of the strong sunlight and heat of passing cars but the snow on the descent lane was still intact up to 240m. So we could descend comfortably.

At 240m, at the entrance of the not snow-removed road, Tesseract waited for Cairn about 2 minutes and we began to descent through the not snow-removed road.

At the foot of the mountain, Tesseract arrived first and about 3 minutes later, Cairn arrived.

Tesseract's travelled distance was 16.66km, the average speed was 12.5km/h and the maximum velocity was 59.1km/h.


The Mt.Teine's Profile