ナイジェルさんは誕生日に際して花背峠まで登った、ママチャリで。

Nigel Randell usually does something sort of crazy on his birthday, such as this ride two years ago that I joined in on for a short portion.

This year, Nigel rode his heavy rusty mamachari (built-like-a-tank city bike) up to Hanase Pass, the 600+ meters of climb (2,000') being a challenge on the best road bike.

Neil, whom we've seen on my blog here and here, among others, is an extremely strong rider, but today on the occasion of Nigel's mamachari ride, was creating a challenge for himself by riding an old used bike with the seat dropped all the way down, and instead of proper kit, wearing his wife's lab coat. With the big sun glasses, he had a bit of a Dr. Horrible vibe going on. (I posted about this amazing video short when it came out nine years ago.)

These “modern mamachari” electric-assist city family bikes are really great, so long as the battery lasts. They can be quite heavy otherwise, like riding through molasses. And that's on a nicely-paved, flat city street. Even with the battery it's quite a bit of work powering up this kind of steep road.

At some point he had made a big show of flying by our group (we're going slowly because Nigel is riding the cycling equivalent of a cast-iron anchor), but we soon caught up and passed him. We never saw him again.

Geoffrey gives Nigel a momentary boost. You can see in this short video from the ride (of him doing it another time) that it really does help him along:

Some things to explain: I was breathing quite heavily because I had rushed to catch up after having stopped to take photo of others earlier. I put out an average of 470 watts for a minute and a half (and 750 watts for 20 seconds), which is a lot for me.

At one point I yell “car” when it seems apparent that everyone already sees the car and it's too late anyway, but I was yelling it for the benefit of those coming up from farther back, behind the blind hairpin.

One can sometimes make the entire climb without seeing a car, or on a busy day, you might see half a dozen cars during the whole ascent. But today was crazy... dozens and dozens of cars. Maybe because it's Golden Week. The first time I tried to take a video, cars just kept coming, and my voice yelling “car” is horribly annoying. In this video upload, I lowered the audio level substantially, but it's still annoying...

I'm at far right in the shot above, taken by a passing motorcyclist. I'm wearing a Yahoo! jersey that Mike Bennett sent me over the winter. I wore it for the first time today, it being warm enough to not need a jacket that would cover it. I worked at Yahoo! during the early days of the World Wide Web, when Yahoo! was relevant and was synonymous with “Internet” to the average person. The purple and yellow bring a tear of pride to my eye.

We continued down the other side for a while...

... then came to an old gravel road that jutted back up into the mountain.

I had never done this “road” (I thought it was just a mountain trail), and I probably won't do it again. It was quite steep (700m at an average of 13%, with some sections approaching 20%).

We would continue on up the road in the background before descending down toward Seryo Pass.

We couldn't believe a car was on this “road” and just assumed that they were lost, so it was quite surprising when they said that they knew where they were and where they were going. The car is a Mitsuoka Ryugi, which I'm sure you've never heard of.

The gravel road dumped us out in a tiny village below Seryo Pass. A cherry tree was blooming at the Seryo Lodge, and the owner kindly snapped a photo for us.

The proprietor at the Seryo Lodge told us about a house that had pretty blooms at the moment, so I made a short detour to see it. It was much nicer than came out in this photo.

The descent from Seryo Pass down toward Kyoto is one of the worst around.... long and steep (3km at 11%), with a horrible bumpy road surface that shakes your teeth from your skull at anything faster than a walk. Nigel did this on his mamachari as well.

In the moments before the bird swooped down to grab the sandwich, you could feel a few of them paying close attention, coming in for a better look, which is why I had my camera pointed that way in the first place, just in case. In retrospect it seems clear that I should have warned them, but there were plenty of times someone's food looked like it might be a target, but never was, so maybe my warning would have just bothered them. In any case, the three barely flinched, as if they were expecting it. It was decidedly odd.

Anyway, happy birthday Nigel. I'll have to make sure I'm out of town this time next year. 😉

Update: Henry made a great video that really captures the vibe of the day.