The other Saturday, the morning of September 6th, I rode out to around the Biwako Bridge.
A customer had given me one of these sports yōkan bars called
anpower (アンパワー), saying they were delicious and easy to eat,
and asking me to please try them.
At that time, I promised: "Next time I do a long-distance ride,
I'll take it with me and write a blog post praising it!"
So here's my article praising the yōkan.
5:30 AM, about 75 km from home
Not the Biwako Bridge actually,
but the Oumi Bridge to its south.
Up to this point, the only thing I'd consumed was water from my bottle
and a can of Coke from a vending machine that I chugged right there,
nothing else passed my lips.
Here's the Anpower sports yōkan.
Since bicycle distributors also carry it,
I think you can find it at shops that stock cycling gear.
Like Imuraya's sports yōkan too,
you push from the bottom to cleanly dispense the contents—
you can eat it without getting your hands dirty or even touching the yōkan itself.
And to be completely frank about my impressions...
I prefer Godiva's yōkan.
After that, I headed north on the road along the west side of Lake Biwa,
and at the intersection called "Biwako Bridge"
at the base of the Biwako Bridge,
you'd turn right to cross the bridge,
but instead I turned left onto the road ahead
and climbed all the way to the tunnel at the summit of Hanaore (花折) Pass.
My everyday bike, a red Akamutsu, has a handlebar clamp diameter
of the old 3T standard 25.8mm,
so to be able to mount a SRAM Karoo,
I attached an aftermarket Garmin mount to the handlebar,
and separately I've also mounted a Polar heart rate monitor
on my left wrist for recording purposes, though I rarely look at it.
I was planning to turn back before the tunnel,
but the Karoo's climb completion detection still had
about 40m remaining even at the tunnel entrance,
so I went through the tunnel to finish it.
↑Unofficial character of Campagnolo Ekar
Frog-kun
This bike runs a 44T single chainring up front
with an 11-25T 7-speed cassette (→here),
and on Hanaore Pass there was a moment when I shifted into the smallest cog,
but the gearing didn't run out, so I didn't find myself stuck in the smallest cog
grinding away the whole way up.
For reference, a 44×25T is equivalent to
about 22.16T if the front chainring were 39T,
or about 19.32T if it were 34T.
The digital thermometer I saw partway up the climb to the tunnel
read 25°C,
but after passing through the tunnel it was 19°C,
quite a bit cooler.
By Polar GPS standards,
from home to here was 107.32 km,
and from home to the shop is about 13.5 km,
so I was thinking if I went from here to the shop
it would come out to about 200 km total,
but the outbound route didn't actually go through the shop,
and since I optimized for easy night riding on the way out
but prioritized distance shortcuts on the way back,
it came to 86.04 km, for a total of 193.36 km.
At the endpoint of the outbound leg I stopped recording on the Karoo,
switched it off, put it in a ziplock bag
and into my jersey pocket,
and didn't use it for the rest of the day.
The reason is the return leg didn't need navigation, and I prefer
not to load up the handlebar with stuff.
I also stopped recording on the Polar at the endpoint of the outbound leg.
When the Polar saves a recording,
if the exercise time is over 10 hours,
it takes a bit of time for the data to finish saving
and switch to plain clock mode,
and previously when I did a 276 km round trip to Fukui Prefecture
and tried to save the recording,
it froze,
and I lost the ability to view the data.
That day I was also using the Karoo at the same time,
so the Karoo recording remained intact.
Because of that experience, I try not to create
excessively long recordings on the Polar.
5 hours / 100 km is about the limit where there's no problem.
I prefer not to mount stuff on the handlebar,
though normally I do at least mount the heart rate monitor
(and I'll even take off the front light if it's not a ride with lots of tunnels),
but since I forgot the heart rate monitor base,
on the return leg I rode with absolutely nothing mounted
on the handlebar.
The left ErgoShifter is front singlespeed,
so I've removed the internal components,
and with no shift cable or housing on the left,
the steering feel is extremely light.
That primitive handling feel—more "road racer" than "road bike," so to speak—
is something you just can't experience on modern road bikes,
especially disc road bikes where the hydraulic master cylinder is inside the lever
and the handlebar ends up heavy.
Rim brake levers with mechanical disc brakes
is another option, but
I can't really recommend actually using mechanical disc brakes.
"Actually using" them—what does that even mean?
Like there are brakes you don't use? On the topic of
the warped orthodoxy of making the unused disc brake mechanical
to lighten the handlebar ends (→here), please enjoy.
With an expensive disc road bike,
the front wheel and fork are light too,
and these days all three major groupset manufacturers
use wireless shifting,
so it shouldn't feel that bad, right?
That's what people say,
but expensive frame sets tend to come with
internal disc hose routing in the stem,
and if you just lift the front wheel without holding the stem or handlebar,
the handlebar set swings about 45° left or right, just like that—
it's "the kind of bike where you'd need to constantly use extra effort
just to ride straight"
and the likelihood of that is high.
Of course, it's true that as racing equipment,
the latest carbon frame from a major brand that had design costs
properly invested in it, not copying or following other makers,
is the strongest.
But that feeling of smoothly running dead straight
when you have a frame with no alignment issues
and perfectly centered front and rear wheels—
it's something that can't be quantified,
and it's not some kind of superstition; it genuinely exists,
so evaluation of frames and bikes in that direction
is definitely a thing.
Though lately it's become pretty rare to find.
I took the earlier photo while stopped at a light at Osaka Pass,
where a road up from Otsu's streetcar merges with Route 1.
A customer had given me one of these sports yōkan bars called
anpower (アンパワー), saying they were delicious and easy to eat,
and asking me to please try them.
At that time, I promised: "Next time I do a long-distance ride,
I'll take it with me and write a blog post praising it!"
So here's my article praising the yōkan.
5:30 AM, about 75 km from home
Not the Biwako Bridge actually,
but the Oumi Bridge to its south.
Up to this point, the only thing I'd consumed was water from my bottle
and a can of Coke from a vending machine that I chugged right there,
nothing else passed my lips.
Here's the Anpower sports yōkan.
Since bicycle distributors also carry it,
I think you can find it at shops that stock cycling gear.
Like Imuraya's sports yōkan too,
you push from the bottom to cleanly dispense the contents—
you can eat it without getting your hands dirty or even touching the yōkan itself.
And to be completely frank about my impressions...
I prefer Godiva's yōkan.
After that, I headed north on the road along the west side of Lake Biwa,
and at the intersection called "Biwako Bridge"
at the base of the Biwako Bridge,
you'd turn right to cross the bridge,
but instead I turned left onto the road ahead
and climbed all the way to the tunnel at the summit of Hanaore (花折) Pass.
My everyday bike, a red Akamutsu, has a handlebar clamp diameter
of the old 3T standard 25.8mm,
so to be able to mount a SRAM Karoo,
I attached an aftermarket Garmin mount to the handlebar,
and separately I've also mounted a Polar heart rate monitor
on my left wrist for recording purposes, though I rarely look at it.
I was planning to turn back before the tunnel,
but the Karoo's climb completion detection still had
about 40m remaining even at the tunnel entrance,
so I went through the tunnel to finish it.
↑Unofficial character of Campagnolo Ekar
Frog-kun
This bike runs a 44T single chainring up front
with an 11-25T 7-speed cassette (→here),
and on Hanaore Pass there was a moment when I shifted into the smallest cog,
but the gearing didn't run out, so I didn't find myself stuck in the smallest cog
grinding away the whole way up.
For reference, a 44×25T is equivalent to
about 22.16T if the front chainring were 39T,
or about 19.32T if it were 34T.
The digital thermometer I saw partway up the climb to the tunnel
read 25°C,
but after passing through the tunnel it was 19°C,
quite a bit cooler.
By Polar GPS standards,
from home to here was 107.32 km,
and from home to the shop is about 13.5 km,
so I was thinking if I went from here to the shop
it would come out to about 200 km total,
but the outbound route didn't actually go through the shop,
and since I optimized for easy night riding on the way out
but prioritized distance shortcuts on the way back,
it came to 86.04 km, for a total of 193.36 km.
At the endpoint of the outbound leg I stopped recording on the Karoo,
switched it off, put it in a ziplock bag
and into my jersey pocket,
and didn't use it for the rest of the day.
The reason is the return leg didn't need navigation, and I prefer
not to load up the handlebar with stuff.
I also stopped recording on the Polar at the endpoint of the outbound leg.
When the Polar saves a recording,
if the exercise time is over 10 hours,
it takes a bit of time for the data to finish saving
and switch to plain clock mode,
and previously when I did a 276 km round trip to Fukui Prefecture
and tried to save the recording,
it froze,
and I lost the ability to view the data.
That day I was also using the Karoo at the same time,
so the Karoo recording remained intact.
Because of that experience, I try not to create
excessively long recordings on the Polar.
5 hours / 100 km is about the limit where there's no problem.
I prefer not to mount stuff on the handlebar,
though normally I do at least mount the heart rate monitor
(and I'll even take off the front light if it's not a ride with lots of tunnels),
but since I forgot the heart rate monitor base,
on the return leg I rode with absolutely nothing mounted
on the handlebar.
The left ErgoShifter is front singlespeed,
so I've removed the internal components,
and with no shift cable or housing on the left,
the steering feel is extremely light.
That primitive handling feel—more "road racer" than "road bike," so to speak—
is something you just can't experience on modern road bikes,
especially disc road bikes where the hydraulic master cylinder is inside the lever
and the handlebar ends up heavy.
Rim brake levers with mechanical disc brakes
is another option, but
I can't really recommend actually using mechanical disc brakes.
"Actually using" them—what does that even mean?
Like there are brakes you don't use? On the topic of
the warped orthodoxy of making the unused disc brake mechanical
to lighten the handlebar ends (→here), please enjoy.
With an expensive disc road bike,
the front wheel and fork are light too,
and these days all three major groupset manufacturers
use wireless shifting,
so it shouldn't feel that bad, right?
That's what people say,
but expensive frame sets tend to come with
internal disc hose routing in the stem,
and if you just lift the front wheel without holding the stem or handlebar,
the handlebar set swings about 45° left or right, just like that—
it's "the kind of bike where you'd need to constantly use extra effort
just to ride straight"
and the likelihood of that is high.
Of course, it's true that as racing equipment,
the latest carbon frame from a major brand that had design costs
properly invested in it, not copying or following other makers,
is the strongest.
But that feeling of smoothly running dead straight
when you have a frame with no alignment issues
and perfectly centered front and rear wheels—
it's something that can't be quantified,
and it's not some kind of superstition; it genuinely exists,
so evaluation of frames and bikes in that direction
is definitely a thing.
Though lately it's become pretty rare to find.
I took the earlier photo while stopped at a light at Osaka Pass,
where a road up from Otsu's streetcar merges with Route 1.