Tour of Japan, stage 5 madness

So the tour of is over and in between long bus trips and tasty bento boxes there hasn't been much time to think anything let alone even write anything. So the best most memorable events must get blogged first

So check THIS out.

That is Shawry's garmin/strava file from what was far and away the most ridiculous race of my life. It bordered on insanity.

Rumour has it when Kristian House won the same stage in 2010 for Rapha Condor he said it was the hardest stage of his life and he was glad it was over. Well back then they raced 98k.

We raced 148k!!!! (This point needs a severe and comprehensive exclaiming.)

Have a look at what Wurfy wrote about it

Or maybe peek at the youtube video

And don't miss all the purty pictures that Cycling iQ has posted

Just look at it!

Or maybe just trust me when I say it was ludicrous.

Like a roller coaster ride for road bikes. The course twisted, turned, climbed, dropped, cut back on itself and managed to give everyone motion sickness, whip lash and the urge to cry. You would come out of a corner with G forces throwing the rice in your stomach around like clothes in a washing machine only to whip out, up and around onto 'yet another' climb that not only sapped (these climbs were especially potent 'sappers', one would almost deem them to be 'grippy') all your energy and momentum but every time made you contemplate why on earth you were doing this.

But each lap you would remember why;

-You would pass your soigneurs handing out drinks.
-You would see the time gap to your team mate suffering out in the break (thanks Shawry)
-And you would look back and see your DS bored out of their skull in the team car

After 4 hours I can safely say all riders went through every stage of the emtional cyclist mental scale

1) Apprehension of the extreme fisting your are about to endure
2) Slight excitment whilst pondering the 'epicness' of the ride
3) Denial after the first lap; "Surely they didn't mean 12 whole laps?"
4) Frustration after the 2nd lap; "This is going to be a long day"
5) Contemplating death on the 3rd lap
6) Contemplating death of the 4th lap
7) Laps 5-11: See Laps 3 and 4
8) Lap 12: "Thank you sweet jesus that is over. Someone find me a corner of the bus to die in. Wake me once we get to Tokyo."

The whole day was rather analogous to the famous Milgram experiments

Give a normal person the authority of a UCI endorsed race organisor, and they can convince a bunch of directors to do absurd things to a bunch of cyclists under their control.

Or maybe we wanted to do it? Maybe we are just masochists.

Me?

I just like that fact that I get a tuna sandwich and some free sashimi after the race. How cool is that!