Nothing like a radio spot advertising your web site to remind you of how out of date your information is. The calendar remains up-to-date on the left "Calendar" tab. There really isn't that much more you can find right now in the area for cycling events. It's that blistering hot time of year that no one wants to be out and about. Take this time to think about a few rules of thumb on the roads.

• Be Predictable! There have been a handful of cycling accidents involving US service members on and off base in the last two or three months. Remember to BE PREDICTABLE. You should be biking at least as defensively as you would drive, and even more so. Bike on the left side of the road and watch those blind intersections. Pay attention to the mirrors on those mountain roads and be sure to signal your turns.
• Hydrate! With temperatures heading to black flag conditions almost every day, you can still get out and get good training in. If you're not able to get out on the road early in the morning with cooler temperatures, you can still ride hard if you are properly hydrating. You should be considering two bottles of water per hour in the higher temperatures. Be prepared for this. Don't sacrifice your training because you think you're too macho to drink more water!
• Bells, whistles, lights and stuff - It is Japanese law to have a bell on your bike. The important takeaway is to make yourself visible and able to be heard. Wear bright colored clothing, stay out of the dark tunnels, and keep lights on your bike. If you have to go through a tunnel, make sure you are visible! Good rule of thumb for tunnels: if you haven't been through it before, it doesn't have a sidewalk, and you can't see the other side.... DON'T GO IN! Who knows when that tunnel may end and there is no escaping the traffic in the middle of the tunnel.

Ride safe folks!

Spring is in full force and summer is almost upon us - with that comes rainy season! But that won't deter many of the local cyclists from getting out on the bike and exploring the local areas of Japan while getting in quality training miles. We're seeing more and more American cyclists on the roads around the base and local area all the time. For all of them, here is a list of some upcoming events and races in the next two to three months:

• Cannonball Race, May 27th - This event starts at Hiroshige bike shop in Yanai. You can ride/race in a 100km, 160km, or 250km event. The 250km event will be competitive racing, while the others are basically fun rides. For more information, get in touch with Tom over at CycleIwakuni.com. We can get you down there and signed up for any of the events.
• Tottori 70km or 120km Cycle Marathon, June 10th - About a six hour drive, most of the members of Ueki's Sport Cycle Club will ride this event. It follows primarily the Yonago Triathlon course. This event is a fun ride on the northern coast of Japan.
• 25th Uchinada Cycle Road Race, June 24th - Time trial and road race events on the same day. Also on the north side of the island of Japan, about 4-5 hours of driving.
  • Team time trial event - 26.6km
  • Solo time trial - 13.3km
  • Open road race - 53.2km
  • Champion road race - 66.5 km
• Shimanami Group Ride - Also currently scheduled for June 24th, this date is tentative. Ueki's Sport Cycle will ride portions of the Shimanami Bridge route. As a group of 30-50 riders, the pace will be whatever you want it to be while enjoying the scenery and the riding with both Japanese and American riders. This is a fun ride, but if you want a good training day, the hammerhead racers usually push the pace way up on the return trip while the leisure riders make their way back together. It's a fun day and a beautiful route.
• Kyushu Autopolis 3hr Enduro, July 1st - Race the 3.9 km auto circuit that normally hosts F1 and MotoGP racing. For 3 hours you can take part as a solo participant or with a team of folks doing relay racing. Awards are given for both classes. Participants will range in ability from serious road racers to old folks on commuter bikes. These are fun and fast races on especially smooth roads.

That gets us through into July. More to follow! If you want to get more information on any of these events, drop Tom a note by clicking in the navigation pane to the left. Safe riding!

Over the past two years, we've accumulated a small number of cycling related retailers that refuse to ship to APO/FPO addresses. The list of reasons any of these retailers choose to do this varies from owner to owner. The two most common complaints received from the retailers is shipping cost and damage/insurance claims. While this may fit their "reasonable" measure of excuse, it just simply fails to make the grade for us here at CycleIwakuni.com. We will soon be adding a navigation bar to identify stores that refuse to ship APO/FPO.

I know that there are resources out there like ShipitAPO that will make shipping UPS/FedEx work by sending your packages through a third party shipping agency. We could also simply deal with shipping it to a family member stateside and then along to us in the USPS. I feel, however, that as a US military member overseas that this form of "postal discrimination" of sorts does not need to be tolerated. The fact is there are plenty of retailers still offering the same goods/services at competitive prices that can be selected in place of these non-shipping retailers.

Maybe we can convince these retailers to ship APO/FPO with our pocket books, instead of our emails.

An extremely cold day atop the hills around Hiroshima Airport, but it doesn't look like any racers were deterred from the desire to compete. One person from MCAS went on up there to compete. The complete race report and a lot of extra information is on our blog.

Weather forecast for March is looking up with sunny weather in the mid-60's just around the corner. It's a perfect time to get your bike on the road and put in some of those miles you've been wanting to get! Come join us on the Shimanami group ride on Sunday, March 25th across the Shimanami Bridges. Cherry Blossom forecast is full bloom starting that weekend. It'll be a beautiful ride! Hope to see you all there!

For folks in the Iwakuni area, it's been greatly obvious that spring is in the air... ALREADY! A winter of warm temperatures is coming to an end as February rolls out with occasional high temperatures in the 60's F. Hopefully this means the cyclists are getting their bikes out more often and putting some miles on those tires.

As you start to get things moving again, make sure to check things like chain stretch, tire wear and sticky cables. Skipping chains, flat tires and poor braking/shifting will frustrate you and frustration will just keep you off the bike. Take time to check the little things before you get out the door.

Hopefully as you're writing down your ride information, you'll take a gander over at the CycleIwakuni.com calendar and consider participating in one of the many events coming in the next couple months. Dates for most events are becoming solid so start making your plans now to participate. Once you lock your goals in to participate it will be that much easier to get out on the bike and ride.

Here are some dates coming up soon, put them on your calendar in pen and plan to be there!:

• 3/18 - 12th West Japan Road Race. Want to be challenged? This course will do it to you. Very fast, very steep, very fun.
• 3/25 - Ueki's Sport Cycle Shimanami Bridges Group Ride, 80km. Looking for a gorgeous ride in some beautiful scenery? This ride over the bridges connecting Honshu to Shikoku is a gorgeous ride at a pace all riders can handle. Stops at 20, 40, 60 and 80km for food, drink.
• 4/1 - Kirara-Hama Beach Criterium. 2.5 km criterium course. 4 90 degree corners and a 40kph pace in the expert class. Also kid events and "citizen" class events for those not up to the higher pace. Also a 2.5km individual time trial on the same day. You can do both events or just one of the two. Put it on the schedule!

Preliminary ride schedules are starting to filter out. There are a number of rides that happen on the same days/weekends/holidays every year for the Japanese, so we'll try to get those filled in where we can. We're going to wait for interest in the Brevet events that Audax Osaka hosts until we find out what kind of interest there is going to be. Everything else will be races and fun rides as they hit the schedule in the surrounding area and neighboring prefectures.

We've found some events hosted in the Tokyo area, and we're going to list those to put them on our schedule here at CycleIwakuni.com if for no other purpose than our own planning. Many of them will be missed by all of our local riders because of 12 hour drive or $300 round trip shinkansen - and lodging to boot. Some pretty cool events on the schedule up there for anyone that can make the trip.

Ride calendar was updated and changed last year. If you'd like, you can subscribe to the RSS feed to keep track of the coming rides. It will typically show the next 10 rides scheduled, or 30 days' worth. We attempt to note which rides are being supported by other local area riders so you know what to look for.

Right now the Sunday morning group ride hosted out of Ueki's Sport Cycle and Club Athlete will be going every Sunday morning, usually rain or shine. Be prepared for a workout. The club is in training for Kunisaki in hopes of placing a number of their riders in the top 10.

Keep in contact to know if there will be a group ride for the ride@cycleiwakuni.com list members or if there is a Saturday/Sunday ride at Otake City Hall. There are some important dates to note for this year:

• 3/4 - Kumamoto 150km Cycle Marathon
• 3/18 - 12th West Japan Road Race, Hiroshima (36.9 km) - both UCI and open events
• 3/25 - Hitachinaka Enduro, Tokyo area
• 4/22 - Mt Fuji Hill Climb (16.5km, 1200m avg 7%)
• 5/3 - Tour de Kunisaki, 160km
• 5/4 - Nakayama Circuit Enduro, 3 or 5 hr events
• 5/12-5/13 - Iwami 2 Day Fun Ride, 300km
• 5/26 - Tentative, Energy Awareness 40km
• 6/2 - Tentative, Hiroshige Cannonball Run, 250km
• 6/10 - Fujisan Hill Climb (22km, 1200m avg 5%)
• September - Iwakuni Friendship Triathlon
• 9/30 - Matsue One Day Run, 120km
• 10/8 - Aida Circuit Enduro, 2, 4 or 6 hour events
• 10/27 - Tentative, Energy Awareness 40km
• 11/10-11/12 - Tour of Okinawa
• 11/18 - Second Nakayam Circuit Enduro, 3 or 5 hour events
• 11/25 - Tour de Yuu, Zenitsubo Hill Climb
• 12/9 - Tentative, Zayama Hill Climb, Yanai

Please be patient with us as we add these to the full calendar with links to all the race information. If you are interested in joining an event, contact us at the email address listed on the left navigation pane. Emails do not forward to our domain through the USMC.mil domain. We are working on that problem, but it appears that it's on the USMC side of the house. If you need to contact us further, contact GySgt Draffen at Air Traffic Control on the base.

CycleIwakuni.com continues its attempts to maintain a ride calendar at least one month in advance. Dates of importance will be marked for certain. If you want to look ahead further than the schedule listed on our webcalendar, navigate over to this translated version at Sportsentry.jp. You can attempt to navigate around there and get the upcoming events.

Any questions about the ride calendar or if you want a particular ride added to the calendar for others to join in on, feel free to email us.
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We managed to get our hands on the overall results of the Iwakuni Triathlon held on September 24th aboard the Air Station. The race was run very well and all those participating did an outstanding job. Thanks to Ironworks Gym staff and the MCCS workers and volunteers for putting on a fantastic event. Congratulations to all those who achieved their goals, whether it was 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or just wanting to finish.

Results can be downloaded on this Excel spreadsheet: Results Spreadsheet

Two new races on the calendar are going in the first two weekends of October. The web pages and information are found here, and only here - far as I can tell!

• October 1: One Day Run 140km - Relatively flat 140km ride on the opposite side of the island. All the information shows that it will be a gorgeous ride. Easy enough to get to by the expressways, around 3 hours. Perhaps best to get there the night before since check-in starts at 5:30am. Onsens and plenty of other amenities are nearby.
• October 9: Aida Circuit Enduro - Pick from a 2, 3, or 6 hour endurance ride. It will be around the Aida Auto Track north of Okayama. Ride laps until your time limit and see if you've gone the furthers. Fully supported in the pit stops, just enter and ride!

November 11-12th. The Tour de Okinawa web page has been posted with this years information. Ueki-san has said the sponsor is willing to reserve 5 spots for American riders. Unless you're cat 1/2 UCI, you'll compete in the citizen races. That information can be found here: http://www.tour-de-okinawa.jp/gaiyou/shimin_r.html
Abbreviated English version: http://www.tour-de-okinawa.jp/english/index.html

We're still looking to work with the Sumo folks (that's the name of the C-130 squadron out of Futenma) to see if they'll fly the bikes and maybe people down. Once dates start to get more solid, more information will be posted here and on the email list.

Don't know about the email list you say?! Subscribe by entering your email in the box on the left pane of the http://www.cycleiwakuni.com home page.

Braving the rain that came down on us during the middle 70km, 80+ riders completed the Otsu 200k Brevet around Lake Biwaku. More details to follow. It was a fantastic ride, and once it got down on the lake it was flat and fast. I hope to get more riders to go to this event next year if they repeat. It's an awesome ride.

Once again, more details to follow. Full ride report written up in my blog with a few pictures.

• Ride info HERE.
• Rules for Brevets in Japan HERE.
• Application forms HERE.

Use Worldlingo.com to translate the listed sites.