Mello ride around the Imperial Palace in a light rain

FULL RIDE STATS:

It seems I always eat green Thai curry before a night ride around the palace, as once again I had a belly full of it as I set out from my apartment building at 10:21pm.  However, as my stats show, I wasn’t exactly flying around the palace this time, as it was a “mellow” ride, therefore I never even came close to feeling any nausea.  

Although I was significantly slower this time than last, I rode much stronger.  I got up out of the saddle fairly easily for all three ascents up the backside of the palace loop, where last time I couldn’t even finish the first ascent out of saddle.  

What a difference two weeks makes and a 60-mile ride thrown in for training!

As nothing can ever be perfect or without incident, on the third and final back ascent of the loop climb, I was up out of the saddle powering up it, just a few meters from the top when I suddenly heard the distinct sound of pedals churning.  For an instant, I thought to myself, “how could another bike be passing me?”  I hadn’t seen anyone near me at the bottom of the ascent.  Sure enough, a second later some big dog on a full-carbon frame road bike powered passed me, also out of the saddle, passing me just seconds before I reached the top.  It was a bit mentally disappointing.  There was no chance of keeping pace with that dude.

Then my less than fast lap times were a slight disappointment.

Then it started raining lightly on the final 12-minutes of the ride home.

Such are things in Tokyo.  

Still, I’ll remember that focused, single-minded feeling I had while riding for awhile.