Little fun with Camera / カメラで夜遊び

Did some biking this weekend but nothing really to write home about so.. decided to play around with my camera a little last night. Its a Nikon D40 with a 10.5mm Fish eye lens I set the focal length to infinity.. Set it for ISO200 F7 3" shutter speed. Interesting effects can be gained with this relatively long exposure times! I was able to trigger the camera with IR remote in left hand.   Kinda neat!

昨日自転車に乗ったんですがたいしたことではないので昨夜はちょつとカメラで遊びました。カメラはニコン D40．レンズは 10.5mm F2.8G ニコンDXフォーマット専用の魚の目レンズです。カメラ設定はＩｓｏ２００　Ｆ７　３秒シャターです。長い間シャターを開けると面白い物が撮れるんですね。シャターは赤外線レモートを左手に入れ押しました。おもしろいですね！

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60 Miles (100Km ) challenge

I decided last weekend to test my biking skills and see how long and far I can bike for. My goal was to ride 60 miles or 100Km. I can now say I can do it on my bike but its painful! 今週末ちょつと自転車で長距離乗れるか試してみました。目票は１００Ｋｍでした。今１００ｋｍは出来ると言えます。

Here are the stats.　　

Distance　距離: 63.64 miles (102.42km)
Time　時間: 6:21
Average speed　平均時速: 10 mph (16.1km/Hr)
Max Speed　最大時速: 25.6 mph (41.2km/Hr)
Total Climb　登り: 2659 ft (810m)

I basically did a loop to Stanford then Mountain View then Stevens Creek trail to Palo alto and back to MountainView then home. a long grueling ride but I know now I can do it.コースは家からスタンフオード大学へそれからマウンテンビユウーへそれからＳｔｅｖｅｎＣｒｅｅｋ公園１周して家に帰りました。

1st Stop was Stanford. That took about 2 hrs or so to get to. Pretty surprised there were many people there on a saturday during the summer. まず始めに止まったのはスタンフオード大学。だいたい２時間でつきました。夏休みで土日なのに人が多いのに驚きました。

Steven Creek Park near Mountain View, CA. Rangers are trying to catch pelican with broken wing. They were at it trying to capture it for more than a few hours.マウンテンビユウー市内のＳｔｅｖｅｎ　Ｃｒｅｅｋ公園です。公園レンジャーが羽を折ったペリカンを捕獲しようとしてます。この後何時間も捕獲成功しなかったそうです。

Sun was going down... took a picture of a rollercoaster at Great America theme park.　日没です。近くのテエマパークでジェットコスターの写真を撮りました。

Sun was going down and I was exhausted. pretty much rode from 1 pm to 8:30 pm.  longest I thin I've ever rode consecutively. Anyway kinda gave me confidence that I could do long distances and long rides so its good. Not sure if I can do this continuously everyday for a whole month though.. 日はだんだん沈み疲れが出てきました。１時から８時半までずうと乗りぱなしでした。今まで一番長い自転車旅かな？でもこれで出来るという自信が出来ました！毎日はどうかわかりませんが！


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Almost Downhill season!

Finally got my new DH (Down Hill ) helmet! North star@ Tahoe is open but they only have the lower mountain open. Although I'm itching to go probably wait til the upper mountain is open. For those that don't know Northstar @ tahoe is a ski resort in winter and Downhill Mountain bike park in summer! its great over 2000 ft of descent with almost 0 uphill pedaling. all for a 4 hr drive from Silicon valley and a $45 lift ticket!  Now some may be asking why I need a new helmet? Well I actually cracked open my old one last year at Northstar. unfortunately I don't have any video of it.

やっと新しいDH（ダウンヒル）ヘルメットが届きました！Northstar at Tahoeでシーズン　が始まりました。すごく行きたいんですけどたぶんもちょっと完全にオープンするまで待ちます。知らない方のためにNorthsat @tahoeは冬スキー場で夏はＭＴＢできます。上らずに７００ｍのくだりが出来ます！車で四時間で＄４５で１日リフト券が買えます。

え？なぜ新しいヘルメットが必要かって？じつは去年Ｎｏｒｔｈｓｔａｒ　で石に顔面先岩にゲ激突してヘルメットを　割りました。残念ながら当時の映像はありません。

Some old footage from some runs down Northstar :　過去Ｎｏｒｔｈｓｔａｒで撮った映像。


I've heard that you can do some DＨ in japan. but the only one That I'm aware of is Fujimi. Anyone have any other places you can go DH in Japan?

日本でもＤＨが出来るそうですね！私は富士見は知ってるんですけどほかにもＤＨ出来るところ知ってますか？




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Long trip today...so Tired!

So tired today.... Distance wise its not bad but... elevation wise it was brutal! Rode to Monument Peak only 10 miles(15 km) away. But the elevation climb killed me. I walked the hill climb.. and my legs were seizing up... I need to train some more. Also learned preprogrammed routes in maps.google put into my Garmin 605 GPS doesn't work too well. it would try to focus you back to the missed wave-point. instead of trying to figure out what is the closest wave point to objective and recalculating.. oh well just don't thin I will try to use this device for preprogrammed route...

今日は疲れた！　距離的には悪くはないんだけど高度的にはキツイ。Monument Peakは１５Km離れた所にあるんですけど登りに泣かされた。坂はほとんど歩いたんですけどそれでも　足をつりました。。。もっと足を鍛えないと！後は　Garmin 605はMaps.googleとあんまり愛称がよくない事。ミスった場所に強制的に戻すとします。現在地に一番近いらウト　

Here are the stats: 　

Distance traveled（距離）: 18.63 miles (29.98 km)
Time（時間） : 3:40
Average speed（平均速度）: 5.1 mph (8.2 km/hr)
Max speed（最高速度）: 38.6 mph (62.2 km/hr)
Elevation gain （高度）: 2505 ft (768m)

Picture from nearby park. The arrow is where I'm going!
家近くの公園からの写真。矢印が目的地です！

This is only about 1/4 of the way up!　この時点で４分の一あたり

Half way up!　五合目位かな？

3/4 of the way up.　４分の３ぐらいかな

Mostly at top.. didn't go all the way.. didn't want to leave my bike I was in no shape to go the rest of the way up. So I turned around and went down real fast.. 2 hrs to climb up 15 minutes down!

一番上ではないのですけどかなり近いです。自転車を置いて登りたくはなかったからこの時点で引き帰しました。二時間の登りで１５分の下りでした。




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Building back my bike leg!

Yesterdays bike commute.

Had some knobby 2.5" tires so had a lot of rolling resistance.

Total commute time :  1:12
Total Distance : 12.38 Miles (19.8Km)
Average Speed : 10.22 mph (16km/hr)
Max speed: 18.3 mph (29.28km/hr)

Need to beef up my endurance though... I need to be able to ride this distance with out breaking a sweat.
I need to go out riding more!

------------------------------Japanese -------------------------------

昨日の会社通勤です。

２．５”　ダートタイヤだったのでかなり道路抵抗がありました。

通勤時間：１：１２
距離：１９．８Km
平均速度：１６Km/Hr
最高速度：２９．２８Km/Hr

足腰を鍛えないと！この程度の距離は簡単に乗れないと先がだめ！
もっと自転車に乗らなけらば！！！




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Interesting Blog site in Japan.

Found some interesting Blogs about bicycle touring in Japan while surfing around.

Here are few I found interesting

Japanese Sites:

Mr Shonen Oyaji-san's Blog about his bicycle trips: Just finished his trip through Kyushu same route I was thinking so very interesting. Also got some very interesting advice from him too.

While drinking Beer: Interesting pictures and route on Shikoku Island


English sites:

Kan Cycling : extensive info about cycling in Japan with lots of good info.
Mountainbike bill.com : Good info about Fujimi DH near Mt Fuji!




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To Tour or not to Tour that is the question!

" To tour or not to tour that is the Question!"

Above is a picture of my trusty steed! Pivotcycles Mach 4! Been going all over with this bike here in the Northern California. Even taken her to Northstar at Tahoe for some DH action during the summers! Handles the bumps well and thanks to the DW link suspension it goes pretty good too. She has been my steed for the past 3 yrs almost.

As great as this bike is she isn't designed for touring. Its like taking a Porsche out for camping. Sure you could probably fit your camping supplies into one and you could drive there but it wouldn't be as good as say a RV camper or an SUV. Its not built for that purpose.

So the question is what other alternatives are out there & what is "Touring" mean anyway?

Touring bike according to wikipedia is:

A touring bicycle is a bicycle designed or modified to handle bicycle touring. To make the bikes sufficiently robust, comfortable and capable of carrying heavy loads, special features may include a long wheelbase (for ride comfort and to avoid pedal-to-luggage conflicts), frame materials that favor flexibility over rigidity (for ride comfort), heavy duty wheels (for load capacity), and multiple mounting points (for luggage racks, fenders, and bottle cages).

Also I hear a lot of complaints online from the hardcore touring people that there are few good Touring bikes on the US market. A quick look also reinforces that view point.As far as I can tell there are only a handful of options for new touring bikes. Surley Long haul trucker , Fuji Touring  to name a few.

Looking through Japanese Bike Magazines like "自転車日和 Vol.16 (タツミムック)" show some cool touring bikes in the Japanese market..Here is a cool bike thats in there from Bridgestone! Its a HELMZ H1 see below:

 Very tempting but I guess I'm getting ahead of myself.. should really organize what I'd take with me reduce it down to the bare minimums and reassess my needs and see what I can do about it.

Testing out GPS tracking

Picked up a Garmin Edge 605 at REI last week. Mounted it on my bike and took it for a test ride this afternoon in Alviso. Not bad. Here is my route in google Earth.: Distance covered 16 miles. 1:41 Hrs Average speed 9.5 MPH. It does a pretty good job but I wish got a way to load the KML file directly online.. but this will do for now.