Snow Biking in Japan

cycling training on snow with road racing bikes with studded tires

Mt.Tokachidake (Mt.Tokachi) 28

Temperature: minus 31 degrees Celsius in the KTV (katabatic valley).

It was super-cold at the foot of the mountain because of a strong radiative cooling. One of three tail lamps had problems because of a low voltage caused by this low temperature. He heard the sound of frost crack about 14 times. A super-cold katabatic wind was descending in the KTV (katabatic valley). He had to pass the super-cold KTV to reach the summit. He wore a face shield to resist to this cold. Entering the KTV, everything began to be covered with rime. Because of the face shield, the glasses were fogged and the fog froze soon. He couldn’t see through the glasses. So he had to see through the interstice of the glasses. He did the interval training at the summit. He met a group of Australian skiers. During he was talking with them, the manager of the hotel there asked him to translate in order to talk other skiers who came from Grenoble in France. After the translation, he met another group of skiers who came from German speaking Switzerland. He wasn’t good at Swiss German. So he talked with them in Standard German. After the training, he realised he had ache to the left eye. Like Mt.Tokachidake 27, the contact lenses might have been damaged by the cold as they had frozen.

Pictures