Today, Huon-Genesys rider Jono Lovelock has been good enough to pen a piece for The Climbing Cyclist about the 2013 Tour of Japan, which starts this Sunday and, more specifically,  about the brutal stage 4 climb up Mt. Fuji that he remembers all too well from last year’s race.

I still have nightmares to this very day. Some would even say I crashed on purpose a few weeks back, just to avoid another confrontation. What on earth am I talking about? Fujisan. Mt f#%&ing Fuji.

Cam Wurf said it was harder than Monte Zoncolan. Nathan Earle said he’d prefer to do Mt. Baw Baw. I just said, upon cresting the beast, please, just kill me now!

Furthermore, and just to prove the Japanese know what they’re talking about, there’s a Japanese proverb that roughly translates to: “He who climbs Mount Fuji is a wise man, he who climbs twice is a fool”. A phrase that proves as prophetic as it is prudent.

Looks nice, doesn’t it? (Image courtesy of Sonoko Tanaka and Cycling IQ)

Some context

Each year in the Tour of Japan there are two types of riders: those who face Mt. Fuji for the first time, and those who can’t believe they are about to do it again. Like an evil mistress this mountain simply slaps you around and reduces you to tears.

There’s no canoodling or foreplay. Just complete and utter domination.

The Tour of Japan is hilly. Very hilly. Bar the prologue and the Fuji stage the rest of the race is composed of “championship” style circuit races, the majority of which involve a large amount of climbing. Generally though, the vertical metres sneak up on you through covert accumulation.

Riders spend the majority of the tour chasing wheels down descents, smelling the smokey wafts of cork on carbon as they rail into tight corners, putting in last-ditch efforts to survive over the top of small climbs, every lap. Thus, as riders complete each stage, they tend to:

1. Dispense with the drool on their chins
2. Clean the salt crusts off their skin
3. Settle into their sushi lunch, and finally
4. Gawk at their Garmins and realise they’ve climbed 3000-4000 metres without ever climbing for longer than a few kilometres in one hit.

“Aaah, so that’s why my legs hurt so much …”

If you want a review on one of the other stages from Tour of Japan, one of the particularly insane, particularly Japanese stages, check out a piece I wrote on my blog about the “circuit race of death” last year.

The history of Fuji

When Mt. Fuji was first introduced into the Tour of Japan riders tackled it as an individual time trial. Many riders endured the silent solo sufferance with current Orica-GreenEDGE riders Cam Meyer and Michael Matthews clocking top ten times in 2008 and 2010 respectively. Cam Meyer even went on to claim the overall tour in 2008.

Interestingly, pundits will also spy Jai Crawford coming in ahead of Meyer in 2008 and we can look forward to seeing the Hobart hill climber get re-acquainted with Fujisan when he hits the start line with the Huon-Genesys team this year. The ultimate eagle eyes amongst you will also have noticed one other crucial element in the results linked above. In 2008, Mt Fuji was an ITT. In 2010, it was a road race.

Image courtesy of Sonoko Tanaka and Cycling IQ.

Yes, a mass start road race at the bottom of an 11.4km climb. A 11.4km climb with an average gradient of 10%. It’s so crazy. It’s so mad. Like watching a game show where pretty women must bob for apples in a tank full of spikey sea creatures it’s so very, Japanese.

In extending my previous erotic references, most tours that involve such extensive ascensions do tend to give you a bit of gentle caressing before the sadomasochism begins. During a grand tour the climbs early on in a stage allow the autobus to form. The sprinters, domestiques and lesser climbers are gone. The big boys are left to fight it out on whichever hors cat climb remains.

Fujisan, on the other hand, is a veritable cluster-f**k.

So what is it actually like?

A warm up is both a necessity and futile. The paradox is clear: line up early, be on the front. Good. But you will have cold legs. Bad Warm up long, be late, and be ready to go. Good. But you will be starting at the back. Bad. Either way you can’t win.

BANG!

The gun goes and in what is likely the most important cleat-to-pedal engagement of your entire season you begin the certified shit-fight to get to the front. Then it’s a bum rush to stay there as the bunch ebbs and flows with 100  riders all trying to put themselves where only 20 belong. People are bashing bars, running into wheels and the multilingual melange of swear words fills your ears.

This is hectic. This is hard. But boy oh boy, this is a shitload of fun! It’s kind of like a Bay Crit that goes up L’Alpe d’Huez.

But now 500m has passed. Now the acid is rising. The red zone is nearing already. Your brain begins to take over. It tells you this is going to hurt a lot. It tells you that the current pace is someone else’s. You don’t need a Strava segment to tell you your ranking. You know. Today is not your day. The following 10km of agony and anguish just go on forever.

The first 3km are dead straight. They taunt you, and they tease you. Then it begins to twist and turn, and after halfway the climb just goes nuts. It’s as if you’ve just reached the summit of Arthurs Seat, only to find Mt. Baw Baw on top.

Image courtesy of Sonoko Tanaka and Cycling IQ.

The 39×28 is not enough even on fresh legs. Give me a compact. Give me a long-cage derailleur, a 32-tooth cassette and a few extra links on my chain. Or preferably, give me a gun.

It starts to rain. And you start to weave. The only excitement you feel is trying not to fall over as you experience some bowel-loosening wheel spins on the metal grates that come every few hundred metres during the final kilometres of the climb. As the salt from your helmet aids in blurring your grovel to the line you begin to count down every pedal stroke.

And finally it is done. You get out of the wind, the rain, and the snow. It’s time for a hot tea, a hot coffee and a hot towel. Cleaned and changed you are ready for your hopeful redemption the next day. Unfortunately, it’s then that you realise the only thing scarier than facing Fuji again, perhaps, is driving down this bastard of a mountain in an overloaded tourist bus.

Then the undeniable aroma of a clutch burnt to within an inch of its life surrounds you. Sphincter-tightening would be the only fitting description. Nonetheless, we’re all alive to tell the story…

(Check out Jono’s pain-face at 1:41 in the video below. That’s him in the orange Genesys Wealth Advisers kit climbing Fujisan during last year’s Tour of Japan.)

Why Japan?

The take home point of this post comes in part with the following clarification. Please do not assume my bizarre usage of the term ‘Japanese’ as an italicised adjective is meant to imply anything pejorative. It’s everything but. I love Asia. I love the food. I love the people. I love the culture. It’s just so different. And Japanese cycling is just that, different.

It takes on an entirely new level of excoriating punishment. It’s brutal. It’s bizarre. But it’s bloody brilliant. I reckon cycling worldwide should be just a little bit more Japanese.

And for this year?

The 2013 race will be gangbusters. Go grab Google translate and blast your way through these:

• the startlist
• the stages

And get ready for two top-line Aussie teams, Huon-Genesys and Drapac, to take it up to Lampre, Vini-Fantini and the defending champions in Team Nippo. I won’t lie; I’m a bit jaded that I won’t be there. My training days pre-crash were fuelled by Fuji-fear. I was a Fuji-man. Ready for Fujisan. Hoping to kick arse in Japan. But now I am chained to the keyboard writing cheesy rhymes to pass the times (wait a minute …)

So as we hit the home straight in the Giro, and as stories about Sky leadership tensions, Wiggo’s mutton chops and the Colombian conspiracy begin to tire, take a peek at the Tour of Japan results when they pop up. Because this race is big, hard and honestly a bit scary.

The guys over there need all the support they can get, so go give it to ‘em! Good luck lads!

I’ve only climbed it a few times but each time it’s been part of a multi-climb ride in the Dandenongs. The Crescent lends itself perfectly to rides like that, given it’s so close to the 1 in 20, The Wall, Perrins Creek Road, The Devil’s Elbows, Sherbrooke Road and more.

So, check out The Crescent climb guide then head out there and ride it yourself. And once you have, head back to the climb guide and leave a comment. If it’s a climb you’ve already done, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

Stay posted for more new climbs in the coming weeks and don’t forget the Mt. Buninyong climb guide which was added just recently.

For a start, the road is one lane in each direction (one up, one down) with a nasty cross-over point where the uphill lane and downhill lane intersect. Policing that crossover would be simply impossible in a race situation. Not only that but I think some of the sprinters might have something to say if they had to do a 5.9km climb every time they went around the course!

The climb is located about 10km south of Ballarat and about 120km west-north-west of Melbourne. While it starts in the middle of Buninyong on a reasonable busy road, the climb gets quieter as you go along and the second half is quite stunning. There are some great views to the right of the road as it corkscrews its way counterclockwise up to the summit. Be sure to climb to lookout tower when you get up there too; the views are more than worth the effort.

Overall it’s not a hugely challenging climb, but there are a couple of steep ramps which will have you working hard.

Click here to check out the climb page and learn more.

By the end of the day I’d ridden 215km, spent more than 10 hours on the bike and climbed 5,608 vertical metres. It was a huge day and one that I’m unlikely to forget in a hurry, particularly given there’s now a short film that really captures the spirit of the day.

It was put together by photographer Nigel Welch (who’s looking to do more video work in future, and fair enough too!) and Hells 500 founder Andy van Bergen. I think you’ll agree that they’ve done a fantastic job. Check it:

Thanks again to Andy and the gang for the opportunity to take part in the ride and thanks to Andy and Nigel for putting together such a terrific keepsake from the day. I suspect I’ll watch this video many many times in the years to come.

If you’d like to read more about Crux and how the day unfolded, check out my write-up (with photos and a video) here.

According to the video’s description on YouTube it’s all about:

One man’s battle with gravity, age and stupidity as he cycles “The Gaffney Four” which includes one of the steepest suburban streets in the whole wide world.

As mentioned in the video, the four climbs can be found in the Melbourne suburb of Pascoe Vale, a little more than 10km north-north-west of the CBD. And as mentioned in the video, the four streets are very close together, running parallel up the same hill.

I took a look at the elevation data for the four streets using Google Earth and calculated the following average gradients:

1. Gaffney Street: 300m at 9%
2. Bolingbroke Street: 200m at 13.5%
3. Pardy Street: 200m at 14.5%
4. O’Hea Street: 200m at 13%

As high as those average gradients are, it’s the maximum gradients you have to worry about:

1. Gaffney Street: 16%
2. Bolingbroke Street: 20%
3. Pardy Street: 25%
4. O’Hea Street: 30%

A gradient of 30% is going to hurt regardless of the gearing you’re running, let alone with the ridiculous 42×23 combination the bloke in the video is running. On that note, here’s the video:

When I first read the video description and saw O’Hea Street described as “one of the steepest suburban streets in the whole wide world”, I was a little sceptical. But, as it turns out, with a maximum gradient of 30% it’s not far off.

Baldwin Street in Dunedin, New Zealand is often considered the steepest residential street in the world (and the folks at the Guinness World Records agree), with a reported maximum grade of 35%. Fargo Street in Los Angeles supposedly peaks at 33%, several streets in San Francisco have grades in excess of 30% and Canton Avenue, one of the Pittsburgh Dirty Dozen climbs, is possibly even steeper with a maximum slope of 37%. Yep, ridiculously steep.

It got me wondering: what is the steepest residential street in Melbourne? Is it O’Hea Street? I can think of several streets that are well over 20% — Glenvale Road in Donvale for one — but I haven’t heard of any that touch 30%. Until now.

So, is O’Hea Street the steepest residential street in Melbourne? Or do you know of one that’s steeper? And come to think of it, why limit it to Melbourne? Do you know of any other streets in Australia that touch 30%? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.