Took the long weekend up to Hakuba with my son, dog & brother from Singapore. There is a nice hill climb from central Hakuba up the old route 406 towards Nagano. It’s only about 13km to the top from the house we stay in and there is about 8 or 9km of climbing involved to get to the top. I’ve now ridden this 3 times, the 1st being on my MTB then this last Sunday & Monday mornings.


Sunday I took my 23 toothed Mavic Cosmic carbon and struggled up with a low cadence averaging only 48rpm and it took me 35 minutes of climbing to get to the top. The next morning I changed wheels to my old Bontrager with a 25 toothed cog to help me a bit. Although my cadence average was much higher I could still only manage to get up in exactly the same time of 35 minutes.