November 16, 2005 – All right, it’s done. The year is finally over. I thought that after the Pan-Am championships in Mexico my season was over. But as soon as I got home there was an e-mail invite for the Tour of Okinawa in Japan. The only issue was that I didn’t have a road bike, but I knew that wouldn’t be a problem, so I said yes (thanks BK).

The project included Team Manager Chad Grochowina, and racers Christian Meier (Symmetrics), Brad Faraill (Symmetrics), Phil Abbot (Bow Cycle), Phil Cortes and myself.

We all met at the airport on November 8 – the flight to Japan was stupid long (11-12 hours or something). We made it to our hotel in Okinawa the night of the following day.

The hotel was big pimpin’: great food, cool toilets and 50 feet from the beach. We did some cool rides during the days leading up to the race. We found some cool roads up in the mountains, especially one that followed the ridge along the top. It was a single lane route that was pretty over grown. Cortes had a good funny crash on some moss on one of the descents which was probably the highlight of the ride.

The day before the race there was no need to touch the bike so we kind of played tourist and walked around town a little more then we should have. About 200 meters from the hotel was a high school which happened to be having their fall fair or something. It was pretty rad. We made some pottery and also did some kind of worshiping, or praying, where we had to stay kneeled for quite some time, and drink some green ass tea.

The atmosphere was great and we all were pretty excited for the race on Sunday, November 13. The 200km event started at 7am so breakfast was at 4:30am – pretty stupid. Our race plan was to have a few guys in the break which was sure to go from the gun, and for Christian and I stay in the pack and wait for the climbs around 70 km in.

Phil and Brad both made it in the early group but they came back around 100 km. The break – 20-25 guys – already had a gap of around 10 minutes by the first climb so it looked like it wasn’t coming back; especially since we had no organization in the peleton.

It started really rained hard and many of the riders sucked at descending so it was a bit sketchy. The break stayed away until the end with around 12 riders remaining. Two teammates went 1-2 with a Polish guy came in third. On the last climb of the day around 15km from the finish the “main” peleton pretty much blew and I felt pretty good so I found myself with six guys at the top and we galloped to the finish.

I took the sprint for third in the group and 15th overall. Christian came in with a group a few minutes later and Phil Abbot toughed it out and was able to finish. Brad And Phil Cortes climbed into the broom wagon about halfway as Brad was getting pretty sick and puking, and Phil had an upset stomach of a different kind – no details needed – so it’s understandable that they DNFed.

I was pretty happy with how that race went, the roads were awesome and the climbs were tight too. I’d be interested in returning to do it again.

The closing ceremony was nice, except they had us all on a gym floor Japanese style and this isn’t very fun after a 200 km race. The title sponsor for the race was a beer sponsor so that was good.

I would of have liked to stay a few extra days to check more of the island or Tokyo but perhaps another time. The season is officially done now so it is time to take a good break and hit up some warm beach somewhere. It’s good to be back in Victoria and hopefully we’ll have a good winter.

Thanks to the CCA and to Chad for helping us young punks.

More beers more cheers,

Max