Getting to Nobeyama, Japan, is easy. Get up at 3am. Drive to the airport. Fly from Baltimore to Los Angeles. Switch planes. Fly to Narita, Tokyo airport. Check watch … 23 hours have passed. Purchase Narita Express train ticket to Shinjuku. Switch trains to the Super Azusa No. 29 to Kofu. Switch trains again to the Chuo local line to Kobuchizawa. Try not to fall asleep and miss stop. They don’t announce stops. It’s easy to miss. Especially in the dark. Count down the stops.

Scenes from a train. Yesterday’s travels to Nobeyama. Tokyo to Kobuchizawa. A post shared by In The Crosshairs (@cxhairs) on Nov 23, 2017 at 3:53pm PST

Arrive. Check watch … 27 hours have passed. Meet ride at train station. Short drive to house, which is 300 meters from race venue. Check watch … it’s dead. Needed recharging hours ago. Sleep. Wake up at 5am. See spectacular sunrise. Easy.

Jet Lag Diaries: Early Morning Nobeyama. #raphasupercross #cyclocross #sonyalpha A post shared by In The Crosshairs (@cxhairs) on Nov 23, 2017 at 10:34pm PST

A race in the mountains at a living farm tourist attraction, with ATV course, horseback riding and petting zoo. How can you not be excited by this? And the race scene in Japan? It’s top notch. The grassroots excitement that got us all stoked about racing cyclocross when we started is alive and well in Japan. Large amateur fields, beer, so much cheering by friends and teammates, killer food vendors and exhibitors. And amazing views. You will be hard-pressed to find a more stunning backdrop to a race than the Yatsugatake mountains.

Rapha Japan does a fantastic job on the venue and attracting top caliber racers. Everything is dialed and the course, albeit compact and lacking elevation, is challenging and fun. Races throughout the day were competitive and the pro races offered entertaining battles in both fields, on both days.

I’ve been playing around with the format for the Crosshairs Television race recaps. I started with SVENNESS-style text cards but for these races have moved to voice-over. If you are still a fan of text, no problem. I’ve loaded in subtitles for each video so you can read along. Just click the CC button in the lower right corner. These are my subtitles not YouTube generated ones, so they should make sense.

Finally, if you like the videos, do me a favor and subscribe to the channel and give the vids a thumbs up. A comment would be amazing. It all helps spread the word.

Thanks for watching … more to come.





Day One Women’s Top 10

Rank BIB Rider Nation Team Age Result IRM Points 1 121 RUNNELS Samantha USA 26 00:44:05 40 2 130 MCDONOUGH April AUS 30 00:44:05 30 3 122 IMAI Miho JPN 30 00:44:07 20 4 124 KACHOREK Emily USA 37 00:44:31 15 5 123 YONAMINE Eri JPN 26 00:44:43 10 6 125 KARAMI Miyoko JPN 43 00:45:55 8 7 128 MIYAUCHI Sakiko JPN 42 00:46:05 6 8 127 NISHIYAMA Miyuki JPN 37 00:46:07 4 9 137 MATSUMOTO Rina JPN 17 00:47:32 2 10 133 MORRIS Fiona AUS 32 00:47:52 1

Day One Men’s Top 10

Rank BIB Rider Nation Team Age Result IRM Points 1 2 HEKELE Emil CZE 40 1:02:43 40 2 6 JONGEWAARD Chris AUS 38 1:03:14 30 3 7 TAKENOUCHI Yu JPN 29 1:03:34 20 4 114 CLARK Anthony USA 30 1:03:37 15 5 3 KOSAKA Hikaru JPN 29 1:04:02 10 6 4 SAWADA Toki JPN 23 1:03:51 8 7 1 MILLBURN Garry AUS 30 1:03:53 6 8 9 BRADFORD-PARISH Kevin USA 35 1:04:07 4 9 5 MAEDA Kohei JPN 23 1:04:54 2 10 17 REDENBACH Paul AUS 39 1:05:29 1

Day 2 Women’s Top 10

Rank BIB Rider Nation Team Age Result IRM Points 1 130 MCDONOUGH April AUS 30 44:15 40 2 121 RUNNELS Samantha USA 26 45:12 30 3 122 IMAI Miho JPN 30 45:32 20 4 124 KACHOREK Emily USA 37 45:47 15 5 123 YONAMINE Eri JPN 26 46:18 10 6 125 KARAMI Miyoko JPN 43 46:26 8 7 136 MATSUMOTO Rina JPN 17 46:43 6 8 128 MIYAUCHI Sakiko JPN 42 47:08 4 9 127 NISHIYAMA Miyuki JPN 37 47:19 2 10 133 MORRIS Fiona AUS 32 48:31 1

Day 2 Men’s Top 10