My son’s final junior-category road trip — the Coupe du Japon MTB (CJ) race at Hakusan Ichirino. We made it through pre-ride and race day without any punctures or big crashes, which was a relief. (Coming from the guy who put holes in two tires just a week before.)
Race Overview
Event: Coupe du Japon MTB — Hakusan Ichirino
Discipline: Cross-Country Olympic (XCO)
Category: Junior
Laps: 6
Result: LAP 6/6 PS 6/4 Time 1:18:26
Start — Lap 1
He started alongside the Elite category. Hoping for a clean start, he watched a crash unfold on the inside of the first corner — and slipped past on the outside without getting caught up in it.
He pushed hard up the steep climb after the corner, moving wide to pass riders, and by the time he hit the first descent he’d already worked his way up to around 20th–30th overall. For someone who usually starts further back, that was a great result.
The rest of lap 1 was a back-and-forth battle, trading positions with riders at a similar pace.
Lap 2
He floated around the edges of a small group — not quite solo, not quite in a pack. Hard to say exactly where he was sitting, somewhere in the high 20s.
Lap 3 — Fighting the Heat
The pack started to pull away and he settled into solo riding. His breathing got heavier, his legs started to feel heavy, and the heat really kicked in.
The biggest change was body temperature. On the climbs, where the wind drops completely, the heat had nowhere to go.
“When the wind died on the climbs, I could feel the heat just sticking to my body. Now I totally get what those flat-track racers must feel like every race 🥵”
On top of that, he started noticing a jarring sensation through his legs on every jump landing.
Lap 4 — First Signs of Cramping
His legs started to give warning signals.
The jarring he’d noticed in lap 3 got significantly worse in lap 4. He made the call to skip the jump before the log section, backed off the power slightly, and raised his cadence to try to recover.
“Even with the RockShox Revy PS, the landing impact was brutal 😇”
The cramping started in his left calf, spread to the right calf, and eventually reached the right quadriceps.
Lap 5 — Racing the Lap-Out Clock
Before entering lap 5, he nearly got pulled incorrectly — he checked, pushed back, and was waved through. Good call.
With only about 30 seconds of margin before the 80% lap-out cutoff at the end of lap 5, there was no room to let the pace drop. Cramping legs, riders behind him, and the clock — all at once.
That said, on the grass slab sections in laps 5 and 6, he was leaning the bike over further than he ever had before. (His words, not mine.)
Crowd support and a cup of cola at the feed zone kept him going. One more lap to go.
Lap 6 — Finish
He made the lap cutoff and was in. Once you’re into the final lap, the mental load lifts — just ride it home.
…which maybe made him a little too relaxed.
Mid-lap, on a drop into an off-camber corner, he cut inside, lost traction, and went down. (Bit embarrassing.)
He got back up, regrouped, and crossed the finish line clean.
Looking Back
Honestly, I don’t think the issue was nutrition. More that he pushed close to his current limit — roughly 78 minutes of high-intensity XCO — and the cramping was the result.
What I think deserves credit: once the warning signs appeared, he made smart adjustments on the fly — skipping jumps, raising cadence, managing output — and got it done. That’s not nothing.
Next up is the XCO National Championships in Azumino. July, high summer — conditions will be harder than Hakusan. I’ve written a separate post digging into the causes of cramping and what we’re planning to do about it, so check that out if you’re curious.
Thank you to everyone who cheered him on, offered advice, and took photos 😭
And a huge thank you to the organizers and volunteers who made this event possible.
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