OMM LITE/BIKE 2023! (And introducing myself)
Hi! I’m Ming-Ming from Hatagaya store, learning my way to become a mechanic!
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Been working at Blue Lug from the end of last year.
I’m from Utsunomiya City, Tochigi prefecture, and my nickname came from this food below haha
I do like Gyoza (Chinese dumplings called Ming-Ming gyoza is a local delicacy of Utsunomiya city), and Chinese cuisines in general! Had a lot of Gyoza since I was a boy, so my body craves for it regularly.
And I like music! There’s a lot I’d like to talk, but I’ll end my introduction for now…
Let’s chat more at Hatagaya store!
Anyway, onto today’s main topic.
We joined OMM LITE/BIKE HAKUBA 2023! Was a absolutely fantastic event!!
It’s an event been held for years so I won’t dump so many detailed information, but let me briefly explain.
It’s a race event based at the grand nature of Hakuba. Participants collect points by going through check points in the area, only using a paper map (phones not allowed!!), and whoever gets the most points wins the race!
Initially, OMM LITE was a race for trail runners, but from a few years ago, its BIKE version has kicked off.
Every year its a 3-day event, which the last 2 days are race days.
For 3 days, racers camp (we stayed in a cottage) in the middle of this wilderness. Apart from the race, there are pop-up shops, and we can also enjoy live music at night!
Basically, it’s an experience you just cannot achieve in a middle of a megacity, and it’s so much fun!
This year, 5 staffs from Blue Lug joined the event. Some young lads and our mentor. Named “Team Gari-Gari”
Let us introduce ourselves including our bikes!
First, it’s me.
I brought my WILDE RAMBLER SL.
It’s the carbon fork version of the RAMBLER, written about it by Issue-san on his post a while ago.
Since it’s release, I really wanted this, and it was a perfect timing to built it for OMM! I also have CRUST’s EVASION and FLORIDA MAN, but this time I wanted a bike that is quick to catch up with senior members when riding on gravel and light road rides. (When once I rode my flat bar EVASION with Duncun-san and Daichi-san, I was completely worn out.)
That was when WILDE announced its first stock frame release, and I had to give it a go!
No need mention how sick the steel fork version is, but having a Wayfinder Carbon Fork stuck on this frame gives us chills right? (right?)
And this not too flashy, elegant Copper Metallic color is super cool. With the combination of the logo, right? (right?)
I was kindly offered some parts from Kaneyan-san and Issue-san, and was able to built a SUPER BIKE with lots of favorite parts on! Let me do a detailed introduction of this bike in my next blog.
My role for this race was to make racing routes and tactics with Nobu-san. I absolutely had no experience in reading maps, learnt from the very start, like how to use a compass!
On to Kaisei-san.
Joined with his SURLY KARATE MONKEY, the same bike he brought to SWIFT CAMPOUT.
For extra speed, he came with tubeless tires
A person with a free spirit, it was natural that he gained a role as a icebreaker lol
His $5 sunglasses suit perfect on him!
Now introducing Nobu-san from LUG
It’s his shakedown model (!!) COSMIC STALLION Ti from ALL CITY
Titanium frame, Shimano Di2 systems, hydraulic brakes, with tubeless wheels. Built for full combat mode. Super jealous with how it performs…
Nobu-san who’s the same age as myself (26 years old) and a fine handsome guy, is actually a dad with two kids. He’s been a Barista with years of experience, and he’s working his way to compete in Japan Barista Championship.
He’s been brewing delicious coffee for staffs at Blue Lug as well! Thanks always!
As I said earlier, us two worked on tactics.
Kari-Kari, mechanic at Yoyogi Koen, and our chef for this event (He winks on every photos)
He’s joining with his EVASION LITE which some of you may know form previous posts.
Hmm? Did you change your wheels?
He was using a 650b until this race, but he came with a new Rolf Prima 700c wheelset!
Seems like he’s riding it everyday, so do check it out if you are going to Yoyogi Park.
He was our chef for our cottage. Thanks to him, we enjoyed the nights after the race!
Lastly, our videographer, and mentor, Sub-san (love this photo so much)
Like 2 years ago, joined with his La Cabra (Thank you for carrying all the heavy camera gears…)
He was there to look after the rest of the younglings (Made a rule that he won’t give any advice for the race). From photo/video shooting to “Babysitting”, I bet it wasn’t an easy task. Thanks for everything!
He has also taken some YouTube shorts Bike Check videos, so please have a look!
All different bikes, but in thing in common was we all joined with 700c (29″) wheels.
We road a lot on tarmac, so we can say it was a great decision!
Okay now let’s have a look at what we’ve done throughout the event!
— DAY 1 —
Arriving to the event.
We left Tokyo at 9, and was at Hakuba by half 3 in the afternoon.
There were already participants who had their tents set up, I can feel their energy towards this race!
And this year like other years, we borrowed a cottage. Thank you preparing for us every year!
We registered ourselves right after arriving.
And browsed through pop-ups,
and then went food shopping for our 3 days of staying.
After returning to our cottage, it’s time to build tactics!
Looking through each checkpoints and the map, we had to think of a route to collect as many points as possible.
For DAY1, we decided to aim to collect high scoring checkpoints beside the mountains, which meant a lot of uphills and downhills.
While we do that, Kari-Kari made dinner for us, his summer vegetable curry was brilliant!
And Nobu-san brought wine and tangerine juice from LUG!
As we talk tactics, eat lots, and drink lots, we fell asleep before we knew it. haha
— DAY2—
Race day!
Ate Granola made by Pastry chef Sayako-san at LUG for breakfast (Thank you Sayako-san!)
With her hand-made protein bar, we were off to the event area!
Our gears looked like this!
At OMM LITE/BIKE, there’s a regulation that we have to bring the following with us. (below is for the bike race version)
- Jacket with a hood (with waterproof coating)
- Waterproof pants
- Outfits for cycle sports
- Lights and batteries (capable of continuous use for more than 8hrs)
- Whistle and compass
- Paper map (supplied by the organizer)
- First aid kit
- Emergency sheet or waterproof sleeping bag cover
- Rucksack or Bike pack
- Emergency food
- Water supply items e.g. water bottles or hydration packs
- Bike fixing tools
- Helmet
I put most of my items in the ZEITGEIST, and stowed things that I wanted to take out immediately like my compass or map in a HIPBAG by FAIRWEATHER.
Everyone brought more than 1.5L of water!
You can supply more along the race at Convenience stores and vending machines, but there’s not a lot of them in the first place. Making sure to bring loads so that we won’t collapse with thirst.
Most of us apart from Nobu-san enjoyed the normal water bottle and a Nalgene bottle combo.
Now time to race!!
Kaisei made a cheer for us for the race which he kept secret.
“Go! Gari-Gari Go!” (Most of us were disappointed with this, I quite like it though)
If we manage to follow the paths as we planned, we should be able to rack up 560 points, but time was short. Full effort from the very start!
But soon we lost our way ahahaah
We lost our way for the second check point, seems like it was a check point where you can only hike… (and it said so when we looked back at it.)
We’ve lost a lot of time, but after this, things went quite well as planned!
We climbed a ski slope,
Climbed mountain trails that we doubted ourselves big time
And shouted with joy when we found the check point!!
Sometimes we would meet our customers and rode with them!!
Rode photogenic bridges that has absolutely nothing to do with check points.
And after all of this, ended our first day of the race!
After losing some ways, and riding the wrong paths, we gained 450 points.
My map was totally ripped after holding it in my hand the whole day…
We were knackered after many riding, but we have to get ready for tomorrow.
Today Nobu-san was also our chef today.
Both cooked us pasta and marinade (apart from being a barista, he also has 5 years of experience as a chef, how’s he so experienced with everything!?!?)
Was super delicious!!! Sub-san especially enjoyed it!!
and after dinner Issue-san who was also joining as a private team visit our place to “Make fun of us”.
His team gained 560 points in a 2 women, 2 men team!!
They got all the points we were after, without losing their way a single moment. Superb. And we got motivated.
And there were live events by local musicians at night.
We hang out with members from Overview Coffee and spent a great night together.
The campsite was in a great mood until late at night, reminding us how great this event have been! We went to bed, thinking we’d come back with our tents next time.
— DAY3—
And the final day of the race kicked off!
This day we only had 4 hrs of racing, so we had a tight schedule!
The younglings were so panicked that we blasted our bikes, and Sub-san was a bit angry hahaaaa
Because, if we ride rapidly, we’ll stop a lot because we are riding without knowing where to go, it’s meaningless. It’s a race that you have to ride the route you planned without mistake but with some pace. This race is really well made!!
And today we can gain more points at City/countryside areas. A totally different scenery!
We’d sometime stop by, noticing that we have same bikes!
End up playing in the river although we were in a rush,
And finished off with a smile! You can see that everyone enjoyed it!!
We lost another high scoring check point after losing our way again, but we end up gaining more points than yesterday, 470!
We were aiming for 680 in 2 days total, so achieved that eaaasily!
and the long awaited result was…
DAY 1: 450 points, 50th/142 teams
DAY 2: 470 points, 60th/142 teams
Total: 920 points. 50th/142 teams
Well, how can we react on that…
“Maybe we should have chosen to do there!” “That time there was a waste…”, we couldn’t stop chatting about the race.We were that frustrated with the result. Oh we could have done so much better!!
And Issue-san came to say “we got 480 points!”. We’ve lost to them on both days, damn. There team got 1040 points in total and placed themselves in 34th.
But, we learnt a lot today! Next year I’ll be here to gain more than 1040 points, and I’d like to challenge for top of the leaderboard! Already so excited for next year hahaha
And as I’ve been telling, it was a brilliant event that I really recommend! If you interested even just a smidge, join us next year!
It doesn’t have to be competitive, eating good food and do a relaxing ride enjoying the landscape is also a great way to do it!
And we were happy to see many bikes that we sell in our stores!
Surly, AllCity, Crust, Velo Orange, Rivendell, Black Moutain, Ant…
There were people joining with their kids,
And even with a HUBBUHUBBUH!!
It’s so great seeing everyone joining the event with each of their own taste.
So, how did you think about OMM LITE/BIKE? If you were interested, please chat about it to one of our staff who joined this event! We are so waiting to talk about it with all of you!
And that’s a wrap for today.
Since I mentioned about my love of music, let me share my recent favorite music!
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(We wanna listen to house music in summer, right?)
Okay, see you soon!
— P.S. —
Sub-san made a great video of our trip, so please take a look from here!
I hope you can feel the great vibe from OMM!!
