欧州自転車レース追っかけ日記 October 5th Part I

欧州在住者が自転車レースを追い掛けてる日記とか

October 5th Part I

I left for Milano around 08:00, I think. I took some wrong turns and it cost me 10 minutes more of unnecessary detour. My trusty Garmin nüvi kept calm and told me what to do and in one hour and a half I was in Milano.

There was a traffic congestion near Milano. This was expected. Milano is a big city. Although driving to the destination (South outskirts of Milano) did not require me to drive through the center of city, the traffic was heavy.

The start area was a industrial and commercial zone where you will see IKEA and other shops on one side and some logistics company's big yard on the other. GLS (a logistics company well known in Europe) was one of the parters of the event and its property was the parking for all the vehicles. They put up a big balloon shaped in a Zeppelin (airship) over their property to add some sense of festivity.

I was there around 10:00, I think. To my surprise, I saw two of my Dutch friends there. They were on vacation and enjoying the race.

I had some missions to complete. 1. Say hello to Fumy Beppu. 2. Say hello to Manuele Mori. 3. Take some pictures of Philippe Gilbert for keeps.

I completed my missions and by the time the riders started to gather before the start gate, I was already in my car to leave for Torino.

The highway between Milano and Torino was impressive. There were at least three wide lanes and were even four lanes near Milano. The road surface (asphalt) was very smooth.

My ride was supposed to be as smooth as the asphalt but it turned out to be not so smooth.

It was 50 km (I do not remember well) before reaching Torino, I heard an alarming beep. It took me by surprise. I saw the TPMS alarm light on. The strange thing was I did not feel any vibrations or hear any suspicious noise coming from the tires.

I wanted to stop and inspect the tires but I was driving on the highway and at the same time I did not sense anything wrong. So I decided to slow down a bit and kept on going until the next parking.

I stopped at the parking and inspected the tires. They seemed OK. To be sure that nothing was wrong, I took out the air pump and checked the air pressure of all four tires. They were at 2.0 bar on the pressure gauge. I don't think this pressure gauge is 100 % correct but I had to assume that it was not so wrong.

I don't know what triggered the TPMS alarm but at that point I was driving over one hour at a speed of well over 100 to 110 km/h. This qualifies the air pressure as not "cold air pressure" but as "hot air pressure."

If so 2.0 bar is a bit too low. Was this the cause of the alarm? There was no way of knowing of the cause.

I pumped all of the tires to 2.2 bar and was on the road again.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ

10月5日（木曜日）の日記です。英語で書いて置いて、忘れないようにするために書いてます。

ここでは事件の部分だけを日本語で書きます。

高速道路を走行中にアラームのビープ音が鳴った。びっくり。コンソールの中でタイヤプレッシャー監視システムの警告がでてた。一方で異常な振動も音もありませんでした。取りあえず減速し、90km/hで一番最初のパーキングエリア（サービスエリアでガソリンスタンドもあった）へ入った。10kmちょっとは走行した。

車を降りて、タイヤを4輪チェックしたが、異常は見当たらなかった。空気圧が低そうなタイヤも無い。備えあれば憂いなし、の言葉の通り、準備はしてある。トランクにはスペアタヤも入ってるし、タイヤ交換に必要なレンチ類もある。そして、足踏み式ポンプ（圧力ゲージ付き）もある。

ここでは足踏み式ポンプを出して圧力をチェックした。

4輪とも2.0 barだった。ここで考察。すでに100km/hのスピードで連続1時間以上走行してる。するとタイヤは温まってるはず。この場合はタイヤの空気圧は「冷えた状態の圧力」ではなく「温まった状態の圧力」でなくてはならない。

すると2.0 barは低い。2.0 barは冷えた状態の圧力なら適正だ。取りあえず足踏みポンプを10回とか15回程踏むと、2.2 barになった。4輪ともこの2.2 barに揃えてから再度走行開始した。

TPMSのリセットが必要だった。マニュアルを出すまでも無く、勘でリセットをした。マツダコネクトで直感的にリセット方法を探した。ロスタイムは10分程度だろう。素早いリカバリーだ。自分でも関心した。

テーマ:自転車ロードレース - ジャンル:スポーツ