The Minegayama Hill Climb Race begins. Teshima and Hakone's Ashikiba challenge each other. Onoda gets inspired.
Ride.03 - "Teshima's Ride of the Soul"
Heh.
We already knew that Onoda needed a transfusion of nakama power. What we didn't know was that Teshima was carrying jugs of it around and just needed to splash the first years with it to get them all hopped up. Considering how Teshima had always set himself up to a be a support rider, this kind of inspirational leadership role is one that fits a gutsy rider that does what he can on effort and tenacity.
We hadn't seen that yellow glow of Onoda's since the finale of the 2nd season. He rode his heart out for Makishima in the movie, but I'm glad they saved his rejuvenation for the 3rd season.
So, let's talk about this short race!
Ashikiba is Tall.
Ashikiba, Teshima's old classmate, is tall. Over 2 meters tall. He needs to ride a tall seat post to pedal his bike.
After Midousuji and Makishima, I thought I was done seeing exaggerated pedaling standing up, but Ashikiba's Metronome Dancing gave something else to look at now that Peak Spider is gone.
Ashikiba used to play the piano and hears different Beethoven symphonies depending on his mood within the race. We heard the 9th at the race start and the 5th when he was attacking.
He also thinks he does his homework, but I'm not sure if he was deliberately trolling Imaizumi by never recognizing him. He (allegedly) confused him with Onoda, then Naruko and even Sugimoto. Of the silky hair! When did ask-me-anything Sugimoto get a reputation for his hair? Sometimes I question Hakone's scouting info. Maybe Toudou was taking notes that day...
Ashikiba claims to be the next ace for Hakone, but they were going to bring either Kuroda or Manami to the last Inter-High. Maybe he's just a strong rider instead of only a climber.
Fan Girls.
This is a testament to how long it took to tell the story of a three day race. We hadn't seen any mention of Imaizumi's fan girls since the 10th episode of the first season. The 2nd episode ever had Imaizumi's fans cheering him on for his race against Onoda up the steep back driveway.
Shunsuke Love...
Onoda is getting some fans too!
Imaizumi seems kind of dismissive of the girls' passion. "They'll like anyone as long as they win," he said.
The omake made light of this situation by Imaizumi feeling bad that Teshima wasn't getting any attention. Teshima said he'd pay him back for his concern by calling him "Elite" for a week. This is great! We're getting all these references to the things that happened before the Inter-High race that had no place in the story thanks to the relations between Sohoku, Hakone and Midousuji.
Kinjou's Glasses.
This is actually important. I'm not kidding!
The first time we saw Kinjou take off his glasses in that iconic pose of his was when he saw Onoda catch up to Naruko and Imaizumi in the Freshman Welcome Race. Having all these kids in the car with the photographers mirrored the support vehicle ride in the first season. This New Generation stuff is borrowing a lot from the Old Generation storytelling.
Naruko and Tadokoro still have the best reluctant mentor-student relationship. Tadokoro had been mentoring Teshima and Aoyagi before the training camp, but Naruko pointed out that he "didn't teach Teshima how to climb!"
Ha! Be quiet like Aoyagi. "He's always quiet!"
Kinjou said that Onoda was only putting out 30% of his power and he knew it was because of Makishima leaving.
Kinjou was heartened to see that Teshima, even though he was a mediocre rider, was going to be the inspirational captain type. This type is where he gives all he can in gutsy displays and his teammates feel the need to repay his effort. So Japanese.
Naruko and Sugimoto were so inspired, they were about to jump out of the car and steal some bikes.
Imaizumi felt the same and Teshima even planned it. Before the race, he told him to gently push Onoda if he feels like attacking. Oh, he felt like attacking alright!
Cycling Porn.
This week we saw the nervousness of a mass race start, some pedaling in a neutral zone, Onoda on his BMC, Ashikiba on his pink Willier Triestina, some sparking on the extreme side-to-side motion of Ashikiba's Metronome Dancing and a tutorial on the challenges a tall rider has with bike frame geometry conforming to the same 700c wheels everyone else has to ride.
This show has a lot of tall climbers, which is a normal thing for Northern Europe to have, but we're in Japan. All the best climbers should be more like a short Colombian body type like Onoda, Toudou and Manami.