Yes. I did miss the fact that Yowapeda had a double episode this week.  In my defense I did briefly think during Episode 15 that there seemed to be a weird gap in the timeline, but TBH it wasn’t that hard to follow what was happening so I didn’t make the leap.  Having said that the events of that episode certainly make a little more sense now that I’ve seen this one, even if none of the assumptions I made were off the mark.

As for Episode 14, it was basically the chronicle of Naruko and Manami’s little skirmish.  Kuroda was right, there was really no reason for Manami to rise to the bait (as I said last week).  But honesty I think he was bored and nowhere near gassed, so figured he had nothing to lose.  And he really didn’t lose anything in truth.  For Naruko, it means he got his chance to ride alongside his best friends at the head of the Inter-high on the last day, which was the big dream Onoda-kun was trying to make come true.  It was always doomed to be a fleeting moment but I’m glad the three of them got to have it.

I like the new OP for Yowamushi Pedal Limit Break’s 2nd cour (the ED is nice too), but don’t watch it if you don’t want to be spoiled about- well, pretty much everything apart from the actual final result.  There’s still a fair amount of suspense to this race in real-time, the nightmare of the Teshima Groundhog Day scenario slipping farther behind and disappearing from you.  The real race is starting now, and only the serious players need apply.

What casual viewers of road racing may not realize is that downhills are the most overlooked element of any road race, especially a grand tour.  Climbs and time trials grab most of the headlines in the Tour de France, but entire tours – much less individual stages – can be won or lost on descents.  Part of success depends on technique – among the giants some are technically much better descenders than others.  But it also comes down to simple ballsiness.  How many risks are you willing to take?  Descents from big climbs can see riders reaching pretty insane speeds.  They have to weigh so many factors – the condition of the road surface, the wind, not to mention their own condition.  And of course how reckless they need to be based on their position.

Naruko always figured to be the first of the big three to sacrifice himself.  He’s been a sprinter most of his young career and the Inter-high finishes on a steep and extended (5.5 km) climb.  But it seems he’s pretty much burned through the tank just to catch up to Onoda and Imaizumi and give them a few moments riding together at the head of the field.  Oxygen deprivation is causing his eyesight to go (exaggerated for effect, but vision can go blurry when a cyclist is “bonking”), so he’s hitting bumps he’d normally avoid.  The end of the road is closing in (literally) and so are Kuroda and Manami.

As if that weren’t bad enough, Sakamichi soon catches sight of another figure on the hilltop behind Hakone.  If anything this upsets HakoGaku even more than Sohoku, especially when Akira-kun blows by them like they were standing still.  For Hotshot this has all been about getting to the base of that final climb with the lead, but Midousuji puts those best-laid plans to the sword with devastating speed.  By the time all three teams are on the climb he’s opened up a 200 meter lead, which is a pretty big number with only 5 km to the finish.

The conundrum for both Imaizumi and Kuroda (still about 60m behind him) is the same: do they send their ace after Chimera-kun, or stick together?  Naruko is right about one thing, Imaizumi does overthink things and worry too much.  So he takes matters into his own hands and declares that he’ll pull his teammates one last time, using up whatever fuel he has left, though how much use he can be in his current state is debatable.  He’s expendable, so he may as well not leave any bullets in the chamber.  And climbing is less dangerous for him than descending in that condition.

Effectively, Sohoku and Hakone are in the same position – save their ace for as long as possible, with as much gas left as possible, before going all-in and sending them after Midousuji.  The difficult part is figuring out when that last possible moment is – when Chimera-kun is too far ahead with too little time left to catch him.  Clearly it’s soon, and if I were Kuroda I’d be doing everything possible to catch Sohoku and try and horn in on Naruko’s sacrificial swan song.  In fact, it might even be beneficial for Sohoku to wait for them and then team up as a quintet to try and reel in the breakaway – that could very easily happen in this situation in a real race.