Yes, periodically check your equipment and tools. They can become damaged through disuse. Is that anything like blue balls? Anyway, I went pretending I was a roadie (no tightie shorts though!) tonight in a vain attempt to get my conditioning somewhat better for the trip. Started too late, only been doing it for past few weeks. Anyway, I cruised out past Koko Marina. Beautiful crystal clear night, calm to almost no winds so it was fast in all directions! Turned back into Hawaii Kai at the cancer duck corner, cruised past the 7-11 and decided not to do the little hillclimb to the back of that valley. I’d done it before, and Kulioouou Valley the other time. Zipping around on the flats tonight, I got it in my head to climb Mariners Ridge.
It was a good climb. Riding the 10th Aniversary Fat with 1.25 slicks is kinda cheating, made it much easier. But I still dropped granny gear. I’m not too proud for that.
Made the top where the trailhead is and turned around. A Honda pulled in behind me from side street and passed me on a small rise before the full downhill. I was pretty much behind him/her halfway down. I could see they were trying to keep ahead of the bike with the alien abduction light so I kept on the car. Unfortunately my clear glasses don’t block much wind, the road (small surprise there, Hawaii roads sure have gone to crap) had some bad patches, and everytime I hit the front brakes it would squeal madly and make forks vibrate. It was getting pretty damn scary so I backed off.
The brisk wind felt nice as I made it down to the post office. Turned the corner and felt and heard the rear wheel floppy. Oh great, I pull over and sure enough it’s flat. Geeze, before the ride I had pulled out a kiawe thorn I had picked up somewhere on one of my previous ride and that new tube of course let out it’s goodness. So I put in an old tube. Seems that old tube gave up too. Thankfully it was after the downhill. Anyway, I set about to change the tube with a spare I was actually carrying. All going well and quick. Being that I wasn’t ranging far, I was only carrying CO2 inflater. I have the super basic brass inflater that the cartridges thread onto. Unfortunately, try as I might, I couldn’t get the CO2 to thread down enough to pierce the seal and inflate the tube. WTF? It seems the years of sitting in my tool pouch not being used, one of the other bits in kit rubbed and flattened the threads in the brass adapter. Sheeze. I walked home. Thankfully mountain bike clown shoes are much easier to walk in than roadie clown shoes. So my ride ended up taking a bit longer than planned. Well, it was a nice night to be out.
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