The unstable weather was teetering on the balance between sunny blue and rain on Saturday afternoon, so we met for a afternoon ride out at Ditch. Ckucke was nappy boy, but Root, Jeff, JT, and Chris managed to break away for some trail time. There was some new hardware to trail-test. JT was sporting his new Foes, so was itching to take it on the dirt and see how it performed. Root had switched out the heinous Marzocchi Bomber on the ToddBike to the Psylo off the Straight 6. I had those new Panaracer Rampage tires to try on the dirt.
Two weeks of bad weather reduced fitness to fatness, so the initial climb was more of a grind than the previous time. The trail was initially dry and hard, but deeper in, there were several muddy horse-churned spots, including some greasy wheel-spinning sections. We rode out to the end of Ditch, then climbed back on the upper trail. At the junction, we went right up the Formosa-Koa tree climb to the upper Kalanianaole-side trails in order to do the singletrack drop-in we saw flailing fat guy riding last time. The climb was heinous. After a long recovery, we rode over to the big tree and entered the singletrack drop-in. Jeff remembered the trail from long ago. I had completely forgotten. Once I was midway down, it all seemed familiar again. For all the pain and torment of the climb, the drop-in was anti-climactic. If we go up again, we’ll have to ride around on the upper trails a bit more before dropping in to make the climb worthwhile. A little bug flew down my lungs on the descent. My nose was already runny from the blooming Albizia trees, but that added insult to injury. I was coughing to the gag point until it disloged, but the irritation persisted for the remainder of the ride.
Back on the upper trail, we continued on and took the normal left at the junction, then dropped the Red Truck singletrack left to the lower trail. This was also anti-climactic. Continuing straight and doing the spooky plank and cobbly drop is much more entertaining. We ripped back to the inner loop junction and climbed the singletrack. This was tough after the long time out of the saddle, but nowhere near the heart-rate-pegging Koa climb. Not being able to breathe properly didn’t help either. The rock garden and the off-camber climbs all went by in a blur in the fading light. To finish the ride, we climbed the Government Road and did the old ditch loop.
Pictures here
D = 11.68 km (7.26-miles), Vavr = 10.5 km/h (6.5 mph), Vmax = 33.3 km/h (20.7 mph), Riding time = 1-hour, 6-minutes (actual trail time about 3-hours)
Fun! Suffering! Copious amounts of sweat! Good times.
Freakin’ COPIOUS amounts of sweat! Suffering! Fun, in that order. Good times yea.