Natsu no Tomodachi

Mizutamari heiki jitensha de ikou yo
Natsu ga isoideru ano niji no masshita he…

Unconcerned by puddles, let’s ride our bikes
Summer’s hurrying by right below this rainbow…

As I reversed out of the driveway, the stereo finished indexing the USB drive and resumed playing CoCo’s “Natsu on Tomodachi”. I didn’t really pay attention to the lyrics before, but they caught my ear this time around. The weather report on Thursday was ominous with heavy showers predicted for the weekend, but they never fully materialized. There was a brief heavy downpour on Friday night, but Saturday morning was sunny and clear. If it did rain out at the trail, maybe there would be a few damp spots here and there, but I was unconcerned.

It was hot and windy when I arrived at the trailhead. Along the way, the sun cast spotlights of bright through gaps in the cloud cover hovering along the ridgeline of the Ko’olaus. The sun at the trailhead soon disappeared as the Northeasterlies blew a new crop of clouds in from the sea. The wind was still nice, even if it brought with it the scent of a dead critter somewhere down the road. Root and Chris showed up and we geared up to hit the climb. Jeff, Sara, and JT had various commitments, and Ckucke was unreachable, so it was only the three of us. While we were eating our pre-ride strawberry-flavored pink cotton-candy, a pair of off-pavement pedestrians came down the trail. They said the conditions were really dry, and true to their word, the trail was as dry and dusty as last week. There was no dampness or signs of recent running water. We climbed Government Road and did the side loop to start again. The log on the descent to the lower traverse was missing. I missed the log. The log was good. Mourn the loss of the log!

Along the lower traverse, Root got attacked by bats. Some object or creature flew up and hit or nearly hit his face. I couldn’t really see from the third place position. We climbed back up to the road and hit the Ditch. The ground was dry and dusty. There were more piles of horse poop from a week of defecating. We blasted out along the trail to the inner loop junction. We took a rest, watching the upside down antics of a red-vented bulbul doing his courtship dance. He was hanging on a branch with his wings outstretched, and as Root noted, was oddly silent. I guess their mating ritual is all visual.

Continuing out, we climbed the upper trail where Root was attacked by some other living entity. The upper trail was becoming more and more overgrown. At the junction, we turned up the cardiac climb. Even with a brief rest at the bottom, I got the burn about two-thirds the way up and ran out of go. Root motored pretty far up, but didn’t clean the climb. Chris had a dab or three, but ended up wheelieing over the top at the last pitch near the top. After sucking wind for a little bit, we went left up to the concrete block hill. I wasn’t anywhere near recovered, so I ran out of gas at the top of the workaround before the last straight section up to the top. The cotton-candy sugar jolt was starting to wear out.

It was cool and breezy at the top. The clouds had made way for the sun, and from where we were to the sea out over the Keolu hills was bathed in light. The cockroach bottle was gone or broken to join the other pieces of green and brown glass in the dirt of the hilltop. Root noticed on the climb that there was a gap between his left crank and the bottom bracket. Had it loosened? The bolts were still tight, so maybe we hadn’t gotten the right side fully pressed up against the bearing when we installed the set in haste on Tuesday night.

After resetting the cranks and taking a good long bar break, we dropped into the loose groove downhill and headed back toward the big tree. Root laid it down as the back of the bike slid into the groove, and the front tried to climb the walls of the rut. We took Chris down the shoulder knocker singletrack that he missed last week, then we climbed up to the tree and dropped down the flailing fat guy singletrack. Completing the upper trail, we recovered at the junction with the main trail. A heavy-set dude with no helmet or water went motoring past. Chris asked if that was the namesake of the trail we had just come down, but I told him it wasn’t. A little further on, we passed a dude out running with his dog.

Returning along the trail, we chanced the ravine cutoff that Ckucke had taken last weekend. Both then and going outbound this time, I noted how clear the trail was down in the valley, so I was curious. After the initial drop and a brief grown-in section, the trail cleared and descended along a gentle grade punctuated by a good root drop ledge to the valley bottom. The climb out was not that steep, but was washed out and like a root staircase. Only a technical riding god could make it up this way. The trail might be cleanable in the opposite direction. As we pushed up and out, curiosity satisfied until our memories of the un-fun climb faded, Chris saw the chubby dude ride past on the main trail. I can see why Ckucke said it wasn’t worth it.

Back at the inner loop junction, we rested, then decided to do the inner loop. We climbed it in two pitches, resting at before the steep climb to the top. There we were momentarily fascinated with the numerous Brassaia saplings there that were zig-zag shaped. At some point in their lives, they had been bent or broken, then continued to grow, resulting in the weird shape. One looked like a plumbing p-trap like under a sink – complete with long, graceful curves. Root suggested breaking one and seeing what happened. I didn’t feel like waiting the many years it took to find out. An older dude on a D/S went climbing past us as we sat there philosophizing on crooked trees.

We worked our way through the rock garden and the climbs. Along the way, Root occasionally tried bending Brassaia saplings, but they would snap. The cambium was still attached, so they might recover, heal, and start growing upward at the break again. We’ll see in a few years… Descending the last pitch to the main trail, we turned down the Lauae fern drop in. In the normal direction, this route was definitely anti-climactic. It’s OK if the inner loop is bypassed, and we climb up the exit backwards and do the drop. Heading back on the main trail, I noticed a change in the air temperature, and thought I smelled rain, so I put on the power to try and get back down before it started. When the trail broke out into the light, there were no outward signs of impending rainfall, so I dialed it back down. The descent down the road to the trailhead was quick and rippy with a lot of back and forth dicing.

Overall it was a good ride. The riding pace was good – we were generally pushing the exertion level to failure then resting and doing it all over again. I didn’t feel as “on it” as I did last week. I was the one feeling worked this time around. Soon after we reached the cars, jogging guy and dog came out too. I was going to pet the dog, but she was all tired and overheated and dehydrated, so was acting a bit flaky.

D = 11.65 km (7.24-miles), Vavr = 11.7 km/h (7.3 mph), Vmax = 38.3 km/h (23.8 mph), T = 59-minutes (actual trail time about 3-hours)

More pictures here