Good Samaritan Ride

The crew met up for a Sunday afternoon ride. The weather was partially overcast and hot out at the Ditch. Earlier in the week, the showers that have been persisting for the past few weeks made the prospect for a weekend ride a little iffy, but toward Friday, it cleared up a little. Friday afternoon on the windward side was clear, and Saturday was blazing hot. Sunday morning was cloudy, but as midday approached, the clouds thinned as the wind picked up.

We climbed the road to the top. I spun granny to save my legs, but as the last man, I felt the push to keep up, so burnt a little more energy than I would have liked. The muscles on the insides of my thighs were burning. I was so delirious at the top, it took about five minutes before I realized that Jeff was nowhere to be seen. He had gone ahead up the first ascent of the Demon trail. After I had a gel and some rest, I was back on the game. We geared up and hit the climb. We quickly came up on Jeff. Something was odd – there was a green frame and a wheel off. There was someone there who wasn’t Jeff. Crawling over the log, I saw Jeff helping a fellow MTB-er with a rear flat. He had picked up a thorn somewhere along the trail and was walking out. The dude was a visitor with a tankish rental Specialized. He had his cell phone, but the rental didn’t come with a spare tube or pump. Jeff had been working at a leisurely pace, waiting for us to come up the trail. His spare tube was a lightweight premium presta tube, and he didn’t really want to part with it. The dude thoughtfully fished through his pack and put together some dollar bills to cover the tube.

Bidding the fellow good luck, we continued up the trail. The climb up was nice as usual. I kept hearing a clunk and feeling a hard edge in back. I had adjusted the rebound after last week, but one click shouldn’t have changed anything that drastically. A few more clunks and I figured it out – the rear tire was a little too low, and the rim was bottoming on the root and rock edges. At the faerie forest, we paused to forage for mountain apples. There were a lot ripening along the trail, but they were easily accessible here. The ‘awapuhi ginger in the understory were in bloom. The flower stalks released their soapy fluid when squeezed gently. We climbed through the rock garden and took a break at the melaleuca grove. When Sara disappeared around the corner to look at the beautiful view toward Maunawili, Jeff switched one of her gloves for one of Ckucke’s. She looked a little perplexed when she put them back on, but figured that she had just grabbed a mismatched pair when she left home. There was much giggling and snickering at her expense as we returned down the trail. At the powerline road, where the strawberry guavas were fully ripe and awaiting JT, Ckucke made a point to gesture with the mismatched gloves he was wearing. It took a while for Sara to register that Ckucke hadn’t also brought mismatched gloves, but she was the brunt of a practical joke. Danny took a call from his family – a car at home had a dead battery.

We sortied and descended via the road and took the side loop. I managed to air up my rear tire before hitting the drop-in from the top traverse. The underbrush along the descent before the trees was growing into the line from the right, forcing us into the more off-camber section to the left. The soil had dried out a little from last weekend, and the grip wasn’t as good. At the death log-over, I managed to get far to the left so I had a better run-out after crossing the log. That made the obstacle a little easier to clean. Back at the road, Danny called to check on the battery situation. It was being mitigated, so we climbed up to the Ditch and took a leisurely spin out to the inner loop junction. The mosquitoes were out en masse, so our break was short and uncomfortable. A pack dog and three riders went past outbound. Instead of continuing out along the main trail, we ascended the inner loop. No rest break at the halfway point this time. Full burn all the way up to the top!

After the first descent, we dropped through the rock garden and climbed up and out to the next hilltop. The ground was slightly damp and grippy. Even the technical off-camber climbs with turns halfway up were firm and achievable. We descended the sortie along the last finger ridge slowly so we wouldn’t miss the rock roll-in. I followed Jeff and Ckucke down, followed by Root. Sara and Danny went all the way down the main line. I felt very underwhelmed after the drop. I would have rather just dropped the main line at speed rather than creeping down looking for the turnoff for the rock. After a brief stop to let a pair of trail pedestrians pass, we got back on it and worked out way back to the trailhead. A little while after we got back to the cars, two of the riders we had seen came out, followed a little while later by the pack dog and a long while later by their third member.

Pictures here

D = 14 km (8.70-miles), Vavr = 10.8 km/h (6.7 mph), Vmax = 36.0 km/h (22.4 mph), T = 1-hour, 18-minutes (actual trail time around three hours)