Dance of Dook

Chris had penned in Saturday on his family dry-erase board, so he was good to go for a ride. We were going to ride somewhere, rain or shine – it was decided. Rainy weather on Friday made us a little apprehensive, even for our Ditch fallback, but dawn broke on Saturday morning with blue skies and tradewinds. As we converged on Wailuna, Ckucke called me to say that he and JT were at the park already, but he had forgotten his hydration pack at home, so they were heading back to get it. Chris and Kevyn were already there when I pulled up. The park was full up with soccer mom vans, so we parked along the street. Root arrived, and we waited in the shade for Ckucke and JT to return.

With the group assembled, we headed out about an hour late. My breakfast was long gone, so I started the climb hungry. The ascent up the road went comparatively easily with all the recent Tantalus rides. Since it was approaching midday, the road and air temperature was on the rise, and any spot of shade became a coveted commodity. The cable at the access road was down, and there were some shirtless hooligan kids on their ATV’s going in and out. A Board of Water Supply truck went up as we had a bar break in the trees at the top of the concrete. They waved, and didn’t look at all perturbed that we were there. When we passed the water tank, their large crew was kicking back for a plate lunch break in the shade against the tank. Whatever they had looked better than the Clif Protein bar that I had just consumed.

The climb went as usual. There was still some good lung bursting and heart pounding after the slick clay climb after the moonscape, but it didn’t seem as terrible as last time. At the second tree rest, Root and I took the ‘Uluhe fern bypass contour trail. The entrance looked clear, but within a few meters, it became painfully clear that all the activity along this route had been by the piggies. The trail cut was only open from about the waist down. We should have immediately turned around, but we kept going. At one point, the trail was obscured to the point where I rode straight into a eucalyptus branch with my face. This trail is a good route, but it needs to be recleared, and used regularly to keep it open and compacted.

One trail runner passed us along the climb. Both the climb and descent were dry and hard. JT got a little too exuberant on the way down and aired a little knoll only to find an off-camber landing into a turn. He lowsided and slid off the trail on his head, shoulder, and knee into the ferns. We stopped after the first section of steeps to clean out his gouged knee. After the crash, Chris and I were off the back and we kept smelling poop. I could see my front tire, and Chris could see my rear tire, and both were feces free: It was coming from someone in front of us. Each time there was a bump or landing off an air, there was the smell! It was on someone’s tires, and each hit was freeing up a little bloom of stink. While we were fixing JT, Root found the offending deposit on his rear tire. Somewhere along the remaining descent to the top or the road, both Root and Kevyn found more. They had a chance to dig out the crap (literally) while JT bandaged his knee to prevent the leg of his shorts from rubbing the open sore on each pedal stroke.

We dropped the finger and ascended the road out of the valley and up thru rusty nuts. We saw some of the white paint lines from the outlaw race a few weeks ago. We had passed two other bike riders along the descent, and kept running across them here and there as we took various routes around the plateau. Near the bottom while we were talking to the two dudes, Bruddah Russell came up the trail. We talked a while, then bid the hot mountain a hasty goodbye. The heat was brutal and our stomachs long overdue for lunch, so we hit Grace’s Inn in Waimalu for food.

D = 17.38 km (10.80-miles), Vavr = 9.8 km/h (6.1-mph), Vmax = 54.2 km/h (33.7-mph), T = 1-hour, 44-minutes (total trail time about 3 hours)

Pictures here