Ochiba

I dug out of work as fast as possible to get to the top of St. Louis early enough to get a full run in before it got too late. I arrived first, followed shortly by Ckucke, JT, and Kevyn. After gearing up, we dropped Dumps all the way down to agave. Chris and Jarrel had both mentioned that lower Dumps had been cleared out. It was indeed opened up and groomed, but it was still full of tombstone rocks and derailleur-muncher rocks. It was better, but still not good. Also, the dry, leaf-littered surface was hardly ideal for traction: Both Kevyn and I felt a little washy, but that also may have been from tire pressure. JT and I both washed-out and low-sided off the rock jump that divides upper and lower Dumps. We climbed back up to the first switchback sortie, then bombed the center rocky run to the road and out the exit trail to the street. All of this continues to get worse, but the good sunlight allowed for better line choices. We piled into Kevyn’s Jesus truck – now without the camper shell – and shuttled back up to the top. 

Kevyn had to bail early, so he took off after unloading us. Taro had arrived, so he accompanied us down on the second run. We dropped mainline to taco jumps, rejoining mainline and going as far as the mini jumps, where we sessioned for pictures until the light gave out. For the kiawe trees, this season was Autumn, as all their old leaves blanketed the trail, and new bright green leaves had sprouted on their thorny branches. While trying to get some pictures of us stirring up the leaves in a turn, I laid it down and slid into the bushes. I had very little speed when the bike went sideways, but I stretched out my inside arm like Dhalsim to stop my face from going into what I thought were kiawe bushes. Luckily they weren’t, but I pulled the muscles on the left side of my neck craning my head away from the bushes and had a pretty good headache on Tuesday morning. Backtracking to the top, we headed down to Mo’ili’ili for dinner. India Bazaar was pretty much cleaned out of food, so we stuck with the theme and went to Kiawe Grill.

Pictures here

D = 7.13 km (4.43-miles), Vavr = 10.5 km/h (6.5-mph), Vmax = 36.9 km/h (22.9-mph), T = 41-minutes