How do I spend the day after Valentines? By doing bodywork on my car and going for a mountainbike ride, hah! Actually it being the day after VD doesn’t mean much to me, but it is Presidents Day and I have the day off! So after putting it off, finally got around to start working on the windshield frame area. Jay came over for some of the fun and we hit the antenna hole first with the stripping wheel.
Monthly Archive for February, 2010
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So cruised over to Fab’s to help him work some more on his smushed hood. He had an altercation with a Jeep spare tire which unfortunately crinkled his aluminum hood. Fortunately the damage didn’t go too much further than that, top radiator support crossmember got bent and some plastic clips for his grill broke. But with the center of the hood smashed down, the outer corners were turned up. Fabio reported that at speed they would start flapping, trying to make like an ornithopter. He’d already attempted to bend them down as well as he could by himself, but we figured two monkeys are better than one! Initially went at it with a block of wood across the radiator support, but then figured that was flexing too much. We then McGyvered this setup.
Whoa. Just spent $50 USD at Hanamaru for dinner. Oh, it was really good. I’m pretty sure that it is easy to get out of there for less than $20 for a set meal, but if you go the izakaya-style picky dishes route, it can get up there. In depth review to come soon. Definitely a better way to spend $50 than going to tonight’s Bon Jovi concert!
(0)Saw a overly tinted black Hilux Surf today with one of those grossly deformed, overly stylized Hinano girl rip-off copyright-infringement diecut stickers on the back glass. Not out of the ordinary, except for the subtitle, “Respect the Culture,” below it. Huh? What? Really – what the F is that supposed to mean? Which culture? Are these words related in any way to the Hinano girl, or do they just coincidentally occupy adjacent space?
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Earlier last week, Chris let us know that Vince “Akron” was in town on a surfing trip with his friend, so we put together a ride this Sunday afternoon. The word went out, and surprisingly, everybody showed up. 10 riders! That’s the biggest turnout we’ve had in a while. After gearing up, we headed up Government Road and did the side loop. Ckucke and Akron immediately got into their classic banter as if no time had elapsed since the last time they had seen each other. Akron got to ride Chris’ long forgotten Planet X freeride hardtail. There were no problems as he adapted readily to it and kept the pace with the group. Continue reading ‘The Return of Akron’
JT’s frantic calls for a St. Louis ride were finally realized this past Thursday when we met at Kanewai Park to shuttle up to the top for a run. Kevyn had some neck pain, so he bowed out of the ride, but he graciously volunteered to shuttle us up. Twice! After he dropped us off at the top, we hit mainline to the concrete road and gave him a call. He met us at the park and gave us a ride back up. Cool! We took dumps on the second run, heading straight out the lowest trail at agave. I hadn’t been this way in a while, and was pleasantly surprised at the nice grooming at the beginning. This unfortunately got me up to a speed a little too high when the groomed dirt ran out and the frantic back-to-back rock jumps and drops began. I kept it together somehow and stayed with JT who was leading at dust-cloud-making speed. Ckucke and I traded bikes at the concrete road. He got a reminder of the true horror of riding a hardtail down St. Louis. His dual-squishy was sofa-comfortable, especially the Fox 36 up front which was way more supple than my Sherman even with 20mm less travel. Dammit! I need a new St. Louis bike!
Pictures here
D = 6.74 km (4.19-miles), Vavr = 16.4 km/h (10.2-mph), Vmax = 38.1 km/h (23.7-mph), T = 25-minutes
The blue-tinted grey sky stretched cloudless above the sprawling loose canopy of the albizia tree expanding above me. The muffled clicks of the DT hub grew slower and slower, drawing to a halting stop with one final delayed tick, like the heartbeat of a dying organism. Around me, the disturbed grass and shrubs settled back to their resting state as the dust settled. The sun cast dancing beams of light through the thickly hazy air below the swaying treetop like something out of a renaissance biblical painting. Was I dead? Had I passed into the next world and was being drawn toward the light?
Since Scat was in the neighborhood after his stint of standing on the side of the road in the pouring rain, we decided to grease up his sled. I bought one of those starter air tool kits, and the kind of odd tools that they threw into the set was the air grease gun. Unless you’re a garage working on cars everyday, grease guns aren’t something you use very often, so I only have the manual hand pumped one. Having an air powered one seemed a little silly, but Scat’s old school ride was a perfect opportunity! Up front I think it’s got at least 8 grease fitting joints on each side, and there were a few that he couldn’t get with a hand pump. Continue reading ‘Grease Monkeys’