from the twisted minds of snm
Friday, 30 May 2014
It wasn’t rainy when I got home, but it was overcast. I figured I better give it a shot and get some saddle time. I got a bit of a late start, and it was very windy, so the start of a light drizzle was enough to send me home prematurely.
D = 10.3 km, Vavr = 14.9 km/h, Vmax = 32.5 km/h, T = 41-minutes, A/D = 159 m
Wednesday, 28 May 2014
The traffic cams were frozen, probably from homeless copper thieves cutting the fiber optic cables somewhere, so I was happy to find the weather was actually nice when I got home, though not as nice as it looked on the frozen images from last week! I was still in a fair amount of discomfort from the Memorial Day hike, but riding the bike did make the sore knee feel a lot better. It didn’t do anything positive for the sore shoulders though.
D = 9.29 km, Vavr = 14.2 km/h, Vmax = 31.2 km/h, T = 39-minutes, A/D = 114 m
Monday, 26 May 2014
Like clockwork, rainy weather rolled in for the long weekend. With the prospects for a ride all but gone, when Memorial Day Monday rolled around, a hike was decided on. Chris and I met at Root’s then we headed over to Koko Head district park, then up past the rifle range to the entrance of Hanauma Bay. We hiked the ridge road, following a large group of beachgoing visitors. They turned down a side trail assumedly to a bus stop and we continued up to the turnoff to the point. Descdending along the rim of the first explosion crater, we passed Mojo Dave’s best customer, all decked out in Vertx with an Eberlestock pack. I asked him how long he had been out there, assuming from the size of his loadout he had been there at least overnight, but he said he was there only a couple of hours. My knee was fine on the climb up. but this descent was starting to cause discomfort. Continue reading ‘In Memoriam of My Knee’
A limited release item from Goose Island, I bought it with some trepidation as its labeled in IPA, not my favorite type. It’s also labled a “session ale” and “easy drinking”. We shall see about that! Anyway, pours a clear bright amber with a medium strong head. Strong hop aroma with citrus note that carries through to the flavor. The flavors clear pretty fast leaving the astringent bitter. Thankfully it avoids the skunkyness that can afflict some hop heavy brews. I’ve been told that unfortunate flavor is the result of hop compound exposure to UV light. Medium light mouthfeel kept light by carbonation. I’m not sure if I could session this beer solo, it needs some accompanying food to offset the bitter, but it is a pleasant beer.
I would say it just makes 3 out 4 advantageous monkeys.
Don’t want to complete that line for fear of it happening. While waiting on the drive side drive shaft that was sent back, I decided to take care of some small issues on the other side. It still had the OEM short wheel studs so I took the hub off and apart. Oh my, the steering arm joint was missing a cotter pin and was barely finger tight. The joint itself came apart with no tools. Yikes! Definitely a good thing I got in there! I pulled the CV shaft because the transaxle was leaking at that seal. Looks like this shaft is fine, but I discovered something else had rattled loose! The rear engine mount that I welded solid had rattled it’s mount off the transaxle, the bolts were no where to be found! Fortunately it seems the threads are still good so I pulled a set of bolts from one of the spares and cleaned and coated with thread locking compound. Hopefully this holds, I’m sure this was stressing the CV shafts too. Fortunately no more surprises, I changed the transaxle seal and got the whole passenger side drivetrain back together.
Received and installed this camber kit from K-Mac last week.
K-Mac specializes in camber kits and has a slew of them to fit a wide variety of applications. The more bling ones they have are the top mount plate types commonly seen on the front of aftermarket coilover kits. Theirs however is not just the slotted plate type but rather a sandwich plate which allows camber and caster adjustment. This would have been ideal for the FX rear given the custom modified nature of my struts, but it looks like there isn’t a kit for that. Instead I had to settle for the eccentric lower mount kit. What sets their kit apart from the other typical system you see is that it does not use an undersized bolt with eccentric cam lobe as seen here to the right. Their marketing proudly proclaims no undersized crank bolts! It isn’t entirely true, if you need 15 or 17mm bolt size you get a 14 or 16mm bolt with a sleeve, but we’ll let that slide.
Friday, 23 May 2014
The traffic cams showed it was sunny, so I went straight home and took a Friday spin on the bike. Best to take advantage of good weather, since it could turn to weeks of rain. Probably the best way to end a week!
D = 10.7 km, Vavr = 14.8 km/h, Vmax = 37.5 km/h, T = 43-minutes, A/D = 143 m
Wednesday, 21 May 2014
Doctor’s clearance, clear afternoon weather, and the upcoming Whistler expedition meant secret training for conditioning. Plus, getting mudded-out on the previous Saturday’s ride left me itching to get out on the bike. Knee felt pretty good afterwards.
D = 8.8 km, Vavr = 15.4 km/h, Vmax = 36.1 km/h, T = 34-minutes, A/D = 132 m
Saturday, 17 May 2014
There had been some rain during the week, but on the two days leading up to the weekend, it was dry, so we figured the Ditch would be fine for a afternoon spin. It must have been raining out in Waimanalo, because we found the trail a muddy mess. The hikers coming out of the gate were all pretty muddy and had moon-shoe. I don’t exactly know why we didn’t give up, but we rode up Government Road until it got too slippery, then tried going out along the ditch, until it became too soupy to continue. Government road had been recently bulldozed, so the regraded surface was ripe to transform into sticky mud at a hint of moisture. Oh well. Should have just gone to get beer and blown off the ride! Bike got another bath. Took two hours to clean up from a one-hour ride.
Pictures soon
D = 1.93 km, Vavr = 4.9 km/h, Vmax = 12.9 km/h, T = 24-minutes, A/D = 133m, Total ride time about an hour.
Took a dangerous stop at Liquor Collection and picked up a bunch of beers as an offering to the machinist who made my bike rack rods, more on that later. Got some stuff for myself too. This here pours a cloudy medium dark amber with small head. The spicy aroma is detectable the moment you pop the cap. Oddly the corriander and spice don’t hit as strong as say Hoegarten. I’m having a hard time describing this beer. There’s a fair astringent bitter that carries throughout the flavor, the spices give it a warm feel and come out at the finish. The mouthfeel is fairly heavy. This is not a session beer but one to be savored. It also packs a bit more punch at 8% ABV. The aroma is the hard to describe part, the spices are clearly there, but it is hard to pick out any single one. This is quite an interesting one, would have been more appropriate during winter holiday season I suppose.
4 out 4 spicy monkeys.