After a couple of weeks off, it was time for a good trail ride. Ckucke and Root met me at the Ditch for an exploratory ride of the trail that ran behind the Luana Hills golf course that we had been hearing so much about. We climbed Government Road and took the right to connect to the old Maunawili Valley Road course at the gate remains. What once had been a wide cut had grown in to a narrow singletrack. Here and there, the gutter and berm along the outer edge of the cut was visible through the undergrowth, but for the most part, it was well treed in with albizia and fiddlewood. The surface was firm, varying from clay to rock. It was difficult to tell if the roadway was cut all the way down to rock, of if it had been carefully cobbled over in spots. In any case, this was definitely a surface to be wary if there was any moisture present! Continue reading ‘Luana Hills Perimeter Trail’
Archive for the 'bike' Category
Page 20 of 40
Kamehameha Day took Ckucke, JT, and Kevyn out of the Thursday ride, but freed up Wayland to join Root and I in the festivities of pain. Wayland had spent a lot of time on a stationary indoor trainer, but hadn’t gotten a lot of road mileage. This was a good chance for him to experience the physical, emotional, and tactical challenge of a real-world road climb. He was in fact thoroughly challenged. The weather was warm and clear at the bottom, with the normal late afternoon clouds at the top. There was a fairly good headwind blowing all the way up, and like the light drizzle that had been falling on the upper stretches, it was both a blessing and a curse. My legs felt sluggish when I started my warm-up, but they were fine once we started the climb. The pace was slower than usual, so I couldn’t really tell if yesterday’s ride did any harm.
D = 19.01 km (11.8-miles), Vavr = 14.6 km/h (9.1-mph), Vmax = 46.0 km/h (28.6-mph), T = 1-hour, 18-minutes (9-minutes warm-up, 50-minutes up, 19-minutes down)
Tomorrow’s Tantalus day, but I had the insatiable urge to get out on the bike today. I took an easy spin and did my normal training circuit. On Kahekili, there was an acrid, phenolic smell like burning televisions (if your TV ever caught on fire, you’ll know what this smell is like). I caught up to the smell at a traffic light – it was a Daimler Sprinter van. There was smoke coming out from the engine compartment, in particular from a tubular structure on the underside on the driver’s side just forward of the front wheels. Wonder what was going on… I saw smiley security guard for the first time since I’ve been riding afternoons again after the winter hiatus. I kept the effort level low to avoid burning out my legs so I can still ride tomorrow. Hopefully I managed this. The weather was fair, but the mixed cloud cover when I started closed in toward twilight, and a hint of a drizzle ushered me home. There was no agenda, so it was relaxing and just felt good.
D = 12.17 km (7.56-miles), Vavr = 17.4 km/h (10.8-mph), Vmax = 38.0 km/h (23.6-mph), T = 42-minutes
Ckucke, Kevyn, and I met for a quick St. Louis ride on Monday afternoon. JT was still nursing a cold (Influenza-A H1N1?), and Root had some kind of stomach abnormality, so they were not available. The weather was clear and sunny, and the tradewinds did their best to keep the temperature down, but it was still on the evil-hot side. We dropped upper Dumps, then continued up the old roadway and switchbacked up to the park road. Back at the parking lot, we bombed down mainline and taco jumps and got back on mainline to the junction and hung the right to the hammock tree. We backtracked up to the rock waterfall and dropped to agave. It was still early, and there was a lot of daylight left, so we worked our way back up to the top. If we felt good, we planned to hit Dumps again. Of course, by the time we reached the top, we had little motivation to grind back up yet again, so we called it quits and went down the hill to The Fat Greek for dinner. Continue reading ‘Drudge Trudge’
With the return of trade winds, the weather was perfect for Tantalus Thursday. Yesterday, the moist air brought in by the Northeasterlies turned to heavy rainsqualls because of ground heating. There was less humidity and stronger winds today, so some fluffy white clouds developed, but there was no rain. The wind was welcome to bring down the heat, but it unfortunately resulted in headwinds on the steepest parts of the climb. Ckucke had to babysit his niece, JT had come down with something (Influenza A H1N1?), and Kevyn was otherwise occupied. That left Root and me, but nothing ever goes smoothly. Root broke his chain last week and bought a new one at McBike that night. He neglected installing it in the intervening week, and didn’t have any tools to install the chain. I had my full kit as always, so I told him to drive over to the meeting place and put the chain on. Continue reading ‘Missing’
It’s been a while since we hit St. Louis after work on Monday. Other commitments, weird weather, or holidays conspired against us since the strawberry guavas were ripe. The unseasonably hot, windless weather dehydrated the guavas on the tree before they could even fall off and rot! I got there early, but Kevyn beat me there since he lives just down the hill. Ckucke and JT showed up and we all geared up. Some time later, Root rolled in and we got started. We decided on Dumps, since we hadn’t gone that way in a while. The conditions were awesome, and the surface recently groomed. Lots of the annoying roots were gone, but there were a couple of low overhead obstacles to look lout for. We went through the stunt garden but bypassed lower Dumps and sortied up to the inner loop and crossed over to mainline and went back up to the jumps. Continue reading ‘Bigfoot Stink’
Heavy, sudden, and random storm showers blanketed the island starting late Thursday morning. I kept an eye on the mountains and webcameras, but Tantalus remained clear into the afternoon, so the ride was on. JT called me as I was rolling out, saying he couldn’t make it, leaving Ckucke, Kevyn, Root, and I to suffer through the sweltering, windless climb. The cold start brought on the burn rather quickly, but with the fortification of Amino Vital, I was able to get more work out of my muscles, and got to the top in under 40-minutes. Having been without it on three hard rides, I could feel the difference. The Memorial Day weekend got my diurnal rhythms all thrown off by a day, so my body expected a rest day but got punishment instead. I don’t know what I did earlier in the week to cause it, but I had no strength in my arms, so when I did any standing climbs, I had difficulty keeping the bike in line. It didn’t help any that I had a salty, heavy lunch and a good case of water retention to drag me down. There wasn’t any active rain, but the pavement was wet after the bridge. After making “Aloha” with Trek-guy, Kenny, and Nancy at the top, we took the Roundtop Drive way down. Other than them anda handful of other people, the mountain was deserted. Wetness and burnt-out muscles kept the descent speeds down to whatever gravity could incite.
D = 16.35 km (10.16-miles), Vavr = 18.4 km/h (11.4-mph), Vmax = 64.6 km/h (40.0-mph), T = 53-minutes (39-minutes up, 14-minutes down)
The long Memorial Day weekend called for a ride, but many of the regular MTB crew were off-island or otherwise unavailable, leaving Ckucke, Root, and I to carry the torch and get some trail time. The weather forecast called for the chance of rain on Saturday, but good weather for Sunday and Monday. We decided on doing the Wailuna circuit on Sunday. The predicted rains didn’t come until after long after sunset, but early Sunday morning was perfectly clear. By ride time, some disconcertingly heavy clouds had closed in, but we were “go” unless the sky really opened up and all kinds of unpleasantness broke loose. The rain held off, but the heat and humidity were definitely turned way up the dial. The road climb felt more brutal than last week, and the dirt climb went far slower. I was not feeling on the game. I hadn’t downed excessive beers the night before, but I felt hungover, and my guts were unsettled. My legs weren’t sore, but the burn came on really fast and the power level was just not there. Root was feeling the heat. The trail conditions were outstanding: The rain had stiffened up what had been a loose surface the weekend before. Continue reading ‘Pain, Pennance, and Ritual Bloodletting in the Church of the Eternal Burn’
After a long Friday at work and a hot commute home, the last thing I wanted to do was sit inside and vegetate in a sweltering house, so I geared up and went for an easy spin. After yesterday’s Tantalus ride, I wasn’t out for a grunt. Wispy high-altitude clouds far overhead scalloped like the feathers on a Barred dove and titanium gray skies out over the bay hinted at the approaching weather front forecast to bring instability and rain tomorrow. Hope the weather is good for a Sunday ride…
D = 12.12 km (7.53-miles), Vavr = 16.3 km/h (10.1-mph), Vmax = 41.5 km/h (25.8-mph), T = 45-minutes
I was powered by a pork adobo plate lunch up Tantalus on Thursday. I was working solo, so I had to turn in an hour of overtime in order to get everything done. I told Ckucke I would be late and that they should roll out without me and I would meet up with them at the top, but after I got changed and drove over, I was only about fifteen minutes late, so they waited for me (thanks, guys!). After working late, I really needed this ride to blow off some steam. The start was nice and slow and the weather impeccable. Ckucke took the lead right away. By the end of the houses, he already had a good lead on us. By the top of Euco, Root and Kevyn had pulled ahead of me, and Ckucke was out of sight! I had run out of Amino Vital after last weekend, so I was only running on Cytomax. The Cytomax kept the burn down, but I did notice a definite deficit in my fast-twitch muscle fibers. Every time I stood to sprint a steeper section, I dropped further behind instead of catching up: I had to be satisfied with sitting and grunting through the climbs. I felt really “draggy”. I did manage to reel the pack in by the very top and turned in a 39-minute ascent. Continue reading ‘Swine Flew’