Chris was free for a ride on Saturday afternoon, so we planned to ride if the weather wasn’t terrible. Jeff checked the radar in the morning, and it had been rainy all night on the Eastern half of Oahu, so Ditch was out. We met up at Wailuna at 14:30 and rode up the heinous hill of death. If there was one thing I learned biking in Whistler, it was not to fight the hill in mid-ring and to conserve energy in granny. It was sunny and breezy, and I reached the top of the road fairly fresh. The legs were reasonably OK, but the lungs and heart were feeling it a little, and the ass was feeling it a lot. Continue reading ‘The Return of “Ass-Poppa”’
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It was a beautifully clear day yesterday, until we met for the ride at 18:00, when the sky turned grey and the rain came down. Since St. Louis was socked in, there was no hope of anything up there other than slippery rocks and roots and panko dirt for the next few hours, so we embarked on an urban assault of the Ala Wai jump. The two coconut trees there had been cut down, and the dirt disturbed. Even after a little shoe-digging and water sprinkling, the jump was weak… Shovel required. Continue reading ‘Sunny, Rainy, Moonlight’
A two week gap and 1 hour difference from the Labor Day monday night ride and what a difference. We crammed Dave, Ckucky, Scat and myself and our four bikes into Dave’s LandCruiser. Glad we could provide entertainment for the City Bus driver who seemed quite amused by the clown act. By the time we made it up the hill to St. Louis (Waahila) the sun was just setting. Riding into the park lights were needed already. Trail conditions were primo except for the fallen tree. It was damp enough to keep dust & loose dirt down, but not slipery from wet. It was right at the edge of panko. Some of the grassy stuff was starting to encroach. I fully hooked a high side dead treelet hiding in the brush on a small drop before agave with my handlebar. Sure got my adreniline pumping! Any faster and I would have been catapulted off the trail on a pretty gnarly area. BTW, its not there anymore, in my pumped up state I went back and angry aped it, broke it, & tossed it somewhere off the trail. 
It was nice to be on bike, Dave was pretty hardcore having come back from Japan this morning and still hit the DH! Ckucky is Mr. Fitness now, having dropped five pounds and bringing down his cholesteral levels a signifcant amount in a matter of weeks. And speaking of cholestoral, dinner was at Toritos in Market City. I hadn’t been there in years, it was quite good!
D = 4.44-miles, Vavr = 8.1 mph, Vmax = 20.5 mph on trail, T = 32-minutes
Rode Maunawili Ditch trail on Saturday morning. There was a fairly large crew: Jeff, Sara, Root, Ckucke, Danny, Ryan Higa, and myself. Yes, Ryan is back in town! He got in sometime around when we were up in Whistler. I talked to him a bit, but didn’t get to ask him if this was a permanent situation or not.
We rode up the road and turned right down Ditch. The climb up was a burner, especially off the start cold, but after Whistler, I couldn’t really complain. The Ditch trail was dry and fast. I hadn’t been there in several years, and it hadn’t changed much while I was away. We turned up a ridge trail that we had been on before that climbed up one of the fingers that the trail snakes around. The singletrack was a lot more settled in than I remembered, assumedly from use – it was newly-cut way back when. Continue reading ‘Ditch’
Ckucky, Root, Big Poppa (Chris), and I did a slightly-earlier-than-normal St. Louis F/R yesterday so we’d have enough light for some photos. It was Labor Day, so the earlier time frame was not an issue for anybody. It was definitely hotter even being just an hour earlier.
We dropped upper Dumps all the way to the log where we all discovered that the rain-soaked rotting bark was like white lithium grease spread all over the log. Pushing back up the side trail before the log, we went up past the inner loop and mainline to sideline and did the root drop jumps in the clearing.
Chris, Root and I hit St. Louis yesterday for some F/R. The weather was nice all day, but as soon as we unloaded bikes at the top, it started to drizzle. The sky was blue over Manoa, but clouds were rolling in slowly behind us over the mountains. Intending to check out some of the stuff we saw last week, we dropped mainline. Rain-specked glasses and goggles immediately fogged, keeping speeds down. Dirt clung to wet bikes and shinguards like breadcrumbs and clogged tire knobs into dirt-slicks. Continue reading ‘Panko ride’
Finally had to go and see Mitch yesterday about my back. I’ve been resisting because of his new office location, but the discomfort grew too great. I had trouble climbing in and out of the work van all morning, and after lunch just leaning foreward a little sent searing twinges of pain from my back all the way down the back of my left leg to my heel.
This all stems back to putting new shocks in the Land Cruiser months ago. The pain had decreased before the Whistler MTB trip, and was not an issue during all the riding up there. Even after I got back it was fine, but this week it just went wild. After Mitch worked on it, I could bend forward, but it still hurt. I took a TC3 and hit the sheets. This morning I felt like a million bucks, then I squatted down to pick up some breakfast cereal that I spilled and wham – the pain was back. It’s almost lunchtime and the pain seems to be back to pre-breakfast levels.
Pinched nerves suck.
Only Chris and I made it out for F/R Monday yesterday. Ckucke had a dinner, JT was at an art opening for Tracy’s works, and the Root was not right. The weather was ominously overcast, but no rain had fallen all day.
We went down the sideline then dropped onto mainline, then turned off at the powerpole cutoff. Someone has been busy, since the turns along the powerpole cutoff were all bermed in. Climbing back up to the 4-way junction, we discovered in the failing light that someone had built some platforms in the Norfolk Island pine thicket on either side of the inner loop trail. On the uphill side was a head-high platform, and on the lower side, next to the abandoned homeless encampment, was a ramp. Both stunts were constructed from cut-down Norfolk Island pine and store-bought planks. Chris climbed up on the platform and said it felt solid, but after seeing how things were built in BC, the 4″-diameter logs that were being used in this instance looked rather spindly and unsubstantial. Continue reading ‘The Two Horesmen…’
It was nice yesterday morning, I wasn’t feeling really sick, and Chris had the evening free to ride, so the Monday night St. Louis F/R was on! The afternoon brought dumps of rain and deteriorating conditions, so we opted to just session some urban stuff around Moiliili.
The rain started again as soon as we crossed over the freeway, so we headed to UH. Near the Biz-ad building, JT found a rubber gorilla, which was apparently filled with some very bad mojo, because he immediately laid it down on some slippery stairs and hyperextended his thumb backwards – all the while trying to maintain his hold on the gorilla. Ckucke attempted to throw it on the roof, but it came bouncing back down menacingly. It ended up in Chris’ pack, where it brought bad mojo to the remainder of the ride.
D = 4.04-miles, Vavr = 6.6 mph, Vmax = 18.0 mph, T = 36-minutes of actual riding time/2+ hours of actual hooliganism
Dang I’m getting old, I’m feeling the effects of yesterday afternoon’s jump session at Koko Head park up my street. But we did deny our age by doing something we’re supposedly old enough to know better, we caught a tow up the street with Ckucky’s van. The jumping was fun too! And although we’re pretty lame, we managed some cool pics. Scat always manages some pretty rippin pics! Check out more on the gallery page!