from the twisted minds of snm
Jarrel brought in a set of Shimano PD-M970’s XTR pedals for me two weeks ago. Put them on last week. Tested them out on “That ride“. They are pretty. They work great. They’re the same as the PD-M959’s that they replace, except for the color, the label, and about 20-grams. Mud will be no problem with these, like their predecessors. The 959’s will move over to the cyclocross bike, and I’ll finally ditch the first generation SPD’s that are on there now.
About $160
10 out of 10
Ugh.
Well, it is possible – Chris and I proved it. We followed the trail that Jeff and I saw last time that leads from the fenceline on the third ridge. After cresting a small knoll, the trail gently ascended a wide ferny ridgetop between two ravines. The course was very evident ahead, and the trail was wide and clear here. Climbing the first hill as a contour along the left, the ferns began closing in. The initial euphoria and giddyness of finding new territory slowly eroded as the trail narrowed, but was bouyed when the trail became clear again. Continue reading ‘“That ride”: Wailuna mystery hills to Waimano’
Tried CytoSport’s “Fast Twitch” suppliment on Wednesday. Hard to tell if it really did anything, since I’ve been off training for a spell, but I seemed to be able to maintain a more consistent speed on the uphill sprints on my training loop with little to no burn and less oxygen debt. The single-use packet I had was “Go Grape” and was more powdery than Cytomax, which is more crystalline. Flavor was unpleasant compared to Cytomax, with a more chemically/artificial sweetener taste.
8.28-miles, 45-minutes, Vavr = 10.9-mph
Went out for a brief pedal on Wednesday after work to get everything moving after having sat around all Kamehameha Day weekend drawing for Showcase 2007. Didn’t really feel like ripping or burning, so just took it easy. The brakes are now dialed. Scotchbrited the glaze and contamination from the rotors and purged all the factory fluid with Valvoline synthetic last Thursday and muddled with the centering and adjustment on Friday. Saturday’s ride honed everything in and now they’re set.
6.81-miles, 38-minutes, Vavr = 10.6 mph
It was cooler than last Saturday, with overcast skies and a threat of rain, but still hot. There was a breeze to keep things cool, but it was also a headwind to fight at times. Chris was busy and Root didn’t respond to any of the ride mail during the week, so I thought it was going to be just Jeff, Sara, and myself again. Pulling into the parking lot, I saw that Paul and Danny were going to join us again! There was a brief discussion on the ride course, and we decided on the mystery hills since there was less climbing than the regular loop. Continue reading ’09 June 2007 Wailuna mystery hills’
Saturday was sunny and unbearably hot all over Oahu, except for Pearl City, which was cloudy and unbearably hot… Root and Chris were on the side due to car and baby issues (respectively), so Jeff, Sara, and I rode up to where Root and I had seen the little side trail a few weeks ago. Descending steeply, the trail turned right and went from the open grass to beneath tree cover. With a slight downward grade, it countoured the hillside, passing scratchy ferns and strawberry guava. A little ways in, the trail dropped down onto an old graded doubletrack. It was overgrown and had been continually disturbed by the piggies, so it was pretty uneven. It seemed to go both back uphill toward the houses, or ahead and down. We followed the doubletrack in and it narrowed to singletrack width with all the overgrowth. It was not unlike Bowling Pin at Mililani. Quickly, we reached a clearing at the valley bottom. The way ahead was open but without an obvious, worn path. There was, however, a very obvious swithcback to the left backtracking up out of the valley along the opposite wall. This path gently ascended to a grassy clearing, where the trail turned right around a head into the next little valley. The trail rose briefly, then descended to the valley bottom. There were some loose, pebbley sections and a lot of deadfall along the descent, but the course was wide and evident. Continue reading ’02 June 2007 Wailuna mystery hills ride’
Went straight home after work yesterday. There was a bit of a drizzle but it didn’t seem like it was going to last long. The artwork for the Rockabilly Surf Show was done and submitted, so it was time for a long-awaited ride. It took a while to get my riding s#%t together, but eventually got out and rolled around a bit. The new ’08 Fox 32 Vanilla RLC feels good on the bike – no geometry issues with the extra travel over the old 125mm Fox. It was the first time it was really ridden, so it feels a little sticky – I think it needs to break-in before it gets that buttery-smooth Fox feel. I swapped out to the purple “light” springs when I installed it last week. I guess I could have gotten just the “R”, but the “L” and “C” functions parallel some of the functions on the DHX 5.0 rear shock, so I got the full-featured one. Granted I run the compression and anti-bob settings really low anyway, but “just in case”…
The mysterious contamination of the rear brake last week is still causing issues – it still doesn’t seem as grabby as before. There is still some dark glaze on the rotor that probably has to be worn through before things are back to normal again, or maybe the pads need more heat-gunning…
I was just taking it easy since I haven’t ridden in a couple of weeks – I was just enjoying being back on the bike after the absence. Distance was 9.83-miles, 56-minutes, Vavr = 10.4 mph
Holy cow, I just took a shower, and I feel like I need another shower. Oni, having Okinawa flashbacks yet?
Glad we rode yesterday and not today. Thought yesterday was hot? Sheesh, today’s worse! Chuck would have been kicking my ass even more! Guess I shouldn’t laugh at golf, hasn’t hurt him any!
And you’ll have to excuse my jumping topics all over in one post, this heat & humidity is adling my brains. It also made me want to do absolutely nothing & I ended up sitting in front of the computer all day. Most of it spent editing the sub for Toki wa Kakeru Shoujo for my satisfaction. Oh yeah, I should have realized the character design is Sadamoto of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame.
Yeah, yeah – it’s been almost a week. I’ve been busy, okay?! I had the images on my USB drive all week, just didn’t have time to upload them. The pictures from the 12th and 14th are up on the gallery – you know where… There are some neat slow-sync flash shots from Monday’s freeride session. Interesting colors. and check out Root’s styling air. There’s a long exposure shot at the concrete rest stop that looks like it should be on an album cover.
I guess summer is upon us. We got down most of the trail in daylight, with twilight colors and darkness setting in at the rest stop on the concrete road. Just Ckucke, Root, JT, and me again – Chris should be back next week, since it was the last night of birthing class. Dropped into upper dumps for a change, but there was a lot of deadfall leaning into the trail and one big, old ironwood that had to be limboed under. Somewhere up on the side of the park access road was a dead thing – it could be smelled out into the neighborhood. Nothing bad-smelling or dead on the trail. At agave, climbed up to the normal out line and descended. The original D/H trail has been recut, and there looks to be some work being done on the trail that heads out to the point (the “right” off the mainline that is the alternate choice for the “left” to the old ladder trail). Must check some of that out next time…
Ride time of 27-min. with a distance of 3.87-miles. Vavr was 8.5 mph. Vmax was 18.6 mph on the trail – rather slow this time. Too many photo-op stops…