All week we had been planning a dirt ride, but at the last moment, Chris remembered he was on the schedule for his part-time fun job on Sunday, so the ride evaporated. When he got there, what he had to do was cancelled, so the ride was back on! Luckily I had gotten my kit together on Saturday in anticipation of the ride, so when the Minuteman-like call to arms came, all I really had to do was fill my hydration reservoir and mix my endurox. Continue reading ‘Go/No Go/Go!’
Archive for the 'bike' Category
Page 9 of 40
Chris and Root were at the shop and Chris discovered a 27.5″-wheeled bike. Chris found it more agile than a 29″, and noted that he could controllably wheelie it. He and I both noted that it was short-ish, but that was more a contemporary geometry thing. It definitely didn’t have as much of a toe-overlap issue as a 29″. Root said after riding it around that if nobody told him it wasn’t a 27.5″, he would have just thought it was a 26″, and really, when you look at it next to a 29″, that’s what it looks like.
So essentially, in reaction to the negatives and limitations of 29″, they came up with something that “undoes” those, and essentially ended back where they started. Unless you just want to have something new or different, what’s the point in getting the compromise when you can get either an industry-standard 26″ or 29″? I don’t think the 27.5″ was different enough from 26″ that you’d get any really noticable difference. Go all the way and get 29″ or stay with 26″.
The weather was surprisingly nice on Memorial Day, so Chris, Root, and I hit the ditch for some punishment. Having not ridden in over a year, I was surprised that I didn’t immediately drop dead. The climb up Government Road was not terrible, even in the brutally still humidity, but then I ran my front tire through some stinky dog poop. The conditions along the top traverse of the side loop were good, but things were a little squishy along the bottom stretch. Continue reading ‘Re-Ditch’
Chris spun by the Pit on Tuesday after his Saint Louis ride. On the rock drop before the little tree, he unclipped and proceeded to immediately rat-trap himself. Nice! The picture is pretty grotesque, so it’s after the break. Continue reading ‘We Like Riding Bicycles Why?’
Really, WTF kind of a name for a kid’s bike is “slumber party”? Like what is that supposed to mean in this context? Are they saying this bike is a one-way ticket to a dirt nap? You know things are bad when the company importing horrible death-machine bikes from the PRC even gives up naming their products and relinquishes control to the non-English-speaking Chinese product manager to name with random non-sequitur English words and phrases. I think this bike is from the same company that brings us the “Catapult” dual-suspension “mountain bike” (that’s in quotes because it really isn’t one).
Whoa! Has Ckucke been by the shop recently? Note that it is twisted in the tightening direction! I tried replicating this by cranking another 6mm key in a vise, but it cammed out of the jaws before it could twist.
Having just gotten back to Hawaii from Japan on Saturday the 24th. and having exploded my lower back on my first day back at work, I wasn’t quite ready to do anything other than lie down until Wednesday. The weather was not bad, so I took a spin on the bike. I tried pushing some intervals, cycling through “hard”, “harder”, and then recovering on “easy”. Along my circuit, there was a black polyethylene cloth construction barrier along the sidewalk. Each time I passed, a little mongoose was poking his head out from the corner, watching for doves or chickens to prey on. Never saw him get anything. Didn’t run his head over either (not like that squirrel in Whistler). The ride actually did my back some good – loosening it up and stretching it out.
D = 11.86 km (7.37-miles), Vavr = 17.5 km/h (10.9-mph), Vmax = 48.1 km/h (29.9-mph), T = 41-minutes
Even after doubling back to get something I forgot at work, I managed to get home in time to take the bike out once again on Monday. The weather wasn’t as nice as last Wednesday with thick, opaque clouds crowning the mountaintops, but it didn’t appear like rain was imminent, so I took a chance on taking a spin. The weather held, but there wasn’t a single moment where the looming overcast parted to allow even a spot of sun to reach my path. Again, the limiting factor was a matter of seating, so the duration of the ride coincidentally ended up being almost exactly the same. I managed a couple more kilometers this time out. The two rides bracketed this month’s full-moon night hike, so I’m not sure how all the pain/fatigue dynamics work out, like whether Wednesday’s ride set me up for more pain on Friday night, or Friday’s hike left me drained for Monday.
D = 12.68 km (7.88-miles), Vavr = 17.7 km/h (11.0-mph), Vmax = 38.5 km/h (23.9-mph), T = 43-minutes
Bike? What is this “bike” you speak of? This word is unfamiliar to me…
Actually got out and rode around on Wednesday. The old saying, “it’s like riding a bike,” definitely holds true – it always hurts, it always kicks your ass, and it’s always somehow fun (even if it hurts and kicks your ass). The tires were covered with lint and dog hair on the bottoms from sitting immobile for over half-a-year. The fuzz patches stayed in place even through the fast sections, clinging between the lugs of the sticky Rubber Queens even against the wind and rotational vectors. It was a little distracting, so I rode through the grass to remove them. There was some construction going on my normal loop, so I had to make some adjustments to the routine. I didn’t push hard since I didn’t want to break anything (on me, not the bike) as I haven’t been riding in like forever, so the numbers will reflect this. During the ride, the knees hurt, the legs burnt a little, and the lungs and heart weren’t quite up to the task, but the limiting factor really was the ability to sit on that little seat for an extended period of time. One day later, the back of my neck was sore, and my calves were tight. Even so, the discomfort paled against the feeling of the afternoon wind and the pure, simple rush of speed.
D = 10.86 km (6.75-miles), Vavr = 15.4 km/h (9.6-mph), Vmax = 39.9 km/h (24.8-mph), T = 42-minutes
Derek had given me some leftover rubber diamond plate sheet material earlier in the week and the idea was to use it to make extended mudflaps for the rally FX. Friday evening before the next event, I decided to start on the project, should be an easy thing. I then remebered I had stashed in the floor of my closet, a set of Toyota pickup truck mudflaps. Wait, I’ve never had a Toyota pickup, you say. Yes, this set was scavenged from back in the day when we used to ride mountain bike, a lot. If my memory serves me right, this was even way back in the days when Tantalus was open and we rode it. We’re talking at least ten years ago. And if my memory through old geezer colored glasses hasn’t fogged it too much, I’m pretty sure this was the late afternoon ride with me and Dave where we explored down an undocumented trail and found an abandoned wrecked Toyta truck. This was the event that made the phrase “it’s easier to go down than up” famous with Dave and me. We kept riding until it got too narow and grown in, and then continued on foot. We had a good idea where we were, and eventually we got to a point where we knew where the Makiki Valley trail was. But now it was serious hiking, no bushwaking, with bikes. We decended the steep valley side, Dave occasionally having to cut vines loose with his pocket knife and passing the bikes between the two of us to get over rock drops, and finally dropped onto the valley trail, just as the sun was close to dipping below the valley top. Anyway, these flaps are the bounty from that adventure. Continue reading ‘Flap Neglect’
