The base at Sapporo Kokusai had been steadily shrinking from the 50cm on opening day with no resupply in sight, so instead of blowing cash to ride out there on the bus and risk injury on the concrete-hard refreeze, I decided to head for the hills in a different way – on foot. I loaded up my pack with foul weather gear in case the forecast rains did arrive, and headed intop the hills above Sapporo. As a warm-up, I went up and around Maruyama. The trailhead for this 3km loop is just down the road from the Maruyama Zoo. There were about a dozen other people out on the trail with me that morning, along with a bunch of crows that followed said people, waiting for them to drop potentially edible things. On the return to the trailhead along the stream that runs down alongside the zoo, I found an Ezorisu that was hoping for a handout. Making squirrel noises kept him hanging around, even if I didn’t give him anything. I’m not sure if MTB riding is prohibited, but the amount of wooden steps would make this about 30% portages. Continue reading ‘No Snow? No Bike? Hike!’
Author Archive for risu
Page 33 of 95
Driving home yesterday, I saw a dude in a flourescent work shirt with a Litespeeed Ti road bike several houses down from the Cachola Clinic on Kalihi Street. Nothing screams “stolen bike” more than a road bike that’s the wrong size with the drop handlebars rotated back so the brake levers are beneath the hands!
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Man, it took until after nine at night to get everything cleaned up after this Sunday’s ride. The weather looked fine for a ride earlier in the day, but as ride time approached, a wall of grey clouds came rolling over the Windward side, drawn by the weak trades. Stronger trades would have moved the rain-dumping clouds through faster, leaving the trails slightly dampened at most, but the slowly passing clouds were given the chance to fully saturate the ground. When I arrived, Waikupanaha at the trailhead was dry, but within seconds, the downpouring that I had gone through along Kalani’ana’ole caught up. Continue reading ‘Mud Slog’
These appeared on the Mil-Spec Monkey site over a couple of months, but Ckucke was putting a group order together and waiting for something to come back into stock, so I didn’t get my hands on one until now. A MOLLE-compatible trauma shear sheath is one of those things that a pile of people need and is painfully easy to design and build, but for some reason nobody had made up until this one came out. I was going to have Tactical Tailor make me a standalone shear sheath like the one that is built into the top of their First Responder Bag if I ever got around to emailing them a custom project, but since the Mil-Spec Monkey one came out, I don’t have to! Yay! On arrival, I saw a paper tag behind the MOLLE webbing, so I yanked it out. It was a Tactical Tailor build tag complete with TT part number – I really got what I had dreamed of. Continue reading ‘Mil-Spec Monkey Shear Pouch’
More heavy rains during the week made prospects for a weekend ride abysmal at best, but after a bleak Saturday, the sun rose Sunday in a clear sky. Everyone bailed on the ride except Taro and I, so we just turned in the normal Ditch ride in the cool afternoon. With all the rain, I was expecting at least a bit of dampness, but one would be hard pressed to spot any signs of the week’s precipitation. The leaves filling the runoff grooves along Government Road were undisturbed, and the places that accumulate water after the rains were bone dry. The only observable effects of the rains were a significant reduction in dust compared to the week before. The trail was mostly deserted, save for some people we heard but didn’t see when we were in the side loop and a couple with three dogs along the terminal extent of the Ditch. On the way out, we saw a pair of ownerless tan dogs that were gone by the time we came back along the trail. For post-ride food, we bypassed he normal pub and hit up El Mariachi in Kaneohe for some good Mexican food.
Pictures here
D = 12.5 km (7.77-miles), Vavr = 12.4 km/h (7.7-mph), Vmax = 33.2 km/h (20.6-mph), T = 1-hour (total trail time about an hour and three quarters)
This altbier from Kyoto’s Machiya Brewery has the eponymous qualities that distinguish alts – a bitter, ale-like flavor and matching color. When poured, there is a finger-thick head, which quickly dissipates. Although the head is not persistent, the carbonation is actually reasonably high for a Japanese craft beer: From beginning to end, the bubbling can be felt on the tongue and lips, and each tip of the glass excites new outgassing from solution. The initial flavor is bitter with no flowery or sweet hop note. The bitterness moderates in the middle, allowing a light flowery aromatic to bloom before the bitter fully fades to reveal a maltiness that subsides into a clean, even finish. The color is a light reddish brown, somewhere between a pale ale and a red ale. Compared to the Onuma Alt reviewed here earlier, this one has more carbonation and a stronger bitter. Continue reading ‘Beer is Good – Machiya Brewery Hanamachi Beer Jibiiru’
After seeing one of these on a Redline pro BMX at McBike, I had Jarrel bring one in for me. It arrived just before I went to Japan, so I had to wait until I got back to install it. When I took it out of the box, it didn’t feel particularly light, that is until I dropped the CroMo fork out of my bike and compared the two. There was a significant weight difference! Installation was a bit of a bee-yotch. The crown race seat was a bit rough, long, and possibly slightly oversized. This made getting the probably slightly undersized Race Face crown race on a PITA. The supplied preload lag bolt had a larger diameter shaft than the fully-threaded bolt supplied with the Race Face top cap, so a bit of reaming was required to allow the bolt to pass through the cap hole. Lastly, the safety tabs on the fork dropouts were too close in to accommodate the giant axle bolt washers on my Atomlab hubs, so some grinding with a rotary tool was required to relieve them about a millimeter so the washers would sit flush. All the sweat and blood was made worthwhile the first time I took the bike for a spin. The vibration damping qualities of the fork are excellent. No longer do my hands get blasted off the grips when I land hard off a jump or bunny hop. Of course no sooner do I get this does Answer release the even lighter Dagger fork. Dammit!
About $275 USD MSRP/ $200 street
Recommended
Three out of four BMX monkeys
Not quite sure if these are new, or just new to McBike, but I found two new flavors of GU energy gel the other day. I bought one of each to try and tested them on this Sunday’s ride. The Jet Blackberry with double caffeine had a nice, rich berry flavor that didn’t taste like “chemical berries†or some kind of cough medicine. The double caffeine didn’t hurt. I’d buy that again. It didn’t quite give me a euphoric sense of well-being, but the berry flavor gave me a momentary bit of happiness during the grueling, humid ride. Continue reading ‘New GU Flavors’
Hit the Ditch with Jeff, Sara, and Danny this afternoon. I haven’t been on the bike since the ride after I got back from Japan, so I was off the back. There have been few opportunities for after-work rides recently, with either rainy weather, early sunset, or general malaise getting in the way. Near noon, there were ominous dark clouds hanging over the windward side, but as ride time approached, skies became clear with bright sunshine. No sooner than we entered the trail, the clouds closed in again. There were no portents of rain though, just a canopy of white. We started as usual with the side loop. Danny high-sided off the trail at the first valley, his tire stopping on the boulder on the inside of the turn. It was a silent, ninja-crash. If he had laid still, I might have just passed him without noticing. At the switchbacks, I detoured onto the original line after Jeff said someone had been riding that way. My brakes were still cold, so I was going too fast at the bottom of the chute to make the transition onto the switchback line, so I lowsided in front of Danny and Sara. Weak. Continue reading ‘Slow Pokes’