from the twisted minds of snm
The slowly gathering and descending cloud cover threatened to derail my Wednesday ride plans, but I managed to gear up and turn in some distance before the first drops began to fall. The Thursday Tantalus ride was called, so I wanted to get in a good ride today. Other than riding to and from home, the distance was primarily off-pavement.
D = 16.14 km (10.03-miles), Vavr = 16.4 km/h (10.2-mph), Vmax = 48.5 km/h (26.4-mph), T = 59-minutes
I dug out of work as fast as possible to get to the top of St. Louis early enough to get a full run in before it got too late. I arrived first, followed shortly by Ckucke, JT, and Kevyn. After gearing up, we dropped Dumps all the way down to agave. Chris and Jarrel had both mentioned that lower Dumps had been cleared out. It was indeed opened up and groomed, but it was still full of tombstone rocks and derailleur-muncher rocks. It was better, but still not good. Also, the dry, leaf-littered surface was hardly ideal for traction: Both Kevyn and I felt a little washy, but that also may have been from tire pressure. JT and I both washed-out and low-sided off the rock jump that divides upper and lower Dumps. We climbed back up to the first switchback sortie, then bombed the center rocky run to the road and out the exit trail to the street. All of this continues to get worse, but the good sunlight allowed for better line choices. We piled into Kevyn’s Jesus truck – now without the camper shell – and shuttled back up to the top. Continue reading ‘Ochiba’
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’
Heading over to Cedar Street Gallery after work to check out Jason Teraoka’s works in the 14-artist group show “Bus Stop Culture”. I wonder what he painted? Hopefully I can find parking down there… Wonder if the Gelato shop next door will be open? Continue reading ‘Bus Stop Culture’
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
After the Monday night ride, Ckucke, Kevyn, and I went by The Fat Greek at the bottom of St. Louis Drive for a bite to eat. Parking at this little strip mall is iffy at best, but oddly, a pair of tandem stalls were open, so Ckucke and I pulled in. Kevyn was dropping off his bike at home so came down a little later and also miraculously found parking! I ordered the gyros for $8.40 USD including tax. They have little pager things so when you meal is prepared, they hit the magic button and your unit goes off – a little better than yelling, since they have a small air-conditioned “inside†and a large “outside†patio. The prep time was longer than I would expect for the menu and venue. The food quality was very good. My entrée came with a moderately sized salad that included a cherry tomato, a Calamata olive, two cucumber slices, and crumbled feta cheese on a mix of romaine and baby greens (A-). The gyros pita (A) was well-filled with meat and was seasoned with that white yogurt-based sauce, and came with a tasty, spicy sauce on the side (sorry – I don’t recall the sauce names now, and I’m not going to look it up). As a means of comparison, it was a couple bucks more than something equivalent at Opa! In Vancouver, but the quality was a little better, and there was a little more meat filling. Continue reading ‘Edible Briefs – The Fat Greek’
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’