from the twisted minds of snm
Back driving the van this week.
I can go and get coffee whenever I like.
I’ve been listening to that 101.1 MHz Japanese-language radio station that Fabio told me about while driving. Seems to be somewhat natsukashii programming though…
Today was apparently “Hot local Asian girl” day at Windward Mall.
Well… it’s not poison.
Went to Makino-Chaya for lunch today.  They used to be on King Street, but now they are in Aloha Tower Marketplace. Gone is the “tabe-houdai table service” – it’s just a regular buffet now. There were some downtown office people and local buffet-hounds, but a lot of the clientele were the bus-in fresh arrivals from Japan who were a captive audience at ATM before the buses returned to take them to their hotels at check-in time. Continue reading ‘Ma-ma… Makino-Chaya’
It was sunny out the window at work all day, and the H3 traffic cams showed a sunny Haiku and Halekou interchange, so I hurried home to ride. The overturned truck at Sand Island had been cleared away, so traffic on Nimitz was no worse than usual – perhaps better since people were avoiding it. The sun was already dipping behind the tops of the Ko’olaus when I got onto Kahekili. I rode my normal loop in the twilight and turned in a few more laps than usual at WCC since I was feeling good.  I considered continuing, but I really couldn’t see with just the little LED headlight, so I went back home.
D = 9.35-miles, Vavr = 11.7Â mph, Vmax = 25.1 mph, T = 48-minutesÂ
The Monday night Freeride was called on account of poor attendance,  so I bailed home and went for a spin around the neighborhood on the Ellsworth.  The mud from the last Wailuna ride was dried and flaking off of the frame and tires, and there was still grass and ferny bits stuck in the chainrings and elsewhere. It took me longer than I had expected to get out of the house because I couldn’t find the cap to my Soma bike bottle.  Robert Goulet must have been inside my house messing with my stuff… Continue reading ‘Decramp’
The old Salomon boots died in Japan this September. The EVA midsole crumbled, leaving the rubber outsole detached from the upper back to about the ball of my foot. They stayed together long enough for me to get back to Hawaii without the sole becoming completely detached and making me look like a Charlie Chaplin character. Age was the factor here, not wear. The outsole was not heavily worn and hadn’t become hard with age yet. The Gore-Tex was still leak-proof and the leather was fine. The rubberized scuff-patch on the toes had started to peel and crack over a year ago. I picked up a pair of Danners for $140 to replace the Salomons, but thusfar haven’t tested them – hopefully they won’t be as slippery on snow and ice as the slick-as-$h!t Salomons were. Continue reading ‘Boots’
Oh, the agony.
As I sat down in the Fj80, I could feel my stomach contents fighting agaist the change in the volume of my abdominal cavity. There was a belch brewing , but I was afraid it would come out liquid. All the way home I could feel the tightness. Even after a shower and heading to bed, I still felt bloated. This morning, all the retained liquids had processed and came out – 4 full bladders worth by 08:00
Overindulging at Maharani was not to blame as much as the level of salt or MSG that was in the food. Tandoori Grill in BC and India Bazaar here have nothing to fear about losing my business…
It rained all weekend, so no XC ride. That sucks.Â
It rained yesterday, so no St. Louis FR ride.  That sucks.Â
This morning the failing Optima battery on the FJ80 went too flat to crank the engine over. That sucks.Â
I can’t spin by Lion Coffee Cafe off Waiakamilo since I’m behind a desk all day, so I’ve been bringing coffee from home. I ran out of “Premium Roast” and opened a bag of some flavored variety that was originally destined to be a holiday gift. I don’t like flavored coffee. That sucks.
McBike just got in some folding Panaracer Rampage 26 x 2.35 tires. They look pretty nice, and are reasonably light for tires of their size. The pattern is not too different from the Fire XC and FR, with a mix of square core knobs and staggered edge knobs. Intended for the all-mountain crowd, the knob height is low (noticably lower than the Fire XC) to promote lower rolling resistance even with a large carcass. The center row paired knobs have one square thrust edge for traction, with the opposite edge being ramped/buttressed to promote low rolling resistance. They look like they’d be good Whistler XC tires. They are all black with big white outline letters. According to the Panaracer website, they’re 700g each, and have 66-tpi casings. $40-something each. Made in Japan!Â
In Whistler I had bumped my Shimano XTR rear derailleur on a boulder whilst rolling backwards, thus bending off the little tab on the B-axle (top pivot bolt) backplate that keeps the spring tension when the derailleur is unmounted. Thankfully, Shimano sells the B-axle assembly as a set, so I had Jarrel bring one in for me. I switched out to my spare RD-M971-GS so I could still ride my Ellsworth. Last week the part came in, so I brought in the old derailleur to the shop and installed the new backplate. Continue reading ‘Reborn’
Since it had been raining all weekend, I was not confident that we would be getting a Monday night F/R in. The weather was windy and partly overcast all morning, but toward the afternoon, the clouds retreated back up the mountaintops, leaving blue skies accented with swirling sumi-e brushstrokes of high altitude cirrus clouds. My throat was feeling “not right” all morning, so I was considering bailing, but the change in the weather made me change my mind.