The anticipated volcanic haze rolled in as expected on Wednesday morning, and by the afternoon, it was almost sensibly thick. Even with the South wind, the clouds lingered around the tall peaks of the Koolaus and jockeyed for position with the sun, which was still high in the sky when I got home. With the clouds and vog, there was an odd lingering twilight. Right off the bat, I had a shifting issue. I’ve had this before: Everything indexes correctly, but he rear won’t drop into the smallest cassette cog. It was fine on the previous ride. The cable tension was correct, so I busted out a screwdriver and cranked the outer limit screw out nearly a full turn. After that, all was good. How that kind of gross misadjustment can occur without human interaction is beyond me. The derailleur and hanger weren’t visibly bent, and most perplexingly, everything else was OK. Next time I take the bike by the shop, I have to check if maybe a shift housing strand is migrating out and sticking out of the housing end cap and interfering with something. Continue reading ‘Hazy Days’
Two Thursdays ago, Root, Fabio, JT and I went to India Café in Kilohana Square for dinner. There was a lot of post-meal e-mail chatter about what we experienced the following day, but I’ll try and distill all of that down in this review. It was our first time there with the exception of JT, who had been there on several occasions. Fabio had eaten at the campus franchise a few times, but the offerings and presentation are different. There was a full menu with appetizers, main courses and desserts. There is no alcohol served, but you are allowed to bring your own. As soon as we were seated and received our menus, we were brought some papadums (fried spiced lentil wafers). JT said he usually just gets the vegetarian meal, which is a combination set with four curries and sides. There was also a set with a meat dishes, vegetarian dishes and sides. We decided to get the “dinner set for four†which was an all-inclusive meal including four entrée choices. Continue reading ‘India Café’
Two ditch rides in 24 hours and a Monday training ride were a good test for the newly installed Hope bottom bracket. There was a perceptible decrease in rotational drag over the OEM bottom bracket. Since the Hope has all-metal interfaces from the cranks to the frame, there should be a more solid feel and less flex than the OEM, although this is probably not something that can be felt by even the most sensitive rider. The bottom bracket held adjustment through the nearly 50 km of riding. It was quiet and creak-free.
Thumbs-up!
I’ll raise my initial assessment to Highly Recommended.
I was planning on working on the FJ80 a little on Monday after work, but when I got home, the sun was brilliant and the weather exceptional. The bike called out to me. Since Whistler is coming up, I tried ramping up the distance, but there is only so much that I can do in my regular training loop. I’ll probably have to start venturing further a field to get beyond 20 km. Still, the scenery is nice, even if it is repetitive.
D = 19.62 km (12.19-miles), Vavr = 20.4 km/h (12.7 mph), Vmax = 39.4 km/h (24.5 mph), T = 57-minutes
What? Not enough torture on Friday night? It was Saturday afternoon, and I found myself stuck in weekend merge traffic on Kalanianaole to meet Jeff, Sara, Doctor Paul, Danny, and Root at Ditch for another ride. There was the brief out-of-context spectacle of kanban-musume hawking Mothers’ Day roses on the roadside by the stables to distract my attention from the impending leg pain and monkey-butt on the upcoming ride. This was the second time we would ride this trail in 24 hours! Continue reading ‘Déjà vu’
Since a lot of us had plans over the weekend with Muthas’ Day and all (don’t give me no jibber-jabber, fool!), We came up with the idea of a Friday after-work evening-into-night ride. Jeff and I had talked about just such a ride earlier in the week, and when Chris mentioned plans on both weekend days, the idea came to fruition. The calls and emails went out on Thursday afternoon and on Friday after work we met up in Pohakupu by the fountain. Chris sadly had to back out at the last moment, but Jeff, Sara, JT, and I arrived for the evening torture-fest. JT was sporting new Shimano XT cranks, Hope bottom bracket, and stiff new shoes. I had my new Hope bottom bracket installed too. Root called and said he was running late and suggested we begin without him, but we had already moved the meeting time back half-an-hour to accommodate his quitting time, so by Heck we were going to wait for him! Root showed up around sunset, and we rolled out. The twilight climb up Kalanianaole was a good warm-up for the instant intensity once we turned off the old highway into the trail network. Continue reading ‘Good Intentions’
Sunday 4th: The drivers door on the FX has been saging, actually every FX has had this problem. After 20 years with the use and weight of a big 2 door design on it, the hinges wear. The current FX it had suddenly also gotten noisy, groaning when opening & closing. Looking at the lower hinge could see the metal bushing was basically disintegrating. These Toyota hinges are not designed to be rebuildable, you’re supposed to replace, at more than $100 from the factory, ouch. Browsing online I can’t find door hinges for a twenty year old Corolla. Decide to try an old trick, often times car manufacturers will have the same hinge on the opposite side oppsite position, meaning the upper right hinge might match this lower left hinge. So a trip to Root’s Toyota wrecking yard and I soon have a upper passenger hinge.
 As you can see, they’re different, but the same. Original lower hinge is on the top here. It has a bigger plate for the side that goes to the body. However, closely eyeballing it, the holes look the same. I go ahead and bolt up the smaller bottom hinge. It does seem to fit, the door swings better now. It needs some adjustment that is difficult to do singlehandedly. But I manage to get it ok. Could use some more adjustment, but good enough. Trying to put that bigger hinge back onto the spare parts FX to keep the door on doesn’t go as well. It doesn’t seem to quite fit, and it’s not because the larger plate. Oh well, nothing a little monkey force won’t fix. So there you have it, semi-dirtbag auto repair trick!
I described this to the guys as a wheel aligment doohicky thing. It’s actually a pretty nifty gadget for measuring the alignment of your wheels/suspension. It’s basically a jig with a calibrated bubble level that you set against a wheel. Set it first on the ground and zero the bubble, then set it against wheel with the three contact points flush and even against the rim. You can then read your camber off the bubble. You can also measure caster (the tilt of the steering axis) with this same device. To do this, you turn wheel 15 degreesfrom straight, there’s an angle cut on the end of the bubble level to help set this. You then zero the bubble on the caster scale. You then turn the steering to 15 degrees from straight in the other direction and read the bubble scale. Finally you can measure toe using the additional accessory arms you can see extending forward and rearward from the bottom of the jig. Measurement here is kind of caveman by using a tape measure to a straight bar you hold to the wheel on the other side, or if you’re rich, you buy two sets of these doohickies. Continue reading ‘SPC Performance FasTrax Alignment Doohicky’
Designed for all current Shimano-compatible Hollowtech II outboard-bearing-style cranksets, this new bottom bracket from Hope offers a salient technological upgrade from the factory bearings with a bit of added style. At the heart of the matter are Swiss INA cartridge bearings custom-made for Hope. Offered in conventional hardened stainless steel and ceramic coated, these bearings are a definite step up in quality from the original OEM bearings. The bearings are set in machined aluminum cups, anodized in a variety of colors. The bearings actually sit slightly recessed in the cups and are covered by plastic labyrinth shields that run in grooves cut in the inside edges of the rims of the cups. The center water sleeve is also machined from aluminum, unlike the plastic common to the majority of OEM bottom brackets. The aluminum sleeve is indeed nice, but it is probably heavier than a plastic one. O-rings seal the sleeve as in the OEM Shimano. Sizing conforms to the Shimano standard: After switching this one in for the factory one that came with my XT crankset, no front derailleur adjustment was required. Continue reading ‘Hope Technologies UK Bottom Bracket’
Saturday was rainy just around ride time, so the ride was called. Of course it cleared up soon thereafter and turned sunny and blue. Sunday was better, but the group was thinned out. Jeff and Sara went surfing, Chris was preparing for Chase’s first year baby luau, Ckucke was off-island, and JT was busy scatolizing. That left Root and me. While I was waiting at the trailhead and playing with a wandering dog, he called. He was already late and I expected him to cancel out or something. He was just running late. I thought I heard him say “weâ€, which made me think that maybe JT had at the last minute decided to join the ride. It would explain the delay. This of course wasn’t the case: It was just wishful thinking. Continue reading ‘Ronery Ride’