I noticed this morning it was very quiet without the roar of morning 737-200 traffic.
As of Tuesday, 01 April 2008, there is no daytime Japanese-language programming on 101.1 FM. The 101hawaii.net website is still up, as is the DJ blog, both with entries up to last weekend, but there is nothing but bad jazz on the air.
Did their contract expire at the end of last month?
The Monday night St. Louis ride pared down to Root and me, with Ckucke away in Lost Wages, and Chris and JT having prior commitments. Just about 16:00, the skies over Honolulu went black and squalls of heavy rain fell. Although momentary, the grey over the mountaintops promised more of the same, and if nothing else the trail was going to be panko. Â
I called Root and told him I was going home, but if the weather was good on the windward side, we could still do some secret training. The weather was indeed nice, so I geared up with the light, anticipating a longer-than-usual ride if Root showed up. I did my regular run over to WCC and rode laps. The sky went from blue to twilight orange, then descended into darkness. Taro called and got my voicejail and said that he got stuck late at work, so couldn’t make it. A white veil of rain crossed the valley, so after a couple of laps in t he rain, I decided to dig.
D = 16.17 km (10.05-miles), Vavr = 18.2 km/h (11.3 mph), Vmax = 37.3 km/h (23.2 mph), T = 53-minutes
Met Jeff and Sara out at Ditch Trail on Sunday afternoon. Chris had fun planned with the family and JT was on the side. It was breezy and a little overcast, but no rain all week promised good trail conditions. We climbed Government Road and turned onto the Ditch trail. On the ride two weekends before, we discovered that the road had been groomed. The trail itself had been groomed since that time.  Most of the cut grass was still on the trail, so the turns were a bit sketchy. Continue reading ‘Cracker Ride’
Nobody really wrote anything about this, but Root, JT, and I went on a CroMo hardtails-only ride on Sunday, 02 March 2008 at Ditch. Root showed up with his 10th Anniversary Fat Chance, JT had his Bridgestone XO-1, and I had my drop-handlebar Bridgestone MB-1. The climbs were so nice on bent-over, lightweight bikes, but the horsey-print trail surface made for some punishing conditions with no suspension and skinny, high-pressure tires. Aside from the inevitable monkey-butt, there was some good neckache from craning to look ahead, and vibro-itch on the jiggly parts of the arms. We rode out to the end of Ditch then came back and did the inner loop. We actually rode all the steeps, but didn’t do much of the stuff in the rock garden. Continue reading ‘Leap Year Ride’
To catch up on the FX, Scat and Chucky came over Thursday evening after work to help me out with the tranny reinstall. After spending the morning in Maui for work, my boss told me to take off work early, so I got home early and started on trying to get the tranny in.
Here’s pics of the stuff that was going in. The Exedy clutch came with bonus stickers that aren’t quite as weak as the Magnaflow ones.
And here’s the flywheels:
No, this doesn’t have anything to do with BTK. Two Sunday’s ago, the 16th, we decided to do an afternoon ride at Maunawili. We meet at the usual parking in Waimanalo, and then this strange pale guy shows up and wants to ride. Fortunately he’s a cool guy, not some annoying freaky guy, and he can ride pretty good too. He’s been cooped up for too long and in need of some release. Weather’s cooperating and we have a nice overcast and windy day for riding. As opposed to last week, the bikes are decked out with some fair amount of tech. I’m riding the most retro bike as a hardtail with V brakes and an annoyingly clunky Marzocchi fork. Continue reading ‘CKH Ride’
Wow! I managed to break $100 while filling the tank in the work van today! Glad it’s not me paying the bill!
Windward side was sunny on Wednesday, and being a holiday there was little traffic, so I got home fairly early. Surprisingly enough, people weren’t driving like total fools (which is the norm for a holiday). I rode the regular training loop including the Chicken Trail. Almost cleaned the entire rooty climb in one go – maybe next time. I saw the two chicken families. All the little hyoko are now ugly, scraggly fledglings. One family is down to less than half-a-dozen, but the other is still at full strength. I did a little exploring at the top to see if any of the old singletrack is still rideable, but the old top traverse has some homeless structure built on it, so I couldn’t connect it to the old lower trail to the orphaned part of Kapunahala. There are a lot of surveying ribbons and pins up there – something is going to happen with that land soon. I turned in a few more laps than normal since the sun was out, then backtracked up the Chicken Trail. I cleaned the reverse climb.
D = 16.72 km (10.11-miles), Vavr = 16.4 km/h (10.2 mph), Vmax = 40.7 km/h (25.3 mph), T = 59-minutes
For people who wrench on their bike & car equipment, there’s certain parts that for some reason are just plain stinky. SPD pedal bearing grease is a famous one for us. On your car, differential oil is another one. Transmission oil is somewhere around there too. I just discovered another one today, removing the flywheel/crank bolts released some stinky funk. I wasn’t expecting that!
Anyway, to sum up progress on the FX, I finally got the crazy idle to stop for now. It turns out one of the new silicone vacuum hoses wasn’t tight enough and was “leaking” vacuum. What a pain. I took the “blacktop” 4AGE flywheel I bought of the net a few months back in to shop to have it resurfaced and it’s ready & waiting. Today I dropped the tranny on the 20 valve so I could get the bellhousing plate so i can relocate the starter when I change the flywheel and clutch. After that, I can change the header over. Whew, lots of stuff, being held up waiting for the new Exedy clutch to come. Sorry no, it’s only a “stage 1”, one step up from OEM clutch. It’s constructed like a normal OEM clutch. Their aluminum pressure plate one was nice and pretty, but at $1000+, yikes! Might as well go for the multi-plate clutch as long as your breaking the bank already!