Turned Back by Rain

Published on July 23, 2014 in bike and rant by risu. Closed

Wednesday, 23 July 2014

Oh well.  When I got home, the weather looked unhapy, even though everything was fine and sunny less than an hour before on the traffic cameras.  I still wanted to at least get a spin on the modded Moment “A2” to see how everything felt, so I went out for my normal neighborhood spin.  Not unexpectedly of course, within about 10 minutes it started to drizzle, so I returned home.  I did get in the whole loop, but didn’t get to do any sprints or climbing interval laps.  Continue reading ‘Turned Back by Rain’

Tantalus tuesday

Published on July 15, 2014 in bike by taro. Closed

With the spate of rainy days we’ve been having this season, many of our Tuesday evening ride have turned into road slogs up tantalus. Last week I had my St. Louis dh bike and equipment but we got rained out again. Ckucky flatted so after I gave him my spare skiny tube I motored on ahead. I ended up beating them to the top and the following week smack talk ensued.
Chris wasn’t taking my smack talk sitting down today and put the hammer down from the start. Hit my weak spot, I’m not good at the start. Actually I’m not so strong in the middle, or finish, hah. By the time we got to the straights in eucalyptus he was barely in sight.
Oh, and I wasn’t hallucinating when i saw roadie with face guard helmet on lunalilo a few weeks ago, saw two coming down as we were going up. One was a woman with Giro helmet with lots of vents.
Caugh one glimpse of Chris on the last turn before the one lane bridge.
He did push me to cut almost two minutes of my time on the climb, actually made it up in less then 40 minutes, what a blazing pace!
We only got a couple light sprinkles and the heat eased once we gained some elevation and the sun got lower, so it turned into a fairly nice evening.
As Chris said as he was loading up after the ride, it’s kinda nice having the upcoming Whistler trip giving us incentive to ride more. It’s easy to get lazy, but once you get on the bike you realize how good it feels to be out on it.

On Any Sunday

Published on July 13, 2014 in rant by taro. 1 Comment

It’s been a while, I’m sure there were times when I was not around, but this morning heard the sirens go up the street, followed later by sounds of Air1. Time for someone to get a ride in the barf bucket again!

Beer Is Good-Sam Adams Summer Ale

Published on July 11, 2014 in Food and Review by taro. Closed

Another from the summer seasonal variety pack. Pours a bright cloudy gold, medium light head. Citrus aroma, a bit of spice. Balanced bitter and some grain notes. Medium mouth feel and crisp. Pretty easy drinking.

A decent 3 out 4 citrusy monkeys.

Beer Is Good-Sam Adams Blueberry Hill Lager

Published on July 8, 2014 in Food and Review by taro. Closed

Another selection from the summer variety pack. Summer is fruity beer time? Anyway, pours a clopudy amber with medium light head. Blueberry aroma immediately detectable upon opening bottle. The berry is mostly an aroma thing, it perhaps lends a little sweet, but there is also a bit of bitter. This one is more beerlike than the previous Porch Rocker, but still pretty light on any malt and grain flavors. Medium mouthfeel. I can’t say I’m a big fan, it’s not like a soda that packs punch that the Porch Rocker is, but doesn’t make it as a good beer either. It’s not horrible.

2 out of 4 blue monkeys.

Beer Is Good – Samuel Adams Porch Rocker

Published on July 7, 2014 in Food and Review by taro. Closed

From their current summer variety pack, this is a flavored beer. A style some might be familiar as a shandy, a combo of lemonade and beer. Pours with moderately small head, a bright clear yellow. Definite lemon aroma, not a whole lot of much else. Not overwhelmingly sweet, but enough to mask most of any bitterness, only a touch of that remains. There’s also not a whole lot of beer flavor to be found, if you try really hard you can taste some grain in the aftertaste. Mouthfeel is light. It’s not objectionable, but it’s like a malt beverage, dare I say it, Zima? At 4.5% ABV it’s about the same as a beer on the lower end, so it can get some buzz going since its so easy drinking.

If you’re looking for something like those hard ciders or lemonades, then this is fine, but as a beer I don’t know how to rate this. 2 out of 4 pop beer monekys.

Surprisingly Sunny at Sunset Hills

Published on June 30, 2014 in bike by risu. Closed

Sunday, 30 June 2014

The days leading up to Sunday’s ride were dire with overnight heavy rains, then pretty constant rainfall from Friday night all the way through Saturday to Sunday morning. The NOAA forecast slowly changed as the week progressed from a slight chance of rain to possible morning rain to more definite morning rain. When I got up on Sunday, it really looked like a wash. Even the internet traffic cams in the Halawa area showed rainslicked highways. Still, the forecast was for good weather, and the radar images showed the arriving rain passing to the Southeast of Kahuku point, so Sunset Hills should have been spared. I was a little worried that if we went all the way out there and conditions weren’t good, we’d still feel compelled to ride in the muck since we had made the drive. I took a chance and said we were good to go. Continue reading ‘Surprisingly Sunny at Sunset Hills’

Breaking in the New Dragon 3’s

Published on June 25, 2014 in bike, Gear, rant and Review by risu. Closed

Wednesday, 25 June 2014

Weather was good enough to get out and try the new Dragon 3’s. I mounted the cleats the day before, and they seemed to snap in at about the right alignment. They were way stiffer than the old Dragon 2’s, but that’s both from the carbon plate in the new shoes, and the old shoes being totally flexed out. There was some discomfort on the lateral edges of my feet at the proximal end of the metatarsals as expected from new, narrow Italian shoes. I figure the shiny, more impermeable Lorica in these new shoes will take longer to soften and stretch, so the break-in might take a while. Wonder if it is the shoes breaking into my feet or the other way around?

D = 8.98 km, Vavr = 15 km/h, Vmax = 32.9 km/h, T = 36-minutes, A/D = 145 m

Jumping the Cock

Published on June 23, 2014 in bike by risu. Closed

Monday, 23 June 2014

I was glad to get out on the bike after not getting any ride time for a full week. A freeway jumper made my Wednesday commute time triple, landing me at home after dark, and the weather deteriorated by Friday, making the weekend a wash. I did some interval sprints to get the heart rate up with some easy laps in between to bring up the distance and build up the saddle tolerance. On the way home, I hit the water valve jump and ended up airing over a surprised and very upset rooster who was scratching for food on the landing slope. If he had on pants, he would have… well, you know.

D = 13.1 km, Vavr = 16.8 km/h, Vmax = 38.8 km/h, T = 47-minutes, A/D = 150 m

Here’s the Scoops

Published on June 23, 2014 in car by taro. Closed

Got my roof vent and scoop kit last week so I set out to install. It’s not anything terribly complex, just cut a hole in roof, drill a bunch of holes, bolt it in. It did take a fair amount of the weekend as I took my time and also needed to run to the hardware store a couple times. It went together nicely.

So now the FX looks all extreme rally ready. Just needs light bar and gravel guard that I’ve been debating how to make. Oh yeah, it looks cool, but how does it work? Took it for a test ride just now and happy to report it works quite nicely. Good test as it started raining. At highway speed and the vent open in the forward direction it cranks in a lot of air. Only thing is with it centered most of that airflow is going right in the center, between the seats, where no one sits. With the rain, flipping the vent to rear opening allows ventilation but keeps out the rain, except when the car adjacent to you hits a big puddle and throws a big splash all over. This should be a nice addition since the FX has no A/C.