TALES: Holding a machete is cool; rain sucks

No matter what you're doing with it, walking around with a machete in your hand just makes a dude feel different. The fact that you had to borrow it because you thoughtlessly left all of your tools stored in some undisclosed U.S. location before you moved to Japan is not so cool. It's especially not cool when you first realize this 10 minutes before you're supposed to meet for group trail maintenance that YOU coordinated.

Obviously I haven't been doing my part, so it felt good to start working on the Chibana trail network with Garry earlier this week. It's amazing what a machete can cut through! We've got Spiders & Pipes just about clear, but there are still four or five trails left to survey and clear before Summer.

Unfortunately, Okinawa's rainy season has washed out nearly all hope of a trail ride this week, so I guess that makes this trail maintenance season too (unless you enjoy disassembling your bike after every ride to coax the red, Okinawan mud out of every bike orafice).