TRIPS: More new trails … & riders

A month ahead of schedule, Tom was back on his bike this week leading Clint, Garry, Lance, newcomer Jim and I yesterday on 14-mile singletrack excursion that was mostly new to the rest of us, and definitely had something for everyone. From Tom:

We rode … through the Cane Fields to the steps, to Spider and then down The Chute, around to Double Drop, through The Tunnel and up Bent Rim, around part of Paintball, down to The Maze, back to Paintball, over the Koba Bridge and back home through the Cane Fields.

Garry brought his Cannondale Jekyll out of the closet for the ride and snatched the “Look of the Day” award (see photo) at a surprise jump on Double Drop, and our two 6-foot-plus eating-machine triathletes (Clint and Jim) came to the conclusion that the price of a trip to Singapore was worth it for the food alone.

The complete beauty of the ride was that after nearly two weeks of on and off rain, it dried up essentially for three days before the ride, which made clean up a lot easier than anytime in recent memory.

It’s good to see the OMBA group consistent and growing; we should have plenty of trail guides to help newcomers by summer!

TALES: The Basketman

After bidding farewell to my in laws after 10 days, a couple of seemingly unprecedented dry days provided an afternoon to make adjustments to my newly-strung and freshly tuned up bike. Spent about an hour on Spiders and Pipes making adjustments, and a hidden stump just off of the right side reminded me how important it is to pick lines wisely.

After gingerly walking around a local (“The Basketman”) who weaves bamboo baskets in the middle of the trail, I’m now convinced from his comments, albeit in Japanese, that the next trip will need to include Awamori and chocolate-covered Macadamia nuts to ensure our continued thoroughfare.

TIPS: Are your shocks bullet proof?

It's no secret that I'm a victim of corporate marketing ploys to dream Cannondale, and that I enjoy the performance and oddity of the Lefty (chicks dig it). However, the C'dale Headshock Fatty suspension fork looks gay (shallow, I know).

Whatever your feeling (and even if you're an unbeliever), I guarantee you'll enjoy the two minutes you spend checking out the Mountain Bike Militia's field test of the DD60 Headshock. I think Cannondale would be proud.

TIPS: You look really cool sans helmet ...

Just picked up a link to this face plant on the Blue Collar Mountain Biking site. It's definitely worth watching; then show it to your kids (or someone else's) and point out what an idiot this guy is for not even wearing a helmet. Just a reminder to ride smart. Beware when showing this to kids that there are a couple of "F" bombs thrown in near the end.

TALES: A crappy bike; a quality moment

My wife came home the other night with a rust-encrusted, store-brand cruiser she'd found curbside, in the hope that we could clean it up for her mom, who'll be visiting soon. I wanted a picture of our new addition before I started working on it, so I got my daughter to hop on. Though I still have hope, my daughter's younger off-road bike exploits (and some terrific crashes) have caused her some resistence to riding, so it's a rare sight indeed to see her on one. To be honest, she's said the only way she'll bike again is if she gets out of school to do it.

Anyway, she spent less than two minutes on the bike -- long enough for one ride down a grass embankment -- and promptly went back inside the house. What amazed me was the exilaration I saw on her face when I looked at the blurry picture that developed. In that brief moment, the cruiser made her forget how much she doesn't like bikes.

Half an hour later, the cruiser --not worth the effort -- sat dead on the curb with its handlebar stem still siezed sideways to the $4.95 fork set after years of neglect. But not before it, like so many other discarded bikes, had provided one last bit of invaluable joy to a rider.

TALES: Mud brothers

Saturday was absolutely perfect for riding, and we’d finally had a stretch of good weather to dry things out a bit. Unfortunately, we rode Spider Loop Sunday instead, which was exactly the opposite! It’s funny, though, how shared misery often makes for a better ride at the end of the day. The closest thing I can compare the day’s ride to is a team mud race I ran 10 years ago called the “Volkslauf” in Southern Cal (a must-run if you haven’t). Even as you scoop the mud from your pockets and out of your bike shorts, there’s just something beautiful about being exhausted and covered in filth, having stuck it out together.

When it takes three hours to clean the mud off of your bike, you have a lot of time to marvel at the fact that your wheels were even able to rotate with that much mud packed between them and the frame and how the drive train somehow continued to operate with half a pound of wet clay clogging the chain rings. Then, you reach for more Q-tips to painfully clear the orange crap out of each individual hex bolt.

New-comer Lloyd was the most impressive, muscling through the caked on slop as the only guy running “V” brakes. Garry and I both got intimately familiar with how slick the small bridges on the High Road and the Mother are when they’re wet, and Chris is planning a nasty letter to WTB on their mud-shedding Mutano tires that don’t. Lance was the hero as the only guy to make it upright down the Mother today.

The good thing about the rain was that the not-so-itsy-bitsy spiders are washed down the water spout! Unfortunately, though, more than a few black salamanders were harmed in the making of this ride as they squirmed across the trail. The great thing about riding in Okinawa is that we’re always coming across creatures we’ve never seen before (and only sometimes running over them) – this time it was a four-inch-long fluorescent green caterpillar.

Sayonara.