Saturday, June 24, 2006

TALES: No place like home
After weeks off the bike, Tom took it easy on me Saturday morning for what I’m guessing was about 15 miles of dirt. Two weeks in Indonesia was good preparation for the Okinawa heat, but I drained the Camelbak dry in no time under the humidity. Chain broke about 10 minutes out so luckily it was Tom to the rescue. Important to mention that my dilapidated tool kit lacked a tube (punctured by crescent wrench), chain tool (rusted in place) and master link (hmmm). Note to idiot self: be self sustaining -- always!

After hitting Chibana, Spiders & Pipes and a portion of Mad Hatter, we detoured through a hole in fence to visit some old haunts of Tom’s from “back in the day.” Good rides, with a rock garden and nice chute finishing a piece of rough double track that I instantly dubbed “Happy Ending.” Surprisingly, the trails got us all of the way to La Luge in Yomitan with only a kilometer or two of pavement in between.

The Group
We’ve apparently lost a few OMBA members over the past few months, but I’m glad to see a couple of guys posting weekend ride times again. It’s been pretty dry for nearly two weeks, and the REALLY big spiders aren’t out yet, so it looks like a good week.

Selling the hard tail
Finally got up the nerve to sell my Cannondale F800. I’m getting weak under Clint’s constant prodding to enter some triathlons; if someone takes the hard tail, then I guess I’ll have to look at a road bike (only for training, of course).

Tuesday, June 13, 2006



TRIPS: Yogyakarta, Indonesia

I don't think I'm the the first who's considered riding Merapi, but I must admit that a mountain spitting fire balls is a bit further than I'm willing to go. Despite spending the past two weeks here with a Navy and Marine Corps medical team that has treated about 4,600 earthquake victims, and regardless of being able to see the glowing red rivers of lava flowing down the sides of Merapi at night from 60km away, it's tough not to at least consider riding the volcano.

It's even tougher to ignore all of the bikes (and mopeds) here in Indo. However, it's not about the distance or the downhill grade here. Here, it's about merely surviving the bike commute among thousands of cars, trucks, motorcycles, buses, horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians.

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