My Cycling Page - 私のサイクリングページ

Powertap Withdrawls...

2007-06-27T21:35:00.001-10:00

NOT!!!

Today I did 4 loops (from sign at low point to top dip in road) of Tripler in pretty windy tradewind conditions:

1 - 9:05 high cadence tempo climbing
2 - 9:05 med-high cad tempo climbing
3 - 9:00 bigger gear where possible
4 - 8:35 1 min on / 1 min off (standing 15-20 seconds each on)

I remember that I usually do this climb in 9 minutes ??? flat...so the first one was OK in 9:05 since I was just tempo climbing.

I went a little harder on the 2nd climb, but could only manage the same time - making me a little perturbed.

The third time, I tried to go faster.....but was only 5 seconds better! That 3rd lap made me mad, so I decided to do 1 on/1 off to the top on the forth lap...8:35...more like it!!!

Unfortunately...I don't have NO POWER DATA cause that d@mn Powertap is on the blink, so I've got no idea of whether the windy conditions had anything to do with the times :-(

Oh well.....just need to keep the faith...

From Last Weeks Cambio Stage Race Time Trial

2007-06-22T20:47:00.000-10:00

Steven, originally uploaded by IF Darin.

This just in...Wow!!!...the D-man's photo skills are starting to make me look good...i think he may be selling his bike and taking up a new hobby!!!

Here just hitting steep parts near the bottom of the 850' Pupukea Climb.

Thank goodness I had 650 wheels + 39 small ring + 27 cog on the rear. Made the climb much more manegable...being able to spin to recover.

Cambio Stage Race - June 16th and 17th

2007-06-21T22:28:00.000-10:00

This past Sunday, June 17th, was the Kalaeloa RR. The only difference from last years race was that this year, a short time trial was added on Saturday, which made it a 2 day stage race.

Since I wasn't feeling all that "chipper" last week, I only decided to do the race on Friday - after getting taunted by my bicycle insider guy. Luckily now that I have a dedicated TT bike, all I had to do was change my wheels out. Instead of using my Spinergy rear wheel, I used the rear wheel that came with the bike, since there was going to be a 850 ft climb at the end of the TT and the Spinergy rear wheel is very flexy.

Stage 1 Map: http://www.hawaiicyclingcup.com/alohastate_stage1_tt.pdf

There was a lot of guessing by everyone whether to use a heavier TT bike or a lighter road bike. In my case, my TT bike is almost 3 pounds heavier than my road bike - but I decided to just use my TT bike since I only used it once so far.

Saturday morning brought wet roads for most of the TT and my bike ended up looking like a mess.

Since I decided to race my 4 pound overweight ar$e in the 1-2-3 field, instead of the 4-5 field, I would say that I did OK (27:40) in the TT as the first 13 or so minutes were fast and pretty flat, then I took another 14 and a 1/2 minutes on the Pupukea climb. Ended up placing 4th in the Master Men field about a 1-1/2 minutes behind the big hitters in the MM field who ended up all doing it in the 26 minute range.

Me motoring along from Haleiwa to the Pupukea Safeway store: http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/OrderPage.aspx?pi=0NKM0007000038&po=38&c=

Sundays road race was another tooth puller as I only decided to do it at 6:20am on Sunday morning. I mean, since I wasn't feeling it and all, a slug fest 50 miler with the 1-2-3 field was not something I was really looking forward too.

This years race was a waaaayyyy harder than last years!!! Now this is what bike racing is all about...really hard repeated jumps and very high speeds. I would say that bad positioning (and not enough conditioning) caused me to get popped on about the 13th lap.

It was a subtle attack that I didn't think was going to really pan out...so I reacted a little to slowly, and once I realized they weren't slowing down, I went balls to the walls for as long as I could to try to get on. I was just praying that I could keep my speed up until they slowed down...but this time, they didn't slow down :-(

Oh well...live and learn...

In the other big race, my friend Mark did really good and took 2nd overall in the MM4-5 field. Mark decided to use a pure road bike for Stage 1: http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/OrderPage.aspx?pi=0NKM0007000012&po=12&c

Results to be posted on: http://cambiamento.wordpress.com/

My 16 pound race machine I used in the 15 lap, 50 mile, Stage 2 race.

57 Min 40 Sec - Hawaii State 40Km TT

2007-05-21T23:00:00.000-10:00

I finally did it...

So I've had one week to digest the fact that I finally "offically" broke the 1 hour barrier in Oahu's only 40km time trial. And considering all my prior year's times ( http://mycyclingpage.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html) instead of just getting under 1 hour, I pretty much blasted through that barrier with the 57:40, good for the fifth fastest time of the day. I was out in 30:30 and back in 27:10...and ttytt...it feels pretty darn good :-)

Some Pictures:

Me out of the starter's box:http://www.printroom.com/ViewGalleryPhoto.asp?userid=Nostalgia-Studios&gallery_id=685080&image_id=14

Me front shots: http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/OrderPage.aspx?pi=0NKM0006000004&po=4&c & http://www.printroom.com/ViewGalleryPhoto.asp?userid=Nostalgia-Studios&gallery_id=685080&image_id=138

Me on the return leg after my aerobottle got flung off: http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/OrderPage.aspx?pi=0NKM0006000056&po=56&c

The D-man: http://www.printroom.com/ViewGalleryPhoto.asp?userid=Nostalgia-Studios&gallery_id=685080&image_id=101 & http://www.printroom.com/ViewGalleryPhoto.asp?userid=Nostalgia-Studios&gallery_id=685080&image_id=38

Mark: http://www.printroom.com/ViewGalleryPhoto.asp?userid=Nostalgia-Studios&gallery_id=685080&image_id=51 & http://www.printroom.com/ViewGalleryPhoto.asp?userid=Nostalgia-Studios&gallery_id=685080&image_id=85

David: http://www.printroom.com/ViewGalleryPhoto.asp?userid=Nostalgia%2DStudios&gallery_id=685080&tcount=193&scount=3 & http://www.printroom.com/ViewGalleryPhoto.asp?userid=Nostalgia%2DStudios&gallery_id=685080&tcount=193&scount=66

Ken: http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/OrderPage.aspx?pi=0NKM0006000044&po=44&c

The planets and the moon must have really been aligned last Sunday, not to mention all the new TT bikes that I saw, as many riders did PRs last Sunday, with LOTS of people getting under the one hour mark. Amazing...

Results: http://quick-release.googlegroups.com/web/STATETT.07.OVERALL.HTM?gda=fD5uF0cAAABftAvvm3x-Z-91VnxjB0DEDwABiLa8pmzyF3htuX5Wg2G1qiJ7UbTIup-M2XPURDRWa1R43ZqeSJuOwyQaoM46gfVflEOe4DEApVsqHiOiYA

Sans Powertap and Training On Faith: For the first time in the last 3 year I didn't use my PT for this race...I'm on a sort of Powertap boycott since it was giving me problems about a month or two ago (Not to mention the new TT bike has 650 wheels).

Infact, since the Tantalus TT, I've been training Old School style...with no PT or HRM. Two things I've learned is that by training old school...you've got to really really really listen to your body when riding, and especailly while TTing. And the second thing is that you are truly training on "faith" as you have no real concrete proof that you're improving...you just gotta believe that your are. So sometimes, I feel like I go that little extra bit harder...as insurace to make sure I'm getting faster. My bicycle insider guy is just daring me to see how long this will last...we'll see...

Cervelo P2C and No Excuses Anymore: I love this bike - and as I said in my previous post, "it's all rider now!" However, I still know I can't take ALL the credit as I KNOW my new P2C (and the position it let me get into) probably had a lot to do with it.

Other than the Cervelo's P3C, the P2C has got to be the most aero TT bike around...especially in the 650c wheel size, as I think the Cervelos are the only ones with a faired rear wheel in the 650c size. But, with the 650c wheels, the rear chainstay is LESS than 370mm - VERY SHORT and NOT GOOD for the chainline and friction losses. To help aleviate this, I was lucky that my good friend David Lum found a nice guy who let me use his 56 tooth chainring. With this ring, I was able to mostly run in the center of the rear cogset...and thank goodness as the tailwinds on the return leg had me using the 56x11 for about 1/4 of the time on the way back!

650c Spinergys: Thank goodness I didn't sell these wheels. I've got to say that these old school aero wheels are really fast!!! The day before the race, I did a one hour shakedown ride with the Spinergys and the wheels felt extremely quick with 650x19 Continental Gran Prix 3000s. I hadn't used this wheelset since about 2001 or so and fortunately, the rubber still seemed pretty good as I pumped them up to 140 psi. The profile of this tire and wheelset are just so narrow that I felt like it just cut through the wind...they must have worked. But...I wonder how much faster a rear disk and some lower crr tires like the Michelin Pro Race 2s would have been...oh well, I'm not complaining...

Me

David who got me the 56 tooth chainring and 303 Zipps (which I thought about using)...

After the race we were all invited down by Carl and Howard to the most beautiful beach house I've ever seen for lunch with the QuickRelease Cycling Team who sponsered the race. There was an abundance of good food, good beer, and good company as we all talked a little more cycling while enjoying the Giro on TV and the private beach in the back yard...all in all...a GREAT day...

Today was a good day...

2007-05-21T20:46:00.001-10:00

The bike did its job...

About the only semi-lousy thing that happend in today's 40km State TT Championship was my new aero bottle being flung out at about 43kph as ran over some blot dots.

But...it was made all better at tonights "rewards" dinner at Ruby Tuesday's...when I could "show them the money!"

More to come...as I've been up since 4:45am this morning...

New Toy...

2007-05-11T22:24:00.000-10:00

This finally came in the past Tuesday and I've been up very late the last couple of nights putting this thing together..
Picked it up on Tuesday...

Unpacked a well packed bike...

New baby...

Dig this super aero headtube...slick...

My Cervelo P2C in TT trim...

Took it on its maiden voyage yesterday, trying to fine tune my position for this weeks State 40km TT. Took it out again this afternoon and for the first time on a pretty windy day, did a 2 way average of 40.1 kph on lagoon with a pretty stiff wind.....so....I'm happy.

This bike is awesome and hopefully I can finally break the 1 hr barrier on Sunday :-)

At least I can't blame the equipment...it's all rider now...

Sent to: www.mycyclingpage.blogspot.com

2007 Metric Century Bike Ride

2007-05-05T22:46:00.000-10:00

2007 Metric Century Bike Ride, originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

Here I am resting at Shark's Cove w/ my brother's custom Teesdale.

Last Sunday was the 2007 Metric Century Bike Ride.

Me, my brother, Todd, Darin and Mark all did the 100k (93k actually) ride. Other than for a short and hard downpour, the ride was again the best HBL ride on the Island.

Took some hard pulls once the main pack passed the start of the State 40k TT at Malaekahana Bay and did one last hard pull out of Kahana Bay, then just cruised to the turn around.

On the way back, we rode back in a 4 man rotation until the cramps set in for Mark and Darin who were riding their TT bikes.

Staging area filling up.

Staging area full!!!

Tantalus Video

2007-04-09T22:51:00.001-10:00

Just got this hot off the e-mail from my friends Mark and Liana - the two shadow people. This was taken from the steepest part of Tantalus which is about half way up to the top.

It may look like I'm going pretty fast (and breathing real hard - if you listen good)...but...that was only a show for the camera... :-D

Poser...

2007-04-07T21:21:00.000-10:00

Posing..., originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

Good Friday and Saturday Riding -

After last weeks Tantalus Time Trial I spent this week dialing in my TT position during the week, and rode long yesterday and today.

Yesterday was the Good Friday holiday so I headed out late and did a Pali loop, 3:20 ride time and about 85km. Wasn't feeling all that great so I rode pretty easy all the way, sans powertap, but REALLY didn't feel good when I made the turn at Makapuu point and had to ride into a consistent Kona wind blowing out of the South for the next 2 hours...all the way home :-(

Today, I did a 3 hour, 73km recovery ride cause my legs were all shot from working on my brother's Eunos for tomorrows SCCA Autocross. Funny thing was, after about 1 hour I felt actually better than yesterday.

Heading up towards Papakolea, I was forced to stop and take a few shots as about 4 PEACOCKS were struting around in this person's driveway and yard! What a site in town. I don't know if they were wild or not, but one was a real Poser...

To www.mycyclingpage.blogspot.com

Tantalus Time Trial - Sans Power

2007-04-07T19:23:00.000-10:00

Last Sunday (April 1st) was the longest continuous running bike race in Hawaii - the Tantalus Time Trial, a true hill climb all the way.

I was really happy to turn a 23 min. 26 sec., considering, the 4 times I did it in training the weeks before the race were: 25+, 24:45, 24:45, and 24:30, so I was thinking 24 flat with my race setup would have been a stretch. Don't know how I did it but turning a time 1 minute faster than training was really a shock to me as I did it with no power meter, no heart rate, only a speedo to track my time.

I HAD planned to originally do the race WITH my powertap, just like at Haleakala, as I felt the added power pacing information would have made up for the added weight. But for the last 3 weeks, my powertap has been on an off and on mode, depending on how IT feels...so...I just said screw the power (and heart rate) for now...OLD SCHOOL MAN!!!

The winner did it in 19min flat! with lots of riders between that time and mine :-(

I weighed my bike and myself the night before and with clothes, shoes and helmet, Zipp 303s and no saddle bag and mirror and water bottles, my bike weighed 16.5 pounds and I weighed 155 pounds for a total of 171.5 pounds. Based on this weight, I figure I generated about 290-295 watts for the entire climb.

In 2004 in training, I climbed Tantalus in 23:40 with 296 watts with my training setup so I think the my estimate of 290ish is pretty close with my race setup.

Going up hill fast is soooo easy to understand, it all comes down to your power to weight ratio. For myself, I'm not really a weight weenie, but...oh well...it's either drop some weight or generate more power.

After the race, I wound down with another easy lap of Tantalus, in my 29x27, and a hard fast ride out to Hawaii Kai with Cambio riders David, Barry, and Charles. That had to have been the fastest I have ever gone out and back on Kal Highway ever! At the end of the day, I ended up with about 3h 30min total ride time, including the race.

This mongoose (along w/ the D man sacraficed not racing to take these pictures) was a spectator during last Sunday during the Tantalus Time Trial.

To www.mycyclingpage.blogspot.com

Saturday and Sunday Riding....

2007-03-11T21:23:00.000-10:00

On Saturday, it was really cloudy all day, so I didn't get out to 3:30 or so. After riding around for a little over an hour I rode up Tantalus pretty hard. Did a disappointing 24:40, exactly the same time as last week...and I felt pretty strong too. I was looking for a 24:20ish or so...

Today, it started as a cloudy day, but by 2pm, it was beautiful so I decided to do an easy recover ride, and things didn't go as planned.

After cruising around for about an hour I felt halfway decent so I decided to climb Tantalus really easily, at about 200 - 230 watts, just cruising. Got to the top, and decided to go down on the UH side, "thinking" I would just squeeze through the area that their repairing. Fat chance, when I got just past the UH lookout, this is what I found -

P@ck! No...double P@ck...No ways around (they extending a plywood barrier about 20 feet down the embankment to prevent this), above or under...I was screwed...having only a 1/4 bottle of water remaining, and with my legs all packed up from yesterday, I had to slog back to the top of Tantalus...what a way to do a recovery ride...almost bonked too...

New Deda 215 Bars

2007-03-11T21:20:00.000-10:00

Earlier this week I lost those 46cm ape-hanger bars and put on these new 44cm out-side-to-outside Deda 215 bars. Soooo much better...

And the new white tape looks so much sweeter than that grungy stuff I had on there....

2007 Mokuleia TT

2007-02-14T20:02:00.000-10:00

Cambio's 20k Mokuleia TT - Thanks Cambio!!!

This past Sunday was Cambio's 20k Mokuleia TT, the first race of Hawaii's 2007 cycling season. Of all the races in the season, this one is my favorite as it is flat, fast and not a 40k sufferfest.

My goals for the race were to average about 280 watts and be faster than 40kph. This race was not put on last year, but 2 years ago, at a little shorter distance, I averaged 281 watts and did 40.9kph. Things didn't go as planned...

First off, I can't download my PT data since both of my desktops are broken and I need a serial port to connect the powertap download connection...but, I most likely didn't average in the 280's. I wouldn't be surprised to see about 273ish power...10 watts down from 2 years ago. But at least I did just meet my other goal of 40kph. I took about 14:40 out and about 15:20 back.

My aero position was probably better than 2 years ago, however, it put me into a position where I was really fighting myself over the top of the pedal stroke, so one the way back, my power was really low. What a predicament, get further back, higher in front and lower in back for more pedaling efficeincy...and less aero. Get lower in front and more forward, and pedaling efficiency drops...

The D man did his ride early and luckly for us, took these pictures of us going through:

Mark did a good ride at 30:45.

My brother Gregg sporting a nice aero position, just needs to put in a little more work on the motor...

This is how you do it...a great aero TT position. Ray Brust (28:46) who started 1 min in back of me, passed my on the way back...

Yours truly suffering on the way back to the finish. Luckly for me...several of the faster guys in my class weren't at the race...so...my ride was good enough for a 3rd place medal :-)

Overall Top 10:
123 Mike Zagorski Elite Men 0:28:21 26.3 *missed start-27:21 est. ET
119 Eduardo Sa Master Men 35+ 0:28:26 26.2
125 Tony Lang Elite Men 0:28:42 26.0
120 Ray Brust Master Men 35+ 0:28:46 25.9
124 Tai Bletcha Elite Men 0:29:09 25.6
117 Ed Kurzenski (50) Golden Men 0:29:42 25.1
122 Chad Seymour Elite Men 0:29:46 25.1
118 Steven Serikaku Master Men 35+ 0:30:00 24.9
144 Carl Brooks Master Men 35+ 0:30:06 24.8
121 Kurt Chambers Elite Men 0:30:12 24.7

All Results: http://www.ktuh.org/files/TTResults.pdf

Syntace Streamliner Aerobar Pro Modification

2007-02-06T21:14:00.000-10:00

After going through 1 pair of Profile aerobars and 3 pars of Syantace bars, C2 in medeium, C2 in small, and now this Streamliner in small, I still wasn't fully satisfied with how comfortable the bars were...and after some thinking...how comfortable they really could be.

Let me explain. For my riding style, wanted to be able to keep both hands together, overlaping each other, similar to how you could do with the REAL old-school Profile bars. However, no bar currently on the market is now built like those old bars.

Hence, I made the following PRO MODIFICATIONS!!!

First thing I did was replace the taller Syntace elbow pads with some lower 1/4" neoprene padding. This really helped in the comfort dept.

Syntace Streamliner with modified pads to bring arms more in line with the aerobar extensions.

The next thing I did was cut off upwards extension of the left hand aerobar. This allowed me to easily have both hands grip the right side extension, and still have very quick access to the front brake. (I always felt a little spooked that I couldn't quickly get to my front brake while in the aerobars without having to detour around the left extension.)

Removed left hand extension for quicker access to the front brakes and better aerodynamics!

After test riding with this mod, I feel a lot better with my reaction time. It also looks more aero. However, having that right extension facing to the right was still not "right."

Hence...now it's true HACK TIME. After some surgery with a pipe cutter a filed down wooden dowel and some caulking, I now have the extension facing to the Liberal LEFT!!!

Finished bar, rotated right side extension to the middle using a wooden dowel and some caulking.

I test rode the bar today and it is now really comfortable and by holding both hand together in the front of my face, I feel aero like a Super G downhill ski racer. Think "Floyd L."

From the hotseat, now I can pretty much put my hands together in a relaxed and symetrical way with being all molepoe...

I hope this helps in this weekend's first TT of the season...

Arundel Bottle - Field Test

2007-01-19T23:15:00.000-10:00

WELL...it didn't take more than 15 minutes of riding on our CRAPPY CRAPPY roads till that funky shaped bottle got totally JETISONED from it's carbon cage and go sliding down the road at 50kph!!!

LUCKILY...it ended up smack in the middle of the road on the double yellow solid. And, a friendly walker stopped the traffic to pickup my bottle...making sure it didn't get squashed into a pancake.

I gotta figure out how I will modify this thing to be more secure. When it decided to go flying, it was almost full, I'm pretty sure that if you keep the bottle only, say, 1/3 full, then it wouldn't be a problem.

I will report on how I hopefully solve this problem...other than that, it still looks really cool.

TT Bike - Arundel Chrono Bottle Mounted

2007-01-17T21:33:00.000-10:00

Finally got around to mounting my new Arundel Chrono water bottle on my TT bike. And from all angles, looks pretty good and aero to me. However, I still need to try and test it out while actually riding though.

The experts say that a bottle on the seat tube is much more aero than one on the down tube, ESPECIALLY with a rear disk...so there it is (sans disk). Plus that, with the funky shape of the bottle, I found it a little difficult to grab from ANY location, however, it is a bit easier on the seat tube.

I still say, though, that the old school Campy Aero Bottle still looks すごくかっこいですね。。。

Keeping my fingers crossed, but compared to the round bottle I would have used, hopefully it will be good for...say...15 or 20 seconds on a 40k???

Cool Blue Airport Lights

2006-11-30T20:55:00.000-10:00

Cool Blue Airport Lights, originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

Still pumped up by my 41kph avg, I headed out the door late again today and did about 1hr 20min of big gear tempo riding along Lagoon Drive again.

Tonight was the first time this winter where there definetly was a crisp chill in the air that even caused a running nose. I even rode with my fleece Illuminite arm warmers...whodathunkit...here in Hawaii.

ヤッタ！！！ A New Record!!!

2006-11-29T21:39:00.000-10:00

I DID IT!!!!!

Finally, after trying for several years and many many laps, yesterday, I finally posted a 2-way average (including turnaround) of OVER 40kph on Lagoon Drive!!! The closest I've ever gotten before was about 38 or 39kph or something like that.

I think my new 41kph average was a combination of using my TT bike, the lighter winds, my new lower and more forward aerodynamic position, and having to put out 280 watts for the 10 minutes it took. And not helping any was my boxy MA-40 front wheel...

In the past, I've put out in the 290's, but that was on my regular road bike and an ALL OUT assult. Yesterday, I rode close to the edge, but not close to all out. I think my big gear training may be helping...you gotta believe!

Although the winds yesterday were unusually calm (for Lagoon Drive), the downwind section was still 5kph faster than the upwind run.

Lagoon Interval:

Duration: 10:04
Norm Power: 282
Distance: 6.887 km

______Min---Max--- Avg
Power: __0 ---398 ---281 watts
Cadence:40 ---106? ---84 rpm
Speed: 23.8 ---46.3 ---41.1 kph
Torque: 0 ---15.3 ---8.3 N-m

Downwind: 44kph avg.
Upwind: 39kph avg.

Campagnolo Aero Bottle

2006-11-26T23:19:00.000-10:00

Campagnolo Aero Bottle, originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

Isn't this the most beautiful water bottle you've ever seen???

A super cool retro Campagnolo aero water bottle. Compared to my new Arundel aero bottle (My Free-Speed Post), this one is so much nicer and classier.

Just can't seem to get my hands on one though...unless it's like here...from D's old school 1988 Bicycle Guide magazine!

Nite Riding 1

2006-11-25T00:25:00.000-10:00

Nite Riding 1, originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

Been doing a LOT of riding this past week with the holiday and all.

This picture is on Thanksgiving eve along Lagoon Drive at night. Thank goodness my homemade flame thrower was putting down some awesome light.

Last Saturday I did a 100km Pali Loop for the first time after not riding this for many many years. Got up to spooky 75kph on the decent with a Kona tailwind blowing us down the hill.

Yesterday, on Thanksgiving Day, I did the same loop only this time the decent was actually FUN since the regular trades were blowing so I only got up to 70kph spinning out my 53x12.

Nite Riding 2

2006-11-25T00:06:00.000-10:00

Nite Riding 2, originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

There was a beautiful cresent moon out low in the early evening sky this Thanksgiving Eve...keeping me company as I did about 3 laps on Lagoon Drive.

1990 Bridgestone RB-1

2006-11-19T22:55:00.000-10:00

1990 Bridgestone RB-1, originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

This is my (well...sort of mine...but that's a long long story...) old school ride, a classic 1990 Bridgestone RB-1 "Synergy."

Kind of fun, once in a while, to ride an old school bike like this just for kicks.

After my tottemo hard 100km ride this past Saturday over the Pali with D, on Sunday all I felt like doing was just cruising around, riding very ez.

Sans all the STI wires and junk, this bike is soooo clean with its simple and minimalist, small tube, non-sloping design. The RB-1 and the Bridgestone brand sort of have a cult following with the likes of Grant Peterson and Pineapple Bob and the BOB (Bridgestone Owner's Bunch) and mustacho handle bars and all...

Here's a cool link to all the Bridgestone Catalogs of the 90's: Sheldon Brown - Bridgestone.

This bike, while not all original, still has the original paint job and the original Suntour 52x40 Crankset, Suntour 6/7 Speed shifters and front and rear derailures, Sugino bottom bracket, DiaCompe brake levers and SR seat post.

Over the years I've switched out to a 6 speed 13/23 Dura Ace cassette, DA chain, DA headset, Profile stem and HB tape, various HBs (currently a Ritchey WCS bar), various seats (currently a Selle Trans-am), Mavic MA-40 rims with Campy Record hubs, DiaCompe Royle GrandComp brakes, and of course, pedals and tires.

I'm still searching for my original Bell V-1 Pro or my Skid Lid to make the total retro package though...

1990 Bridgestone RB-1

2006-11-19T22:53:00.000-10:00

1990 Bridgestone RB-1, originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

1990 Bridgestone RB-1

2006-11-19T22:51:00.000-10:00

1990 Bridgestone RB-1, originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

"ON ROULE COMME SUR UN BILLARD"

2006-11-16T21:39:00.000-10:00

Cycling Poster (After Processing), originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

Being a cyclist, I could really appreciate this poster "on roule comme sur un billard."

Imagine...rolling a big gear with an easy tailwind on the smoothest sweetest newly paved asphalt or concrete you can think of..."one rolls as on billiards"

Poster in Ruby Tuesday at Ala Moana Center, after processing in Neat Image to reduce noise.

West Maui Mountains Cycling

2006-10-11T21:09:00.000-10:00

Even though he legs were really tired after 10,000 ft. of vertical on Sunday, I decided to ride very easily out to the West Maui Mountains on Monday after the race.

Even though I started out not knowing exactly where to go, what I found was one of the most beautiful cycling roads I have ever rode in Hawaii. Two big things stood out as OUTSTANDING. One was minimal traffic - IOW...I HATE TRAFFIC!!! The second being, the scenery was unbeliveble.

Although there was a bit of eleveation give and take, going into and out of the many valleys strewn on this road (why do you think they call Maui the Valley Isle?) it was nothing anyone couldn't handle.

Hidden waterfall that anyone in a car would never see...

Now there are the kind of roads I like...

Cows and the Sea...what a strange sight to see...

Even though on a time schedule, I kept wanting to push further and further to discover what would be around the next bend. I didn't help any too, that I kept on stopping to take more and more pictures.

And I'm soooo glad that I rode far enough to discover this beautiful bay...Kahakuloa Bay. Standing on the cliffs above taking in this scenery...a perfect place to turn around...

For the rest of my pictures click here: My Haleakala Flickr Set.

Free Speed???

2006-10-01T21:10:00.000-10:00

Like the box says, "Why train when you can buy speed?" Since I've not been riding too much, I gotta find ways to buy some free speed.

For a long time now...I've always longed for that super cool old school (circa late 1980's) Campy TT water bottle. Only problem is, Campy doesn't make it any more :-(, and since that time, I haven't seen one since!

So when I saw this "Chrono" bottle, made by Arundel, at excelsports for about $60 or so...I bit! Compared to the large size round bottles I use, this thing is WAY more aero, the only down side being...if I loose the bottle...I'm s@rewed! And with the CRAPPY roads we got here on Oahu, who knows if the bottle will stay place. At least the carbon cage looks pretty thick and feels snug enough.

The design of the old school Campy bottle was maybe a bit better since, as I remember, that bottle was a bit skinnier and had a hole you could stick your hand through. This Arundel bottle only has some raised nubs...so hopefully it doesn't fall out of your hands when you're in the second half of a TT haze...

Hopefully this aero shaped thing "buys" me 15 or 20 seconds or so in a 40k...hopefully...

2006 Race to the Sun - Haleakala

2006-09-24T15:15:00.000-10:00

Haleakala was my best race of the year. Compared to Mauna Kea a few weeks earlier and all the other races I did this year, I did kind of what I was suppose to have done.

Although I didn't want to make any predictions...I felt that if I had a super race, I could do it in about 3hr 30mins. If I had a good race, it would be about 3:40's, and a so-so time would be in the 3:50's. Anything in the 4's would have been a total race meltdown considering the power to do 4hrs is probably in the 170 or so range for my weight.

So, my time of 3:39 and change, I'm pretty happy with. Especially (excuse coming up) since I did use the heavier Powertap wheel...although I did get some help from my friend Darin who let me use his super light and supple Conti Supersonic tire which I hastely mounted the nite before the race. That tire alone saved me about 70 grams compared to the heavier V Tri-comp I was going to use. I would have used Darin's super duper light 50 gram tube, but I felt that with the lighter tire, I didn't want to risk it and use my pretty light 70 gram conti tube. Luckly, I had no flats.

The race started for me in my usual fashion, LATE, due to an unscheduled but required pit stop right as they decided to start. Rushing to the line, I could have cheated in and just started semi-legally, but feeling guilty I decided to start the "legal" way. Hence, by the time I funneled through the start line, the leaders were long gone up the road already!!! So...ahem...adjusting accordingly, per my Powertap, when I actually got to the start line, my "real" time was actually closer to 3:39 than 40 :-)

With the data from my pt wheel, my ultimate plan to do under 3:30 was to try and hold an optamistic 225 watts for the entire race...FAT CHANCE! After 2hours in the saddle, my power dropped off drastically!!!

0:00 - 1:00 - 216 watts
1:00 - 2:00 - 222 watts
2:00 - 2:30 - 205 watts
2:30 - 3:00 - 184 watts
3:00 - 3:39 - 172 watts

Avg Wattage: 205 (210 normalised)
Avg Cadance: 74
Avg Speed: 15.6 kph
Dist: 57.15 km

Oh well...I'm happy time wise and even with the extra weight penalty of the PT, it definetly helped me more than it hurt. And if I could ever really hold 225 all the way to the top, I think my time will be in the low 3:20 range...although I gotta run my numbers through the analyticalcylcing calculator again, as I think my initial calcs were too conservative.

Draft @ 15kph??? (No wonder those pro riders need helpers even on climbs): Even though there was no real wind to speak of, there DEFINETLY was a draft that could be felt if you were with more than a couple people. Since I started at the rear of the race, I was passing people left and right, and you could really tell when you got behind a pack.

Passing a cheering Darin and Liana and Co. (me and Mark's support crew), Darin said that my friends David (left pic) and Mark (right pic) were WAY up the road...crap...thanks to that unscheduled pit stop. It took me about maybe 10 to 15 minuets of riding at 230-250 watts to finally get into a group of people who were going at a wattage that I felt comfortable at.

It was a pack of about 5 or 6 guys and 1 girl...with the girl at the front doing all the work!!! To my surprise, it was my teammate Louise of Tradewinds! After a couple of minutes recovering on the back, I made my way up the side and asked her why she was doing all the work, and she said that no one would pull through...now...how unchivelrous!!!

While on the front I would be putting out say 240 to 250, then I would obviously pull to the side and slow down to force the others to pull through. After a couple of rotations, I noticed that the pack was slowly dwindeling down so I decided to slow up a bit an conserve my energy in the draft instead. Just at that time, a super strong triathlete (tri-bars attached) decided to take up the pace making and pulled for a solid 30 minutes or so...just what the doctor ordered!

That tri-guy was super strong and I wasn't sure if I could match his pace...but eventually, he slowed down a little and I fould myself at the front of about 3 or 4 people. From there on, I just decided to ride by power and I started to slowly reel in people that were ahead of me.

A Funny Incident: A little over half way up the climb, I really was in a great rhythem and I sort of surprised this rider, as by this point in the race, you generally wouldn't have people passing you. So as I came up, I shifted gears, and he kind of glanced back over his left shoulder, causing his bike to veer slightly to the right. Right over this HUGE 3" high pile of COW DUNG! Luckly for him the cow pie was semi-petrified and it didn't stick to his tires...only a pair of 1" deep tracks left for prosperity...but it did slow him down and cause him to bounce off of the guardrail. When he got going straing agian he asked, "What the hell was that???" I told him, "Oh Brah...good thing that thing was dry...that was one giant pile of cow crap!...you going get some good luck now!!!" (Alghough...that usually only works with dogs...and dog luck!)

Feeling good in the middle portion of the race (for proof, see video above), I got a chance to really enjoy the scenery on this awesome climb. You go through the small kine local style Makawao town with it's kicker climb, thruough the beautiful pastures and towering pine trees in the up country Kula area, and on each switch back to the right, you can look out over the entire coastline to the ocean. Futher on up the climb, into the Haleakala National Park area, it is a semi moonscape of the rocky barren lava slopes of Haleakala above the vegitation line...awesome stuff. This has got to be one of the best races in Hawaii as there is no where on Oahu with this much smooth road, minimal traffic, and non-stop riding...a must do...

By this point, at 7,000 ft from the park entrace, after going through 4 bottles of my prefered gatorade/diet cola mix that was expertly passed up by our professional support crew, my stomach started to definetly not feel all that great. I had to literally force myself to down the powergels and hammergels I had. Stupidly...I hadn't used any gels in any training this past year and trying to do it on race day was very difficult. One thing I found though, is that the Hammer gel was MUCH easier to take than the 4x Sodium Powergels. One thing for certain, you can really feel the kick that these gels give as all of a sudden...you feel pretty good and it shows on the PT.

The last 10 or 13 km of the race was really hard for me. For some reason, I decided to stop eating as my stomach was revolting too much. Alghough I had already eaten 10 or 11 salt tablets and my legs decided to start cramping on an alternating schedule. And for the last hour or so, my power really dropped to the 180 range. To make myself feel better, I just kept on trying to think, "only 1 and 1/2 more tantalus'," oh well, that was the best I could do.

Road Kill ???: Just before the last 10k or so, I saw one of the few がんばれ riders from Japan all sprawled out along the shoulder areas of one of the turns. For a split second, thought he was dying...but upon further observation, it was obvious that he was suffering from some mean cramps! He must have also been a pretty strong rider too as I didn't catch him until this high up, I thought to myslef. Not much I could do except wave, smile, and keep on pedaling. To my shock, on the last 100 meters of the race, I heard some guy cheering someone in back of me, "you can catch him." Looking back, it was that Japan guy about 20 meters back!!! Holy crap...this was a race...was he going to sprint by me...after lying half dead in the road for I don't know how long??? As you can see by the pic, luckly for me, he was tired too and we limped in 2 seconds apart...wheww...would have hated getting passed at the line!

The last 800 meters of the race was definelty a crampfest as this last section is VERY steep, especially void of all energy in the thin air at 10,000 ft. The best I could do was to average 50 rpm in this section using my 34/27 gearing. What a bummer too...as I got caught in this last section by a teammate, Greg, whom I had passed about an hour before...oh well...atleast he was a fellow Tradewind rider...

Race to the Sun?: This year could have been renamed...Race to the Clouds...cause it was totally fogged in and FREEZING cold at the top, especially in your minimalist biking clothes. Good thing they had lots of thick blankets and hot coffee and free massages (thanks Atik) at the top. After all that effort, I decided to really soak in the post race atmosphere at the top. Braving the cold, I went up to the observation shelter at the very top of Haleakala - 10,023ft above sea level. Having been there in the past, I know how nice the view is from up there on a clear day...not today though...

19?? vs 2003 vs 2006: This is my 3rd time up Haleakala. The first time was back in the day when this race was an ITT and I think I did 4 hours or so. In 2003, with my 39/27 gearing, it was a total and utter sufferfest in 4hr 30mins or so. So...this year was MUCH better. In 2003, I remember doing the last 800 meters at a trackstanding 30 rpm (per my polar HR data).

2007???: If...I do this race again next year, for sure, I'll start on time so that I can draft and drift back, instead of trying to catch up like this year. Riding by wattage, I should be able to slot in with a group that is riding just a tad faster than my target wattage and stay in that group with the draft. That would definetly be the best way to get a faster time. Oh, that...and...having the same expert support crew (thanks Liana and Darin and Co.) and getting a new superlight PT carbon hub w/ 303...???

Parties and Ka Lima O Maui: Oh yeah, forgot to mention that one of the best things about this race is that the entry fee includes 2 awesome parties with all you can drink beer to boot. There is a pre-race party w/ all the pasta you can eat, and a post race party that had some great food provided by Outback Steakhouse, both held at the Paia Community Center. So, for $200 bucks, although on the high end, you do get 2 parties with all the beer you want, very well stocked aid stations, great volunteers and a ride down to boot, if you need it. Plus that, $100 of the fee goes to support KaLima o Maui, from what I can tell, a worthy and great organization helping the local people on Maui...it's all good...

My Fickr Photos Link: Here's a link to my Flickr Album of this race: My Pictures Maui 2006.

Websites: Cycle to the Sun Website: Cycle to the Sun
Race Results Link: Race Results
Race Photos Link: TropicalLight Website

Haleakala Video

2006-09-20T23:40:00.000-10:00

This short video of me climbing Haleakala in this year Cycle to the Sun bike race was taken by our professional support crew. Rest of the write up coming shortly...

See post above...

Haleakala 2006

2006-08-22T12:35:00.000-10:00

After my disastrous outing at Mauna Kea a couple of weeks ago, I am re-evaluating my strategy for Haleakala. See official website: www.cycletothesun.net.

One of my biggest dilemmas is whether or not to use my heavy powertap training wheel for the race. In essence, for me, it is not so much road race but a very long uphill TT instead. As such, pacing is paramount and that is where the powertap can really help.

I'm not sure since a lot of the weight is in the rim, compared to my ultra light zipp 303 tubie, but, if I add 2 pounds to my total weight, it will add about 2 minutes to my total time. (Hope this calculation doesn't get too out of wack since a lot of the added weight is in the rim.) But bad pacing can cost you...15? 20? 25 minutes or so, if you pop.

One of my problems is that with a power meter, I've become so dependent on it, you don't even need to think, just hold that number...especially for TT'ing or tempo riding.

I may need to head out and buy some ultra light tubes and maybe even tire this afternoon. My current race clincher is a top of the line V tri-comp, but it weighs in at 250 grams...versus some of the really light clinchers out there...

Here's a link to the map of the course: gpstrainer haleakala map

Sea to Stars .. 0 to 9,100' in ???

2006-08-16T23:12:00.000-10:00

3h 45min...really...NOT what I expected...

Left Oahu for Hilo on the Big Island on Friday, one day AFTER Homeland Security implemented a totally retarded ban on ALL liquids into the terminal and on to the plane. But for once, I didn't have to wait not even one second to get through the terminal security!!! What luck...guess I picked a right time to leave.

Unidentified Objects - Hilo Airport Terminal

By luck, I met climbing ace Jiri Skrobanek on the same flight and we got into Hilo at about 2:45pm. Since one of my other good friends Cal Asaeda was already in Hilo, he offered to pick us up from the airport. Well, not really Cal, but his good friend James picked us up and was nice enough to take us to the Naniloa Hotel where we met up with Mike Zagorski to go on a reconnaissance of the course.

Being a new course for us, it was really nice to get the pre-op intelligence so we knew where the main landmarks and steep sections were.

Warning Sign: Danger...Altitude Sickness...

Once we drove through the cloudy inversion layer, the view above from the 9,100 ft Onizuka Mauna Kea Visitor Center was fabulous. The temperature was a cool 70 degrees F. and the air was super clean. No wonder they put all those world class telescopes on the top of this mountain.

Clear skies from Mauna Kea to Mauna Loa.

We got back to the Naniloa at about 6pm and walked over to Hilo's world famous Ken's Pancake House which is open 24 hours a day. Looking for some pre-race carbs, Mike settled for the standard Teri Beef Plate w/ mash, while I opted for the locals favorite, Oxtail Soup w/ 2 scoops rice. Jiri, being an adventurous soul also decided to give the oxtail a try. Little did Jiri know...you NEED to use chopsticks to get the most out of this meal!

The 10:00am race start was a real luxury. Lots of time to wake up late and eat breakfast. Much earlier that morning, my good friends David Lum and Mark Miyamura pulled a "commando raid" and were on the early bird flight into Hilo. When I finally woke up at about 8:15, I saw them outside my window putting together their bikes in the lobby area. As it stood, I was the only one with a room till Sunday, so everyone piled their bike boxes and stuff into my room for pickup later that day.

The race started with a short section of neutral racing till we got out of Hilo town. Once free of the reigns, it was every man (or woman) for himself and within 10 minutes or so, the fast guys were soon up the road and out of sight.

As far as how my race went...I plain and simply...sucked! And unfortunately, this has been a common theme for me this year. The worst thing being, I feel really really strong as far as endurance goes, but having good endurance doesn't necessarily covert to speed ;-(

On the brighter side, I was truely happy to finally make it to the top without walking...just barely though as I must have ended up putting on an extra kilometer by weaving back and forth over the road to make it. My low gear of 34x32 was perfect...as I didn't HAVE to stand to make the steep sections. Both Mark and Cal used 34x27's and both HAD to stand to make the steep sections.

The course was awesome with nice scenery, few cars, smooth roads, and wide shoulders for most of the way. The 6,000 feet of climbing in 29 miles along Saddle Road was not that bad, except for several short steep kicker sections which I used my 34x32 to keep my power down.

Saddle Road steep sections.

Mauna Kea Access Road was the most challenging part of the race with 3,000 feet in 6 miles of climbing to the visitor center. I took this turn at 2h 35min, the same time winners were crossing the finish line above. From that point, I took 1h 10min to cover the final 6 miles. All I can say, is that it was STEEP, LONG, HARD, STEEP, HARD, LONG, and VERY DEPRESSING!!! It took all I had to just finish this portion of the race...the part where I thought my endurace would really shine. In fact, 3 riders passed me in this section and all were doing the zig zag to reduce the grade of the hill.

Final steep grades.

Mike and Jiri got to beat at each other and both had awesome rides. Mike, using a low gear of 38x29, took 1st with a 2h 36min ride whilst bashing the course record by over 20 minutes. Jiri, using a 34x25 came in 2nd about 3 minutes back. David did well with a 3h 30min ride, Mark did about 3h 50min, and Cal took 3rd in the Golden Masters division about a 4h ride.

All in all, the race was very very well run by the Hawaii Cycling Club. There was never a shortage of support: Gatorade, water, gels, as well as lots of moral support all along the way. The only area where I could see any improvement would be to have one last aid station half way up Mauna Kea Access Road. I spoke to several people and they all felt like they could have used an aid station in that stretch. At the finish, the food anrefreshmentsts were very good with the beef soup being my favorite.

More Pictures and Captions: My Flickr Mauna Kea Set. And here's another set of pictures from this race: Another Flickr Set.

Next next weekend, I, along with Mark, David, Jiri and Mike, will be doing it all over again, but this time to 10,000 feet at Cycle to the Sun at Haleakala. I really hope to do a lot better there...

Haleakala by Air.

34x32 Low Gears and 3 Climbs - last

2006-08-08T23:51:00.000-10:00

To test out my new "lo lo" gears, I did 3 of the steeper climbs on Oahu.

1) First up was Waialae Iki ridge to the guard shack. Didn't want to hassle with the guard about going all the way to the top so I just hung a you-e here. I did it mainly in my 34x24 and 28. I remember climbing here with a 39x25 in the past and it is a real ball buster with those gears...but very very manageable with my new gearset.

Waialae Iki (780 ft) - Guard Shack
Originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

Waialae Iki Drive near guard shack.
Waialae Iki
Map: Map of Waialae Iki Climb
Max. Elevation: 780'
Elevation gain: 770'
Distance: 2.7 km
Avg. Grade: 8.7%
Max. Grade: 15%

2) Next was Hale Koa Ridge - a first time ascent for me and I must say, this road has got to be the steepest sustained climb on the Island! I took over 20 minutes grinding away in my 34x32. It was hard to keep the front end pointed straight due to the mini-wheelies I was pulling!

Halekoa Dr. (1,300 ft) - Top
Originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

Top of Halekoa Drive.

Hale Koa Drive - 1/2 Way
Originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

Part of the way up...the picture doesn't do any justice to the steepness of the road!

Halekoa Ridge
Map: Map of Halekoa Drive Climb
Max. Elevation: 1,300'
Elevation gain: 1,170'
Distance: 3.2 km
Avg. Grade: 11.3%
Max. Grade: 16%

3) After Hale Koa, I went straight up Wilhelmina Rise! That was another very steep but shorter step climb. For just the Wilhelmina Rise section, the average grade was close to 15%. These stats are if you include the loop to the top of Maunawili Heights.

Maunawili Heights (1,045 ft) - Top
Originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

At the top of Maunawili Heights, near the entrance to the Maunawili Trail.

Wilhelmina Rise w/ Maunawili Loop
Map: Map of Wilhelmina Rise Climb
Max. Elevation: 1,045'
Elevation Gain: 845'
Distance: 2.0 km
Avg. Grade: 13.2%
Max. Grade: 18%

Overall, the mtb gearing on the road bike worked perfectly as I was able to keep my power down (230-250ish) and still not be lugging the steep parts too badly...kind of what I expect (hope???) to be doing on the 17% sections of Mauna Kea. I just hope my 34x32 gearing is low enough...cause I would hate to walk!

34x32 Low Gears and 3 Climbs - 1

2006-08-07T23:18:00.001-10:00

Modified my bike this past Sunday in preparation for this comings Saturday's +9,000 foot Sea to Stars ascent of Mauna Kea.

I had to do a lot of work to get my 11x32 XT mtb cassette to work which included scavaging the XT mtb deraillure off of my Gary Fisher mtb to accomadate the extra chain slack and large cassette. Since I didn't want ot break the chain, I also had to take off the pulleys to remove and replace the rear deraillure. I also had to install my old 9 speed shifter on the right side. With this cassette and my compact crankset, I now have a low gear of 34x32 for almost a 1:1 ratio. Kind of reminds me of the gearset from my old Suzuki GSF400.

To test out my new gearset, I rode late Sunday afternoon and did 3 of the steeper climbs on Oahu all while trying to simulate the effort for Mauna kea, hence I tempo climbed all 3 without trying to push too hard.

Sea to Stars - Mauna Kea

2006-08-03T21:40:00.000-10:00

Got my air, got my hotel, now all I need is the legs for this race.

Since I never did this race before, I was lucky to get some good advice from my friend Rick Armstong who took 2nd in this race a couple of years ago. He is a super strong rider and he felt like his 39x29 @ 40ish rpm was just TOO HARD for the very steep, as in 17%!!!, last part of this race!!! Since I definetly have less power than him and, since I also weigh about 5 or 7 pounds more, I need to come up with some very special gearing for this race.

Basically, I'm ditching my right side (rear) 10 speed shifter for my old 9 speed shifter. Then I'm taking off my 12x27 cassette and putting on an old 9 speed XT 11x32 cassette which, by the way, weighs a ton! Then I'm taking off my 10 speed Dura Ace crankset and putting on that new (100 gram heavier) compact Shimano crankset that just got in my bike loot. This will give me a stump pulling low gear of 34x32!!!

If all this added weight doesn't hurt too badly, I think I will make good use of the gearing towards the end of the race...

Riding and Riding and Riding...

2006-08-02T22:06:00.000-10:00

Been feeling pretty good as I have been doing a LOT of riding over the last two weeks - over 11 hours each! And why am I doing this??? Well this month is going to be a BIG month.

This weekend, there is going to be a Stage Race with 3 stages over two days. I will probably do one or two or maybe even all 3 stages of this race.

Then on the next weekend, it gets BIGGER, as in Mauna Kea, 9,130 feet above sea level big.

Then two weeks after that, it gets even BIGGER, as in Haleakala, 10,005 feet above sea level big.

Then the next weekend (in Sept. actually), it is the annual, round Oahu, Dick Evans Memorial Road Race.

Then a couple weeks after that, it is the annual Honolulu Century Ride.

Whew...that's a lot of racing (riding for me)!

Le Tour De France - Both of Them

2006-07-20T23:38:00.000-10:00

Pro TDF: This years Tour has been the most exciting in the last 5 years! Especially when I checked the news in the morning and found out that Phonak's Floyd Landis was now in 3rd place overall!!!

With the playing field somehow leveled (no dopers maybe???) it seems like much more riders are in the action for the podium. After yesterday's painful ride by Floyd Landis, I honestly felt that there was absolutely NO WAY for him to even get close to the podium.

But that was where my rational thinking ended and his dream began. According to the reports, he felt as if he really let his team down and because of this, he decided to attack very early in today's stage. Axel Merckx, his teammate, told him not to give up and to attack! So on the first big climb today, that is exactly what he did. Being so early in the race, the main contenders figured they would give him a chance to fry himself thinking that it was a suicide move. But little did they know that it was going to be a special day for Floyd.

As you may have noticed, Floyd was riding with a Powertap since they need to actually ADD weight to his bike since it is under the UCI minimum weight. According to one of his coaches who can get the power data via telemetery, he put out about 330+ on the first climb, then about 360+ on the second, then about 390ish on the third, and probably about the same on the forth climb. Unreal!!!

In my own little personal tdf, I did my same 3x1 intervals on Tantalus yesterday and put out a measly 289 watts during the 3' on intervals. But, at least that was better than last week when I put out 282 during the 3' on portions. Yesterdays wattage averaged out to about 268 for the entire climb and a time of 25'13", about 40 seconds faster than last week. Kind of really puts the pro's wattage into perspective considering the wattage AND distance AND vertical their doing...Wow!

In my second hilly stage, today, I did 3 loops of Tripler at a easy recovery climbing pace...considering yesterdays Tantalus stage, I didn't want to burn any matches today :-)

Bike Loot and Tantalus

2006-07-13T00:07:00.000-10:00

Here's the latest BIKE LOOT that I've got:

4 My TT Bike:

*Shimano Dura Ace 10 Barcons

*Shimano Dura Ace 10 11-23 Cassette (for flatish races)

*Shimano Brake Pad Inserts

4 My Road Bike:

*Shimano Dura Ace 10 Front Deraillure (Old 9 speed to TT Bike)

*Shimano Brake Pad Inserts

*Shimano 50/34 Compact Crankset (To be used for "special" races)

*Deda 215 Classic Bend Roadbar (Trying 42cm in place of my 44cm)

Slowly putting them on my bikes.

Btw, I did Tantalus this afternoon and there were a bunch of "kook" cars up there today. Please be careful when you ride up there as there are lots of crackheads and impatient dumba$$e$ (1 driving a white van - and NOT a tour van) up there nowadays. I hope they get the Manoa side open ASAP!

But on a good note, my new Ti road bike was absolutely awesome since I decided to do some medium hard big gear 3 min on, 1 min off intervals. Averaged about 280 without killing myself during the 6 on intervals and the stiffness of the new frame really helps when you are pushing a bigger gear.

New TT Machine

2006-07-08T00:16:00.000-10:00

I've been spending this past week putting together my "new" TT bike. I'm using my old LOOK KX road frame and converting it over to a TT setup with all of my left over parts.

One big dilemma was whether to stick with 9 speed on this bike since I have a ton of 9 speed cassettes. But after considering what a pain it is to change cassettes to use my sole Powertap which is currently set up with 10 speed, I decided to bite the bullet and go with 10 on this bike too.

I actually test rode the bike this past Thursday and it feels really fast!!! Gotta love that slack 72.5 seattube angle;-)

Kalaeloa Road Race

2006-06-19T21:25:00.000-10:00

This past Sunday's Cambio/Core Hawaii Kalaeloa - Aloha State Games Road Race was the first mass start cycling road race of the year. As usual, it was held on the fast and flat 3.5 mile loop course in Kalaeloa - formally Barbers Point Naval Air Station. Different for this year was the start/finish taking place on the former "backside" of the course. This made the dash for the finishing sprint a LOT safer as there was no longer a 90 degree turn needing to be taken at +30mph. But, it did make the finish sprint much harder as it was now smack into the persistent trades that were blowing all day.

Combined Senior and Master Men 1/2/3 Race: Amazingly and VERY difficult to do on this course, 3 master men managed to breakaway AND stay away for over 30+ miles and the win! At the time the break went off the front, I think most figured it was way to early for it to succeed as it was windy. But as Eric Dekker knows, you can never tell unless you try.

As 3 teams were represented in the break: Tony Lang of Tradewinds (my team), Carl Brooks of QuickRelease, and the amazing Ray Brust of Boca, the chase was basically left up to Cambio/Core Hawaii who had 4 riders in the pack including Malaekahana TT Champion Ricky Armstrong, Cycle to the Sun co-Winner Jiri Skrobanek, strong riders Jon Mina and Jon Akana, and, several solo-team riders including Tai Blechta, one of the fastest triathletes in the State, and top ex-Hawaii rider Mike Okura who was visiting from the mainland.

But as sometimes happens in races, the chase was brisk but never fully organized into a rotating paceline, and with 3 teams not contributing, the break ended up staying away with Ray Brust out running Tony Lang for the win. I guess it shouldn't be all that unbelievable though, when you consider the riders, horsepower, and savvy the breakaway had.

While back in the pack, though, I know the race could have been harder but several of the strongest riders like Mike Zagorski and my teammate Thomas Novikoff now had their hands (spokes?) tied since they couldn't really chase down their own teammates. For them, I'm sure it was sort of like bringing a ton of fireworks to the party, yet not being able to really light any of them off.

As for my own performance, I usually have a decent sprint, unfortunately, my plans were too big for my legs! Coming thru the final turn and carrying a lot of speed, I decided in an instant to drop the hammer right there and try and hold it to the finish. Unfortuantely, combined with the headwind I mentioned earlier and how my legs actually were, the hammer dropping was just way too early. This in turn, though, sort of forced everyone else to go early too and from that point on, it was just a matter of who could hold out to the finish with my friend Jiri besting everyone in the dwindled pack.

On a good point, my new custom Ti bike performed like a serious race machine as the stiffness in the front end really made cornering at race speeds fun again. In race trim and with my 303 tubulars mounted, the bike comes in at a very spiffy 16.4 pounds!

Other Races: The fields in the other races were also VERY large and they ended up splitting the Master Men 4/5 and Senior Men 4/5 races which was suppose to be one big field of about 60+ riders! I was really surprised that morning to see many of my strong age-group triathlete friends from the former TriMoving team racing. They would ususally never do a road race but I guess since their "new" team, Cambio/Core Hawaii was sponsoring the race, many of them decided to do it! Talking to Daryl and "Fishman" and Darren and Gail Hamada after the race, I could tell they had a lot of fun. Unfortunately for my ski partner Cal, he didn't get the full "fun" experience as he was caught up in one of the crashes in that race ;-(.

Also to my surprise were about 10 or so racers from Japan's Maritime Self Defense Force and even one racer from Korea's Naval Force? They said they were stationed in Yokosuka in Japan and were in Hawaii for some naval exercises. Those guys should be congratulated as they all RODE out that morning to the race and also had to ride back to their ship! They must have ended up putting in about 60 miles or so. I gave them a water bottle I won as a door prize.

In the end, kudos must be sent to my good friend David Lum who sacrificed racing to be the Race Promoter. If not for David, his wife and the rest of the race support crew, corner watchers, course sweepers/preppers, and sponsors, this race would have never happened. Awesome job.

40k - Post Race Analysis...

2006-05-29T21:32:00.000-10:00

"May be" was right...as I mentioned in my previous post...due to the extremely high tides caused by the new moon and, due to Mars, Jupiter and Venus being 5 degrees out of alignment, my race this past weekend DIDN'T go as planned :-(

First of all, I didn't break an hour, clocking in at 1:00:47.
Secondly, my average power output, 252 watts, was the lowest in 3 years for this race. I held 258 watts outbound, and only 244 on the return.

Considering I felt my aerodynamics were definetly better than last year.
And considering that I had good legs coming into the race.
But most of all, considering the fact that I really HURT myself as I could hardly pedal my bike during my warm down and I could hardly walk all afternoon!
I was sort of dissapointed...to say the least...

After analyzing my power data, even if I had held an average of 259 like last year, I would have still done about 1:00:05 or so - according to the formulas on this site Analytic Cycling.

To me, the conditions this year were a little worse than last, but I'm not using that as an excuse since several people went faster this year too. I guess it's back to the drawing board to find about 1 sec a kilometer.

40k TT Time

2006-05-23T21:54:00.000-10:00

Due to all kinds of excuses and other things, this coming Sunday is going to be my first race of the year. It is going to be the Team Quick Release 40K Time Trial. I'm looking forward to really CRUSHING my last year's time...considering, last year I had a flat that took over 9 minutes to fix...Hahaha...

Results:
2004 - 1h 2m 24s @ 264watts and 38.9kph.
Unofficial 2005 - 59m 40s @ 259watts and 40.1kph

Even though I put out more power in 2004, I went faster in 2005 due to using a Syntace Streamliner aerobar. In 2004 I used Cane Creek Speedbars which are just not that aero and for the same power output I found them to be just over 1kph slower than aerobars!

Remembering back to last year, I could tell during the warm up that I just didn't have it and during the ride I was really struggling to hold my wattage. Hopefully this year I will feel better, but judging by how I felt over the last couple of days...things look mediocre to me! I think I'll be keeping my workouts to the short and fast variety till Sunday.

Here's a short footage that Darin took from last years TT:

I like to ride back and high and my last year TT position was what most people would consider to be really high. So in order to get some "free speed" I've dropped my bar position by 1cm and my stem is now down on the headset. I'll figure out by Thursday whether I can comfortable ride this low. If I can, it should pay some dividends during the race...hopefully...if the wind is not too strong, and I feel good, and the moon, stars, and planets align, I can "offically" break the hour...maybe...

2006 Metric Century Mud Fest

2006-05-01T20:38:00.000-10:00

This past Sunday was Honolulu Bicycling League's annual Metric Century bike ride.

On any sunny day, imo, this is HBL's best ride, even better than the Century Bike Ride. Starting at Haleiwa's beautiful Kaiaka Beach Park and running to the 100km turnaround point at Swanzy Beach Park in Kaaawa, the scenery of Oahu's North Shore, with the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other can't be beat. But unfortunately, not this year!

The ride started under cloudy skies, but a couple of miles out of Haleiwa town (and for essentially the remainder of the ride), the roads turned wet and muddy for all the 700 or so participants. Had I known the entire ride was going to be that way, though, someone would have had to pay ME $30 to do the ride! But being the good HBL supporter that I am, I coughed up the 30 bucks and signed up as a late registrant, sans Tee, that morning.

But the show must go on and luckily for me, I was the SMARTEST guy of all!!! Just prior to the start, I decided to put on my SKS Race Blade rear fender and it truly saved my day...no irritating wet dirty road spray stripe painted up my a$$ and back! Just look at how clean my ride number is! I can tell you that no one else had a cleaner number than me! I mean, if it functions and makes life more pleasant, who cares how dorky a fender looks!!!

And as prevously mentioned, my new Ti bike performed purrrrfectly...except for the fact that I had my seat TOO and very PAINFULLY high on the way out. Once adjusted properly, the bike was flawless.

On the way out, some of the islands fastest tri guys were on the front driving the head pack to cover the first 46.5kms in a slippery and dangerous, but fast, 1h 12min 30sec. (If your wondering, the ride is NOT a true 100k but closer to 92k.) On the way back, I hooked up with my friends Mark and Darin and we got back with a slower than usual ride time of 1h 17min 40sec and covered 45.4kms.

Our return trip from Swanzy was not as easy as we were expecting, thanks to absolutely NO help from the usual trades that are suppose to really usher you back to Haleiwa. Mark was strong and doing fine for the entire ride, but D was not feeling all that great for the last 15kms or so.

Shortly after standing on the side of the road to fix the second of 2 flats, all wet and dirty, D contemplated taking a (don't tell anyone) "short cut" back to the finish in Haleiwa. Luckily for him, under threat of "exposure," he sucked it up and covered the entire distance on the official course route. If he didn't, though, this lack of intestinal fortitude would have to have been recorded for all prosperity...somewhere...maybe online??? Hahahah...lol..

Here is some of my power data from this year's ride and how it compared to 2005 and 2004. In 2005, I took more than a few really good hard pulls on the front of the pack on the way out, but this year, I just sat in and didn't take any pulls on the way out. Hence last year, I had more time in the my highest power zone.

2006

2005

2004

Happy Camper...Err...Cyclist!

2006-04-28T22:18:00.000-10:00

I gotta stop smiling so much when I ride my new bike!

I took my new Ti bike out for its first weekend rides last Saturday and Sunday and it didn't disappoint. And after riding it again on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, I'm finally getting into the rhythm of my new machine.

I wanted the bike to be "race stiff" and that is exactly what I got. Churning a large gear or spinning away, my new Ti frame transfers every ounce of power your legs can deliver straight to the rear wheel. The frame also has a racy high-strung nervous energy that I have never felt in any other bike I've owned.

The large Ti tubes in the front triangle transmits every move I make straight to the front tire patch on the road so I need to be conscious about extraneous upper body movements, yet at the same time, this front-end stiffness provides so much confidence that descending and whipping turns have become fun again.

On several other bikes I have, while taking a turn at speed, the bike would inexplicably drift wide towards the last half of the turn. On my new Ti bike though, the bike will track the exact amount of turn you've dialed from the start all the way through the end, unbelievable!!! I've also found that gusty crosswinds have no affect on this bike since the front and rear wheels don't disconcertingly move all out of plane with each other like a more flexible frame would.

I'm also really glad that I had Carl finish my frame in brush versus bead blasted as I just love the cool machined look of the brushed Ti finish. When Ti frames first came out, I hated their plain look compared to the awesome art deco paint work on Colnagos and 3 Renshos, and the deep wet candy finishes of the likes of Waterford. But as the years have gone, I've come to truly appreciate the "all business" look that a Ti finish gives to a race frame. I also like the fact that it is super easy to clean, and won't chip, rust, peel, scratch, and whatever else. Plus, sans paint, you save about 3 to 4 ounces, or so I'm told.

Like I said earlier, I gotta stop smiling so much when I ride this bike...else people may think I've lost a few titanium screws :-)

Click here to see some pictures from last weekend's bike ride: Sunday Bike Ride Pics.

Finally Here - 3 Pounds of Sweetness...

2006-04-23T22:24:00.000-10:00

Wow...it's been a long wait.

In my last post over 2 weeks ago, I thought my new custom Ti frame would be here somewhere around the 12th or 13th. Well unfortunately, due to some of this-and-that, and, the ever busy April 15th tax deadline, the USPS Priority Mail didn't get here until last Thursday - about 7 days in the mail. And, I've been so busy building this thing up!

After about 10 hours over 2 days, I finally got it all put together on Saturday at about 3:30pm thanks to my "bicycle insider" who put on my new Chris King headset and to some friendly advice from a wannabe bicycle shop owner. These are some quick shots of the bike in the buildup process.

I'll be posting a review soon...but to put it simply...the bike is unlike anything I have ever rode...

Still Waiting...But Not Much Longer

2006-04-08T18:43:00.000-10:00

These are a few pictures that Carl Strong took of my new custom Ti frame in the build process. It should have been shipped this past Friday, or maybe this coming Monday. Hope to get it sometime this week!

Here are also some of the new parts I'll be putting on the frame. I got some pretty good deals off of E-bay:

Dura Ace 10 Cassette 12/27: $110
Dura Ace 10 Shifters: $303
Chris King Headset: $113
Scott Carbon Fork: $157

I'll be scavanging the rest of the parts off of my existing frame.

Drum Roll Please...Da da da da da da...!!!

2006-03-09T20:51:00.000-10:00

FINAL "FINAL" FRAME DESIGN:

Well...here is my new custom frame (in brushed ti finish) that should be in the process of being built right now!

After more than a one month of research, thinking, calculating (different moment of inertias, weight distributions, stem lengths, fork lengths, rakes, trails, etc., ect.), staying up to 1:00am every night, designing and redesigning and redesigning another 10 times, here is the lowdown on the changes from my previous "final" design:

1) Because I like to sit waaayyy ---> way back, I extended my chainstays from 410 on my Look KX Light, to 415 on my previous design, to 423 on my final design. Why you may ask??? I took a scale and measured my weight distribution and found that I had roughly 63% on the rear tire. From everything I've read, it seems that anything between 60/40 to say 55/45 is the best for handling...so extending the chainstays will transfer a bit more weight to the front.

2) I changed my bottom bracket drop from 70mm on my Look and previous design to 73 on this new design. From what I can tell, there is no "correct" BB drop. On one hand we have world famous Serotta with about 80mm drop, most other companies at 70ish, and say Scott at 67mm. Since I use 170 cranks and have luckily not yet ground a pedal racing, I figured dropping the BB by 3mm should be better???

3) Since I increased the BB drop, I also shortened my headtube from 123 to 120.

4) I slacked my head angle from 72.5 to 72 degrees. Since I kept the same front-center (~556mm), this shortened the top tube to 537mm vs. the previous 541. If my Look had a 71 degree seat angle, it would have a 544mm virtual toptube - which I feel is just a tad long. Bringing it back by 7mm in this new design should be really good. I just hope the steering is not too "slow."

FINAL SPECS (not shown in picture):

Tubing: 3/2.5 Ti, 0.035mm Straight Gauge, Grade 9, Cold Worked Stress Relieved (CWSR)
Down Tube: 1-1/2" Diam.
Top Tube: 1-3/8" Diam.
Seat Tube: 1-1/4" Diam.
Head Tube: 1-1/2 Diam. (center area machined for lightness)
Chainstays: 7/8" Diam. (slight s-bend)
Seatstays: 3/4" Diam. (slight s-bend)
BB Drop: 73mm

Unlike steel pipes, for some reason, Ti tubing specs are usually stated in inches.

PARTS:

Other than finally upgrading to 10-speed - yipppeee!!!, I plan to scavange most of the other parts off my Look. So far I've bought a 10 speed 12-27 DA cassette and 10 speed DA shifters off of e-bay. And since I already have an extra 10 speed chain, a knowledgeable "bicycle insider" told me that's all I would need for the conversion - hopefully said insider is correct!

I'm still searching for a new fork and headset though. Ideally, I need a fork with a 372 length since this is what my frame is designed around. If I go shorter, my head angle will increase by a little and vice-a-versa. (Here's a great artice on changes in fork length and its effects: Sheldonbrown-fork lengths.)

FORK DISCRIMINATION??? (Integrated VS Non-Integrated):

Now...talking about forks...there have been a ton of good integrated forks on e-bay that I've just been passing up since said "bicycle insider" told me that you can't mix an integrated fork with a "regular" headset. Well...like some home brewed lights I heard about, we just can't always take said "bicycle insider's" knowlege as gospel anymore! See these pics below and attached link:

Discussion that goes along with these pictures!
So...I "guess" maybe I CAN look for integrated forks now - right??? But...if I can't find a fork in time, I'll just use an OuzoPro that's on my TT bike.

Now all I need to do is wait . tic . tok . tic . tok.
Hopefully I'll be posting up the real thing soon!

ttyl...

A Beautiful Tree, With a Bike, Under Another Tree

2006-02-28T21:32:00.000-10:00

A Beautiful Tree, With a Bike, Under Another Tree
Originally uploaded by dancedream2002.

This is a test post for a new way to blog.

Taa Daa - New Custom Frame Design

2006-02-17T22:37:00.000-10:00

This is how my new custom frame should look. To design the frame, I used the a great BikeCAD program I found on this site: www.bikeforest.com. To use it, though, you need to upload the BikeCAD program into your computer and you need to have some Java stuff installed too, then you need to log on to the bikeforest site to use it.

This is a drawing of my existing Look KX Light frame.

Bad Legs on a Great Climb...

2006-02-13T21:28:00.000-10:00

This weekend was nothing to write home about :-(

After last weekends good ride, I was having thoughts of some great power numbers. The long and short of it, though, was that I had to cut Sat short and ended up with only 1:45. On Sun I felt a bit better but could only manage 2:20.

Really, the only good thing was that I "found" an AWESOME new climb.

Just for fun I decided to very slowly climb Pacific Heights Road. This road, which goes through an older up-scale residential area, is in cherry condition, ultra smooth with some sweeping corners, and it's a great power climb as the grades are not that steep.

I think I'll be adding this short 3.6km climb pretty regularly into my future rides and as you can see...the scenery is nice and the neighborhood has a good "old time" Hawaii feel to it!

Note: The picture on the left shows Punchbowl from the backside. The picture on the right show a plane taking off from the Honolulu International Airport's Reef Runway.

Thurday Nite Intervals

2006-02-09T21:01:00.000-10:00

I really felt pretty good today so I really cranked up the first interval, 286w @ 9:50, but, I really went too hard cause I could only manage the second at 263w @ 10:45, and I was really dying all through that second one! From an objective standpoint, you could say this was terrible pacing, but sometimes, you just gotta crank it up to see what you got.

Now I know, I should probably try to hold about 275ish for both - next time. Compared to last week, I am probably "treading water" right now cause last Wednesday I did 268w @ 10:05 and 274w @ 10:02 - better pacing.

Starting to get some power back!

2006-02-05T21:14:00.000-10:00

Sat: 109km - 4:15 RT. After about 3 weeks of struggling, I'm finally starting to see some results as I climbed Tantalus at 269w versus 253w the week before. (That relates to about 70 seconds faster over about 5.8km.) The difference was really apparent in my recovery and sustained power output. The same could also be said for Mark and Darin as they were also stronger than a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully, this will put us on track for the first TT of the season at the end of February.

One thing that really stood out this Saturday was how cold it was all ride. I mean, how often do you see someone wearing an orange vest for the whole ride in Hawaii??? Even though we left at 9:30, it stayed pretty chilly, and the low humidity, couldy skies and strong winds kept it like that all day. Ttytt, for myself, I much rather it be a little chilly than TOO hot and humid. On days like this, I gotta remember to take my "wind breaker" (aka plastic bag under the jersey) to keep the chill at bay. Coming down Tantalus - it was FREEZING!

Sun: 54km - 2:15 RT. I went out for an ez afternoon spin and missed almost all of the first half of the Super Bowl. Although it would have probably been better to just stay home and rest, I HAD to get out and burn some calories for all the snacks I planned to eat (and ate) during the game.

Along the cycling path to Moanalua Valley, I ran across a bunch of white butterflies fluttering around in the low grass right next to the freeway. Although capturing only a fleeting moment, I can count 12 or 13 in this one picture.

New Ti Custom Frame plus a Light Update!

2006-02-01T21:38:00.000-10:00

I've finally taken the plunge.....into the world of Ti.

After daydreaming, deliberating, and dilly-dallying for over 6 months, and, after many conversations with an unnamed bike "insider," a good 1 hour conversation with Carl Strong(www.Strongracing.com) yesterday, and various e-mails and telephone calls over the last couple of weeks, I finally put down a deposit for a new titanium custom frame.

On road bikes, I've been through steel (old school Fuji, Bridgestone RB-1 out of Ishiwata, new school custom Strong out of Columbus Foco), aluminum (old school Cannondale), and carbon w/ aluminum lugs (new school Look KX Light), but I've never had or even ridden a Ti frame yet. So, I really had no choice but to give this "wonder" material a try. And with our salty air, Ti should be great with its superior corrosion resistance.

From what I've read, though, it seems Ti has a problem with stiffness, in other words, not enough it. So, I told Carl that I want my frame to be a "race" frame with the stiffness of Cannondale or of a frame made out of the new True Temper S-3 tubeset. We decided on a 38mm downtube (for bottom bracket stiffness), a 35mm toptube (for front end stiffness), a 32mm seattube (will fit a 27.2 seatpost), and standard 22mm chainstays and 19mm seatstays, all straight gauge 3/2.5 Ti. I still need to decide on whether I want the downtube to be bi-axial ovalized, whether I want s-bend seat and chainstays, and whether I want straight or tapered stays.

I'm also contemplating a thing not normally seen on a race frame, rear rack mounts. I'll need to think about this though...maybe I can also use this frame for some very light touring too.

Carl said he would probably get me a drawing this Friday. I'll update then.

LIGHT UPDATE: After a good full charge last night, I went out for a short interval session on Lagoon Drive this afternoon. I got to run my light for about 45 minutes in full darkness and let me tell you, this thing is a flame throwing BAZOOKA!!! I could kind of tell from the night before, but after tonight I'm sure of it - this thing is even BRIGHTER than car headlights!!! I had no problems running familiar roads and even at 40 kph, I couldn't "out run" the light and still had room to spare.

I'm soooo glad I didn't spend any more for a brand name light cause this thing is probably better than 95% of the stuff out there - I'd even put my light up against HID bike lights. If anything, the are in the SAME league! Anyone short on cash and considering night riding should definitely build themselves one of these. UNREAL!!!

Last Rides of January

2006-01-31T21:32:00.000-10:00

Sat: Since I didn't ride at all during the week (last week) I thought that I would be ready to rip the pedal off the bike on Saturday - NOT REALLY!

Since nobody called, I set of on my long ride by myself a little earlier than usual, 8:30ish, which is actually very late by other peoples standards. The weather was not as good as the past couple of weeks as the winds were really gusting so instead of doing Tantalus then a windy Hawaii Kai loop, I decided to do a double Tantalus instead.

I started more conservatively than the week before and averaged 254 watts for the climb. Ttytt, I was not really satisfied as I thought it would be in the 260ish range considering the 5 day rest I had. The second Tantalus, I did in 4 parts on the way back down (ie. from the top, go down a bit, climb back up, repeat until the bottom) and didn't have much in the tank. My legs for the rest of the ride (and day!) were totally shot - similar to how your legs feel after the Marathon! I ended up with 3h 53min RT and 93kms and the ride must have been hard as I actually burned more energy (Kilojoules) than the Saturday before when I had more seat time and kilometers!

There are more and more people out on the road nowadays and I saw Garrett Ito, the 2 time Dick Evans Memorial Bike Race winner in Kaimuki. I was NOT going to follow him out to Hawaii Kai after my double Tantalus though. One thing I noticed about Garrett was that he was spinning well over 100rpm all the way through Kaimuki, something to think about...

Sun: Since my legs still felt pounded, I just went out for a 2 hour ride at low power and very high cadences (taking notes from Saturday). By the end of the ride, my legs felt better.

Tues: Tonight I tested my new light out and guess what...it conked out about 30 minutes into my ride! But, not to worry as I wanted to burn whatever charge the battery had so that I can safely recharge the new battery from a fully discharged state. I'll probably use the light for some interval work on Lagoon Drive tomorrow. Btw, I had a big smile on my face as the light was AWESOME while it was working, very very bright and white!

DIY Bicycle Light - Done!

2006-01-29T21:21:00.000-10:00

Taadaaaa.....Well it ain't exactly pretty, and it ain't totally waterproof (yet) but...it works FABULOUSLY!!!

I put the finishing touches on my light today and after a short spin around the block tonight I'd have to say the verdict is in...the Naysayers must admit DEFEAT! (Ohhhh yeahhhh Gibosamamamama!!!)

The accounting:

$70.00 NiMH Battery and Charger - BatterySpace.com
$1.10 Bulb Socket - BatterSpace.com
$1.20 Fuse - BatterySpace.com
$4.60 Switch - BatterSpace.com
$6.50 20 W MR-16 Bulb - Home Depot
$2.00 PVC Fittings - Home Depot
$1.00 Screws - Home Depot
$3.60 Heat Shrink Tubing - Radio Shack
$1.00 Surgical Tubing - Kilgos
$91.00 TOTAL

Free stuff I had at home: solder, electrical tape, silicon sealer, battery pouch (from old Performance light).

Unbelievable...for under $100 bucks and a little time you can build a great functional light. In fact, this light is even better than most halogen lights out there since it uses a big MR-16 bulb versus the usual MR-11 which is much smaller!

For the geeks, this overvolted light should burn about this long per charge:

Amps: 20W /13.2V = 1.5 Amps
Battery Capacity: 4.5 Amp Hours
Theoretical Run Time: 4.5 /1.5 = 3 Hours
Probable Run Time: 80% x 3 Hours = 2.4 Hours

Can't wait to try it out later this week! I'll provide a follow up report then - and remember:

You can hit what you can't see...Ride Enlightened - Serikaku Lighting Company

Here for: Part 2
Here for: Part 1

DIY Bicycle Light - Part 2

2006-01-27T19:49:00.000-10:00

LET THERE BE LIGHT!!!!

Get out your nite sunglasses cause the Serikaku Lighting Company is IN BUSINESSSSS!!!!!

After clearing up a mix up at Batterspace.com, I finally got my 13.2V NiMH battery along with some other small do-dads to complete the job. All I need to do now is the small details like wiring, soldering and mounting. I can't wait to hit the road. The beam is really white and this thing is going to be a flame thrower out on those late interval sessions on Lagoon Drive. Stay tuned as I plan to finish it up this weekend...no matter what the Naysayers say...

For the first part of this project, see here: DIY Part 1

This weekend's long rides

2006-01-23T19:38:00.000-10:00

Saturday's Ride: Today I rode 103kms in 4 hrs 7min RT. I rode with my friends Darin and Mark and they probably ended up with close to the same mileage too since they started from Alewa. The weather was nice and cool considering we started at about 9:30 and were out on the road for close to 5 hours - thanks to a flat I got near Ala Moana.

On the climb up Tantalus, I found out that my eyes were bigger than my legs. For over 7 mins, I was surprised to see my power output at 270 watts and feeling pretty good - I thought! Then all of a sudden, I totally "blew" and REALLY struggled the rest of the climb at 235 watts for an average of 247 watts. I probably would have been smarter to climb at a steady 250 watts or so but...since I had "competition" on this ride, adrenalin took over and I went WAY to hard. This probably was the same with Mark since he said he was at 195bpm in the beginning of the climb!

The rest of our ride, except for the flat, was pretty good with some paceline work mixed in for fun. I felt decently strong till the end, Darin too (I think), Mark probably could have used a little salt.

Sunday's Ride: 68kms and 2hrs 45min. I just went out on a very easy spin and although my legs felt sort of ok, I just didn't have any "pop" at all and didn't feel that good mentally either. (So much for the theory of feeling better after the first hour.) But, in light of how I was feeling, there were some interesting things to be seen today.

One was the radio controlled car racing off of Lagoon Drive. If you've never seen RC racing in person, you wouldn't think so but, it is a very exciting spectator sport!

The other cool thing was the radio controlled yacht sailing in the Ala Moana Park Lagoon, which was very relaxing and made me want to just take a nap...under a tree...

For more ride pictures, click here:Latest Cycling Pics

Got the MOJO back!

2006-01-16T21:10:00.000-10:00

FINALLY...After not being able to ride for two weeks, I really felt like riding this weekend. And ride I did!

Sat: Jan 14th
What a nice day it was! This morning I met up with my friend Mark and since I was just coming off a cold, I decided to go ez but fairly long. I let Mark pull into most of the upwind sections with me tucked in just just hovering at about 150 to 170 watts. I thought of doing my regular long ride Tantalus climb, but after an hour warmup, I knew that it would too stressful today - even if I climbed slow! So we decided to do a Hawaii Kai loop and on the way back, do a shortend Tantalus to the stop sign at a very ez pace (Mark decided to go a little harder and hit 190hr!). Well everything went as planned and I finished the ride feeling pretty good. I ended up with 95km.

Sun: Jan 15th
My legs felt really "packed" from yesterday's ride so I just went out for an easy recovery ride today. Once thing fun about these Sunday rides is that I just cruise around and do what ever I want - no pressure to be "training!"

Today, I took some pictures of this neat sculpture called Dream Leaves in front of the new Kakaako UH Medical School, saw a shot or two of the Hawaiian Open, and on the way home, ran into my friend John from team Cambio. Since we met on Ala Wai Blvd, I rode with him all the way to Kalihi.

I also finally got to try out my new Defeet Armskins that I got as a Christmas gift from my friend Darin. They look super cool (well actually...if you look at the pics, you can tell it's the "model" making the skins look super kakkoii!) and hopefully they will work in protecting my arms from sunburn. I ended up doing 2h 35min rt and 68km.

Mon: Jan 16th (Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday)
Since it was a holiday, I decided to go out for a short afternoon spin even though my legs felt even more "packed" than yesterday. I really wanted to ride, and after about 1 hour or so, my legs actually felt better than when I started - as theory says they are supposed too! One thing about today though, for some reason there was a LOT of traffic on the road! I ended up doing 2h and 51km.

So, as you can see, it was a great weekend and the real start of my 2006! Happy New Year everybody! Click on this for all this weekend's pics!

2005 - Riding Stats

2006-01-07T12:09:00.000-10:00

Total Kms: 9,700 (6,025 Miles)
Total Hrs: 360
Total Kms in Japan: 251 (Rode with - Shizuka, Nishikawa-san, Kushima-san and wife, and Ats&Taeko and Hai-san)
Number of time up Tantalus: 37
Best Personal Race: Mokuleia TT - 28:03 @ 40.9kph @ 281w @ 19.1km
2005 State Criterium
www.sailsurf.net

That's 2005 in a nutshell! Not really that much mileage by "real racer" standards, but not that bad either...an all time high for myself. Hopefully, I can put in say about 400 hours this year...we'll see.

Good, safe and fun riding to everyone in 2006!

DIY Bicycle Light

2005-12-28T21:06:00.000-10:00

The naysayers (aka - Gibosama) say that it can't be done. That I should just cough up $300 or $400 smackers to get a brand name light like a Niterider or something. The naysayers also say that it can't be done at low cost or with good results...well...I'm up to the challenge!!!

I've been researching the possibility of building my own homemade bicycle light for a while now. So much so that last night, I went over to Home Depot and bought some of the base parts I need. Specifically, a MR16 20w 12V spot (15 degree) halogen bulb, and a 1-1/2 PVC sleeve and cap. The only other "big" items I need will be a ceramic light socket for the MR16, some connectors, and the most expensive item, a 13V or 14V rechargable battery and smart charger.

Now believe me, I didn't just dream this up. The following are just 1 or 2 of the 20 or so website showing PROOF that it can and WILL be done: DIY Bike Lights and Tim's MTB Light .

This project now even holds more urgency as just tonight, on my way home from a short spin out to Lagoon Drive, my Performance ViewPoint light really lost its "stuffing" about 1 mile from home! Hence I plan to scavenge some of the switching/wiring that came with the Performance light for my DIY light. Since the ViewPoint was a 6V system, it looks like the wires should work since it will actually be carrying LESS current with my switch over to 12V - so is what I read! (I'm no electrical engineer, in fact, I barely scraped up a "C" in Physics 272!)

Naysayers...stay tuned - with sunglasses! ;-)

This weekend's rides...

2005-12-25T18:21:00.000-10:00

Sat. 12-24 - Christmas Eve,

Another really beautiful day for a bike ride - although, the air was a little more hazy than last week. I rode solo and did pretty much the same ride as last week but I added in about 10k more for a total of 105k in 4h 5m rt. I averaged 256w on Tantalus, vs 247w the week before, and 239 the week before that. So not bad...we'll see how the next couple of weeks go. After this long ride, I feel like I can pretty much eat "in peace" with regards to putting on too much calories!

Sun. 12-24 - Christmas Day,

Today I just went out for a late afternoon 1h spin around the neighborhood. Was really great riding today as there was very little traffic out. Merry Christmas everyone!

Last weekend's long rides...

2005-12-23T12:55:00.000-10:00

Sat: 12/17/05

Last Saturday was an awesomely day for bike riding. As you can see, the weather was absolutely perfect with clear blue skies and a gentle cool (Kona) breeze.

After 2 loops on Lagoon Drive (near Honolulu International Airport) , me and my friend Darin did a loop of Tantalus then went out to Hawaii Kai and back home - almost 100k in about 3:45 (RT - ride time) or so.

I felt great as this was about my 4th or 5th ride over 3 hours since I got back from Japan. D didn't fair so well - he BONKED and had to catch a ride home with his brother...but in his defense, he would have had to ride uphill to get back home.

For a couple more pics of Sat and Sun's ride, click here: more pics!

Sun: 12/18/05

Oh how the weather can change over night!

Sunday's ride was suppose to be an ez recovery ride but...the ride ended up being REALLY hard because of the fatigue from yesterday ride and the SUPER strong winds! (Btw...it is very hard to do any kind of "easy-recovery" ride when the wind is blowing 35mph+)

It looked like a southerly storm was brewing as ominous clouds were everywhere and stiff Kona's were blowing hard off the south shore, so hard in fact, that several areas of the island experienced wind damage due to the strong winds. Oh well, a good enough reason to cut the ride short :-) as I just didn't have it either...

We'll see how I feel during tomorrow's long ride!

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2005-12-11T22:34:00.000-10:00

this is a test post - 1st blog

test again...

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Powertap Withdrawls...

From Last Weeks Cambio Stage Race Time Trial

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57 Min 40 Sec - Hawaii State 40Km TT

Today was a good day...

New Toy...

2007 Metric Century Bike Ride

Tantalus Video

Poser...

Tantalus Time Trial - Sans Power

Saturday and Sunday Riding....

New Deda 215 Bars

2007 Mokuleia TT

Syntace Streamliner Aerobar Pro Modification

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1990 Bridgestone RB-1

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New TT Machine

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40k TT Time

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Finally Here - 3 Pounds of Sweetness...

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A Beautiful Tree, With a Bike, Under Another Tree

Taa Daa - New Custom Frame Design

Bad Legs on a Great Climb...

Thurday Nite Intervals

Starting to get some power back!

New Ti Custom Frame plus a Light Update!

Last Rides of January

DIY Bicycle Light - Done!

DIY Bicycle Light - Part 2

This weekend's long rides

Got the MOJO back!

2005 - Riding Stats

DIY Bicycle Light

This weekend's rides...

Last weekend's long rides...

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