1 post tagged “oahu”
On vacation, I have been replacing my morning bike commute with some rides out to some of the scenic destinations here on Oahu, including my Tantalus loop the other day. Today was a typically lovely ride out to Makapuu Point. As soon as I turned out from my parents' house onto Kalanianaole, it started pouring rain on me, but I could see it was a blowing through pretty quickly so I kept rolling. Up past Hanauma Bay, the easterly winds were really knocking me around; combined with the still-wet road conditions I took it pretty slow down the descent towards Blowhole, where I stopped for a moment to snap a picture.
Past Sandy Beach, a few triathlon bikers were coming back and as we traded shakas I envied their downwind heading. There were quite a few folks teeing off at the Hawaii Kai Golf Course, undaunted by the gusts. The weather report said the winds were gusting to 20mph which seemed a little conservative as I turned to climb up from Kaloko Beach towards Makapu`u. I was tempted to keep going but I had gotten a late start and wanted to get back, so after snapping a few pics at the lookout point I turned and headed back home.
There's a saying I saw on somebody's forum sig a while back that sticks with me on days like today: "There's no such thing as a tailwind. Either it's blowing in your face or you're having a really good day." With that in mind, I was having an awesome day on the ride back to town! I zipped through Hawaii Kai and was blasting back along Kalanianaole when the day's only bit of mechanical drama manifested: accelerating from a stoplight, I shifted up the to the big chainring and derailed the chain right off! Fortunately I caught it on the right side crank arm and was able to finesse it back onto the gear without having to stop, which I was pretty happy about. The rest of the ride passed without incident and I was unable to reproduce the problem back in the garage, so I must have really cranked the shift lever over. I gave the outside limit screw a quarter turn just for safety's sake, rinsed the bike off and came inside to have a cup of coffee and write this up.
A guy could get used to this vacation stuff....
