One of the benefits of subscribing to variety of cycling group mailing lists, two of mine are the Rivendell Owners Bunch and Bike Friday’s The Yak, is that from time to time folks come a visiting. Of course an even bigger benefit, if you travel like I do, is that sometimes you go a visiting.

As fate would have a buddy of mine and I will both be a visiting each others neighborhoods, though oddly enough we’ll be doing it at the same time and miss each other! As he puts it,”I guess it’s part of some cosmic balance!” It’s something all right. He’ll be here on Oahu at the same time I’ll be visiting the Bay Area. Cosmic balance indeed!

Because of his upcoming trip he’d asked on a couple of lists about Honolulu rides. Indeed I saw his request on both the lists I mentioned as he subscribes to both as he, like myself, owns both brands (and these are small boutique brands mind you). Even odder we both ordered the same camera (Fujifilm X100 – more on that in a few days), his arriving last Friday, mine this coming Friday. Long lost twin or what?

Now Honolulu tourist rides are something I actually know a little bit about. My friend Erich was here recently and I got to show him around a bit as documented here. Before a relative Lynette Chiang, whom I’d met through her Bike Friday connection, came through and we’d done a bit of cycling together. Add to the mix the fact that I get everywhere by bike and Honolulu just isn’t hat big and it seemed to me to be a good idea to document those ‘tourist rides.’

By that I mean rides taken to see the city, not rides that folks might want to do to maintain triathlon standard fitness while here.

Of course the problem for most folks visiting is that some of the ways to get around aren’t immediately obvious. For instance there’s a wee stretch near the eastern entrance to the Pearl Harbor bike path that I get to by crossing the road and riding on the empty sidewalk (generally very empty) for about two blocks. It beats trying to cross what can be a very busy stretch of road. I’ve done it both ways and much prefer the sidewalk even though I’m pretty firm about not riding on sidewalks.

Basically there are shortcuts and tips we residents know about that might escape the average visitor. Indeed I was looking at bit I’d mapped from the Hilton Hawaiian Village to downtown and back, taking in the waterfront, Chinatown, the capitol district and so on, and realized that there are bits, even though it’s on a map where one could get confused…am I supposed to ride down the road or the sidewalk (one short bit on Ala Moana Blvd).

So I’ve decided that as time allows I’m going to photograph and catalog some of the rides I do around town. Mostly I guess I’ll include a simple map, a few words, and some photos not just of what I consider the highlights, but also of the tricks – where to turn to get through a gate (up at UH comes to mind), and things like that.

Will I do it here? I’m considering using my other domain, veloahu.com for it. I’d had that linked to one of my Posterous spaces, but I’m not sure that’s the best solution in the long run.

We’ll seem, but it seems I have a new project!

In the last couple of weeks I’ve had a bunch of stuff arrive from Rivendell Bicycle Works not, sadly, including a new bike. That is, of course, not their fault; I haven’t ordered one…yet.

No, mostly these have been bits and pieces I ordered either during their first ever sale or shortly thereafter. Much of the stuff is destined for my soon to be orange Fujiyama, other bits seem to have found their way to my Quickbeam.

Some things my end up pulling double duty however. I’d ordered one of Riv’s big shopping sacks which was really designed to go with a large Wald basket. That, of course, required ordering the basket.

When it came in it seemed a shame to wait till my Fujiyama was back together to see how I liked it all. And thus it was that my Quickbeam ended up with a basket.

Mine is 18x13x6 which is pretty darn big. In fact, it may be too big for the Fujiyama which has a much smaller frame than my QB. I may end up getting the smaller basket for that or another large one…hmmm…

In any case I was worried that it might detract from the look of my QB (which needs a good cleaning), but in fact it looks pretty good. You can see the whole bike with it mounted right here…

It hasn’t affected the ride much at all as I’ve already got a large rack up front and am used to carrying a pretty good load there. It’s really just easier now.

I’ve been giving some thought to taking the QB back down to basics and having lean and fun city bike…but ya know, it’s not like I’m going anywhere fast in town and town is exactly when I need to be able to carry stuff so…

I guess I’m back to thinking about n+1 bikes again…I need a lean bike to ride out of town…one that mean and lean…and, oh yeah, carry a bunch of stuff for camping…him…n+1+1 methinks.

Aloha!

Well now I’ve really gone and done it…yes!

Sometime this Spring I’ll be rolling down the coast of Oregon with my RAGBRAI buddy Erich. It’s going to be a leisurely ride of about 400 miles. We aren’t going to push it and we may even take a day off somewhere along the way…or not. In any case the point isn’t that I’m going, I wrote about that before. The point is that I actually purchased the tickets.

And, because it seemed like a good idea for only $100 or so more, I’m headed to the Bay Area for a few days after the ride. A few days in the Bay Area for only $100…well not exactly. The addition fare for the plane turned out to be about $100. Clearly it’ll cost more to stay there.

Based on a recommendation from in post on the RBW Owners Bunch Google Group I’ll be staying at The Mosser in a tiny little room with a shared bathroom. Intrigued? At the price it’s hard to turn down. The place generally gets rave reviews and the location, as well as the fact that BART station is just down the block sold me. Since I don’t want to get a car while I’m there (really don’t need one with a bike and the BART), it’s perfect.

I’ll know more soon, but it’s done…I’m going and it’s moved beyond the ‘thinking about it’ and the ‘making a decision’ stage. I’m set. Now all I have to do is put in hundreds of miles in prep rides so I don’t die on the hills that are sure to always be in front of me.

Aloha!

Okay, I’m officially impressed with the ride of my Bridgestone. Indeed it’s a shame I’m back in Honolulu and it’s still in Hilo. I want to go back now so I can ride it again tomorrow. I’m going to have to content myself with my RB-1′s spiritual grandchild, my Rivendell Quickbeam.

I put in almost 29 miles today riding from my folks home into town, then out to the Panaewa Zoo (one of my favorite places), back down to sea level and out Keaukaha way, and finally back home.

Here’s how nice the ride was..I figured I’d put in just over 20 miles when in fact I was bit short of 30. The ride felt really fast to me overall, but I wasn’t timing it so I could be pretty far off.

Actually the ride didn’t start that well. I must have banged my rear derailleur bar-end shifter or something because it the gear kept slipping back onto the smallest cog. This wasn’t great but as the initial bit of the ride is downhill I was able to cope with it. Once I was in town I did a wee bit of tightening and the bike shifted fine for the rest of the day. I didn’t stop to do this on the way into town as I had an appointment and didn’t want to take the time out to make a fix for something that wasn’t really hurting me at that point.

Once I was fixed up and my obligation finished I was off to the zoo. It’s an easy climb of about 400 feet over a few miles so while you do notice you are going up it’s not really a lot like climbing hill after hill in Iowa. It’s just up.

After a cold drink at the zoo and quick walk around it was time to head back down. Down is fun. In fact I felt so good at the end of down I did flat for a few extra miles. Then it was time to go home, shower, have lunch with my mom (and answer a few of her Facebook questions – yes, she’s on FB), and get to the airport.

I can’t wait to go back so I can do this all over again…

I’d love to say I managed to spend the entire weekend riding my new (old) Bridgestone, but I’ve been very busy with some of the obligations that brought me to the Big Island. Still I did manage about 45 minutes last this afternoon and have to admit that this bike is one sweet ride.

It’s a comfortable and stable frame. I can hold a line with ease and on descents it feels very steady and not at all “twitchy.”

Even though I’m friction shifting with bar-ends I’m not having any trouble find gears on the 8 speed cluster and the front derailleur is accurate as well. Basically this bike is solid.

Still I’m not completely happy with the handlebars, which came from the Raleigh, and I’m pretty much convinced I want to put some moustache bars on this bike. I’m used to those from my Quickbeam. I can stretch out to get out of the wind just fine with them, but seem to have more comfortable postions available when I’m more upright than I can find with these drops.

It’ll mean I have to swap out the brake levers as well to something more modern -not a big problem in my book. And all that will probably mean I’ve got to recable the bike though there might be enough slack available. No time this trip, but I’ll be back soon enough.

I’ve also spent a fair bit of time looking at the differences between the RB-1 and the RB-2 in images I can find and I’m fairly certain this is an RB-1. Again it’s not a big deal, the bike is good and I’m happy.

Aloha!