…support bike friendly upgrades… April 14, 2008
Posted by Chief in Bicycle, Biking, build, Culture, Hawaii, Information, Rides, Touring, Travel.Tags: change, life, Politics
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More on the Haleiwa Metric Century…
This is a great ride, a beautiful ride. There are hundreds of bicyclists doing this ride. This puts a lot of us on the road at the same time. Driver awareness for bicyclists will be higher than normal, due to the sheer numbers of us.
Riding a bike along this same route is not as safe the rest of the year. In fact, it is one of the more dangerous roads – with no bike paths, high numbers of tourist traffic, narrow roads, angry locals who do not want to share the road.
If you want to be a part of changing this, then add your name to the growing list of people who want the City and County of Honolulu to take immediate action and begin improving conditions along the North Shore, for a bicycle friendly route.
Email “Bicycle Mom” aka the-green-one@hawaii.rr.com with your name and title (parent, teacher, engineer, lawyer, etc). Please include whether you are a bicycle commuter, or a recreational rider.
Read more in the draft proposal she is submitting:
http://www.box.net/shared/jq9naxf28s
You can also download it from the box.net widget on the right side of this blog.
*** Update from “Bicycle Mom” ***
- 29 Neighborhood Boards supported the bicycle safety resolution
- Honolulu City Council and OMPO also adopted the resolution
- The Big Island is currently working on its resolution, and I would like to see Kauai and Maui also adopt resolutions by the end of the year
- A bill to revise the state traffic code will be introduced at the beginning of the next legislative session.
…sold bike… January 16, 2008
Posted by Chief in Bicycle, Culture, Hawaii, Information, Politics, review.Tags: life, News, Opinion, Politics
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Well, I sold the 04 Giant OCR 3…
It was just a bit too small for me. I tried riding it, but could not get comfortable on it. With the seat up high enough to allow for efficient pedaling, I was bent so far over I was almost looking behind me. Ok, it wasn’t quite that bad… but I do need a longer top tube, and a taller head tube.
Cranks… I’m thinking that when I do get a road bike or touring bike that fits me, I’ll put 180’s on it. Most XL bikes come with 175’s or 177.5’s. I feel like my legs would do better with 180’s. I know, it doesn’t sound like much of a difference, but try two exact bikes – one with 175’s and one with 177.5’s. You’d be amazed that you notice the difference of 2.5mm’s.
Other things I learned from rebuilding the OCR 3… I learned that I love my Brooks. I have over 800 miles on the Brooks, and I absolutely love it. To realize how much I love it, I just needed to ride a few miles on another seat. The seat I put on the OCR wasn’t uncomfortable or bad, but it was the “old” feeling of riding on a bike seat. The normal feeling. The way I thought all bike seats felt. The way you get used to a bike seat because that’s just how they feel.
Not anymore. The Brooks rides differently. It feels better. It is more comfortable. You can do hours and hours on a Brooks without noticing it. If someone ever asks me what bike seat is worth $100 or more, I’ll answer “Brooks”.
Let’s see… other news or thoughts on random subjects…
Entertainment: Tom Cruise is a nutjob. Apparently, so is Scott Baio. Brittney? Pretty obvious.
Politics: I was a McCain supporter, but have been more interested in Huckabee lately. Two guys that work for me are from Arkansas and have nothing but great things to say about what he has done there. Sounds promising. But, it always does, doesn’t it…
News: Too many tragedy’s to comment on. Too many families killed for no reason other than lunatic ideas. Too many kids hurt or killed. Too many people doing too many horrible things. Too much tragedy.
What else…?
Getting my pilot license. All done with my training. Got a 90 on my FAA written exam. All I have left is my oral interview, and checkride. Both scheduled for tomorrow (weather supporting).
For my recent projects since finishing the bike rebuild, check out my other blog:
Oh, and if you want an easy way to monitor several blogs, use www.bloglines.com. It is an easy one-stop site for updates to many different “rss feeds”. And no, you don’t need to know what an rss feed is to use it. You just click “ADD” and type or copy the URL of the website you want to monitor, and it finds the rss feed. Then, you just go to bloglines, and it will show you any updates on any of the sites you watch.
I use it to watch CraigsList (you can enter Craigslist searches as URL’s), comics (there are lots of comic feeds out there – hundreds), favorite threads in favorite forums like bikeforums, feeds from hobby related stuff like planetham, and (of course) any other blogs I follow like ClydesdaleFitness.
In fact, here are some feeds I use, just to get you started:
https://back2dabike.wordpress.com/feed/
http://wh7da.wordpress.com/feed/
http://www.bikeforums.net/external.php?type=rss2&forumids=20
http://www.sneakeasysjoint.com/thecyclingdude/index.rdf
http://life-cycle.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://honolulu.craigslist.org/oah/bik/index.rss
http://persistent.info/scraped/frazz.xml
http://feeds.feedburner.com/PlanetHam
http://naturesgym.wordpress.com/feed/
http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/index_fullfeed.rdf
There’s more possibilities out there, but listed are a few of mine to give you some ideas.
…back on the bike… October 2, 2007
Posted by Chief in Bicycle, Biking, build, Culture, Equipment, Hawaii, homebrew, Information, Injury, Politics, Rides, Touring, Travel, Websites.Tags: bike, ferry, Hawaii, LHT, Maui, Oahu, Politics, Surly, tour, Travel
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…so I rode the bike home from work last Thursday (yes, it has been in my office for the last month), then let my knee rest over the weekend. Everything seemed to hold up great, so I’m back to riding the bike to/from work. Rode it to/from yesterday, and rode it in this morning. Feels great to ride again. Of course, I have to fight to lose the weight that I put on while resting my knee.
In other news, I recently ordered the Arkel Briefcase pannier. That should make for getting things around at work easier. I usually commute with a trunk bag on the back, and a pair of Arkel T28’s on the front. Normally I don’t need the T42’s. However, it would occasionally be helpful to have just a little more room, and the briefcase should fit the bill nicely. I’ll post a review in the next couple weeks.
In other other news, I’ve upgraded to bibs. Yep, first it was spandex shorts, and now bibs. I must say that they are worth the extra money over the padded shorts I was wearing. So far, the only issue I have is when I had to take an emergency #2 bathroom break. I had to take my shirt off to drop the bibs! They are still worth the hassle. Oh, and I feel faster 🙂
In other other other news… I am thinking about planning my trip to Maui. One teensy problem… the state of Hawaii is totally dicking around with the new inter-island ferry. The protesting is malicious. They could have protested anytime the last five or more years while the company went through all the hassle of getting approval to conduct business in Hawaii, and getting all the environmental surveys done, and developing a plan to conduct business with minimum impact on the environment. Instead, they apparently waited until the Super Ferry started running, and protested by blocking the path and getting a judge to suspend operations, resulting in people leaving their vehicles on other islands.
There is more information on the www.superferry.com site, and in this article written by Senator Sam Slom. I’d write more, but I just get pissed off. The inter-island ferry is just what the islands need, and they are crapping on their opportunity.
Also keeping me from seriously considering a bike ride on Maui is the cost of using the Super Ferry. Here is the booking broken down:
Can you believe the prices!?!? I have to pay $30 for a fuel surcharge for me and my bike to walk onto the ferry and ride it to Maui and back. $30 just for fuel! What is the fare paying for? Why so much money? Are they not interested in being competitive with the airlines? The cost is ridiculous. If the protesters get the Super Ferry to shut down, then the taxpayers are on the hook for $40 million in bonds. Doesn’t this mean that the Super Ferry has $40 million guaranteed over some period of time? Then why do they need to charge so much? Ahhhh…
Anyway, I’m happy to be back on the bike, still looking at building a Surly Long Haul Trucker, haven’t got around to building the perfect bike light yet, and have too many projects going on…
…but I’m riding…
...bike to work to live to bike... 