I made a few minor changes to my bike.  I got a slightly smaller (2.1" instead of 2.25") tire in front.  From what I saw online, this is not a great tire, but it may be perfect for me since I'm mostly doing road/fire road type riding.  It was basically the only choice I had when I went to the bike shop.

I took off the soma clarence bar and the ergon grips.  Now have some (comparatively) plain northshore lizard skins grips (customized with "phlat phrog" lock-ons, but you can't see that in the photos).  Oh yeah, went back to the standard bar that came with the bike.  Some specialized bar ends.  And a custom-hack camera-pod made from reflector holder and a few bits (bolt, washer, wingnut) from home depot.

During my epic bike ride yesterday, there was one section of Nimitz Hwy that I found to be especially scary.  On google maps it's marked with a green dotted line.  There is no legend/key on the map, and my personal "intuition" is that this mean something like "ok, but not great, for bicycles".  Attempting to ride there, it was clearly evil to me.

Using the "report a problem" link (bottom right hand corner of google map display) I filed a request to either provide a key, change the color of the green dotted lines, or remove it from that section of road.

My previous experience with reporting problems turned out well.  I got them to add this section of bike path to the bicycle layer:

If you know about a more collaborative place for this kind of information, or know what dotted green lines really mean, please drop me a line.

Here is the link to the google map.

I wanted to ride my bike to the flickr friday meetup, but cheated by driving 1/2 way.  Even still, according to google maps I rode 28 miles there and back.  I need to go back and figure out exactly which portions are evil and tell google to update their map.  (I've done that before, and it actually works.)

Google maps claims that Nimitz is a bike route, but there are portions that are pretty scary.  Both on the way out and on the way back, I ended up getting off Nimitz, and going on back roads between Nimitz and Dillingham.  On the way back I ended up on a 2 foot ride strip of grass between a warehouse-style building on the right, and a curb with traffic on my left.  Not ridable at all.  I was walking my bike.

I was prepared to whine and complain about the flickr friday location, since it's so hard to get to from where I am, but when I got there, I realized that it's a fabulous place.  Fantastic views!  The ride up was actually not as bad as I feared.  Along E. Manoa Rd there were places where I was riding in the grass, and there were a few places where I was in my lowest gear, but there wasn't anywhere where I had to walk the bike.

Going back I wanted to go thru Waikiki.  I came across IT&B which seems like a cool and friendly bike shop.  They have an air pump outside the shop for anybody to check/inflate their tires.  They told me next time I should just bring my bike in rather than locking it outside.

Riding thru Waikiki was a bit challenging.  Since I was going The Wrong Way up Kalakaua, I rode on the sidewalk.  There are a lot of people in Waikiki.

Overall, a great day out riding and visiting with cool people (the flickr crowd).

new green fyxation tires. http://www.fyxation.com

old tire.  this is a 700x32c.  new tire is 700x28c.  including pics of old tire for size comparison.

old tire

old tire.  standard issue for specialized sirrus.  not bad, just boring.

it is definitely thinner than the 700x32c, but not by much

yellow furry things on the fence.

at the beach.

Looks like 16 miles (round trip) from Haleiwa Beach Park to the UH Ag Experiment Station on north shore.

I rode on the wrong side of the road on the way out so that I'd be on the beach side.  Had to pull over a few times for bikers coming towards me (they were on the correct side, so they had the right of way).  Coming over the hill to Waimea Bay was tricky since there is no room and cars parked there.  Had to walk the bike around cars.

After Waimea Bay there is a bike path.  It's twisty and bumpy and more shady than Kam Hwy so more fun to ride on than the road.  And that's not even counting the fact that there are no cars buzzing by.

Coming back was much faster going on the correct side of the road.  Coming down the hill from the Waimea Bay overlook I got into top gear.  Was going pretty fast and worried that I'd crash, but didn't.

Before my ride I got my stock pedals replaced with some new platform pedals at the Bike Factory.

Tried out the Pearl Harbor bike path today.  Not the whole thing, but some of it.  Google says I covered 4 miles, so counting back and forth I did an 8 mile ride today.  It's a very different view of things than what you see on the road.  Some good, some bad.

Map of todays ride

Friendly neighborhood power plant?

Taro/kalo in the river.  You can't tell from the pic, but the leaves were huge.  Maybe 4 feet across.

Military golf course.

A very scary bridge.  I went across and saw that the path/trail there went no where.  I came right back.

A collection of garbage in the water.  Ick.

 

Got a new Specialized Sirrus bicycle today.  Went for a wee ride from Kapolei library to White Plains beach (almost).  Clearly I am not in great bike riding shape.  I could totally feel it in my legs when there was a bit of head wind (breeze) or a grade (1%?).  But I made it out and back.

Map of my ride

Looks like I did about 7.2 miles.