A Beautiful Tree, With a Bike, Under Another Tree

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

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...

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

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!

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!

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!!!