Statrix Redux

My friend Erich decided to do a couple of cool things to close out 2011. For one he decided to visit his sister, Linda, here in Hawaii. That in itself is great, as, so it turns out, is his sister. For most people that would be a fitting close to the year, but not Erich.
Nope, he managed to purchase himself a Bike Friday Pocket Rocket Pro.

There is, of course, a wee bit of a story to go along with this.
Erich and I met at RAGBRAI 2011 this past summer. We were neighbors in tent city, and as he says, “Bob stuck his head out of the tent at the wrong moment.” Turns out we keep about the same schedule riding (he is a strong rider than I, but doesn’t mind my dogging it) and have pretty much the same goals on a ride: maximize fun, minimize pain, eat whenever pickings are good.
Thus was born our Christmas journey. Erich and his sister rented a place on the North Shore across from Shark’s Cove for the evening. She would take the bus and Erich and I would ride around the island. You can see our journey here…

It was quite a ride. The wind here has been rather brisk of late so the first part of our journey, into the wind was, well slow is a word that comes to mind. Still riding a bike is a blast pretty much anytime, so there you are. The toughest hill for Erich as the road up to Makapuu (for me the gulch at Castle junction seems more painful – we are entitled to our opinions). In any case he made it in fine form, ahead of me too boot:

It really was a great ride. I’ve ridden that way many time so I got to play tour guide and Erich, who has been to Hawaii several time but never ridden out this way, got to soak it all in. Luckily the wind was strong enough that he probably couldn’t hear my inane commentary along the way, but he did say he was grateful for my pointing out broken glass and potholes almost quickly enough for him to avoid them.
We finally pulled up at Shark’s Cove and sure enough, there was his sister waving and making sure we didn’t ride on by. We stayed in a converted home that’s now let out for vacationers.

It was a nice place, clean and well kept. We had a bit of a mix-up over a couple of things, but it worked out in the end. I’d stay there again, but I’d be sure communications were clear. I’m pretty sure Christmas stress gets to everyone. Enough. Go there, enjoy.
We had dinner at Shark’s Cove Grill which is a little place with a great view. It doesn’t seem like much more than a glorified lunch wagon but the boy is the food ono. I had steak and shrimp skewers dizzled with curry over brown rice and it was exactly what I needed after a long ride.
Early to bed with the order of the evening, after a trip to the very busy Pupukea Foodland for morning supplies.
The next day after puttering around a bit, getting coffee for myself, a paper for Linda, and a walk for Erich, we were off into a somewhat blustery morning. It was lovely and wet by turns as we made our way back the way we’d come the day before.
Now let’s be clear, it wasn’t a rainy day. It’s simply that every so often a rain cloud would be blown in from the ocean and let go with a shower. Then it would be over and things would be fine. Indeed it really wasn’t worth putting on a jacket as it was more refreshing than anything else. Once we pulled over to put the rain covers on some of our bags and naturally by the time we’d done that it’s had stopped raining. Go figure.
As we went past the Polynesian Cultural Center we stopped for a couple of photos we some friendly Tikis.

We kept at it, mostly into the wind which had helped us the day before. At one point we actually had to shift down to an easier gear while going downhill. That’s some wind.
When we got to Kaaawa at Uncle Bobo’s. I just love the place. I try to get there pretty much anytime I’m cycling past. Sometimes I regret eating so much, but I never regret the flavors. Ono.

Then it was off down the road again. Full. Very full.
We made it as far as the Hygenic Store in Kahaluu before I had to call it quits. If you ever meet Erich he’ll say he was done and wanted to quit, but in truth my legs were a little too tight to want to ride all the hills coming up. I’d ridden 36 miles on Sunday, 65 on Monday, and now another 30. That isn’t really so much, but I’ve only been commuting lately, not training for long rides. Discretion is the better part of valor or so I’m told, but hey, bike riding should be fun. And again kudos to the TheBus, all our buses on Oahu have bike racks and they work well. Yeah.
And the kicker? After a few hours ride, a big lunch, and a lot of dilly-dallying who should be on the bus but Linda – Erich’s sister. Go figure. The ride was a lot more fun with her along, though this wasn’t, in fact, the first time Erich and I had been on a bus together – think across Iowa.
We got of the bus downtown so I could show Erich our Chinatown and give him a tour of our waterfront. Weather on this side of the island was almost perfect – still too much wind. Naturally we had to get the classic bike and Diamond Head shot.

And that, as they say, was that.
We’ve more things planned later in the week, but our big ride was a smashing success, even if I insisted we cut it just we bit short. Listen to nothing Erich says about calling it quits unless he agrees with me.
Aloha!

Opening a new location of any business is a trying job. I’ve been involved with the process a few times and in my experience something almost always gets overlooked or is delayed. This is a case of the latter.
Safeway, the national grocery chain, has had an on and off relationship with Hawaii since at least 1929. The sold their Hawaii stores in 1935 “because of the inconvenience of proper supervision.” But in 1963 they returned to Hawaii and have been here ever since.
In the past few years they’ve been upgrading their stores, at least those here on Oahu, the first one coming to my attention was the Kapahulu location and now the freshly opened Beretania location in my neighborhood.
I’d been waiting for this one, watching the construction progress with anticipation (fairly rapid contruction actually – at least by Honolulu standards). The older Safeway, just down the street, had been looking a bit long in the tooth compared to the Kapahulu location.
When the new Safeway opened last week I was ready to give it a try. The place was so busy opening day I decided to hold off a bit and finally found the opportunity to drop by on the 19th. At least I tried to drop by. I found to my consternation that there were no bike racks! I even asked the security guard out front, but he indicated there were none. To his credit he did suggest I lock my bike to a shopping cart return pen but given the nature of my bike and the type of locks I had with me that was a non-starter. I was thwarted.
I dashed off an email, probably too quickly, to the new store suggesting that given how green and healthful cycling is it seemed a shame that no bike rack had been installed and that I, as a cyclist, would be shopping elsewhere. I didn’t expect much in return.
How wrong I was.
I quickly received a reply which stated in part, “We agree with you on the merits of cycling as a viable means of transportation, and thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.”
Sweet. It went on to say that racks were part of the plan but they hadn’t been installed prior to the grand opening. As I said at the top, I can certainly understand details getting lost in the haze which sets in during a business opening. Been there myself.
The story gets even better. Today I received another email with a picture of the fully installed bike rack! This really goes above and beyond the call of duty and I’m happy to report it here. Take a look…

This is a much better rack than the one at their old location and it shows they’ve actually given some thought to the needs of cyclists. Way to go Safeway!
I don’t know who on staff actually replied to my query nor do I know who took the picture (perhaps the same person) but I want to thank you (both) for brightening my day. It’s great to know that there are still folks willing to go that extra step to show their Aloha!
And yes, I’ll be checking out the new Safeway soon – with my bike.

I’ve been thinking about the Oregon Coast recently and everything that might entail. Rain? Certainly. But then again, we’ve had plenty of that here recently.
I’m not really worried about keeping myself dry, passing showers aren’t a problem, heavy rain is another matter. Of course in a heavy rain one pretty much comes to grips with the act that one is going to get wet, but keeping one’s stuff dry is another matter.
Indeed simply hauling one’s stuff is a different matter. The Oregon trip, unlike RAGBRAI, isn’t going to be supported. I’m going to have to haul whatever it is I want on the ride with me on my bike and, as a of few days ago I didn’t really have the tools for the job.
Now I do.
There seems to be a bit of debate about waterproof panniers versus panniers that “breathe.” In one wet stuff is going to stay wet, in the other it might dry, at least a bit. I can’t say much either way as I’ve not had the opportunity to try both. My experience on RAGBRAI, replete with lots of humidity if not actual precipitation, was that wet stuff never dried anyway. The best thing to do was sequester it from everything else one wanted to keep dry – big freezer bags worked well.
Then there’s the ‘no pockets’ versus ‘lots of pockets’ debate. I tend to prefer fewer pockets because, frankly, I can never remember which pocket I put something in. I’d rather just rummage around in a big old sack. But that’s me. Your mileage will vary.
What’s the point of all this? I bought myself new panniers for the holidays.

I’d decided I was going to go with Ortlieb panniers if possible. They have a great reputation, are waterproof, and are for the most part, just a big bag. I also like their mounting system. I checked a few online places (no, no one in Honolulu seems to sell ’em so I’m not dissing local business) and found I could get bright yellow ‘Rollers’ from REI for a decent price, Ortliebs aren’t cheap. But, as I do tend to do a bit of research, I kept at it.
Next I discovered that there are both old and new mounting systems and that the new one is definitely preferable if you are at all concerned about heel strikes. My feet are pretty big so I thought maybe I should look into Ortliebs using the QL2 system (there is a QL3 out there – but you can do your own research).
That led me to TheTouringStore.com and Wayne. Wayne, judging by his business webpage, seemed to know a lot about Ortliebs. He does. I called him as he suggests and we had a long chat about what would work best for me. I gave it some thought overnight and pulled the trigger the next day on a four piece matched set of ‘Packers.’ Actually it’s really a combination of the Bike Packer Plus and the Sport Packer Plus panniers. I got a great price because of their holiday sale (available through Dec 22).
Anyway I’ve had ’em for a bit now, and while I haven’t had the opportunity to use all four panniers at once, I have used one front pannier several times and one rear pannier a few times. They are indeed waterproof which is a very good thing given the rain we’ve had here. I’ve gotten wet, my stuff has not.
In addition I’m real happy with the bright yellow color. I’m definitely a show off, especially in the evening. Both Wayne and I agreed that yellow is far more visible than red or some of the other available colors. Ask him about it when you give him a call.
The upshot is I’m very pleased with my purchase and can wholeheartedly recommend TheTouringStore.com. In fact with my next paycheck I may be picking up a couple of other things from them.
Aloha!

The crack of a gunshot rings out. Heads instinctively turn to locate the sound…
No, not an episode of Hawaii 5-0, the new one which is way more violent than the classic version, though at Aloha Tower it could have been. It was just me having a blowout.
I was riding my Quickbeam home after coffee downtown this morning when I suffered a rear sidewall failure. It wasn’t a big deal as I wasn’t in traffic and there were no control issues anyway. Still it wasn’t a puncture with slow leak, it was a decided bang.
I pulled over and heard a tourist say, “Look, your tire.” Yep, they called it.
The tire is question was a Panaracer Pasella with at least a couple of thousand miles on it – I got my money’s worth for sure. It had started life on my QB as a front tire where, given my weight distribution, it didn’t suffer much wear. When the original rear tire finally wore out, I moved it to the rear and put a brand new tire up front. Then I rode the hell out of the bike for hundreds more miles with training for RAGBRAI 2011.
Well today it gave up….

And, as you can see, the tube was toast…

Luckily I had a tire boot with me to keep the new tube in the tire while I rode home. Okay, it’s not really luck. I carry that sort of thing around specifically for this purpose…

So that was that. I inflated the tire and headed home…oops…almost forgot…
Many mahalos to the tour bus driver who, while waiting around for his charges to reboard his bus gave me a quick hand and held my bike steady while I put the wheel back in place.
When I got home I tossed the old tire, though with the boot in place I could probably have gotten a few more miles – but I’d never have felt comfortable riding any distance I wasn’t willing to walk. So…now I’ve got to get some more tires…and it’s not the worlds easiest decision.
I’ve loved the Pasellas but on my Friday I’ve been riding Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires and they seem (knock on wood) almost indestructible.
Do I go light and comfy or indestructible and comfy. Cost is, of couse, an issue. I can get more Pasellas at $14 a pop. Cheap. Sigh. We’ll see.
Aloha!

Street food is everywhere these days. Of course it’s not a new idea. Hot dog stands have been around forever…well maybe just since the late 1800’s when hot dogs made the scene, but their predecessors in open markets and busy corners the world over have been with us as long as we’ve been hungry.
So far my favorite places to eat street food are Bangkok – Pad Thai and fresh fruit, Mexico City – tacos and tortas, New York – the aforementioned hot dog, and now…Honolulu.
Actually we’ve had lunch wagons in Honolulu for years and years, mostly serving up variations on the local plate lunch, meat, rice, and macaroni salad. Generally they are good, but not something to write home (or in my case, away) about.
Lately though we’ve seen a renaissance of grindz available. There are now trucks serving all manner of food. Today for lunch I discovered the Tiki Truck. Tiki here refers to Taco Inspired Killer Ingredients. Yep, that about sums it up.
I had Bahn Gyro which starts off with a warm pita, mine had steak though pork and chicken were available as well, and then most of the ingredients of our local Vietnamese sandwiches (Bánh mì): cucumber slices, cilantro and pickled carrots and daikon. Hmm…good.
It was a rainy day on Keeaumoku Street where I work and I’ve got to tell you this was the perfect comfort food for me today. I’d have eaten two if one hadn’t done the job of filling me up – at $6 it’s real good value in my book.
Abe, the owner and chef, is a cheerful and chatty host, who clearly enjoys what he is doing. You can find out more about the Abe and his truck on Nonstop Honolulu where there’s a YouTube of an interview done by Mari Taketa.
You can find the Tiki Truck on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/tikitruck, or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/TIKITRUCK.
I sure hope the Tiki Truck makes Keeaumoku a regular stop! You can see the blue and white truck right behind the Puffettes (egg puff) truck. I haven’t tried them yet but I’m looking forward to it!

You can find the aggregated twitter feeds of several different wagons at HiFoodTrucks.com.

I’ve been whacking away at the guitar since I was kid. Back then I took classical lessons and even played with my father at a local guitar society a few times. I probably wasn’t any good, but it was fun. I never really learned any music theory though which, I’m sure, hampered me later on. I switched to folk guitar which, as it turns out, wasn’t for me either. In my teens I begged for an electric and ended up with a pretty unplayable guitar from Sears. That was basically it for me guitar-wise.
I’d picked up mandolin a couple of years back and had intended to learn and jam with the local bluegrass society. They immediately stopped their weekend jams in my neighborhood and moved far enough away that it’s too big a hassle to attend…so much for that.
I also have a pretty nice ukulele around, but everyone in Hawaii has one of those – state law I think.
In short, over the years I’ve generally had a something around the house to noodle with a bit here and there — but never seriously. In other words, I have failed to enlarge my musical life as it were.
Still it’s always been a draw and about a month ago I got much more serious about learning to play something, anything really. I decided that fingerpicking blues was a good idea because I do truly love the sound. It took a week or so to get my thumb moving independently, and, while I’m not as good or fast as most, I can keep it going while I pick out melodies now. My callouses have built up a bit so it doesn’t hurt and, most importantly, I’m having fun.
That leads me to Black Friday. My local music shop, Easy Music Center, was having a sale. For those who don’t know, Easy Music Center is a locally owned music shop (actually a couple of them) that, IMHO, does a great job and has great prices. I purchased my GString Ukulele there as well as a variety of small things over the past couple of years. I’m not a prolific customer, but they are always my first stop when I’m out fishing around.
To make a long story short, they were offering an extra 10% off most everything, including sale items, on Black Friday between 8am and 11am. I work about a two blocks from the store so I had to check it out. I ended up with an electric guitar. Silly me.
Apparently over the years low end musical instruments have really improved. When I was a kid low end electrics (and acoustics) were basically dogs. Nowadays it seems that even low end stuff is fairly playable. Thus it’s possible to give something a try, like an electric guitar, to see if it’s for you before dropping big bucks – and, perhaps even instead of big bucks.
What did I get? The best deal in the place that Friday morning seemed to be an Epiphone Special II Les Paul player pack. These have apparently been discontinued (not the guitar, just the pack) but they listed at $432 as far as I can tell. Normally, of course, they sell for far less, I’ve seen $199-$259 at online dealers that still have them. My deal? $108. That was just too good to pass up. And I didn’t.

And, having done no research it seems I got lucky. The Special II is not a bad guitar. Obviously it’s not a great guitar, but it is definitely playable. I did have to adjust the bridge height a wee bit as the bottom E buzzed like mad, but that turned out to be easy and didn’t mess up the intonation – lucky me. The sound is pretty good from the 10w amp that came with the package.
Keep in mind, I am not a guitar player. I noodle at best. Thus spending $108 on something that I can actually make a nice sound from is a steal. That old Sears guitar I had as a teen probably cost $79 or something (in 1972 dollars) and was basically impossible to play.
My favorite review of this guitar came from the SwedishGuitarNerd on YouTube:

I’ve no personal plans on playing publicly so don’t ask – not that I suspect you will. 🙂
The only other black friday purchase I made was the front rack for my Bike Friday…not quite as interesting perhaps, but probably much more useful in the long run.
Aloha!

My Kindle Fire arrived last Wednesday, a day earlier than expected; Amazon making the most of their “shipping a day early” announcement. Naturally I had to open the box as soon as it arrived and I was impressed.
The Fire is a very discreet black pad, small enough to fit in my pocket, even with the leather cover I’d ordered. Speaking of the cover, it’s a black Marware leather Kindle cover. To be completely honest, I had more trouble with the cover than with the Kindle. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it, and now, a week later, I really like it, but I’ll admit to a bit of confusion at first.
The Fire booted up quickly, though it isn’t an ‘instant on’ device and found my home network without much trouble. Like my previous Kindles this one was already registered to my account so I had media available and ready to go once I’d walked through the relatively few steps of getting set up.
The Fire uses a fork of Android and so the experience is somewhat different if you are used to Android on another device (mine being an HTC EVO phone). It’s not difficult to use, though I find the “Carousel,” the portion of the screen devoted to recent documents, applications, whatever, a bit touchy. I have a hard time slowing it down once I’ve swiped it into motion.
The screen in gorgeous. I don’t know if it’s up to iPhone standards as I don’t own one, but it’s definitely a winner.
The Fire also comes with a free month of Amazon Prime to use with streaming video (Prime Instant Video). Here in Hawaii I’d had no reason to sign up, even at only $79 a year, because Amazon doesn’t support the free two day shipping (Prime’s original raison d’etre), but I’m certainly thinking of keeping it now. I haven’t tried Netflix on the Fire yet though.
I set up my email accounts on the merely adequate email application so that I could at least communicate this weekend. I was attending a convention Thursday-Sunday and wouldn’t have time to really play with the Fire, but I’d decided to give it a workout as my go-to device of choice. Therefore I loaded it up with the Excel spreadsheet of contact numbers and titles for the convention volunteers, the PDF schedule of events, and a variety of other things I’d need each day (I was on the steering committee so I needed access to working docs).
Thankfully, as I mentioned, the Fire fit in my pocket of my slacks so I wasn’t required to carry it by hand all day – and have it with me all day I did. The battery lasted me from 8am to 10pm each day, though I would plug it in for brief periods when I went to my room to rest or shower. Naturally I wasn’t using the Fire for the entire day, but I consulted it frequently, both for email and for documents.
In short I gave it a real-life workout and came away impressed. But…
Isn’t there always a ‘but?’
I missed a few things. Because the stock Fire is restricted to the Amazon App store a few things are currently missing that I rely on.

1. Dropbox – Luckily you can simply download the app from Dropbox’s Android website. I had no trouble installing it.
2. Gmail App – I love the Gmail app as most of my email accounts are on Gmail. Yes I do have a few others, but don’t use them much. In order to get this, I ended up having to root my Fire and add the regular Android Market. This turned out to be easier than I though – more below.
3. Swype – How did we ever get along without Swype? This was a little more difficult to install, requiring root access and the ability to edit the Settings.db to add the input method. Still it isn’t something to be afraid of it you are patient.

I’m not going to post the instructions on how to root your Fire here – mostly because other folks have already done a great job and I’d hate to make a mistake somewhere along the line that bricks your Fire.
I used the instructions I found on RootKindleFire in their Mac section.
Putting the Google framework and Android Market on required the instructions from xdadevelopers. The hardest bit on a Mac was realizing I had to download something to open RAR files. Not a big deal.
I’m also using the Voodoo OTA Rootkeeper app to switch back and forth between root and regular. This seems to be much simpler than always having to use something on my Mac while tethered.
Swype was the most difficult bit as I got started on the wrong foot with what I guess was a bad bit of info. Good info can be found here on xdadevelopers.
I spent a good evening playing around with root, the G apps, and Swype but never felt I was in over my head. Just be patient. Now I’ve got Gmail running, use Swype, and can switch back and forth to and from root access (Prime doesn’t work while rooted). Life is good.
The skinny is that the Kindle Fire is a great little pad for the price and, with a wee bit of tweaking, it’s darn near perfect (till something better comes along of course).
Aloha

This just barely qualifies as a bicycle post, it’s really a gadget post. Here’s the thing. I love gadgets. Really. While I’m not always up on the latest bicycle gadgets and I prefer less to more in my cockpit, I do enjoy taking a decent gadget with me when I travel. Of course when one goes by bicycle less is always better.
I’ve gotten by with just my HTC EVO 4G phone for the most part – it saw me across Iowa rather well. I did have several batteries with me and I had to recharge more than I would have preferred, but hey, I was connected when I needed to be connected.
To be honest I almost took my iPad with me, but the thought of having to carry it with me everywhere really turned me off. It’s just a little big to be comfortable. And though I could have had the Pork Belly folks carry it for me in my luggage between stops they HIGHLY recommended not bringing tech toys. I understand completely. As it is my iPad has a wee dent that compromises the screen in one small area (it’s still very usable, but when held at certain angles you can see where the screen is being pushed in).
So what to do? I could easily have taken my 2nd generation Kindle. The problem there is that I’d have had to carry a light with me to read by, requiring more battery power. Ultimately I did carry a light but oddly never really used it. I just read from my phone for the approximately ten minutes every evening it took me to fall asleep. I also used it as a flashlight when I needed to run to the head in the middle of the night.
But the new Kindle Fire, being smaller than the iPad, seemed like something I absolutely had to have to test on bicycle trips. Right? I mean why else would I want one?
In any case mine has shipped and will be here in a couple days. Once I get in a few rides I’ll post on whether it’s a decent bike-able tool. I’m hoping!

I can’t wait.

Okay, I’ll admit it, I’ve been very lax about posting in the last several days^H^H^H^Hweeks. I’ve been really busy with a number of things, especially work projects needing to be completed before the end of the year. Thankfully I’m mostly caught up.
So what’s this about Oregon? Yep, my friend Erich, with whom I journeyed across Iowa, and I are planning a new trip. This time it looks like we are going to ride the Oregon coast from Astoria in the NW corner to the California border. It certainly looks beautiful.
You can find a PDF route map on the Oregon government site here or embedded below.

I’m not quite sure when we’ll go, but it’s definitely on for next year during one of the one of the off-season months. We are both experienced riders but we’d prefer to minimize our exposure to badly driven rental RVS.
The route is only about 370 miles compared to the almost 500 of RAGBRAI, but the amount of climing is pretty much equivalent, about 20,000 ft. We discussed how much time we wanted to take and agreed that while we could ride it in seven days, we’d rather take eight and have the option of a either day off or two light days. Logistics to be worked out.
That’s the plan.
Erich will be coming out to visit his sister this winter and we plan on an overnight, though not really an SO24, we’ll be hitting a hotel and living in style…assuming of course we can get a reservation. That has yet to be seen.

While I often have mixed feelings about bike lanes, mostly having to do worry over an end result of only being allowed to ride in them, they can be useful in cities. I’ve ridden on some really good ones (on the mainland) and some really bad ones (both here and elsewhere).
Here’s a good article on the economics of bike lanes which was written by Olaf Storbeck as a rebuttal to another writer’s rant on bike lanes in NYC, “The Economics of Bike Lanes – How can John Cassidy get it so wrong?”