7 February 2010, 10:46 am
I’m considering making a long weekend of it this coming April. At the heart of the ride will be John B. Kelley Haleiwa Metric Century. Running from Haleiwa to Swanzy Beach Park and back this is a mostly flat ride running through some simply stunning scenery. I’ve done a lot of it recently on my camping trip to Malaekahana.
And that’s the other part of the ride I’m considering. Malaekahana is about 60 miles from me. I’ve done it loaded on my Quickbeam as I documented earlier.
So the plan is reasonably simple. On Saturday I’d cycle with my gear out to Malaekahana and camp overnight. That’s the first 60. The next day I’d cycle 17 miles to Haleiwa, ride the metric century or 62 miles, then ride back 17 miles. The next day it would be back to Honolulu for another 60 miles, again loaded.
Insane? Not really, though it might be best for me to actually go on Friday, take the day off on Saturday mucking about out at Malaekahana, and then come back Monday.
And, now that I’ve put it on virtual paper, the longer version sounds like it might be a bit more fun. It would also give me the opportunity to cycle to Haleiwa on Saturday to check out that part of the ride. Which, of course, would really make the ride 250 miles in 4 days. That doesn’t sound like much, does it?
Finally, I’ve got to figure out which bike to take, the Quickbeam or the Friday. Gears, no gears? Hmmm….stay tuned.
Aloha!
6 February 2010, 10:48 pm
And today my Grip Kings arrived. I opened them up to make sure they’d been greased, unlike my touring pedals and it appeared they had. I still stuffed some more grease in them though I didn’t take them completely apart.
Tomorrow I’ll give them a try and see if they live up to their name. They sure look nice though.
I’ll admit to buying them somewhere besides Rivendell. While I do buy things from Riv, I found these pedals at $20 less than the Riv price which is just too much to ignore. If there were a $5 difference I’d have been happy to buy there, but…
5 February 2010, 3:22 pm
Yeah! My Acorn Medium arrived today. I ordered on the first, today is the fifth, that’s service.
The bag itself seems to be very, very well made and it is certainly is lovely The stitching is tight, the leather supple, and the color is just right. There’s just not that much more to say till I actually get it on my bike and give it a workout.
I guess I have my excuse to ride today!
I should mention I’ve been waiting about 3 weeks for a front bag I’ve ordered. I’m not yet complaining but Acorn certainly made an impression.
Aloha!
1 February 2010, 7:59 am
Well I just ordered something I probably don’t need but…wow…I think I’m gonna love it anyway. Acorn Bags is a small company that makes reportedly excellent saddle and handlebar bags for cycling. I’ve wanted a saddlebag that is much smaller than my Sackville SaddleSack and much larger than the small toolkit bag I generally carry. You know, something I can stuff a jacket or a camera in and still have a little room for tools and such.
The Acorn Medium seems to fit the bill.
Acorn Bags Medium Bag
I’d thought about getting a bag for the front, perhaps their Boxy Rando Bag, but I’ve got a different sort of front bag coming and with my moustache bars I’m not sure what will fit correctly up there.
One of the interesting things about Acorn is their ordering method. They don’t take orders. Really. Instead their online store is restocked one a month on the first. If you can put something in your cart you can have it. But once an items is sold out, and things go fast, that’s it till the next month.
I’d forgotten about it this morning till a couple of hours after they’d “stocked” the store. Luckily the item I wanted was still available, but I’ll be that by the end of the day my Medium Bag will be gone.
Aloha!
31 January 2010, 9:41 am
I idly gave my MKS touring pedals a spin this morning and discovered that the left side didn’t spin freely as it should; this after all the work I’d done. But now, with my new found knowledge it was short work to open them up and loosen the cone a bit, just a wee bit, and put ‘em back together. It’s all good again.
And, because of the accident yesterday I decided I needed a treat. So I pulled the trigger on the Grip Kings, also known as Lambdas as it turns out. Now as happy as I am to support small business, sometimes the difference in price is just too great to ignore. I found the pedals at $32 compared to the $54 at some other locations. If it were $50 vs $54 I might go with the smaller guys, but…
In any case it’ll be a while before they show up and I’ve a bunch of other stuff coming in so it’s not high on my list of things to think about.
Finally it seems my passport has been delivered. I sent my passport in to be renewed per the instructions I found at the U.S. Department of State website. I suspect it’ll take a lot longer to get my passport back than it will to get my new pedals, but at least things are in the works.
Aloha!
