New House/ My shed

Scenes from Hawaii

Summer is here and the weather has been unbeatable. The ocean has calmed down and has been like a mirror the last few mornings. Just nice long rollers to surf before work. Lot's of cycling and paddleboarding these last few weeks. I'm getting pretty good at not getting slammed every time I catch a wave now which makes it more enjoyable.

Sunday morning was the Tantalus bicycle hill climb. One of the steeper hills on the island through some awesome rain forest with great views of Honolulu. Really wasn't feeling it once again although I pulled almost the exact time as last year. The road has just been paved so all the times were faster then in the past. I ended up 14 in my category and 28th overall. Sunday afternoon was the final criterium race in a series of 4 at Kaneohea Marine Corps base. These races have been so much fun I'm sorry to see them end. I lucked into a breakaway group of 3 riders in the 1-2-3 catagory race and ended up 5th overall which is my best showing. I even got to test ride a new lightweight bike I'm thinking of buying. So, one weekend, 3 races, and I'm still living in Hawaii. Life is good.

Rainbow ride

The Saturday ride had a small turnout but some great scenery. We rode a couple different routes through Wahiwa and had a rainbow following us all morning. Winter is hitting us hard right now, dipping into the low 70's. It was so cold John G had to wear his arm warmers which we gave him a hard time about.

Where's Scott?

Today was the Scott Kimsey around the island, 112 mile farewell ride which we've been planning for a few weeks. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Scott isn't leaving, and he couldn't do the ride either! What a dweeb! We did our best to simulate his presence but it just wasn't the same. We rolled out of Hickam at 6 am and rode to Kailua. After a bit of a crash, we caffinated up at a coffee shop and those who were going all the way around headed out. Some where outside of Kaneohea a familiar silver truck drove by. Scott had finished up his business and joined us to do the last half of the ride, thereby partially redeeming himself and limiting the amount of ridicule and scorn we could heap upon him. The ride itself was tough with high temperatures and humidity. I'd been beating my legs up since Sunday and was glad to finish around 1:30 pm.

Tantalus TT

Haven't posted for awhile because of a lack of anything worth putting up combined with forgetting the camera lately. Marianne just returned from an all expense paid trip to Las Vegas under the guise of some kind of "medical conference" Her friend and coworker Lisa who is now in San Antonio flew in to visit her and they had a great time. They went to the Circ de Soleil and sampled some of sin city's nightlife.

I've just been training, eating and sleeping the last week and a half. I did do the Tantalus hillclimb time trial last Sunday with the HACC. It's a timed 4.5 mile steep climb above Honolulu. I trained through it and still did fairly well with a 16th place overall and 3rd place in the old guy category. Our friends Jesse and Kristy both did great. Kristy dominated the womans category coming within 15 seconds of the record and beating my time by 10 seconds. Ouch! Kristy and I had been smack talking the previous week because we knew we're very close in our climbing abilities. She let her legs do the talking on race day. (I'm not worthy!) Jesse also won his category with a 4th place overall. Afterwards we went out for an 80 minute run. They invited me over for dinner that night before I picked up Marianne at the airport so I was well fed when she got in. Thanks guys.

Top of the World

After about 4 hours of hard climbing , we reached the top were the temperature's were low and the winds were high. Keeping warm was a priority. Check out how high above the clouds we were. The air is so clear up there it screw's with your sense of distance. For example, Jesse looked like he was a quarter a mile in front of me as we raced to the the top, but I'm sure it was only 6 or 7 feet.