Holiday!

Now don't you wish you lived in Flat Tire Land?
No really, it was a holiday today.
Officially Kamehemeha Day.
You know, in honor of the dude that united the islands, way back in the olden days.
Anyways, I decided to go and take a short ride, just to stretch the legs and see what was happening.
So off I went!
I decided today was a beach day:

You can see the beach erosion here, I swear there used to be at least another fifty feet of sand there.
The State is working on some kind of plan to deter all the erosion as it isn't just here, but an island wide problem.
In fact they just finished widening Waikiki with a beach restoration thingy.
Some water walkers and some folks watching in awe:

About a mile down the road is Kalama Beach.  There's both a public facility and a private beach club there.  The public park is really small so you gotta get here early.
Especially on a day like this.
Some junior lifeguards were out doing their thing:

Looking back at where I came from, literally where the white of the sand ends:

To where I'm going, again approximately where the beach ends:

Looking out at the Mokulua islands:

Then disaster struck!
No cream soday at my regular watering hole!
I was devastated!
Okay, not really.
I had a Jones Strawberry Lime instead.
Then disaster struck:

Must have been because of the soda.
I had to head on back to Flat Tire Central anyways.
The road ahead:

Pit stop:

Well at least I have something to do tomorrow besides my Plan of the Summer(POTS).
I was thinking maybe I should just rebuild the wheel since the spokes seem to be breaking like one at a time and it would be interesting to lace my own wheel up.
Lemme tell you, I was thinking today how much I miss the beach, you know, just kicking it along with my favorite cold beverage.
Well there's still time.
Summer ain't over yet.

Sunday Final

Yikes!
Double Yikes!
More on this later.
So anyways, I went out today and took the Rockhopper on a short cruise.
Cruise is the word, for running them 1.95 inch tires is like plowing through the sand. I mean I put in like 60 lbs of pressure in them, but they still felt like they were flat!
The Rockhopper also has them oldfangled Biopace rings, the ones I have a hard time spinning with, so for the most part I was just pedaling along at about 30 rpms.
No really.
The good thing about them fat knobbies is that I can ride on the grass again without worrying about falling over.
Makes taking short cuts through the part a breeze.
So I stopped off for the obligatory winter picture:



You can't really tell from the picture, but the wind was blowing a bitter cold!
Blew my bicycle down like three times!
That's the first yikes!
I also forgot about my broken spoke.
I remembered when I heard it go ping!




That was the second yikes!
Luckily, this being an oldfangled bicycle, there were about 67 spokes left so the wheel was still ridable.
All that low rpm spinning was making the thirsty so off to the cream soda place I went:



I tell you, running around on a mountain bike feels strange now after all them miles on the a road bike.
I mean there's the low rpms and all the resistance coming from the tires. I tried to hit the gas a couple of times but all it did was propel me from slower to just slow.
I mean even when you're going sort of fast, it still feels slow.
If you know what I mean.
So anyways, some storm clouds were heading in my direction so off I went!
Time to head for home.
I stopped off at the LBS for some cables and a new spoke, but somehow I lost the broken one between there and there.
Luckily, I stopped off just in time: snow storm!
The melted snow in the road:



Maybe I need some studded tires or some tire chains or whatever it is you folks on the Continent use.
The nice thing about them knobbies is that they don't track too much water.
You know, like the in your face water.
There are a few things that need attention like them said knobbies. I guess they're so old, the sidewalls don't look too good. I'll need to take care of that before I go on any off road expeditions.
Hopefully I'll be able to get one in during the break, maybe after Christmas.
Stay tuned.