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  • Cycling and Surfing

    These should really probably be two separate questions, but I don't want to spam the forums (I'll leave the "spamming" to the reputedly excellent musubi chefs )

    I bike a lot (my "odometer" says something like 1300 miles, and that's since last March!), and I'm wondering if it's as big of a deal in places like the big island as it is here. E.g. I just want to salivate at the idea of working up to biking around the island, or over the saddle hwy, and so on. Sounds like really fun trip (assuming I take some tire patches and let people know where I'm going anyway!) Any cycling clubs that do this sort of thing?

    Second question is, I thought surfing might be a fun thing to pick up as another hobby. It'd also be a nice upper body workout counterpoint to the lower body workout you get from cycling. I have never surfed in my life and I'm not really even a very good swimmer, but I'm willing to overcome those things. I've heard people describe it as a spiritual experience. Then I read stories about pecking orders and people getting beaten up for trying to catch a wave at the wrong place or wrong time, not being part of this or that group, ... Makes me wonder if it's worth the trouble for someone who just wants to do it in their free time for some fun. Are there enough places to go with kiddy waves for a total newb to learn on? I guess the tourist areas if nothing else. I don't mind people laughing at me for wiping out constantly. If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at? But I don't want to step on anyone's toes or cause trouble either.

    Mahalo!

  • #2
    Re: Cycling and Surfing

    Bicycling:
    My husband used to ride back and forth to work. But it's dangerous. He doesn't any more. Too many fatalities, among them dear friends. I love bicycling! This morning I was envious of the Tin Man participants! I used to ride back and forth from home to school at UH Manoa. But you really take your life in your hands out there. It isn't the bicyclists who are the problem. It's scary drivers. Some of them professionals. Some of them bus drivers!

    Surfing: Are you talking Big Island or Oahu? If you are talking Oahu, stick to the bunny slopes in Waikiki (where there is still a pecking order), and rent a board, take some lessons. I was lucky enough to acquire a giant 9-foot foam board to learn on. SLOW as all get out, but easy to get up on, easy to ride, and the falls were painless. The "Maxi-Pad" was super absorbant and that sucker got heavy on the walk home. I think they are made to be water resistant now. Don't be ashamed to ride a scuzzed up surfboard with dings of character and water spots. Get an old used one and give it a shot. Within my first year of learning, I was entering contests and surfing daily. My best contest finish was second place behind Rell Sunn in the first annual China's Long Board Contest back in the early 80s. I still rip!

    Edit:
    I'd like to add that surfing in and of itself isn't that great a work out. You exercise to surf better; you lift weights and get your cardio up for endurance...but once you're out there on a board bobbing in the lineup, the only thing getting a workout might be your legs squiggling under water to keep your board from drifting around and your mouth from yacking. Scratching for a wave in a burst of energy lasts a couple of seconds. The ride itself won't last a minute. Paddling back out will be your most strenuous effort.

    @
    Last edited by lavagal; July 23, 2006, 04:33 PM.
    Aloha from Lavagal

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    • #3
      Re: Cycling and Surfing

      Thanks, I appreciate the info. I was thinking of the big island for both actually. Yeah, I saw the biking on O'ahu out by UH. I didn't try it myself, but I got to drive among the traffic where people were riding bikes off to the right side of the right lane rather than any sort of bike lane or whatever. Looked very scary. Here in Portland we're blessed with an extensive network of bike lanes and trails. (I don't mean that to be a "back on the mainland...!" comment ) As long as there's a shoulder I'm ok.

      Surfing lessons is probably the way to go. That's something I'll have to work up to though. Gotta get used to the ocean swimming a little more first, I think

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      • #4
        Re: Cycling and Surfing

        From what I understand, Portland is bicycle heaven.

        I used to ride my bike on the left side of King or Beretania so as to not ride with the busses. Leap Frog with a bus is nasty stuff!

        Good luck Bard!
        Aloha from Lavagal

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        • #5
          Re: Cycling and Surfing

          Bicycle heaven is about right. Last early spring I rode my bike from my house, did a 30 mile loop around the city, and ended up downtown at work. I only spent about half a mile or so on roads with cars. The rest was all bike/walk trails, a lot of it in secluded, wooded areas. Part of that is the Springwater Trail, a rails-to-trails path that goes for about 30 miles out to the town of Boring (worthy of its name!). They're talking of extending it out now to meet some other trails that go all the way to Mt Hood and meet up with the Pacific Crest Trail. Neat stuff.

          I will take what I can get in Hawai'i though. I suspect that bike trails and lanes are one thing that's going to get a lot more scrutiny all over the US in the coming years with peak oil looming down at us.

          The thing about the upper body workout with surfing is something I read on a web page... can't remember where now. I was wondering how it would work out that way myself, but the paddling out makes sense.

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          • #6
            Re: Cycling and Surfing

            Hey Bard:

            Isn't Portland the city that has the publicly owned bicycles that riders can use at will, drive them to their destination, and leave them upon arrival of the destination for the next rider? I always thought that was a novel idea, where ever it might be.

            As for myself, I enjoy bicycling very much; riding is second only to my love of marathoning and long-distance running. I probably tally around 50 miles a week in supplementary training for my upcoming marathons, using a bicycle that I found in someone's trash. It's an old Chicago-built ten-speed Schwinn, that according to bike experts, was manufactured in the early 70's. Without question, this bike is the fastest bike I've ever owned...great gear ratios, the 27 x 1.25 tires...a classic from the past that can still move.

            BTW, I've never had the chance to run the Portland Marathon..I've pretty much limited myself to running Honolulu (and Boston when I qualify) on an annual basis. I hear that's one fun marathon to run, but even more so, it has the reputation as the marathon that has the best "goodie" bags given to runners out of all the major races. Portland is on my list of marathons I must run before I give the sport up for good.

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            • #7
              Re: Cycling and Surfing

              Now all ya gotta do is add water sports and you can be a triathlete

              The yellow bike thing did go on here. I want to remember that it happened in some other cities (like Austin) but it was definitely a thing here for a while. I'm not sure if it's still going on due to the obvious potential complications, but there are plenty of places to go get a cheap bike for people who need some transportation.

              Sometimes the oldies are the goodies from what I've heard. I have a Trek 7300FX myself, with a bunch of random stuff added/changed out. Finally broke down and got SPD pedals this year when I found some shoes that actually fit my wide feet (do they think all cyclists have elf feet or something? ). Been lusting a bit over the new Trek Portland that was named after our city -- it's a commuter bike designed for good behavior in rain. It's got a similar frame to the 7300FX, with the addition of disc brakes and fenders, and slightly skinnier tires (but still bigger than road tires).

              Got no money for any of that though

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              • #8
                Re: Cycling and Surfing

                Originally posted by Bard
                [...]The thing about the upper body workout with surfing is something I read on a web page... can't remember where now. I was wondering how it would work out that way myself, but the paddling out makes sense.
                I think surfing used to be a better upper body workout than it is today. I surfed regularly from the mid 50s to the mid 60s...before leashes! No leashes = a lot more swimming and a lot more paddling! During that time I had great shoulders and really good upper body strength...not to mention the true sign of a regular surfer...knobs on the knees and, for girls, on the hip bones! I was so proud of those!

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                • #9
                  Re: Cycling and Surfing

                  Oh you know da kine ladies. surf is no good exercise when you go ride da one footahs. but if you go ride da biggah ones, you get da bes exercise. i lose ten pounds jus in da paddle out. put on five pounds muscle true fight da break. you know wea to go, you earn your rides but da rides is wort it.

                  So da moral is . . . . no exercise . . . . . go waikiki. . . . . if you come visit . .. go waikiki . . . . if you live . . . . den go somewea else. ride da wild surf. even if you haole an dey look at you funny. just get good tan like me and show white arse. no, really i no drunk.. ha ha. have good time in da surf and drink so much da nite befo dat you foget all da adda stuff.

                  Ragin Cajun

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                  • #10
                    Re: Cycling and Surfing

                    Mahalo for all the comments! Maybe what I really should get into is scuba. Now there's a full body workout... I've got to at least try surfing though. I've heard too many fun things about it.

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                    • #11
                      Re: Cycling and Surfing

                      Originally posted by Stephen
                      Oh you know da kine ladies. surf is no good exercise when you go ride da one footahs. but if you go ride da biggah ones, you get da bes exercise.[...]
                      Hmmm! Isn't that true of 'da kine' guys, too?
                      However, without a leash, surfing is better exercise than with a leash. Much more swimming and paddling, esp. if larger than 'one footahs' (which is equivalent to the bunny slope!). The bigger the surf the more opportunities for wipe outs which allows for a lot more swimming and paddling which equals more exercise! That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

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                      • #12
                        Re: Cycling and Surfing

                        what she said! sheesh da guy!
                        Aloha from Lavagal

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                        • #13
                          Re: Cycling and Surfing

                          'One footahs' sounds about like what I need to start with. "Bunny waves" I guess you could call them

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                          • #14
                            Re: Cycling and Surfing

                            For cycling check out Tradewind Cycling Team.

                            http://www.bikeshophawaii.com/TCT/TCTPage.htm

                            They schedule rides every week, some of them hard. Some not so hard. Just a friendly group of people who enjoy training together. You don't have to be a die-hard, hard-core roadie, but it helps to be in decent shape to keep up with them on some of the longer rides.

                            That group did a perimeter ride around the Big Island one year. Took a few days to do it and was quite an adventure, I was told. There's a perimeter ride around Oahu every year, as well as the Century Ride.

                            I've done the perimeter ride (around Oahu) twice and was doing the Century Ride every year for several years. Work schedule messed up the bike riding, and getting harassed by unruly truck drivers got pretty discouraging after a while. It seems the worst drivers are the "professional" ones who really should know better. Didn't matter that I was wearing bright clothing, rode a straight line, kept to the side of the road and stopped at all the lights -- and not creep to the front of the line.

                            My biggest gripe about cycling here is that the City and County keeps saying how supportive it is about cycling as a form of transportation. But history has proven otherwise.

                            For example, if you take a good look at the way the roads and lack of bikeways, you'll soon see it's impossible to get from Moiliili to Kalihi without mixing it up with cars on some very busy roads.

                            For example, try riding from the Academy of Arts to St. Andrews Cathedral without riding illegally on the sidewalk. If you're not comfortable riding among cars on Beretania -- or fit enough to hit 30 mph and keep up with traffic then you'd better have nerves of steel.

                            The bikeways that do exist need help, too.

                            There's no way to get past Aloha Stadium without riding on Kamehameha Highway. The bike path that used to go past the admiral's landing was closed off after 9/11 and no options were ever developed since then. And no signs will warn you that the bike path is closed. Just have to grit your teeth, mix it up with heavy traffic whizzing by at 45, hope you can make the lane change before getting to Aiea, and hope that nobody takes the turn too wide before you can merge with traffic after the overpass.

                            The only option is riding on a sidewalk that's too narrow for two pedestrians to walk past each other... and ride opposing traffic.

                            There's a nasty set of hard right-angle turns in the Pearl City portion of the bike path. If it's raining you're guaranteed to crash if you don't slow down to a crawl. I challenged Mayor Harris to ride it just to prove it was safe but never got a repsonse -- probably too risky for the Mayor but OK for anyone else to bust a collarbone or wrist upon. Wouldn't take too much asphalt to make those curves a lot safer but it's not going to get any attention anytime soon. Not in our lifetime, anyway.

                            Whenever Honolulu's roads are being worked on, particularly if they're being re-striped, a bike lane is never part of the design. Bike lanes and bike paths have been discussed since the 1970's and so little has been done.

                            Meanwhile, the City came up with this lame "lei of parks" concept where parks would have cute little bike paths and you could go from one to the next. Apply that concept to the average commuter and you'd have the "lei of communities" where you drive from one neighborhood through to the next in order to drive to work. Great idea if you're not trying to get somewhere anytime soon.

                            I've been in Portland a few times. In fact, my first visit to Portland was via the Seattle-to-Portland ride in 1997! Now there's a city that's bike friendly. I wish Honolulu would follow their lead.

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                            • #15
                              Re: Cycling and Surfing

                              Yeah, it's not too difficult to leave a couple of feet on the side of the road and put down a stripe for bikes on busy roads. They've started doing that on most major streets here, and one other thing that totally blew my mind: there are now bike direction signs. At major intersections it'll have a sign with a picture of a bike on it, and arrows pointing out the direction, distance, and estimated time for a bike to different areas. At one particularly bike-busy intersection they actually put a diagonal bike-only light that can be triggered by a button. So cool.

                              Thanks for the TCT info, I'll have to check that out!

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