The Traffic Was Monster.

“everybody’s working for the weekend” - Loverboy.

the days are longer. with the month of may exiting and the month of june signifying summer’s arrival, my weekend days have been filled with activities. john hamilton has uncharacteristically persuaded me to leave the apartment for the last weekends of may.

it is grand to ride a bicycle on the weekend. with no obligations or destinations the act of riding a bicycle becomes nothing short of beauty. the possibilities suddenly become endless.

on the weekend of the breakaway 100 race, I found myself accompanying hamilton to the thrift store. no longer was hamilton’s goal to find ironic t-shirts; but rather hamilton sought collared shirts to resemble his current employment as a public educator. this out pour of maturity would end the following weekend, but its briefness was amusing.

my team lost the breakway 100. second place is first place losers, as the saying goes. and no one was more disappointed as I was - during a particularly tough transition my expensive cycling spandex ripped in the chaos. it was not that our team was not fast - dare I say we were faster then all the teams that participated - but we could not transition between each other worth a darn. in the end our team’s handicap was our biggest enemy.

early on memorial day weekend I took seth goodnight to get his orbea triathlon bicycle repaired. at island triathlon & bicycle (the shop that seth bought his bicycle) the owner encountered seth’s plight with a less then enthusiastic endeavour. bare in mind that seth’s bicycle cost well over 4000USD and upon entered the store with a broken bicycle the owner basically said, “there’s nothing we can do for you.”

the following day hamilton coerced me to leave my residence to ride bicycles. we met up with john oliveira and kawika samson. we broke into a new parking structure and was asked to leave promptly by mall cops. then we found free shave ice, cuyler yogi, and a former honolulu mayor at a drugstore. last year cuyler rode his bmx bicycle from california to texas, which is an accomplishment worthy of recognition.

somehow a bunch of people began showing up. and someone - I think it was hamilton - suggested climbing up to the pali lookout on our bicycles. almost everyone made it to the top and it was a tremendously good time. the climb was just enough effort without being obscene and the scenery leading to the top was beautiful.

reeda martin and I rode our bicycles to kahala to view a movie on memorial day. reeda and I could have gone to closer location in the neighborhood, but what would be the point of such nonsense? I consumed two tall cans of iced tea, six string cheeses, a bag of popcorn, a brownie, and few servings of uncle edie’s vegan cookies. I have not gorged at a movie theatre in some time, and I suspect that I was making up for lost time.

all in all I am glad another month has passed. the months are moving along far too slowly for my liking.

Leftovers and B-Sides.

there was leftover and unused footage from the nine minute edit christian yee made of the 2011 hawaii state team time trials. kawika samson decided to take the footage and make an alternative version of our adventures on the big island of hawaii.

Rest Easy/Age Kindly

a few weeks ago I had the fortunate opportunity to have a weekday free of obligations. it was short-lived and when the next day placed me back to being a mule in honolulu I grieved for my brief excursion from employment.

on that monday I rode my bicycle aimlessly with marissa, vincent tran, and erik patton. we stopped randomly to consume shave ice at waiola’s and then vegetarian food at the local hare krishna factory. there was no destination nor purpose and it was bloodly lovely.

a few weeks later I find myself bitter at work. defenseless against surly secretaries and my bosses whom - as they reasonably should - position with their well-paying client rather then their low-waged messenger. and it made me reminiscence about my one workday freedom more so.










mark lavendar, brian erickson, and I have teamed up for the “breakaway 100” bicycle race next weekend. the “breakaway 100” involves a team of three members riding one hundred laps across a standard quarter-mile track on the same bicycle. this roughly equates to twenty-five miles of sprinting on dirt track.

the truth is that I have been fairly mediocre in every race I have participated this year thus far. but I do sincerely hope that the “breakaway 100” rids my lackluster streak.

The Rain, It Was A'Ticking.

this morning I woke up to a email from j atencio. it was a welcomed surprise and it made me very happy to know that j atencio is doing well:

“yo whats up fool? i just saw this video of you wining gold medals. you were also riding my saddle so i thought i need to email you see whats up. im in vienna right now. yeah thats austria, no big deal. i started going to the bike kitchen here. its amazing like k vibe just more punk so yeah i dig it...”

honolulu has been drenched all week long and yesterday was no exception. I am attempting to combat a potentially pesky flu and riding a bicycle in rain seems like the type of activity mothers frown upon. so naturally I agree to spend much of my saturday afternoon riding in a rain storm with brian erickson.

more details and/or photos of my steed via pedalroom.

And The Sky Is A Blueish Grey.

zachary manago ghost bicycle memorial clean-up. may 1, 2011.


this was the strangest most mediocre weeks in recent memory. after a clear beautiful morning clearing zach’s ghost bike on sunday the weather turned into turd for the work week. coupled with symptoms of a developing cold, riding in the debris of city became a chore that grew exhaustively dreary.

the best moment happened on friday when I asked a legal express messenger how the rain was treating him. “great,” he replied, “its slow today. I might actually have time to sit down for lunch.”

I almost lost a client for the company as secretaries called my boss to complain about my rude attitude and cussing. which was shocking as I have never had a conversation beyond quick “hellos” and “byes” nor do I cuss. it felt as though I had dishonored the company. but the spewing of nonsense by secretaries just made me realize one thing:

messengers are seen as the lowest of the low in the downtown hierarchy.

bumping into annie prompted me to inquire if her employer - habitat for humanity - was hiring. annie told me that it would be a terrible idea and that I made more money as a messenger. indeed, but my choice of employment for the last year has become increasingly volatile and susceptible to oblivious motorists. annie then asked me, “could you really sit in front of computer all day?”











christian yee collected and edited through all the footage from our trip to the big island. made into a hefty nine minute short video, it shows everything still photography could not. and with a full mogwai soundtrack - scored by yours truly - it really gives the trip a cinematic sense. my soundtrack contribution was the least I could do after I completely failed to video document the most epic brakeless track bicycle hill bomb in modern memory.


the highlight of the video was when brian erickson exclaimed, “this is for the BIG ZACH” just before the race took off; truer words have not been uttered.