Tour of Orange County Bikepaths

Yesterday was the second running of the Tour of Orange County bikepaths 200k brevet. This is a 126 mile brevet ride starting in Corona, CA that uses the SART, Huntingdon Beach bike trail, Monarch Beach trail, and Alisal Creek trail plus several other shorter trails, It would be considered an average difficulty 200k with about 5200' of climbing but it feels more difficult because most of the climbing is in the second half of the ride.I think if you use all the bikepath options there's about 80 miles of them.

Fifteen riders started at 7am with overcast skies, cool conditions, and a light headwind coming off the Pacific. The course heads down the Santa Ana River Trail (SART) towards Huntingdon Beach and then turns North along PCH to Sunset Beach. I was riding slow (11 hour pace) so that any rider who was unsure of the route (it's tricky to follow) could ride with me and guarantee not to get lost. Before I got to the first control I saw Willie riding back South in his yellow submarine, He was already eight miles ahead of me and we were only at mile 30. That was the last I saw of him.

After breakfast at the Jack-in-the-Box I found myself with Ed and Mark and we opted to ride South along the beach path because the overcast was keeping most of the beach-goers at home. The route includes a ferry ride across to Balboa Island, not because it has to, but because it's fun. They charge $1.25 for a cyclist with a bike - I don't know how much they charge for yellow submarines :-)

A little further South we jumped onto the Crystal Cove trail for a while, then came Laguna Beach. Nasty stretch of PCH, this, mainly because the city of Laguna Beach feels it's more important to install parking meters along PCH rather than providing a safe bike lane. I guess they need the money.

Dana Point is much nicer and we jumped onto a protected bike trail alongside PCH to the next control which is a tiny little Arco which just happens to be in the perfect place for a control. After the Arco we turned around and headed back North along the protected trail to Dana Point where we made a tricky turn onto the Monarch Beach trail which heads inland and has some very steep, but mercifully short, climbs. The steepest pitch was 15% which had me searching for my granny gear.

This trail almost connects to the Alisal Creek trail which almost goes all the way to the next control at Cook's Corner Biker Bar. Now some people may think it's odd to put a brevet control at a biker bar, but it's mostly frequented by wanna be bad-ass lawyers and accountants and the food there is pretty good, especially if you've just climbed 1,100' from the coast.

The faster riders were staying in a group and had made an improptu stop for lunch so my slower group had caught up with them just before Cooks' Corner. We all stopped together and ate together - very nice. After Cook's Corner is another 400' climb to the top of Santiago Canyon. This was the warmest part of the ride but it was still only slightly over 80 degrees - not bad at all.

The descent down Santiago Canyon was incredible - I held well over 30mph for the five or six miles. The last big climb is over the toll road and then we drop down to the end of the canyon and turn towards the end of the ride. At the last control at the Villa Park shopping center we re-grouped again. I ate cold gyozu (potstickers) from the Ralphs there and they were very refreshing. Shortly after the last control we found ourselves back on the SART with a strong tailwind and finished strong. Most of the riders finished within five minutes of each other.

Special congratulations to Jeff and Lori Arita who completed their first brevet. Hope everyone had as much fun as I did.