Goodbye to an old friend

It has been a pretty good few days - a metric century, a personal best 7.5 mile run, another metric century, and a 14 mile hike - all in four days. Time for a day off.

My ancient Scott aerobars have been having problems ever since a mechanic tried to remove them while replacing my fork. He loosened them but was unable to completely remove them or re-tightened them so they're now at the point that they drop under their own weight as I ride over rough roads.

I wrecked a bolt remover tool yesterday trying to remove the bolts and took it back for a refund, replacing it with metal cutting blades for my jigsaw. After an hour or so, and five blunt blades, I finally have the aerobars off. I had hoped to save them but that is not to be.

Now I have to find some decent aerobars.

Lucky Greek and Santa Ana

I rode the Lucky Greek 100k Permanent with Amber and Sherry today. Bagels and cream cheese at Panera at the start, then down the Santa Ana River Trail. We picked up a tailwind a few miles into the ride and got to the Lucky Greek in about two hours. Amber bought me a GoPro Hero 3 camera which I tested out. It works great but the battery only lasts about three hours which is a shame.

I started hearing a clicking noise and initially assumed it was my computer's magnet hitting the sensor. I could hear it when I coasted but not when I got off the bike and span the wheels. Obviously I had a broken or lose spoke. The rear wheel looked slightly out of true so when we got to the end of the bike path I checked for lose spokes. Sure enough, I found one. Fortunately it wasn't broken so I tightened it up with my spoke wrench (surely you carry one too) and continued noise free.

I had the gyro and fries at the Lucky Greek - amazing. When we turned around we realized that a Santa Ana wind had kicked in. We soon had sustained 30mph head and side winds. It took over three hours to get to the end of the ride. That hot wind is really dehydrating. We grabbed a bagel pack at Panera and headed home. That wind made for a tough ride. Five hours and fifty minutes to cover 62 miles!

Seal Beach Ride

It has been a while since I got a good ride in. I've been sick and the weather has been bad. I finally managed to get a night ride from Anaheim to Seal Beach with Amber. Pre-Christmas traffic on the 91 was so bad I almost decided it would be quicker to ride the last 20 miles to Anaheim. In the end I got to the start of the ride 40 minutes late. We started at about 6pm.

It was cool - about 55F but it felt cooler. The ride down to Seal Beach was great - very quiet. Beachwood BBQ was too busy so we ate at Athens West instead. On any other street this would be a standout restaurant but on Main St in Seal Beach it's just average. Had a great gyro with fries and salad.

The ride back was great too even though it had cooled down below 50F by now. We had both brought along an extra layer which was just as well. Experienced randonneurs do this kind of thing automatically. Got back home around 11pm.

I noticed there's an extension of the lower SART at Green River Rd. I'm not sure how far it goes but I'm looking forward to checking it out.

Rode my 200k brevet on Monday - not very eventful but that's 24 consecutive months of 200k brevets or longer. Need to ride the Lucky Greek on Saturday, then the Ventura 200k on New Year's day.

Yikes It's Colder!

I was hoping to go for a run in Big Bear today but the storm came in early and it's 28F outside and snowing. Big Bear is 1000' higher so I decided to do a short local run instead. There's about an inch of snow on the ground. I wore fleece long johns and lycra leg warmers, a long-sleeved cycling jersey and a wind proof shell, a beanie and light wool gloves. I was seriously overdressed. I unzippered the jacket and jersey almost immediately but the beanie and gloves felt good. Amber ran with me. We got to the turn around at 1.5 miles but then the snow plow came by and the 1/10" of snow it left was really slick. We had to walk the last mile back. Amber lent me a running belt with two small water bottles and a pouch for gels etc. It felt good so I plan on using it on the Irvine half marathon. It's only a month away!

Yikes It's Cold!

I finally managed to get a ride in after work. We had a water pipe burst on Thanksgiving day so it's been difficult finding time to ride what with plumbers and people demolishing half our house. Anyhow, I managed to put rubber to road and got a quick 33 mile ride in. There's a cold front moving through so even at low elevation it was 54F when I started and dropped to below 44F during the ride. That's pretty cold even for me. When I got home it was 29F. You can imagine I unloaded the bike pretty quickly. Hopefully I can get a run in at Big Bear tomorrow before the worst of the storm hits. I'm aiming for eight miles.