Orange Triple Loop 600km brevet

I hosted my annual Orange Triple Loop 600km brevet last weekend. This is an endurance ride that covers 600km (372 miles) over the course of 40 hours. As 600km rides go this is a fairly easy one but CalTrans, Parks and Recreation, and others did their best to throw up roadblocks.

Last weekend Willie ran his IE 400km brevet and it did not go at all well for many of the riders. Pete had his bike stolen at a control, Charles lost his fancy electronic car keys and paid close to $800 to have a locksmith come out on Easter Sunday and replace them. Dana struggled with his form and had to DNF. So I got a lot of 400km riders signing up at the last moment.

CalTrans chose this weekend to close Auto Center Drive which is the main road that connects the east and west sides of Corona under the 91 freeway. Long Beach scheduled an electric race that shut down many of their roads. I knew about the Grand Prix scheduled two weeks later but missed this one. Dana Point decided to shut down the San Juan creek trail and post inadequate detour signs. And of course we had yet another heatwave for the weekend of the ride. For the past five years the temperatures have been 8-10 degrees above average on the weekend of this ride. I think it's about time to redefine the average.

I got up extra early at 3:30am to grab some pancakes and coffee from the Dennys next door. Then riders started drifting over about 4:30 and we did the paperwork.

I had 20 riders start the ride at 5am. As usual I was more nervous seeing them leave than actually doing the ride myself. I always worry about my riders, even though the route is as safe as I can make it.

I went back to my motel room to try to get a little more sleep and was woken around 5:30 by a rider who had set his alarm clock wrong. I did his paperwork and set him going. He looked strong and I knew he would catch other riders pretty quickly.

Around 7am I set off for a quick 30 miles myself which was great. I rode over to Kokomo's but they were closed so I just rode back and had an early lunch at Dennys. It was a very fast ride. I have lost about 10lbs over the past two weeks and it seems to be helping even on the flat. I have many more to lose before Crackerswamp.

The fastest riders were back around 10:30 looking pretty happy. It's a fast century loop and the winds are normally kind to them. Riders continued to show up until about 1pm. One rider, John, whose wife had scheduled something that evening - perhaps not understanding quite how long it takes to ride 400km - DNFed at that point. John and Charles had both come down from Redding where they are considering hosting a brevet series next year. Amber and I were up there last year and really enjoyed riding parts of their river trail system. So much prettier that the river trails here in SoCal. Keep an eye open for their rides - I know I will be.

I got a call that Doug had DNFed and his wife had picked him up. He was having stomach issues - possibly heat induced. I also got a text from Steve letting me know when he was at the far end of the second loop. That was really handy.

Ruth, who normally hosts the Riverside control at mile 200 had a family emergency Friday night so she was unable to host the control. I know this was a disappointment for her and the riders as she puts on a great spread. We had to wing it and some of the riders expressed difficulty finding a substitute control. Several of them ended up taking a photograph of her house. I wonder what her neighbors would have thought if they had seen successive cyclists riding to her house and photographing it in the wee hours of the night! Our condolences to Ruth and we hope to see her next year.

I tried to guess when the fastest riders would complete the second loop so I could order pizza for them. I ordered three pizza but I was surprised that many of the riders didn't want any. A lot of them had everything they wanted in their hotel rooms already which is a great advantage of this ride format. Plus I got extra pizza.

I got a strange phone call early in the morning. Dana had left his brevet card at a donut shop. Now Dana is a really nice guy and he must have left a good impression with the owner of the shop because he took the trouble to call me. I called Dana and let him know he had left his card behind. "****" Dana's response was predictably unprintable. "It's ten miles back - I'm not turning around!". I called some other riders who I knew were behind Dana and left messages. One of them stopped off and picked up Dana's card. Some people are so nice!

The last of the riders finished up the first 400k and got back to the hotel around 5:30am. The deadline is 7am so they didn't get much sleep but there was pizza left and a microwave for me to heat it for them. All the 400km riders completed except Redding John. Pete, of the stolen bike, DNFed at 400km although he had a decent time. It must have been stressful trying to set up his wife's bike to do a 600k on such short notice. I'm not sure I could have done it. He had no dynamo, no smart phone, no Garmin, and a strange bike. I think 400k was quite an achievement under the circumstances.

Sunday was even hotter than Saturday but the last loop sticks to the coast so heat wasn't a problem. They made good time down to Oceanside but when they turned around the headwind was stronger than usual. Many of them mentioned that the stretch from Oceanside to Dana Point was brutal.

The turn inland is on San Juan Creek trail which was closed. Some riders had no issues while others seemed to be very inconvenienced by the closure. I'm not sure what happened there. There were trail closure signs up when I did the staff ride but they seem to have closed more of it in the past 10 days.

The section through Lake Forest and Irvine can be irksome if you hit too many red lights. I'm completely revamping the ride next year and I have several options I'm considering to deal with that.

The fastest riders finished the 600k in 30 hours, Julie and Charles completed it in 39:50. That's a little tight for me but, hey, everyone gets the same credit.

We are unable to submit results for RUSA for now but you can see the results we will submit for the 400k here and the 600k here.

I'm going to start a conversation on the redesign of this route on Google Groups. Keep an eye open and please contribute your thoughts.

I am also going to write a web page that covers expectations during and after the ride. I was surprised by the number of people who didn't know how brevets cards work etc. Now that I think about it I shouldn't have been surprised at all - how could people who have never ridden a brevet before be expected to know the things we all do?

See you next year.