All went well until we got to a bridge on the Bayview Trail that had been closed for repair. There was only one detour sign where three were required to get us back onto the trail. Eventually some cyclists passed us who claimed to know how to get around the detour and led us back. At least the roads on the detour were quite nice.
We decided to change it up a bit by eating at the Ha Long restaurant at the Irvine control of my 300k. We would never have known how good this place is without the recommendations of some of my riders. I had a hankering for one of their tri-layer drinks. I'm not sure what is in there but I know it has red beans and boba. There must have been something in there that my body wanted. Listen to your body!
We took the East Irvine trail and followed the 300k route to Santiago Canyon Road where the CHP had closed the road at the bottom of the hill. Why they couldn't tell us the road was closed at the top of the hill, I do not know. Clearly they are not cyclists.
As we labored back up the hill my front tire blew out and went flat in about ten seconds. Amber looked at the blown tire as I replaced it and noticed a huge gash in the tube but there was absolutely no damage to the tire. Then I remembered that the previous tube had a gash in exactly the same place even before I had used it. I suspect I had two tubes from an entire bad batch. I inflated the new tube with my CO2 cartridge and put the ice cold cartridge in my back pocket. Oh that felt good for about five minutes.
Because of the location of the road closure we had to ride along Chapman to get back to the bike path. The first bit was nice, but the section through El Modena sucks horribly. Three lanes each way, no shoulder, heavy traffic. We rode on the sidewalk for a while but that was just as dangerous as the road. Eventually we saw the homeless tents along the SART and turned onto it. I've never been glad to see those homeless tents before.
Not our best ride.
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