Long time no Ride

A series of storms have been lining up to hit Southern California ever since the middle of January, making even leaving my driveway a challenge. Fortunately an hour of snow shoveling followed by a two hour stationary workout has helped keep my fitness level up.

We had a slight break last Saturday so Amber and I rode the last 100k of the Five Rivers 300k. Stacy, Greg, and Martins rode my Four Rivers permanent which covers the first 200k of the Five Rivers. Between us we managed to put eyeballs on almost all the bike paths used by the Five Rivers.

At this time, two weeks before the event date, there are quite a lot of problems to deal with.

1. SART is flooded as it passes under Orangewood but it's easy to cross over the street.

SART under Orangewood

2. The top of the San Gabriel bike trail has flooding over a spillway.

Top of the SGRT

3. The Rio Hondo is gated and closed, the reason is unknown. I will need to investigate further.

Rio Hondo

4. There is some residual mud in underpasses on the San Diego Creek bike path and there are some unnecessarily closed gates. The mud is rideable with 28mm tires and the gates can be easily circumvented.

The long term weather forecast shows about nine days of clear weather before the Five Rivers 300k which means all these issues will be resolved and I fully expect the entire route to be open. I was most concerned about long-term damage to the trails, but this doesn't seem to have happened.

For the Five Rivers 300k, we're currently expecting normal temps and wind with the chance of rain later in the day.