An expensive 200k and a flat

 Amber and I test rode the inland loop of the Triple Loop 600k yesterday and it turned out to be quite expensive. To start with, Amber's truck looks like it needs a new clutch. The Serotta's brakes were very squeaky, which means I need to replace the brake pads. Might as well replace all four so that's $30+. I had the chain replaced recently and it's slipping which probably means I need a new cassette so that's another $70+. And we're barely out of the parking lot.

Caltrans has been busy (in a good way) but the bike path alongside La Palma is unchanged from a year ago. That means it's still 1/3 good bike path, 1/3 behind K-rail, and 1/3 bad bike path.

The first piece of good news is that they are putting a bike lane in on Green River hill at mile 6. It looks like they are still trying to figure out how to get two lanes of traffic and a bike lane, but they are working on it.

Two way bike lane on Green River hill

The next good news is that Caltrans has repaved Crestview at mile 19 which used to be horrendous...

Buttery smooth

... and installed a bike lane on North Dr/Arlington while also repaving it.

Arlington has a bike lane AND is repaved!

But wait, there's more. They have put a left turn lane in where you turn into Hidden Valley at mile 20, making this turn much safer.

Left turn from Arlington Ave into Hidden Valley

The G&M gas station at mile 40 had no sandwiches so we made do with lunchables and Gatorade which, considering there's 2000' of climbing in the next 20 miles, didn't seem like it would be enough but surprisingly it was.

I'm not thrilled with the route I take along Waterman at mile 40 and very unhappy with it on the way back. I see Willie's routes use Anderson instead so I might be doing the same.

One thing I like about the current route is that once you turn left at the top of San Mateo, it's straight for the next 13 miles so that cuts out several cues and makes it harder to go astray (theoretically).

When leaving Calimesa you have to cross an off-ramp of Interstate 10 which used to be dangerous because cross traffic didn't stop. There's a stop sign for them now which is great.

Stop sign on off ramp

We got to the half way mark in about six hours which was about what I expected. There's about 4000' of climbing in this section and we had a head wind most of the way. After a huge sub and more Gatorade we headed down San Timeteo.

With the descent and the tail wind we coasted for six miles. We could have coasted much further but there was a line of cars stopped for a train that had just passed. We managed to pass the train on the descent and crossed the tracks again before it got there. The current route uses Beaumont. I didn't realize this provides a third opportunity for trains to get in the way. This time we got stuck behind a looooong train and backtracked to San Timeteo. 

Stuck behind train

I think I'll alter the route to avoid Beaumont. We also took a look at the bike path that connects San Timeteo to Barton Rd but it's dirt so that's no good.

When the sun went down I showed Amber the conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn. That was pretty cool.

Climbing up Smith I hit some metal which sliced my tire open and flatted my front tire in about five seconds. We had no problems fixing the flat but that's a $40 tire and $5 inner tube I need to replace :-( 

I was going to add some video, but it includes strong language so I decided not to.

We finished, feeling good, in 10:37 which is fine by me.

Amber's Brompton half-century

Amber rode my Brompton with Edgar and I on The Crema ride despite Newsom's attempts to have the whole state sealed in Carbonite. It seems restaurants are selling food to go, but if the customers happen to eat it on the convenient tables set outside, who are they to argue?

The first problem we had is that Amber's spd cleats are so worn down they are getting trapped in the quick release spd pedals I bought. She had to stop alongside a fence and grab it so I could release the Velcro straps from her shoes and pull her feet out. Then I wrenched her shoes from the pedals with all my strength. Fortunately she had brought regular sneakers so she walked back to her truck and swapped shoes.

The next excitement was caused by her pedal falling off. It seems that either the recent service at REI or Amber's sneakers had caused the retaining ring to move, allowing the pedal to come off. I think I'll be double-checking the position of the retaining ring before each ride in future.

By the time we reached Seal Beach Amber said she was pretty comfortable with the handling although you can see from these videos which were take only five miles into the ride, she was doing fine much sooner.

The Crema was quiet so we got our food quickly and ate it on the benches outside. Amber and Edgar got crepes and I got the grilled cheese and caramelized onion sandwich.

The Crema had some good looking bread for sale so we both bought large loaves which barely fit into the medium Borough bag on the Brompton.

Two large loaves of bread and a jacket

The return trip was less eventful although we did see a pretty elf ride by while we were stopped for water.

Elf standing for the hill

I wonder why Bromptons don't have a quick release for the front wheel. I should look for one.

 My medium Borough bag for the Brompton arrived early and it really is a nice bag, although badly overpriced, even for Brompton gear. It's far less of a sail than the large bag, yet has many of the nice features.

Brompton medium Borough bag

I went for a bike ride on the upper SART on Thursday evening and couldn't believe the amount of motorized traffic on the bike path, all associated with the homeless encampments there. The homeless people are shamelessly driving cars and motorbikes up and down the bike path to get to and from their tents. There was one huge SUV parked on the trail while the driver's brother delivered drugs to one encampment.

I've been watching some youtube channels on cycling recently. There are several I can recommend.

Phil Gaiimon is a retired pro cyclist who now lives in Los Angeles.

Global Cycling Network (GCN) is like Top Gear for bicycles - well worth watching

Everyday Cycling has a lot of great Brompton info

I've been wanting to replace the M handlebars on my Brompton with the S style to provide more real estate but that involves replacing the stem and possibly the cables too which is quite an undertaking, especially as the stem replacement can only be done by a Brompton dealer. I came across a stem extension made in Japan that provides the same lift the the M bars do and it only costs $30 including shipping. It's called the SATORI by ABERHALLO. I would even consider replacing the tubing with something longer so I can mount lights on the ends.

For some reason black S handlebars on Amazon cost 50% more than silver but I shopped around and found Perennial Bicycles selling them for the same price. This is the same place I bought the Tern multi-tool from. I probably won't get them until next year, but I'm hoping to be able to put quick-release aerobars on which would really make my Brompton a long-distance bicycle.

Using aerobars on a 16" wheeled bicycle? That will take some practice.

Brompton Borough Bag

I came across a Brompton dealer in Los Angeles called Just Ride LA and found they have a large stock of Brompton bikes and accessories. I called them up and they have several Brompton Borough bags in stock. As I have the small one ordered from Amazon (although it probably won't get here until next year) I drove to Just Ride LA and purchased the large version. 

Then I drove to Anaheim to give it a try. Although it is a huge bag, big enough for touring, it is an absolute sail into a headwind. I can see using it until the smaller one arrives, then saving it for touring in the future.

I also got my Tern toolkit from Perennial Cycle which is a very slick toolkit that tucks up under the saddle. It has the 15mm wrench that the Brompton needs for getting pedals and wheels off. It's very well made full featured and only half the price of the Brompton toolkit. It even has a chain tool.

I also realized that REI had not adjusted the gears properly so when the readout said gear 1 I was actually in gear 2 and when it said gear 2 I was actually in gear 3. So I couldn't get into the lowest gear. I found a video about adjusting the gears on Youtube.com and it turns out to be very easy to adjust it correctly. All I had to do was to put it in gear 2 (according to the indicator), then adjust the screw barrel until only 1mm of the adjuster rod is visible.

I hope to ride the 68 mile route from Yorba Linda park and back soon on the Brompton. That will put me over the 100km distance.

New Brompton

So after about two years of research and careful consideration I decided to go ahead and buy a Brompton. Now, because of high demand, all those damn Brits have been buying them up and selling them on eBay at 50% markup.

50% markup PLUS shipping

I happened to check the REI website and saw they had M6L Black editions for sale. They were a bit pricey but they were really close to what I wanted so I ordered one and it arrived four days early - it was meant to be.

I've made a lot of upgrades and have quite a few more in mind.

On the first ride I had some back pain and it felt like the handle bars were too close to the saddle so I rotated them forward about 1.5" which really helped. I have a bag on order but Amazon is so backed up right now I'm having to use my Acorn trifold saddle bag and the handle bar bag from the Serotta until it arrives.

The folding platform pedal that comes with the bike wasn't going to cut it for me so I got some removable spd pedals from flatbike

The handle bar grips that come with the bike are no good for any kind of distance so I replaced them with Ergon gp3 grips which seem like a good compromise between comfort and size. I also mounted my Wahoo Elemnt and a Cygolite front light. I got the water bottle cage from my local bike store because Amazon took three weeks to ship the one I ordered. It has a rubber block and a big velcro strap and works well. I turn it to the side when the bike is folded.

I also replaced the awful saddle that came with it (this is to be expected) with a semi-broken-in Brooks B17. A huge improvement that will only get better.

Amber and I rode a flat 50 mile to The Crema today and although it's 5-10% more effort to ride than my Serotta, it did very well and I'm sure I can ride a 100k on it.

So what else can I upgrade? Well, once the bag is here I'm going to consider upgrading to a rack. Then I could add a rack bag and panniers.

Now I'd really like to add some clipon aerobars but there's no room on the M bar. However the stem from the H bars plus the straight S handle bars would be about the same height and would provide a lot more handle bar space.

When stuff breaks

 Before I start reminiscing about mechanical problems over the years, I want to link to this amazing post about an 88 year old man who recently became the oldest person to complete Lejog. Unlike Amber and I, he rough rode it instead of being catered too. That means he carried camping gear and all his own equipment. I'm so impressed.

I've had numerous mechanical problems occur during my rides - some I overcame, some overcame me.

I have had two front derailleur cables break. The first time I wrapped the cable around my top tube and cinched it tight to force the derailleur into the middle ring. This was a mistake because the tension put gouges into the top tube. The second time was on a 600k. I removed the broken cable and adjusted the set screw in the derailleur to push the chain onto the middle ring. A much better solution.

Once my rear derailleur fell apart. I lost the screw holding the lower jockey wheel and bits just went flying everywhere. I looked all over and could not find the lost screw. In the end I used my chain tool to shorten the chain and make my bike a single speed. It's really difficult to make a chain tight enough and the rear dropout on a non single speed bike doesn't allow you to add any tension so I ended up adding an extra link and then carefully moving the chain onto a larger sprocket by hand.

In San Clemente, climbing a hill, my chain broke. I'd just had it replaced and I could see the mechanic had not quite put the pin in all the way. Fortunately I carry a chain tool so I fixed it. Then I took it back to the shop and made them replace the chain for free, which they did because they're a good bike store.

More recently, I had a saddle bolt break during a ride. It's a Botranger adjustable saddle with forward and back bolts so the nose just shot up into the air. I'm lucky I didn't go down. I had no solution to that one but fortunately I was riding with Amber and she rode back and got her truck. I carry a spare bolt now.

I had a Vittoria Randonneur tire with a bad bead weld ruin one of my 600ks. The weld on the bead failed and the bead punctured my tire. Unfortunately it took three flats in 10 miles before I realized what was causing them. I had to ride 15 miles in the wrong direction on a flat tire to the nearest bike shop where I could buy a new tire. Unfortunately we were now three hours behind schedule and it was obvious we were not going to make the time limit so I abandoned. Those were the last Vittoria tires I ever bought.

I had a problem with a pedal that wouldn't stay in the crank arm. It kept coming lose no matter how hard I tightened it (yes, I had a pedal wrench with me!). I'd stand on the pedal wrench but the pedal was so loose five miles later that I could hand tighten it. It was a long ride home and I simply replaced the pedals.

Probably the worst was after I had major work done on the front end of my bike including new fork and stem. On the next ride I was turning a corner and the front brakes came off - the mechanic had not put the nut on the bolt that attaches them to the frame. I was unhurt and the brakes did not fall into the wheel. Imagine if I had been flying down hill and the brakes had gone into the spokes. That was the last time I ever went to that bike shop and I told the manager exactly what I thought of his mechanic.

The latest was a broken spoke last Friday evening. I carry a spoke wrench but I was unable to stop the wheel rubbing completely so I turned around and rode back to the car. Fortunately it was only five miles and I was able to get to my bike shop before they closed.

Brompton gear inches and speed range

No riding this weekend - a storm has come in with fog and wind, rain and snow. 

I was wondering if the six speed Brompton is worth the extra cost and complexity over the three speed so I found a web page that lists the gear inches of all the Brompton gearing options. It's at https://www.bikefolded.com/brompton-gear-inches/ Once you have the gear inches you can use the formula speed = gear inches x cadence /  336 to determine velocity. Let's suppose I keep my cadence between 50 and 80 rpm which is my efficient range.

Standard three speed gear inches are between 48" and 85". This gives me a velocity range of 7 mph to 20 mph. This is OK but a bit limited.

Standard six speed gear inches are between 33" and 100". This gives me a velocity range between 5 mph and 24 mph. This is very close to what I want.

My Serotta has a velocity range between 5 mph and 30 mph but I don't use the top end very much.

My conclusion is that the six speed is worth it.

One of the annoying things about taking bikes on Amtrak or a plane is the requirement to remove pedals and aerobars in order to box them. I just received some Flatbike removable pedals from Amazon. These pedals attach to the crankarms with one hand in just a couple of seconds with no tools and are removed just as easily.

I have some aerobars on order that do the same thing so I can remove a couple of the steps required to box up a bike. I just ordered my Brompton from REI - the M6L Black edition. I'll be using them on that. I see I can buy a rack for $170 on Amazon when I get serious about touring.

A cold ride!

 I rode from Yorba Linda park to Seal Beach and back starting at sunset (6pm) so I didn't have the sun in my eyes. It was already cool - around 65F and there was almost no wind. Here's a frame grab from my GoPro.

I recently bought an air horn from Amazon which I held in my hand as I rode along the Huntington Beach trail. Although the trail was much less busy than usual, possibly because it was cold, I still used it a few times. Take a look at this video. You can see a small child run onto the trail in front of me and stop. When I gave her a blast of the air horn she moved very quickly. The giggle you can hear at the end of the clip is her sister :-) It's pretty funny.

The temperature dropped to about 61F so I had to put my jacket on! I had poutine at Bistro St. Germain in Seal Beach. It was very good to sit outside eating amazing poutine and listening to live music. In fact there was a lot of live music at several restaurants as I rode along the beach path and also one of the worst stand-up comics I've ever heard.

As I returned the fog came in and made it feel even colder. I found out how much fog it takes to stop my Sigma 1609 working. It's this much.

My Wahoo ELEMNT was unaffected. Four miles inland, I left the fog behind me and had a lovely ride back to my car. Total time for 70 miles was 5:10.

Back Bay with Amber tomorrow and, hopefully, a test ride of the third loop of the Triple Loop up to Banning next weekend.

2021 600k second loop dry run

Ever since this pandemic hit bicycle sales have been through the roof. You can't buy a Brompton right now for love nor money. If you look for them on ebay you see used models are selling for more than their new price. The 1UP bike rack site is back ordered on everything right now. I spoke to a cyclist in Seal Beach on my ride last weekend and she said she couldn't find a decent new bike so she had to buy a used one. All this is a good thing - we may find a bumper crop of new riders next year and anything that raises bicycle awareness is a good thing for us. However the bike paths are busier than I've ever seen them. Like difficult-to-pass busy.

Amber and I did a test ride of the Southern loop of next year's 600k, but starting from Yorba Linda park and, while we're comfortable with the route, we did find a couple of things we want to change and some missing cues. We found the bridge on the coastal path through San Clemente has been repaired but decided to make official route through San Clemente the signed bike route both ways. Riders will still be able to opt for PCH or the coastal path if they want.

The turn-around is a boring, empty, dirt lot. I had hoped it would be a bit more interesting. I might drop some water here and a sign for an info control. There isn't even anything distinctive enough to use as a photo control. The view is nice though, but most riders will be here in the dark.

We had headwind coming back up the coast from the turn-around so it was good to head inland at Dana Point because once we got away from the coast the headwind died down. The wind was getting stronger as the day progressed so we had a strong headwind as we rode from Irvine back to Newport Beach. Once we turned inland we had a powerful tailwind all the way to the end of the ride. That was pretty awesome. We finished in 10:12 which was fine because we could have easily taken 30 minutes off our time by not eating at the Brig in Dana Point.

On the way home I got stuck behind an odd driver. The traffic had slowed down for a while, then sped back up again. This driver was still driving at the slowed down speed, doing 50mph in the fast lane, even though he had 1/4 mile of open road in front of him. I've done the same thing myself, but not for so long. I bet a psychologist could explain it.

Amber and I will ride the third loop in a couple of weeks on a Sunday to see if there's an excessive amount of motorized traffic on the upper SART.

I just finished validating Kerin's May 1st 400k - called the Simi Valley Four Fingers. It has about 9000' of climbing which is about average for a 400k. I think it will be an enjoyable ride.

1Up bike rack and super fast 200k

 Last weekend I was driving to the start of a ride when I got rear-ended on the freeway. My 1Up bike rack took all the damage and ended up with a slightly bent hitch bar which can be replaced for $65. My beloved bicycle was undamaged. Those 1Up bike racks are built like tanks! I can't recommend them highly enough.

This weekend I decided to try a new strategy for brevet riding. I rode the Four Rivers brevet using Perpetuem and Endurolytes and stopping as infrequently as possible. Using this technique I was able to reduce the first and third stops to five minutes to grab water and mix in powder. I kept the second stop as short as possible and finished with a total time of 8:47 for a flat 200k. Although I never lacked for power and I didn't have cramping problems despite it reaching 88F, this is not the most enjoyable way to ride a 200k. I was also completely spent at the end and could not have ridden another 100k.

I think if Amber and I were riding together using this technique, we could have finished in 9 hours feeling strong. It's worth thinking about this for next year's 600k.

Finally, a 200k

The temperature has finally dropped below 90F so Amber and I rode the Four Rivers 200k route starting at Yorba Linda park. The free parking area was completely full so we drove to the pay area and coughed up $5 which is pretty reasonable considering how great the park is. We started about 8:15 under overcast skies and light winds. Why is it "overcast skies" when there's only one sky. Do some people have more than one sky?

The SART was very busy so we kept getting stuck behind slow riders while waiting for a gap in the oncoming traffic. This may have been a blessing in disguise by forcing us to keep riding at a more conservative pace. It's still frustrating, though, and I could see a lot of other trail riders were thinking "Why are there so many other people on the trail today?"

It was still overcast at the beach and the beach trail was very busy too. For some reason I had assumed that the lack of sun would keep people away. I was wrong. We got to The Crema and decided to get food to go. They were out of baguettes so I got a spinach and cheese croissant and a danish which hit the spot.

Even the San Gabriel bike trail was busy for a few miles but it quickly cleared out and we enjoyed a tail wind almost all the way to El Monte. At the gas station Amber and I compared sandwiches. I was surprised that my tuna salad had almost 400 calories but Amber's egg salad had less that 300. Not that it really matters when you're riding a 200k.

After that uninspiring meal we headed back to the coast with a headwind that reached about 20mph once we got within five miles of Long Beach. Amber pulled a lot of that stretch. The Los Angeles bike path has a lot of new tents popping up. It's clear that one of the downsides of a booming economy is that a lot of people get forced out of the housing market. California's homeless problem has not improved under Newsom and Trump compared to Brown and Obama.

I was craving a Jack-in-the-Box teriyaki bowl so we stopped in Long Beach for a carb fix. While I was waiting for our food a drugged out customer spent five minutes trying to figure out what he wanted before ordering all six specials and realizing he only had enough money for one. Not having to deal with people like that is why I never pursued a career in the fast food business. That, and the fact I'd weigh 400lbs by now. Plus, I'm pretty sure all fast-food executives automatically go to Hell.

As we left the beach at Horny Corner (seriously, that's the name) in Long Beach there was a live band playing in someone's front yard with an audience in the street (it's closed so that's cool). They were really good but we were on a timed ride so we couldn't stop. Plus, it looked like a super-spreader event.

The beach trail was still crowded so we headed inland on Golden and Atlanta and turned towards Yorba Linda with a (surprise) headwind. It wasn't too bad though, so we still held 17mph. We got back to the cars with a 9:28 elapsed time which I was very pleased with. That ride takes me over 10,000 miles for the year - the earliest I've ever reached that mark.

The next training ride will be the southern loop of next year's Triple Loop 600k. We've never ridden this entire loop in one ride, so we'll see how it goes.

How we used to ride

 I've been cycling since my early teens - let's call that the mid 1970's. I was thinking about the heavy five speed steel bikes with 36 spoke wheels, down-tube shifters, quill stems, seat post clamps, cotter-pins, and all that good stuff. But I especially thought about the lights we used to use. I found a picture of my first set of lights on the wonderful Sheldon Brown website.

The front light took a weird three volt battery that looks like two D-cells glued together. The rear light just took two D-cells.

For a poor English boy, Ever Ready was the only option available. My local Halfords didn't carry any fancy hardware. Those batteries only ran that weak light for five or six hours and they didn't recharge so they were good for two evening rides and they weren't cheap. Fortunately, in the deep English countryside it is so dark only one rider needs their lights on so David, Kevin, and I would save money by taking turns running our lights.

When I compare them to the Schmidt dynamo, Edelux front light, and Busch & Muller brake tail light that I currently use, supplemented by Cygolite front and rear rechargeable lights, it's amazing how far the technology has come. My lighting set in 1975 cost about $7 whereas my current lights cost a total of about $500 which would have bought quite a nice used car back then. Mind you, I save a lot on batteries now.

This web page says it all so much better than I can.

I had no computer, but I did save up and buy one of these mileage counters. You mounted it on the front dropout and a peg attached to a spoke would move the device one fifth of a turn every time the wheel rotated. The device assumed I had a 27" wheel and it had gearing to display the total distance travelled. I don't think it had a reset feature so I would have to memorize the distance at the start of the ride and subtract it. I stopped using it eventually because it was so hard to read while riding and I kept forgetting the starting distance anyway.

I don't remember ever wearing a helmet, either.

More beach riding - maybe a 200k in the near future

 I drove down to Yorba Linda park last Friday evening and rode from there to the beach and back starting at 6pm. It was 88F when I started which was pretty uncomfortable for me, but it cooled down quickly. For some reason, 80F at dusk is less oppressive than 80F in the middle of the day.

Ten miles from the beach I met up with a couple of strong young riders and we rode together at a pretty good pace down to the beach and back to Anaheim. We were riding a bit faster than I would normally ride solo and I knew I would pay for it the next day, but it was so worth it. At the end they asked me how old I am and when I told them they seemed pretty impressed. Made my day!

I rode 45 miles in 2:46 but it seemed much faster :-)

The next day Amber and I rode from Anaheim to Seal Beach and back. We were planning on riding Back Bay but the day turned out hotter than predicted, plus my legs were aching from last night. I haven't been to The Crema since the heat wave made it unpleasant to ride during the day, so that was nice. Although I love riding at night, there is one thing I miss about riding during the day.

It was 86F when we finished in Anaheim and I melted the last five miles. Nevertheless, it was a good weekend of riding.

I love night rides

 To commemorate 9-11 I drove down to Yorba Linda park and, starting at 6pm, rode to Seal Beach and back. When you've got good lights (and a pair of clear glasses) there's nothing like night riding to replenish your soul. Well, OK, there's probably lots of things, but I like night riding.

This heat wave seems to be tailing off and we're back to normal September temperatures, which is still hot but not deadly. The wind was predominantly from the North so I had to take it easy as  I rode into it on the beach path which was as crowded as you would expect on a nice Friday evening. Riding through an oblivious crowd of people is a great way to improve bike handling skills. As usual, there were cyclists with no lights and e-bikes going way to fast making us considerate cyclists look bad.

I had the chicken sandwich at Bistro St .Germain. You know how people like to take photographs of their food to send to their friends? I couldn't wait so I ate the food first, then took the photograph.

On the way back someone was letting off fireworks in the parking lot by the beach. Again, rather there than in tinder dry forest. I wish that chap in El Dorado park had had his gender reveal party at the beach.

I finished just before 11pm with 68 miles and feeling very happy.

Finally cool enough to enjoy

Those of us that live in SoCal have been living through a heat wave for the past two weeks so when I saw the high in Anaheim would only be 86F on Sunday I decided to do a night ride at the beach.

It was only 78F at 7pm in Yorba Linda so I jumped onto my bicycle and gleefully rode towards the beach into a gentle onshore flow. The sun set thirty minutes later and the temperature dropped to about 70 pretty quickly. Lovely.

Because it was so cool (64F at the beach), I decided to ride along the beach path to the end and eat at Jack-in-the-Box. The beach trail was quieter that normal, possibly because it was Sunday, and possibly because it was cool. Someone was letting off fireworks at the beach. Better there than in the tinder dry forest.

I ate meat at Jack-in-the-Box because there aren't veggie options and I needed more than just fries. Turning back South on the beach trail I had a tailwind and the trail had cleared out so I was riding along at 18-20 mph with a full belly, very happy. Even when I turned inland I still had a 5mph tailwind so I finished 61 miles in 4:22 elapsed. Not bad considering for eight miles of that I was constrained to 10mph.

Next weekend looks horrific. Why does the weather always get more extreme on the weekends?

Killer ride

 Normally "killer ride" would be a good thing but yesterday was painful. Amber and I decided to do the Sam Woo loop which involves riding from Anaheim to Dana Point, then Irvine, Huntington Beach, and back to Anaheim. As it never goes more than 15 miles inland it's normally a good route for a warm day but yesterday was extremely hot. It was still 85 when we finished the ride at 5pm. It must have been close to 90 in the mid-afternoon in Irvine - well outside my comfort zone. A brutal ride, not made any better by the fact I was still getting over a cold.

Oh well - I survived and I'm stronger now.

Unrelated to cycling, I've been reading about a huge controversy in Scotland about end-of-year exam grades. All exams were cancelled because of COVID-19 so the exam board tried to guess the exam results from teacher evaluations and in-course test results. Many students received grades that were lower than their teachers had recommended so there has been understandable outrage. Some people are asserting that the results were affected by the location of the school, with the grades of students in poorer locations being downgraded more often. 

So here's an image of a protester's sign I pulled from the BBC website. Can you see the irony?

Obviously, if you are claiming your exam results should be better, you shouldn't use the noun form "effect" where you should have used the verb form "affect". I have to wonder if this is why the BBC chose to use this image. The Brits can get fussy about grammar.

So, new app, "GrammarCheckMySign"?

Cycling as therapy

First I want to send commiserations to my friend Shai who had a bad accident while cycling in the Santa Monica mountains earlier this month. I don't know the details, but his list of injuries sounds awful. Even worse, his $12,000,000 bicycle was scratched. Hope to see you when all the crazy is over.

I came across an article on news.bbc.com about a new scheme to encourage Brits to ride bicycles. To quote...

GPs in areas of England with poor health will be encouraged to prescribe cycling, with patients able to access bikes through their local surgery. 

The idea is that GP surgeries will have a stock of bicycles to lend, with training, access to cycling groups and peer support. 

In some cases, if they used them enough, patients would be allowed to keep them.

The government is also handing out fifty pound (about $70) vouchers so people can get their beat-up old bikes into rideable condition and go get healthy again. Can you imagine your government or healthcare provider doing this for you? Maybe one day. Right now they're probably too worried about you getting hit by a car and suing them.

I also came across an interesting article about boredom and how people deal with it. When I tell people I regularly cycle hundreds of miles they often ask me if I get bored. I don't. Not at all.

“I think everybody gets the boredom signal,” says James Danckert, who heads a boredom lab at the University of Waterloo, Ontario. “Some people are really, really good at dealing with it though.”

Seriously, there's a boredom lab? There's more than one? Can you imagine that first date?
What do you do for a living?
I work in a boredom lab.
Oh..... that's nice
It's more interesting than it sounds
It couldn't be less interesting

What do you do to avoid getting bored? Do you sing or calculate your arrival time at the next control? Do you listen to music or chat with imaginary friends? Do you play music in your head to the beat of your freewheel?

Amber and I have a new eatery to recommend. We've eaten on Main Street in Seal Beach hundreds of times but we always thought the Bistro St. Germain looked a bit pretentious. It isn't. It's superb service, french food prepared correctly, and very reasonable prices.

It has quite a bit of outdoor seating so they're still quite busy despite the current crisis. They are open until 9pm so it's an ideal place to eat during an evening ride. I'm planning on riding down there next Friday evening starting from the SART at 7pm.

It's now our backup for La Crema and our go-to for evening rides. There are so many things on their menu I want to try. Here is the lasagna which was amazing.

Another night ride on the SART

Last week Amber and I tried an alternative route on Paseo de Valencia to avoid that dangerous intersection of Cabot/La Paz/Muirlands and the I5 interchange. It adds a mile and 100' of climbing but we both agree it is much safer so I'm altering the route for the second loop of October's 400k to use this detour. Because it adds that extra mile I can move the turnaround from the nuclear power plant to a vista point which has the unexpected bonus of net reducing the climbing for this loop by 100' bringing it under 4000'

Here's the truncated route we rode with the detour starting at mile 45.7. The official route will be on Los Alisos but the bike path will be an option if you're familiar with it. I suspect the majority of randonneurs have no idea how much effort goes into designing a route. I wonder if people think I comp Amber just because she's my daughter. No, we are both heavily involved in test riding all my routes.

It has been so hot lately I've been riding the SART at night but I'm still worried about them locking the gates on me so I'm just riding from Yorba Linda park to Katella and back repeatedly. I started at 8pm yesterday so the temperature was in the mid 70's and the wind was dying down. It was almost dark and it was quite lovely.

I'm riding with my Cygolite Expilion set on the lowest setting, my Edelux II dynamo light, and a cheap but useful helmet light on the lowest setting. On the back I have my new Bausch dynamo brake light and a Cygolite spot tail light. The two complement each other very well because the Cygolite is VERY bright but has a narrow beam whereas the Bausch has a very wide beam.

I thought it would be interesting to video with the lights in my normal riding mode (lowest settings) and also with all the lights turned full on. Here's the normal riding mode...

.. and here's all the lights at their brightest settings ...

There were a surprising number of cyclists using the SART even at 11pm. Many of them had no lights at all and some of them had no tail lights. It's only because I had exceptional lighting that I didn't run into the back of them. This guy had a tail light but for some reason didn't think he needed to turn it on. He was wrong.

However, most of them had really great lights...

I ended a little after 11pm with 50 miles and over 800'' of climbing (lol I'm no mountain goat). Average speed was 16.1 mph. Time off the bike was only 6 minutes according to my ELEMNT.

The gates at Katella were still open at 11pm so this is two Friday nights in a row they haven't locked the gates. Looks like a pattern.

SART no longer locked

I drove down to Yorba Linda last night to ride up and down the SART from Yorba Linda park to Katella. The free parking area was overflowing with softball teams so I started from the pay area. Three dollars seems quite reasonable.

I had a new flexible mount Cygolite hotspot taillight attached to see how it fared. It has the best flexible mount I've seen. I attached it to a seat stay and adjusted the angle until the beam was roughly horizontal.

I started at 7pm as the sun was getting low. There was a fairly strong headwind.

As I turned on Katella I made a stupid mistake and allowed my knee to come out wide as I pushed down on the pedal. I pulled something in my hip and was in severe pain for a few minutes. I decided to turn around and ride back with a tailwind in case the damage was serious. Fortunately, after 15 minutes the pain mostly went away and I was able to complete the ride.

After 19 miles I was back at the car, grabbed some water and set out for a second loop. Even after the sun had been down for 30 minutes and it was starting to get darker, my GoPro still takes good pictures although you can see the exposure time has increased causing some blurring at speed.

It still amazes me how stupidly some people behave around cyclists. I literally had two people look straight at me and then step out right in front of me. Perhaps they don't understand that I'm travelling at 20mph. I don't know.In the video below I had two front lights on and the runner still thought I would magically teleport through him at the last moment.

I finished the second loop around 9:20pm, grabbed water and ate some food, and headed out for the last loop. I reached Katella at 10pm and the gate was still open. I finished the third loop at about 10:30 with 56 miles and an overall average of 16mph and a moving average of about 18mph.

I drove over to the ARTIC at Katella and walked to the gates across the SART. Even at 11pm they are all open and unlocked. I don't think they're locking the gates anymore. This means we will be able to start the October 400k at 5am which means most riders will finish around 1am and not have to take the road detour on the way back.

Let's hope they don't change their minds.

Four River 200k

Amber and I decided to ride the Four Rivers 200k but starting at Yorba Linda park making a total of 121 miles. It was our first time at this distance for some months. The weather was overcast, cool, and windy with the promise of rain. I hadn't brought a jacket :-(

My kind of weather

We had a headwind to the beach and a sidewind at the beach. We ate at The Crema (of course) and then headed to El Monte with a strong tailwind. It's hard to enjoy a tailwind when you know you have to turn around and battle it later.

To our surprise, the overcast persisted all the way to El Monte which was very nice. After a quick stop, we turned into the headwind and rode to Long Beach. As we got close the sun came out and so did all the trail users. All of a sudden the trail was packed with people acting as though they had never see a bicycle before. Small groups spread all across the trail, people crossing it without looking, the usual stuff.

We ate at Chronic Tacos and the quesadillas hit the spot after fighting the headwind for 25 miles. We took Atlanta back to the SART to avoid the continuing bad behavior on the beach trail. We had a powerful tailwind all the way back to the cars. Total elapsed time was 9:36 which we were very pleased with especially as we had taken our time at The Crema and Chronic Tacos. If we had been more disciplined through the controls we could have had a nine hour ride. But where's the fun in that?

October 400k

RUSA is restarting rides up to 225km on July 1st while following local ordinances concerning COVID-19. Unfortunately it's too hot right now in SoCal to consider long brevets so I have offered to host the first and last loops of my Triple Loop 600k as a 400k in October. The tentative date is 10/10/20 which has a nice ring to it. In addition our RBA, Kerin, is hoping to offer some 200k brevets before then.

These two loops stay within 25 miles of the coast so the temperatures should remain nice for the entire ride. The first loop is the classic Four Rivers 200k which is flat and fast. The second loop is a variant of the triple loop third loop (that we haven't been able to ride yet). It is a little hillier but still has less than 4000' of climbing. Total climbing is about 5,500' so it's very accessible.

They both start and end at the Extended Stay America in Yorba Linda.

For anyone that is interested - here is the text of the draft plan that Kerin is submitting to RUSA for reopening.

Everything on my bicycle is important

Almost everything on my bicycle is important. If it wasn't, I wouldn't waste energy pedaling it all over the place. So when something breaks, it's a problem.

I can fix flats, chains, spokes, and a few other things with the tools I carry, but yesterday one of the bolts on my saddle mount broke. The head popped clean off.

There's supposed to be a head on this bolt

I ride the kind of seat post that has two bolts for easy alignment and the front one failed. The back one stopped the seat from flying off and taking me with it, but one moment the saddle was horizontal and the next it was vertical. Fortunately I was able to bring the bike to a controlled stop.

Once we ascertained what happened, Amber decided to ride back the four miles to her truck and come get me. Thank goodness we weren't at the far end of a 200k out-and-back. I would have had to walk to the nearest hardware store.

I stopped in at Lowes on the drive home to replace both bolts (if one fails, the other may not be far behind). I needed expert help to figure out which one of their several hundred types of bolts to buy. If you're interested it's an M6 35mm. The one that didn't break is now in my top tube bag as a spare.

So if we all carried spares of the parts that had broken over the years, some of us would have to pull a trailer behind us to carry them all. You can imagine the conversations at the start of brevets.

"What's that?"
"Pawl spring - had one break in San Mateo in '04. And there's the tool I need to replace it."
"How much does all that weigh?"
"I carry 28lbs of spare parts with me on all my brevets."

Almost a Century

Amber and I rode almost a century on Sunday - our longest ride since the Covid-19 lockdown. We planned carefully to be as responsible as possible. I got hold of a proper mask, and we decided to eat at The Crema, a gas station, and a 7-11. The Crema was a bit naughty, but everyone there has always been so conscientious.

I think the mayor of Huntington Beach must read my blog (yeah, right) because she did exactly what I suggested and closed the beach parking lots but opened the beach path up. The beaches were almost completely empty except for the dog beach. What's up with that?

I finally had a good version of the custom mount for Amber's new tail light so I mounted it and roughly wired it up. It works great. I'm so happy she has that. I made her ride with it turned on during the day and it's not really daylight visible but it's fantastic when she goes through tunnels.

Bike traffic on the SART was back to normal with large groups, probably not socially distancing when they stop, but they're little to no threat to other riders. In fact, road traffic everywhere was back to normal, before, during, and after the ride. I think people are fed up with the restrictions. Hopefully we took enough advantage of the pause the lockdown created. Somehow, I don't think we did.

The weather was lovely with overcast for the start of the ride and clear skies around 80F for the high in El Monte.

Overcast :-)

For the past few weeks classic car owners have been driving around Seal Beach. We've seen some beauties. Here's one that particularly caught my eye.

Pretty

We finished with 96.5 miles in about 7.5 hours with about 6 hours of ride time. I'm planning an unsupported 400k when it starts to cool down as a training ride for the Crackerswamp.

Closing of California open spaces causes more problems than it solves

When Los Angeles County closed all its beaches, bike paths, and open spaces people simply went to Orange County and neighboring counties increasing the usage of their spaces. So when Gavin Newsom saw the crowds at Orange County beaches last week he ordered them closed as well. Does he really think that will help? Many other cities around the world, such as Oakland and Milan, are converting roads into pedestrian and cycling only areas. The Los Angeles area seems to moving in exactly the opposite direction.

Amber and I took our weekly bike ride today. The largest group we saw was six people and most people were being very responsible. When we got to the beach we were appalled to see that Huntington Beach has closed the beach path. Now, if you want to keep people off the beach, all you have to do is close the beach parking lots. That's what they did two weeks ago and it worked pretty well. I don't support those protesting the lock-down, but I think some of the measures are too heavy handed.

Stupid Stupid Stupid

By closing the beach path, thousands of cyclists (and pedestrians) are forced to use PCH - a busy road. This is not the safer option. There were perhaps a hundred CHP and Sheriff deployed to stop people using the beach path. What a waste of resources.

Not content with forcing all of us to ride on PCH, Huntington Beach placed all their informational signs in the bike lane. THANKS!

Thank you for forcing us to ride on PCH and then repeatedly blocking our bike lane

Unfortunately this wasn't the most stupid thing we had to deal with. When we were almost back we had a runner pull a u-turn in front of us, so she knew we were coming, and then run down the middle of the trail, drifting to the left as we tried to pass her, and completely unable to hear me shout because she was blasting music on her air-pods. What a moron.

Deaf, blind, and stupid

The bulges in Amber's panniers are a brioche and pastries from The Crema 😋😋😋

Test ride with new tail light

I decided I wanted to try my new Busch & Müller Toplight Line Brake Plus tail light and the custom mount I designed in the dark so I drove down the SART at 7pm. (No I didn't design it in the dark!) I started at La Cadena and rode up to the closure at Mt Vernon. It's not passable.

Not passable

There were a lot of families walking along the trail, as well as a number of dirt bikes and 4x4 driving on the trail too. 

Lot's of families like this - difficult to socially distance

I decided to relocate to Ryan Bonaminio park which is closed but has plenty of parking outside. It's right on the bike path so I continued riding from there. For the rest of the ride I only saw three walkers and no vehicles.

There's some flooding on the trail and also some very rough sections of dried mud that probably aren't going to get cleaned up any time soon. I'm glad my lights are good enough to let me see what's ahead.

I found out on the ride that my new tail light doesn't flash as you slow down - it gets brighter like a real brake light. This makes sense as I believe flashing tail lights are illegal in Germany where these are made. I like it a lot. I did a night ride with Amber and she likes it too so she'll be getting one for her birthday.

Custom light mount

I was browsing through the Peter White website as I sometimes do and came across the "Busch & Müller Toplight Line Brake Plus" dynamo powered tail light that brightens when it detects you slowing down.

Busch & Müller Toplight Line Brake Plus

The only problem is that it is only designed to attach to a rack. The light is about 90mm wide and the mount bolts are 50mm apart. I want to mount it on my seat stay. Fortunately, I have a friend with a 3D printer and I have a copy of Design Spark and I'm not afraid to use it.

After a couple of hours and some rejected prototypes I came up with this design.

It is designed to be held together with a 50mm hose clamp. When attached to a seat stay with a 25 degree pitch the light will be horizontal. Note the channel to accommodate a disk brake cable running down the seat stay like Amber's bike does. On my bike, I'm using it to route the light cable. When installed, the light clears the spokes by 1/4" which, hopefully, is enough. 

Here are some images of it on my bike.

Now to do a night ride with Amber.

The Wet Crema

Amber and I were planning on riding Back Bay this Sunday but the rain came in early and we didn't want to risk riding down steep hills on slick roads so we opted for The Crema again (note we didn't opt not to ride).

Ten miles of rain

Not only was is raining, but it was windy too with the wind coming out of the North as usual. Even though we kept our speed down our feet and backsides were soaked in a couple of minutes. Fortunately the rain eased up after ten miles and we had overcast skies and wet pavement to the beach.

Once we got to the beach the clouds started to break up and we started to see blue skies. Even though the weather was worse than last week we saw more riders and walkers which suggests people are getting tired of staying at home all the time.

Nice weather in Seal Beach

We ate outside at The Crema enjoying the lovely weather. On the way back the clouds came back in but we got back without getting rained on any more.