Possible changes to 600k brevet

I had to ride on my own this Sunday because Amber was working and the Klines begged off for some reason. I've been having second thoughts about the third loop of my 600k brevet because of the climbing and navigation issues I thought some riders might have. The Aliso trail is closed at an awkward point which requires an unpleasant detour so I decided to maybe look at a more coastal route. I rode down to the coast on the SART and then headed south on PCH. It was pretty cold when I started.

A cold and largely deserted SART

I used the Crystal Cove bike path which is a lot of fun except for the pedestrians that are too dumb to get out of the way of an oncoming cyclist.

Yes actually, we do own the entire trail!

I feel the traffic through Laguna Beach was bad, even though it was a Sunday, but I enjoyed taking Cliff instead of PCH through this stretch. RWGPS is recommending Gleneyre street through this town and I think that will help a lot.

I had lunch at Jon's Fish Market which I can strongly recommend if you like fish and chips. They're not really chips, but they're not bad either. PCH gets a bit lumpy as you head through this section but overall there isn't too much climbing on this route.

I rode on south to where the trail goes under I5 and then turned around into a headwind. The lumps got lumpier and I slowed down quite a bit. As I had already ridden the section I wanted to test ride, I decided to catch the train back from San Clemente, only to find out after I had paid for my ticket that there were no trains running because of track maintenance.

So I jumped back on the bike, very aware that the gate at Katella would be locked at 6pm, and headed north retracing my route. I don't know if it was the headwind but the return trip seemed far less pleasant with even more traffic. I thought about heading inland at Crown Valley to return on Santiago Canyon but quickly decided I didn't want to do all that climbing.

In the end I got to Katella an hour before the gate closed, and go back to my car in 9:37 which is pretty decent for a solo, fairly hilly 200k.

In previous editions of this route I have taken the riders inland at the San Juan creek trail and then over to the SART at McArthur. I might try that again this year. The proposed route is here. Amber and I will ride just the loop part next weekend to see how it feels.