Who's to blame?

I came across this article about a tragic accident in England involving a careless pedestrian and e-cyclist.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-51647068

In short a cyclist was riding an e-bike at high speed and a pedestrian stepped out in front without due attention. He hit and killed her while suffering no notable injury himself. Despite the existence of CCTV footage the article does not specify how fast he was travelling. It implies he was travelling between 15 and 30 mph.

It seems to me both parties are at fault but the bulk of the blame lies with the pedestrian. Would we be having this conversation if she had stepped in front a motor scooter doing, say, 25 mph? On the other hand the driver of a motor scooter has had training and passed a test. E-bikes need no training or license to operate. I can see a good case for requiring training and licensing just like a motor scooter. Just because it's powered by electricity instead of gasoline makes no difference. I still need a license to drive a Tesla!

I am appalled the rider left the scene, though. I hope they nail him hard for that at least.

Update 3/2/2020: The rider was cleared of all charges. Probably correct although I'm surprised he wasn't charged with leaving the scene of an accident or driving without a license. I wonder if there will be a civil claim.

Five Rivers 300k pre-ride

Amber and I pre-rode the Five Rivers 300k on Monday. Nether of us had ridden anything more than 200k for two years so we were economical with our effort.

We left at 6am when it was a chilly 50F and dawn was hinting in the East. The bike path detour alongside La Palma has improved so we have 1/3 nasty trail, 1/3 protected trail, 1/3 newly paved trail.

1/3 newly paved trail

Once we entered the SART at Green River we picked up the expected tail wind which had us moving so fast we reached Katella at 7am. Fortunately the gate was already unlocked.

Flying on the SART

Don't forget to turn off the SART when you see these trash cans

We still had a tailwind as we headed West to the first control at Vons which we reached at 7:50 - yeah less than 2 hours for the first 35 miles.

I've found croissant sandwiches are a great way to increase calories without bulk

When we reached the coast we rode on PCH because we had a nice tailwind which we could not have taken full advantage of on the beach path. As we headed inland on the San Gabriel trail we had a slight headwind which was unexpected. In fact the wind was varying in strength and direction all day.

San Gabriel trail

Very popular trail

We hit the 100 km mark in slightly under 4 hours elapsed. The climb up Santa Fe dam is arduous but there is a nice view at the top. I have to wonder why there is a dam here at all - no lake and no river. Must be a SoCal thing.

View from Santa Fe "dam"

The final five miles to Duarte through the Santa Fe nature preserve is rather nice.

We got to Duarte at 11am - 80 miles in 5 hours elapsed. We've slowed down a bit but still way ahead of schedule. We both love these complete cookies. They have 420 calories and go down very easy.

Complete cookie

The wind continued to blow from all directions as we returned, but about 15 miles from Long Beach it started to be a strong headwind (15-20 mph) so we took turns pulling. About three miles from Long Beach the wind turned around completely and we had a strong tail wind. Curiouser and curiouser.

The Rio Hondo trail had major flooding earlier this year but they cleaned it up well.

Even though we struggled to hold 12 mph on the approach to Long Beach we still got the the Jack-in-the-Box at Belmont Shore in 8:15 elapsed - that's 200 km folks! There are lots of places to chose from at this control. We chose Jack-in-the-Box because it's faster than Chronic Tacos but better than the Arco. We were both craving a chicken teriyaki bowl.

If your body craves it, eat it! (only while cycling)

We continued along the coast with a strong tail wind (that's a tailwind in both directions - not a guarantee of future performance) and turned inland on the Backbay trail still with a slight tail wind and picked up the San Diego creek trail

San Diego creek trail a few miles from the last control

We got to the Crossroads Center control at about 4:30 pm (their cash register is wrong) and split a huge chicken Pad Thai and Vietnamese iced coffee. Very relaxed and civilized. I scanned eateries I could see from my chair - French Bakery, Noodle Bar, Vietnamese Food, Italian, Japanese, Flame Broiler, Pizza Hut, Mediterranean food, Chipotle, Coffee shop. Fuel up - there's some climbing in the last 30 miles.

Best food of the ride

I definitely slowed down for the climbing. Even though we didn't reach it until 6:30 pm the gate onto the SART off of Lakeview was still open so we didn't have to take the detour. I don't know if we got lucky or if they're not locking the gates anymore.

The hardest climb is Green River road and we were very surprised to discover CalTrans had scraped the road since we had ridden down it that morning. So the climb was steep AND rough. Hopefully they will resurface it soon and it will be silky smooth for you. I don't think they plan on making it any less steep though.

We got back to the hotel in 13:45 elapsed and I'm pretty happy with that. We showered, ordered pizza, and slept well.

Test ride on the upper SART

After all the problems I had on the Santa Barbara Easy I took my bike to Redland's Cyclery to get some work done. I was really embarrassed because Amber and I had ridden a very wet 200k the day before and my bike was filthy but they were cool about it. I got a new chain and the whole drive train cleaned and adjusted. Because the Five Rivers 300k pre-ride is this weekend, I wanted to take it for a spin to make sure everything was good.

I work near the top of the SART so I drove there after work and started riding. About a mile from the start I have to ride around some "trail closed" signs but, like a normal cyclist, I ignore them. I will decide if the trail is closed, thank you very much! Well the bastards have jack hammered the trail for about 10 yards so it is pretty close to being closed. It's all crushed concrete and rebar. They claim they're going to be restoring the flood wall until July but right now it looks like wanton vandalism.

You can currently use E Street which takes you to Hospitality but the signs suggest they're going to vandalize the trail as far as Mt Vernon which means we will exit at Mt Vernon and use Cooley to get to Barton. I'll have to modify my Triple Loop route to accommodate this. It's not a terrible detour - the Redlands bike club uses Cooley a lot. My wife rode the SART just a couple of days ago and, of course, there were no signs up saying they were going to close it, not were there any detour signs. They just force us without warning into heavy traffic without a care for our safety.

I was getting close to Hidden Valley when I saw a car driving along the bike path. This fat cow thought she was OK to drive on it because "she was pulling over for the cyclists". I explained she was not allowed on the bike path and took her photo.

Fat cow

Chasing her at 30mph

I chased her to Martha McLean park just over a mile away at up to 30mph where she exited. I wonder if this is something she is doing frequently - some kind of shortcut she's very proud she found. I've ordered some caltrops from Amazon. I'm going to see if I can encounter her again.

Between feeling strong and chasing her I managed an average speed of over 18mph for the duration of the 30 mile ride. The bike was great - kudos to Redlands Cyclery.

Super windy Four Rivers

Amber and I opted not to ride Stacy and Greg's Four Rivers 200k event on Sunday because the weather forecast correctly predicted I would be driving home in a blizzard so we instead rode on the following Monday, eschewing RUSA credit.

Although Monday was dry it was still very windy with sustained 20-30 mph winds coming out of every direction possible. I still can't understand how a 20mph wind can turn more than 90 degrees in a minute, but that's what happened repeatedly today. I don't know if we were helped or were hindered by the wind but I suspect it was so random it was probably a wash.

It was 61F when we started at Costco - nice in the sun but chilly in the shade especially with the wind. We headed to the beach with a 15mph headwind freshening to 20mph within five miles of the coast.

Monday quiet

Amber's turn to pull

At The Crema I introduced Amber to the veggie baguette which she liked. We added chocolate croissants and Thai iced tea for a pleasant lunch.

Some vintage cars rolled by as we ate

As we headed inland on the San Gabriel trail we were dismayed to find a headwind here too. It's just a coincidence that I took another photo while Amber was pulling. We shared - honest.

It's so windy it's bending the telephone poles!

One of the underpasses was flooded with about six inches of water which we rode through mainly because we had no choice. I wish I had thought to get a photo or even video. Amber's stomach was bothering her so I pulled most of the way to the turn around - no really I did. She had an iced tea which helped settle it.

On the return trip we had a headwind again. How is this even possible. Fortunately it turned into a tailwind for ten miles or so before becoming a powerful headwind again when were still ten miles from the coast. There was a lot of trail maintenance activity which shouldn't have surprised me but it did.

Amber's pulling again in the video below but I really did do most of the pulling - honest!

You can see how windy it was - look at the trees blowing in Seal Beach.

This is a brave unicyclist - he's on a unicycle, on dirt, with a powerful crosswind. I noticed he had a disk brake - surely the last thing he wants to do is stop that wheel suddenly!

I took this ride as another opportunity to learn the Wahoo. It seems if you actually start it at the start of the ride it's pretty good at handling when you go off course. We made several large and small detours from the route I downloaded and it picked up again correctly. I also realized I have to snap the USB connector in firmly to get it to charge.

The Crema and learning the Wahoo

Amber and I rode The Crema today - we hadn't actually sat down to eat there for some time. As the Wahoo did not perform well on the Santa Barbara Easy 200k brevet last week, I decided to take today to play with it a bit.

The weather started out cold with a strong onshore flow. Heavy clouds came in from the North and it looked like it might rain later.

Today is Superbowl Sunday so Huntington Beach hosted their regular Superbowl full and half marathons. This is a bit of a pain because even though they close PCH for the runners, they're still clogging up the beach path so it can get a bit frustrating. We're only supposed to ride at 5mph when there are pedestrians around but, if we did, the pedestrians would be running faster than us!

Somehow while we were eating the clouds went away and the sun came out. It was gorgeous on the way back.

There's no-one around him so I assume that means he's out front!

It seems if you start the Wahoo at the start of the ride, it navigates quite well. It even managed to figure out where we were when we were forced off course for a while by the congested beach path. If you stay off course too long it eventually gets upset and starts sulking and won't recognize when you're back on course. Always take a paper backup!

I'm in the middle of writing a Xamarin app that connects to rwgps and follows the route giving you cues. I've not done any Xamarin programming for a while and it's quite a challenge. I spent at least 4 hours trying to figure out how to get GPS permissions. Right now I'm trying to remember my high school trig classes because all the conversion from degrees to radians to meters is hurting my head. When you have 4000 line segments and a random point, how do you determine which line segment the point is nearest to? Quite tricky. Plus you have to do it on a low-end processor without melting it.