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 😋😋😋