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."