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.