Yes, yes I can. If it's flat enough and not too hot. I designed a flat route that didn't go too far inland and rode it yesterday. It turns out to be exactly 50km from the pay section of Yorba Linda park to the Jack-in-the-Box on PCH and Warner. All I had to do was go down and back twice. This route is all bike path, which is an added bonus. The down side is that 36 miles of the 124 are on the beach path, which is full of inattentive beach goers.
I took the custom made aerobar bag I bought from EOGear and attached it to the QR aerobars I have on the Brompton. This gave me enough room to carry a vest in case it got cold in the morning or evening. This turned out to be a good move as it was only in the 60s when I started and it didn't warm up until 10:30.
My target time was 10 hours - I would expect to take about 9:30 on my road bike. My target moving average was 14mph with one hour off the bike. It was calm and cool when I started and I had a 15mph average the first time I got to the Jack-in-the-Box. I got a sourdough Jack sandwich and tossed the meat because it tasted vile for some reason.
Returning to my car I still had an average of 14.2 despite having to ride the beach path at 10mph because of the oblivious beach goers. I ate half the egg burrito I had stashed there. That's 100k done.
When I set out on the second leg I realized quite a strong onshore flow had developed and I struggled to hold 14mph. This is where the Brompton is at a disadvantage to a road bike. Even with drops and aerobars it's difficult to hold an aero position for very long. Perhaps a shorter rider would be more comfortable, but I'm not.
Turning north at the beach, the headwind became even stronger and I was struggling to hold even 11mph but the good news is that the idiot pedestrians didn't slow me down at all. By the time I got to Jack-in-the-Box the second time my average was down to 13.7mph. I had the chicken teriyaki rice bowl this time and it was good, but I left the chicken. I find protein on a hard ride bothers my stomach and this was turning into a hard ride. Hopefully I would have a strong tail wind for the return trip.
Turning around I found the tailwind was awesome so I made it my target to get my average back to 14mph as quickly as possible, and then hold it there. I had spent a total of 51 minutes off the bike, so if I could do that, I would have a sub 10 hour 200k.
Because of the pedestrian traffic on the beach I was unable to move my average until I started to head inland. Then I got down onto the aerobars and held 17 for 15 miles until my average got up to 14mph again. I relaxed for the last seven miles and got back to the car with a 14mph average and a total time of 9 hours 51 minutes.
This is probably the furthest I would ride my Brompton.
On a side note, I twice rode past a guy on a Zizzo folding bike and it was creaking like crazy. I'd go nuts riding a bike that made that much noise.
No comments:
Post a Comment