Edgar got his new bike

Amber, Edgar, and I rode 40 miles on Christmas day. Edgar finally received his new Lynskey gravel bike and it was worth the three month wait. Apparently Lynskey builds their bikes in batches so they will produce 1000 road bikes, then 1000 gravel bikes etc. If you place your order at the wrong time you may have quite a wait.

I saw the bike has through axle fittings instead of quick releases. I'm not sure I like them. I don't know what problem they are supposed to be fixing, but wasn't the whole point of quick releases to be able to remove the wheel without tools?

A proud new bicycle owner

Amber is finding her Brompton M bars are good at keeping the pregnancy back pains at bay. That's good news. I don't know how much longer she can keep riding but she's getting good use out of her Brompton and her smart trainer.

We rode from Anaheim to the Bolsa Chica Café on two Bromptons and a Lynskey. It's cool that we can do an all Brompton or an all Titanium ride. The café was closed, of course, because it was Christmas day. We had brought sandwiches so we ate them at the café - hope they don't mind. I'm looking forward to them being open again on Jan 6th - I miss their cheese quesadillas.

A quick metric century on the Brompton after work

I decided to ride a cheeky 100k on my Brompton after work yesterday. There is a storm coming in and it looked like the weekend was going to be a washout. I hadn't originally planned to ride 100k but I got a few miles into the ride and realized my jacket was in the saddlebag of my other bike and my vest was in the car. I was expecting a low of 50F during the ride so I decided to turn back to the car and get my vest. That turned out to be a good decision.

I started at Yorba Linda park, in the pay section, because I don't think anyone is going to pay $3 for the privilege of vandalizing my car.

I've must have ridden this section of the Santa Ana bike trail 1000 times (I'm not exaggerating) and seen the gravel path that runs alongside it. I was saying to someone just the other day that there's no good gravel riding in Southern California so I thought I'd ride on the gravel for once. It's only two miles long but it was a lot of fun. I'm playing one of Mozart's Bassoon concertos on my mp3 player.

I'm riding my Brompton one handed and recording video with my cell phone. So it's a bit slow.

That was way more fun that I thought it would be. It has a totally different vibe from riding the bike path but it's only 10 yards away. 

I got to the Bolsa Chica café and had my usual Monster drink with a cheese quesadilla. It's mid December, about 4pm, and it is beautiful. There's no sign of the storm yet. Surely this is why I live here. 

Because I was stopped, I put the vest on to avoid getting chilled. Although the temperature at the start was 60F, it had dropped to 55 at the beach. I had had a mild headwind all the way here and I was looking forward to a tailwind on the way back. But I've ridden here enough times to know the tailwind would disappear when the sun went down in about an hour.

So I set off and instead of warming up slightly as I headed inland, it continued to cool until it was 49F. That jacket would have been nice. Not fast, but nevertheless another wonderful ride. I'm so lucky I enjoy cycling and I truly feel sorry for people who have the mindset that exercise is a chore.

First double-metric in 18 months

After my enjoyable century a couple of weeks ago, I decided it was time to ride a double-metric  for the first time in about 18 months. I decided to ride the Serotta, because this is such an efficient and comfortable bike.

The route is very easy, though not very scenic. I started at Yorba Linda park and rode the Santa Ana bike trail to the beach. It was overcast and cold (about 50F) when I started at 7:35am. I had a light jacket, arm warmers, and tights on. There was very little wind and I couldn't have asked for better conditions. My target average moving speed on a ride like this is 14mph but I was holding 16mph so I tried to see how long I could keep it for.

Once I reached the Pacific ocean I took my jacket off and headed north to Seal Beach, eating at The Crema. I had a ham and brie baguette and a Thai iced tea. I sat on a bench outside to eat it. Total down time was 23 minutes. I could have been faster.

Then I headed inland on the San Gabriel bike path. This has seen a significant increase in homeless encampments since I last rode on it. It was quite disgusting in places. I rode up towards the Santa Fe dam until I had a total of 100km. Fortunately I reached that distance before I had to climb over the dam. Then I turned around to the Shell gas station at Peck Rd. It was crazy busy and it would probably have been faster to go to the Mobil next door, but I stuck it out. A bottle of water and an egg salad sandwich kept me off the bike for 13 minutes. That's not too bad.

The weather forecast had been for a 12% chance of rain. I got several bouts of light rain during the ride, but nothing that even made me stop and put my jacket on.

I continued back on the San Gabriel even though this route normally follows the Los Angeles river trail. Last time I rode that trail, though, the homeless problem was appalling. So I decided to do a simple out and back. 

My last food stop was at another of my favorite places to eat - the Bolsa Chica café. They were crazy busy too so it took me 25 minutes to get and eat my cheese quesadillas. I don't think they have ever tasted so good. There was a new band playing that I hadn't heard before - very good.

I always wondered what the band would do in the rain

While I was there the cashier mentioned that next Sunday would be their last day until the next year. I guess I'll have to find somewhere else to eat for the last three weeks in December. It's not like there's a lack of places to eat along the beach :-)

So my total time off the bike was 1:01 but RideWithGPS says I was off for 1:08. I assume the seven minutes was stop lights. I finished with an average of 16.2 mph and a total elapsed time of 8:50. I'm over the moon about that time. It would have been good when I was regularly riding 200k rides. I'm pretty wrecked today, but I don't care.

Triple the fun

Brompton just dropped their prices by 20% but the offer ends tomorrow. REI has dropped their Brompton prices too. So my son-in-law, Edgar, bought one. He got an S6L with front and rear lights and a Brooks Cambium saddle for about $1500. That's a great deal. He wants a rack so I pointed him towards some of the third party titanium racks that are available.

Amber's pregnancy is giving her back pain while riding her Lynskey. We tried raising the stem an inch but it only helped a bit. She found she can ride her M6R Brompton with less pain due to the more upright riding position. So we rode three Bromptons this weekend. This is Edgar's first ride on his Brompton so we shortened the ride to 40 miles.

I gave Amber and Edgar some custom 3D printed Wahoo mounts but I need to reprint them because they got crushed by the stem bolt. I'll try a solid fill next time.

Three little Bromptons - mine, Amber's, Edgar's

We rode from Anaheim to the Bolsa Chica Cafe. 

It's late November. This is why we live in Southern California.

Champing and other stuff

I came across a YouTube video from Terry's All Bikes. This guy's in his early 60's and likes to wild camp on his Brompton. His video skills are terrible, half the videos have his finger in the frame, but they are entertaining anyway. This particular video is about Champing. Not camping or glamping, but champing. 

It seems some churches in the UK are raising money by allowing hikers and cyclists to camp in the church. You get a sleeping pad, access to a kitchen and bathroom, and a dry, safe place to sleep. It looks really cool. You show up with your sleeping bag and food, and you have a nice place to eat and sleep. Hence the term - champing.

Probably not all churches provide a teddy bear.

On a sadder note, I read an article about a promising college football player killed recently on an e-scooter. He decided to ride across a pedestrian crossing against a red light and got hit by a bus. I see e-scooter riders constantly riding dangerously - one turned left in front of me just the other day and I only just missed hitting him. I bet a psychology PhD candidate has written a thesis on why e-scooter riders think they're immortal. I doubt I'd understand it, though.

My road bike has a Campy racing triple and it has become almost impossible to get replacement middle chain rings. The problem is the ramping on the middle chain ring is designed to help the chain get on the chain ring from both directions. If I replace it with an inner chain ring for a double I will have trouble shifting from the small chain ring to the middle. It's not something I do very often, but I'd like to still be able to do it. I asked my bike shop to give me an estimate on replacing the triple with a double chain ring. I have a feeling it will be too much.

First YouTube video

My wonderful helmet light that I bought on Amazon for $15 many years ago finally died. So I bought a new one. The new light has a GoPro compatible mount. It's one of the few lights I've bought where the mount is better than the light. 

The light itself doesn't have a very good beam pattern - it's a series of concentric circles of light and dark. It's fine for illuminating street signs or cue sheets. It can maybe catch the attention of a motorist. But it's not good enough to be a stand-alone front light.

I recently bought a GoPro Hero 9 so I thought it would be interesting to mount the GoPro on this mount and record video. I rode from Yorba Linda park to the Bolsa Chica café and back, videoing parts of the ride. The camera's image stabilization feature works really well, but the weigh causes to helmet to shift. I also had it pointing too far down. It's all a learning experience. I might need to increase the thickness of the padding inside my helmet.

I cleaned up the video with the free version of DaVinci Resolve. At first I was put off this software because the official documentation videos aren't suitable for a complete novice. Fortunately I found a lot of good YouTube videos about the software and realized it's very good.

Here's the finished product. It's my first attempt at a proper YouTube video. I need to work on my speech volume and enunciation. I think my trip to Vermont will be my next subject.

Lake Champlain Bike trail

We flew to Burlington, Vermont for the weekend and I took my Brompton in my new case to see how it went. I'm pleased to say the case worked out really well.

Evo bike pod from Polaris Bikewear

It holds a vanilla Brompton with no fuss, but I had to loosen my Brooks Saddle and slide it forward and also loosen and turn my Ergon GP4 bar grips. I also had to remove my QR SPD pedals. I did all this with the Brompton tool set. Once that was done the bike fitted like a dream. I added two sets of cycling clothes into the gaps. The case, clothes, and bike were about 45lbs (I have a rack and dynamo hub) and has a total linear dimension of 62" so it is not oversize or overweight.

There's a great bike trail through Burlington called the Lake Champlain trail which is paved most of the way except for the northernmost six miles which is lovely gravel on a breakwater that extends into Lake Champlain. 

I recommend starting from the Amtrak station in Burlington and heading North. The out and back trip is about 20 miles with 400 feet of climbing - none of it steep. The trail surface is suitable for road tires and there's about half a mile of quiet residential roads - the rest is bike trail. The gravel section is smooth and has no wash boarding.

You can also go south from Amtrak which is also very nice but only about ten miles out and back and with some steeper climbs. If you do both you will get a moderately strenuous 30 mile ride.

At the Amtrak parking lot there is a Creemee stand right on the bike trail that is worth a visit. It turns out a Creeemee is just a soft-serve ice-cream. I got a large maple and raspberry. Who knew that was a thing?

This is a creemee

For me, the highlight of the ride was the gravel causeway. It's like you're floating over the water. At the north end there is a bike ferry run by Local Motion over to some more causeway and then onto South Hero Island but it doesn't run at night so I turned around. If the ferry had been running, I could have made the trip into a loop.

Lake Champlain trail

The second time I rode this trail it rained - hard! I was trying to find a way to dry my gloves. I used the old "roll them up in a towel and squeeze" trick which helped a lot. But then I decided to put a frying pan and lid on low heat and dry the gloves on that. It worked!.

It's probably not a good idea to leave the room while you're doing this

I finally made a YouTube video of the trip.

Cross Training

You know how everyone says "You should cross train, it strengthens you". Bullshit. I hiked halfway up San Gorgonio and back and I've been crippled for two days since.

My daughter, her husband, and two friends planned on hiking San Gorgonio last Sunday. She's pregnant so she decided to only hike up halfway - I agreed to hike with her so she wouldn't be out there on her own. The two friends cancelled at the last minute so her husband, Edgar, summitted alone.

We started at Vivian Creek near Forest Falls which got nailed by some recent monsoon rains. There were massive mudslides and we could see where 'dozers had pushed the mud and rocks to the side of the road. It was quite traumatic to imagine what they had been through recently.

The first mile after crossing the dry creek bed is very steep and rocky but after that the trail got very pleasant. I can only imagine how that creek looked a week ago.

We got half way up and Amber wanted to keep going but I was feeling a little stumbly so we turned around and waved goodbye to Edgar. I'm glad we turned around when we did because I was tripping on rocks which is always a sign of fatigue. There were a lot of other hikers on the trail - I would guess 20-30 so we weren't worried about Edgar being injured and alone. Some of them asked if we had been to the top already. I said it was very cold up there which was probably true, but implied we'd summitted 😁.

On the way down, we saw a small herd of deer that were unafraid of us. I expect they're used to hikers.

It's now been two days since the hike and I'm still so sore that I can hardly walk. I have to get up and walk around every hour or so or my legs really lock up. Cross-training my arse!

Back to the Beach

Our latest heatwave is over which means it's possible to ride along the beach in the evening without suffering from heat stroke. I've been missing my quesadilla at the Bolsa Chica Café so I drove down to Anaheim after work on Friday and rode the Brompton. I decided to take some photographs to post on Cyclechat.com to try to make the Brits jealous. Then I looked at their photos and I'm the one that got jealous. 

Here are my pictures, take from Bolsa Chica beach.

Here are some of their photographs, taken from various places in the UK last week.

I love it when everyone is a winner!

GoPro 9 at Big Bear Lake in the dark

You know that wonderful feeling when you discover a new bike path? I came close to that last night. Tropical Storm Kay has broken our ten day heatwave. Yes, this is the first day this September that hasn't been well over 100F at work. It was "only" 85F with 100% humidity and light rain.

I headed over to Big Bear Lake which is at 7,000' and tolerably cool once the sun has set. I have a new GoPro Hero 9 and I wanted to see how it performs in low light. But more about that later.

I started at the Cougar Crest trail head because there's a parking lot without gates so the forest service can't lock me in. I followed the pedal path to the end of the recent extension in Big Bear city, then kept on riding and stumbled upon a signed scenic bike route. It's on super quiet roads and rolls past million dollar "log cabins".

Nice bike route

The temperature dropped to the high 50s but my super reflective jack was still a little too warm which surprised me. I had a about 30 minutes of very light rain, more like mist really, and 20 mph winds when I came out from behind the trees. It was a seriously wonderful ride.

I took the opportunity to test the GoPro Hero 9 in low light situations and it didn't perform as well as I had hoped. I've Googled the problem and I think I can improve it with some different settings. Let's hope so because I plan on using it to create a video of the PCH Randos Winter Solstice 200k in late December. The entire ride takes place in the dark.

Here's two videos I shot. They were both recorded in Max Lens Mode (whatever that is). The first is shortly after sunset and is a lot darker than it appeared to my eyes at the time.

Here's a video shot under almost complete darkness. The camera picked up more than the rear screen showed, but much less than I could see with my eyes.

I'm going to try reducing the fps and some other tweaks and try again later.

Everything to Cycling Rain Jacket review

While I was waiting to leave England at Heathrow airport, I wandered into a small cycling store called Runway Cycling near my hotel at the very edge of the airport. I was trying to burn off some left over pound notes so I bought a highly reflective, medium weight rain jacket made by a company I was unfamiliar with - Everything to Cycling (ETC).

As it was the middle of summer in SoCal there was no opportunity to wear it until recently when we had a slight cooling trend and it was going to be about 60F at night in Big Bear at 7,000'. I drove over from my house as the sun was setting to explore a new section of bike trail and try this jacket.

The pedal path, on the north shore of Big Bear lake is a lovely trail and has recently been extended into Big Bear City. It's only about 10 miles out-and-back so it was an ideal ride for the Brompton. I also wanted to test a new rack bag for the Brompton, but that's another post.

The trail had a lot of debris on it from the recent monsoonal rain storms so the Brompton's wide tires were put to the test and passed with flying colors. It was a stunningly beautiful night, riding a dedicated bike trail through lakeside forest. I tried to get some pictures, but I really needed a tripod.

Big Bear City from across the lake

I stopped to take a photo of the jacket. I put it on a sign post and illuminated it with my small helmet lamp to give an idea of how reflective it is. You can't see any of the surrounding trees, just the jacket.

Incredibly reflective

It's a medium weight jacket so even at 60F I was getting warm. It would be better at 50F and below. It has massive pit zips which help cool you down and storm cuffs that let you get it on and off while wearing gloves but also allow you to cinch them down to stop rain getting in.

I'm planning to help support some brevets next year and I think this is what I'll be wearing at night. The riders will see me easily.

A fantastic weekend

I rode my usual 40 mile Friday evening ride from Anaheim to Seal Beach and back on the Brompton this weekend but I started a bit later this time and hit some heavy traffic so I didn't get started until after 6pm. This meant I got to Bolsa Café at 7:45 and found out they close at 7:30. But the cook knows me so he made me a cheese quesadilla anyway. What a nice bunch of people they are. I left them a good tip. 

The sky was heavily overcast and the sun had just gone down behind Rancho Palos Verdes. We got that cool effect where the sun peeps out below the clouds just long enough to light everything up with ruddy shadows, then it went down. 

Sunset behind Rancho Palos Verdes

Caltrans closed three of four lanes on the 215 north and ten miles later they closed all access to the 210 adding about an hour to my drive home. Bastards. I drove the 210 just 24 hours earlier and there were no signs advertising the closure. Did I mention Caltrans are bastards?

On Sunday I rode with Amber and Edgar. It was cooler (high of 84F) so we rode during the day. In fact it turned out even better because there was overcast until the last five miles. We ate at the Bistro St Germain in Seal Beach which was a real treat as we hadn't been there for a month. This was the first time I had ridden during the day for three weeks. Amber's still doing well and Edgar is looking forward to getting his new bike at the end of October. I bet two years ago he never thought he would be spending $4000 on a bicycle.

It's too damn hot

Amber and I have been riding in the evenings to try to avoid the highs in the mid-nineties that Anaheim is experiencing. The problem is the traffic coming down off the mountain is insane on a Sunday mid-afternoon. But this is Southern California, so we expect it.

My friend, Michele Brougher, just rode London-Edinburgh-London, a 1400k - 5 day event. They missed the worst of the European heatwave, but she told me she still had to deal with temperatures in the low 90s in Scotland. It's insane that Scotland has about the same temperature as Southern California. 

Some hotels in the UK claim to have air-conditioning. They don't - not by my standards. Their air-conditioners waft out air that's a few degrees cooler than the room. You have to hold your hand up to the vents to even know they're on. They're going to have to work on that.

If things keep going then Southern Californian RBAs are going to have to cram an entire brevet series into January and February. By March it'll be too hot.

Edgar, my son-in-law just bought a Lynskey GR300 titanium gravel bike. It arrives in October. Hope he likes it. Because it's made in USA it's very competitively priced with Chinese carbon bikes and I think he will like it a lot more. He thought about a Litespeed, but in the end the endurance and touring options offered by a gravel bike won him over.

Friendly horns and idiot riders

I rode my Brompton after work on Friday evening as I like to do in the summer. About a year ago I found myself riding along the beach path behind a cyclist who had a boom box. He was playing some rather good jazz so I was enjoying listening and I noticed that pedestrians were getting out of his way without him yelling or using a bell or horn. The music was getting their attention very effectively, but without being offensive.

I pulled out an old bluetooth player I'd had for a while and charged it up. I found an old SD card and loaded it with a bunch of classical music. As I started my ride I cranked the volume up to max (it's only about 2 Watts) and played it for the entire 3.5 hour ride. I'm impressed that an old, cheap speaker ran that long. It really worked! I only had to yell at two people, and one of those was a reflex as she ran out from behind a car. Now I need to remove some of the quieter tracks and add some Metallica and jazz.

So that was good.

On Sunday I rode Back Bay with Amber, taking a gamble that it wouldn't get too hot. The predicted high was 84F but I think it didn't quite reach that. Shortly after we started we saw this idiot.

He was riding with earphones and no helmet and decided to exit the bike path left without looking or indicating just as another cyclist was passing. They collided, but neither went down.

One thing that makes me angry is cyclists who don't treat their bicycles like they are real vehicles. You wouldn't do that in a car so don't do it on a bicycle.

Drowned Bicycles

I came across a very sad article in The Guardian today entitled "Bicycle graveyards: why do so many bikes end up underwater?". It talked about the predilection some people have for throwing things into water - in this case bicycles.

Most of my favorite routes go alongside water - rivers, streams, oceans. I wonder how many abandoned bicycles, that started off as prized possessions, are hidden under those waters. It's like buying a puppy, watching it grow up, and when it gets sick, abandoning it. 

There are so many things you can do with an old bike other than tossing it and mucking up the environment. I've donated many bikes to charity, friends, scouts, etc. There's a few bikes in my garage right now that could use a new home. Someone would love them.

Just down the road from where I work there's a place called the Loma Linda Bicycle Hospital. I love that name. It's just a guy who takes in old bikes, fixes them up, and gives them away to people who need a free bike. He also offers bicycle maintenance advice and training. His whole ethic is to keep bicycles useful and loved for as long as possible. I need to go buy him a beer.

Back in Southern California

Now I'm back in Southern California trying to figure out how to avoid riding in extreme heat. Mind you, looking at England's current heat wave, I'm glad I didn't do Lejog in July.

I rode last Friday after work from Anaheim to Huntington Beach and back. It's a shortened version of The Crema ride that's only 40 miles, all bike path, and gets me back to Anaheim before the gates close at 9pm.

I rode it on the Brompton because I can leave it in the back of my car while at work and I don't have to worry about someone messing with it. Plus I get a slightly better workout compared to a road bike. I eat at the Huntington Beach Cafe right on the beach front. This is why - it starts with cheese quesadilla, pico de gallo, salsa, chips and sour cream and ends with great live music .

On the way back, three club riders pulled onto the bike path in front of me so I jumped on their wheels. The first guy pulled at about 21 mph and I could just about keep up but the next guy pulled at about 23 mph and I span out. I knew putting a 44 tooth chainring on would limit my top end and now I know what it's limited to.

The temperature started around 70F and dropped to 60F while at the beach. I had a strong headwind headed to the beach but it stayed around long enough for me to enjoy a strong tailwind as I headed back inland. In fact, I think the tailwind was stronger that the headwind which almost never happens.

Lejog day 14 Crask to John O'Groats

Today is the last day from Crask to John O'Groats. It's a day of lasts. The A836 continues to Altnaharra then we transition onto the B873 which runs generally downhill alongside Loch Naver, then the river Naver to Bettyhill. Surely one of the most scenic sections of the entire route.

Is this the most northern peacock in the world?

At Bettyhill on the north coast it gets lumpy with several noticeable hills. Slowly climbing the first, I was passed by three riders on e-bikes. "Bet you wish you had one of these", said the first. A little later the next e-bike rider said the same thing. "Yes", I admitted - they looked pretty good.

On the third hill I passed one of the e-bike riders struggling to climb. His battery had died. Ha! Karma!

Michele and I left lunch a little before the rest of the crowd and we were moving well with a tailwind so we somehow managed to beat the last brew stop which was disappointing. So we ended up getting to the end before the other riders, which was not our intent. But it was raining so we sat in a cafe at the end for the others to turn up. 

I had given my Lantiseptic to Melanie so my butt was really sore. Eventually everyone reached the end and we took the final photo. 

The Seaview Hotel had a fan heater so we were able to dry all our clothes. They didn't smell any better, but at least they were dry.

Once again Peak-Tours demonstrated why touring with a quality company is worth the money, especially if you are already paying to fly back and forth over the Atlantic. If I had been self-supported my crash would have wrecked my schedule and hotel reservations, possible jeopardizing my ability to catch my return flight. With Peak Tours it was only a minor inconvenience. I want to thank Mike, Mark, and Wendy for their support and help. I'm going to thank Wendy a second time because she provided us with food at the brew stops.

I spent a lot of time riding in rain this year, but a month later England is in a heatwave. I'm so glad I wasn't climbing huge hills in 100F temps thinking "I could have suffered like this at home for a lot less!"

So - Moselle to Mozart in two years on the Brompton?

Lejog day 13 Inverness to Crask

Today we rode from Inverness to Crask. It was belting down most of the day. Alan, our ride leader, informed us at the start that the bike path on the West side of the Kessock bridge was closed and we would need to take a detour to use the East side. One of the riders who knew the area would lead the pack through the detour. Unfortunately I needed to stop at Highland bikes to buy some waterproof booties because my shoes hadn't been dry for three days so we didn't get guided over the bridge. However I did get some lovely booties, although not at the great price Michele had got hers for.

We mucked around for a bit finding the detour but were lucky to run into Mike at the same time as a local was giving us bad directions. Mike had the right route programmed into his head unit so we followed him.

Crossing the Firth of Forth

Riding along the Ness estuary was idyllic.

The roads in Scotland made me glad I was riding 32mm tires. I felt sorry for Melanie who had opted for 28mm. I gave her my Lantiseptic butt cream but I'm not sure how much that helped.

The road the Crask is the A836 which is super narrow with signed passing points. Someone with an advanced sense of humor had carefully scraped off the right side of each A which turned PASSING POINT to PISSING POINT. Oscar Wilde wishes he had thought of that. Someone else, who didn't quite understand the joke, just obliterated the A completely.

Because I had asked nicely, Michele and I were allowed to stay at the Crask Inn while most other riders were bussed to Lairg or Altnaharra. The Crask Inn is a real treat. For one thing, the owner is a good cook and managed to make lasagna exquisitely for us. Plus he has a lovely dry sense of humor.

Two thumbs up for the Crask Inn.

Lejog day 12 Ballater to Inverness

Today we rode from Ballater to Inverness. Its 74 miles with 5,300 feet of climbing over the Cairgorms. Last time I rode Lejog we were unable to ride this day because storm Oscar brought 40-50 mph winds, freezing temperatures and heavy rain. This was the day I really needed to ride, and I did.

Before the hair

There's a hairy start to the route. About seven miles in there's a 20% grade sign. Most of us got off and walked - it's less that half a mile. Then the grade moderates to 12% - 15%. I could get the pedal over the top but I was quite wobbly and, with traffic passing, I decided to walk that part too. After a little longer the grade dropped below 10% and I felt comfortable riding again up to the ski center in Lecht where we found the first brew stop.

The weather forecast had been ominous, with cold rain predicted at the top of the climb and a gnarly descent to follow. The idea of a fast descent with frozen hands on slick roads was not appealing. Fortunately it was wrong and it was dry and about 50F at the top so that was good. In fact I enjoyed the descent very much - we certainly deserved it.

Nevertheless, the rain did arrive for the second half of the day. It was very heavy so I'm really glad it was delayed. If it had hit before the descent, that would have been bad. After lunch it was either raining, was just about to rain, or had just finished raining.

I came up with a new motto for Scotland: "Welcome to Scotland, here's a towel"

The descent and final section into Inverness was on a busy road which got Michele lost and on the wrong side of the road somehow. I waited ten minutes for her and got a bit worried but she showed up eventually. Accommodation at Charden Villa was pretty average. We walked around Inverness for a bit and I showed Michele her first Marks and Spencer. She tried trifle for the first time.

We went for a drink at the Ardgarry pub on the corner and I tried Balvenie whisky which was my absolute favorite. It's $60 a bottle in the USA - I might try to get one.

Lejog day 11 Kinross to Ballater

Today the route goes from Kinross to Ballater. I started at Kinross with the intention of riding to lunch. The second half of the route has some serious climbing and my knee wasn't enthusiastic about that (neither was the rest of me, to be honest).

Before the rain

It started pissing down on us on the way to lunch at The Wee House of Glenshee. Lunch was fantastic and they have a ton of lovely gift ideas. I bought a set of coasters for Sherry with drawings of hares on them. The knee felt good - only slightly sore.

The Wee House of Glenshee

I rode the rest of the day in the van. It rained a lot more.

At the second brew stop I tried to get photographs of all the riders as they came in.

In Ballater, Michele and I ate at the Lochnagar Indian Restaurant. I was a bit dubious at first but it was some the best Indian food I have ever eaten.

Back at the hotel I tried a shot of Royal Lochnagar whiskey. It was really good.

I'm going to ride the rest of the ride. I'm sure of it.

Lejog day 10 Moffat to Kinross

Today we rode from Moffat to Kinross which goes through Edinburgh. I had hoped to ride today but my leg just wasn't ready. Rain was threatened but never really materialized.

Michele picked up her new Roam from Evans Bikes in Edinburgh so that was a good thing. She also got some florescent yellow shoe covers on sale for only twenty pounds which was a great deal.

Wendy at the first brew stop before the riders arrive

I rode in the van and got dropped off at Dunfermline A&E. They replaced the bandages and everything looks good. There is no train station in Kinross but I was able to get a bus from outside the A&E to Kinross. From the bus station to the Green Hotel was a short walk. Again, using public transport is so easy when it's done right.

At dinner I tried Laphroaig which is very peaty and must be the Petit Syrah of whiskeys. I didn't like it. I'm looking for the Merlot.

The good news is the leg is finally healing and the infection is gone. I really want to ride tomorrow.