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.