Serendipity

Amber and I rode the 90 miles from Anaheim to Solana Beach on Saturday. When I got to Panera for breakfast on the way to the start I realized I had left my wallet at home. As you need ID to get through Camp Pendleton and to get on Amtrak I had to go back home to get it. This made me an hour late for the start of the ride.

We took the normal route to Santiago Canyon. I had not realized before how bad the route is. I will be changing that to add some miles at the start but keep us off the bad roads. We climbed up Santiago Canyon and got to Cooks Corner too late for breakfast :-( Oh well, the lunches are pretty good too. I had a breakfast burrito with lashings of hot sauce. I don't know why breakfast burrito is on the lunch menu.

We screamed down to the coast with the feeling of wind on my face and hotsauce on my lips. Because we started late we decided to catch the train at Oceanside instead of Solana Beach so we took it easy. It was a lovely day with highs in the low 80s. Traffic was lighter than usual.

At Oceanside we ate at Angelo's and then rode a couple more miles to the Amtrak station. When we got there they informed us that our train was running at least an hour late. That meant we could catch it at Solana Beach if we could ride 15 miles in 80 minutes. Amber pulled. We got there in 50 minutes despite hitting lots of red lights. We rode PCH through Leucadia - a section of PCH I detest, especially as Jim was killed by a drunk driver there two years ago. Normally I would detour on Vulcan but we didn't want to miss our train.

We were paralleling the train tracks and I knew if we saw a northbound train it was ours and we had missed it. We saw no train and we got to Solana Beach 30 minutes before the train. The serendipitous part of it is that if I had not forgotten my id we would have had to wait 90 minutes for the train instead of 30.

We hadn't planned on riding after 4:30pm but we brought lights and an extra layer of clothing anyway. We ended up riding until 5:40 and it was pitch black and about 60F when we finished. Randonneurs plan for these things.

Fifty-six minutes and forty seconds

I finally ran the entire five miles of the pedal path last night. Before I've only run five km and walked three km. It was below 50F so I wore unpadded cycling tights, a long-sleeve cycling jersey, and a wind-proof vest. It was a bit odd being cold and sweating at the same time. Probably a good way to catch a cold.

It was also pitch black so I had to bring along a flashlight too. There was no-one else on the trail for the entire hour. The crescent moon and Venus were setting and the lights across the lake were very pretty. It was rather fun.

I don't think I run very fast. Running the extra three km instead of walking them only took three minutes off my total time. Let's do some math...

If v1 is my run speed and v2 is my walk speed and time = distance/speed then...

5/v1 + 3/v2 = 1   (it takes me an hour to run 5 km and walk 3km)
8/v1 = 57/60       (it takes me 57 minutes to run 8 km)

v1 = 8/(57/60) = 8.42 km/h

So... 5/8.42 + 3/v2 = 1
and v2 = 7.38 km/h

I run at 8.42 km/h or 5.2 mph and I walk at 7.38 km/h or 4.5 mph.
Not a lot of difference!

I have signed up for the Southern California half-marathon in Irvine on Jan 11th. It's gonna hurt like hell.

Solvang Prelude

My wife and youngest daughter decided to ride the Solvang Prelude this year so they wanted me to come along in case they got a flat. I don't normally pay to ride such short rides but I agreed to come along as support.

The Solvang Century and Prelude rides are organized by SCOR and are not to be confused with the Solvang Double Century which is organized by PlanetUltra. They've been organizing rides for many years and recently changed the routes on this one to address safety concerns. In my opinion they failed.

We had a pre-dawn 7:30 start with temps around 50F and rode on the 246 highway into the rising sun. The 246 is busy and every car passing us was also driving into the rising sun which means they were blinded. Never organize a ride so that the riders are riding into the sunset or sunrise. It's very dangerous.

After four miles we rode through Solvang and turned onto a quiet road. After many pleasant miles we turned onto the 154 highway. This is another busy road even though it has a good shoulder. Many riders were not sensitive to the needs of other riders or motorists and blocked the shoulder to regroup, take photographs, etc. After 11 miles of heavy traffic we turned onto Zaca Station Road/Foxen Canyon.

This is a perennial cyclists favorite despite being hilly and rough. It's a beautiful road with wineries every half mile or so. Unfortunately it was an out-and-back section of the route which meant it was clogged with cyclists on both sides. This isn't a very busy road but there are plenty of people out for wine tasting and tours. Wine tasters and hordes of cyclists on both sides of the road make a very bad combination. This would have been better ridden as a loop so the cyclists would only have been on one side of the road.

We went back to Fess Parker winery on Sunday. They had hosted the 40 mile rest stop on Saturday and we spoke to the employees. They were very unhappy about the way the cyclists behaved and I had to agree with them. That one or two percent who think we own the road and can behave anyway we want ruin the ride for, and reputation of, the other 98 percent that ride responsibly.

I much prefer to participate in smaller rides of 20-30 people who form a few, spread out, small groups that don't impact traffic. There's no way I'll ride this ride again.

Good Run

I ran five miles Wednesday evening - my first real run for three months since I tweaked my knee. No pain at all. I'm very pleased.

I also rode 40 miles last night with my youngest daughter in training for the Solvang Prelude on Nov 2nd. All in all it was not a bad week.

I came across this photo on huffingtonpost.com and, being the weirdo I am, instantly thought of a caption. My apologies to all of Germany and France.

Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, explains why she is divorcing her husband (right).

Sign of the Times

What a terrible title for this blog! Please read on anyway.

I got a lot of good riding in this weekend. On Friday night I rode with my youngest daughter - 40 flat miles - she did well because she's learning about nutrition and hydration. Part of the ride was in the dark which was new for her.

On Saturday I rode with my wife out towards Beaumont but the Santa Ana kicked up and it was very hot so we cut the top ten miles off the ride and turned around early. However we still managed 40 miles with almost 2000' of climbing. We rode up Sand Canyon which was not as busy as I remember it being.

I texted Eric who helps organize the Redlands Classic and it turns out the Classic will block my 600k brevet next year. I think I may need to route around it which may involve using Sand Canyon instead of Walnut. Still need the details of the road closures.

Yesterday I rode with Amber. We decided to do the Backbay loop which is one of my favorite rides and one I haven't ridden in a while. It got warm but not too bad. We ate at the Champagne Bakery as usual and it was a wonderful as it always is. I was feeling very tired and my butt was sore but it was a great ride anyway.

Many years ago I rented a bicycle and rode around Lake Zug in Switzerland. There's a whole network of bike paths in the area and they are a transportation network on par with the roads. There are signs all through the network such as [Cham 1.4km =>]. It's one of those touches that makes you realize that the government values cyclists.



Cycling around Lake Zug near Cham

Orange County is installing signposts throughout their network of bike paths. It solves one of the problems I have with the OC bike paths - they're confusing. Now I can update my route sheets to reference the signs they have installed. That should reduce the number of riders that get lost.

San Diego Bike Trail in Irvine

Amber's thinking about getting a dynamo hub - it's expensive but I think she will like not having to worry about lights so much anymore.

An old friend

On Monday I got my Serotta back from Redlands Cyclery where I had taken it after recovering it from a hillside where it had been laying, exposed to the elements, after it was stolen. It looked marvelous. The broken spoke was fixed, the handlebar tape was replaced, and it was a clean as a whistle.

Yesterday I took it for it's first ride after it's ordeal. It was a wonderful ride. Strong Santa Ana winds, up to 30mph, blew me around. The wind seemed to turn of it's own accord - sometimes a tailwind and then, a mile later, a headwind or sidewind. Nevertheless it was a fantastic ride. To be back on my Brooks saddle with the long, custom top-tube and the super comfortable Scott aerobars; to see the bright beam from the Schmidt dynamo hub and Lumotec light; the miles flew by and I was happy.

It's like the old wife got a makeover. Don't tell her that while she was away I invested in a newer model ;-)

End of an Era

I am the proud owner of a ten year old custom Ti road bike made by Serotta when it was run by legendary frame builder Ben Serotta. Unfortunately it seems Ben was a better frame builder than he was a businessman and he became another victim of this economic downturn. This does not reflect poorly on Ben - many good men have succumbed lately.

He sought financial help and found it but lost control of the company and was ultimately fired from the company he created and which still bears his name. Thus ended an era in high-end hand-built custom bicycle frames.

The company that sells bikes under the Serotta name is not worthy of the name. They recently quietly posted on their website that they will no longer honor the lifetime warranty that Ben provided. When I bought the bike it came with a lifetime warranty. It is no longer under warranty and yet I am still alive. How can this be? I don't think Serotta will be around very long. The cycling community is too small to market your way around such treachery. We know what they are and we want nothing to do with them.

They'll be gone in a year - two years tops. They're already dead but they just don't know it. I hope their employees find other positions and leave. I know I would.

I was talking to a mechanic at my local bike shop recently and he recommended http://www.ifbikes.com/ as a substitute for Serotta. Their prices look similar and I think they will benefit greatly from the demise of the Serotta brand.

Serotta is dead, long live Ben Serotta!