Amber and I test rode the inland loop of the Triple Loop 600k yesterday and it turned out to be quite expensive. To start with, Amber's truck looks like it needs a new clutch. The Serotta's brakes were very squeaky, which means I need to replace the brake pads. Might as well replace all four so that's $30+. I had the chain replaced recently and it's slipping which probably means I need a new cassette so that's another $70+. And we're barely out of the parking lot.
Caltrans has been busy (in a good way) but the bike path alongside La Palma is unchanged from a year ago. That means it's still 1/3 good bike path, 1/3 behind K-rail, and 1/3 bad bike path.
The first piece of good news is that they are putting a bike lane in on Green River hill at mile 6. It looks like they are still trying to figure out how to get two lanes of traffic and a bike lane, but they are working on it.
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| Two way bike lane on Green River hill |
The next good news is that Caltrans has repaved Crestview at mile 19 which used to be horrendous...
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| Buttery smooth |
... and installed a bike lane on North Dr/Arlington while also repaving it.
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| Arlington has a bike lane AND is repaved! |
But wait, there's more. They have put a left turn lane in where you turn into Hidden Valley at mile 20, making this turn much safer.
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| Left turn from Arlington Ave into Hidden Valley |
The G&M gas station at mile 40 had no sandwiches so we made do with lunchables and Gatorade which, considering there's 2000' of climbing in the next 20 miles, didn't seem like it would be enough but surprisingly it was.
I'm not thrilled with the route I take along Waterman at mile 40 and very unhappy with it on the way back. I see Willie's routes use Anderson instead so I might be doing the same.
One thing I like about the current route is that once you turn left at the top of San Mateo, it's straight for the next 13 miles so that cuts out several cues and makes it harder to go astray (theoretically).
When leaving Calimesa you have to cross an off-ramp of Interstate 10 which used to be dangerous because cross traffic didn't stop. There's a stop sign for them now which is great.
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| Stop sign on off ramp |
We got to the half way mark in about six hours which was about what I expected. There's about 4000' of climbing in this section and we had a head wind most of the way. After a huge sub and more Gatorade we headed down San Timeteo.
With the descent and the tail wind we coasted for six miles. We could have coasted much further but there was a line of cars stopped for a train that had just passed. We managed to pass the train on the descent and crossed the tracks again before it got there. The current route uses Beaumont. I didn't realize this provides a third opportunity for trains to get in the way. This time we got stuck behind a looooong train and backtracked to San Timeteo.
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| Stuck behind train |
I think I'll alter the route to avoid Beaumont. We also took a look at the bike path that connects San Timeteo to Barton Rd but it's dirt so that's no good.
When the sun went down I showed Amber the conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn. That was pretty cool.
Climbing up Smith I hit some metal which sliced my tire open and flatted my front tire in about five seconds. We had no problems fixing the flat but that's a $40 tire and $5 inner tube I need to replace :-(
I was going to add some video, but it includes strong language so I decided not to.
We finished, feeling good, in 10:37 which is fine by me.
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