Weekend Double Century

I decided to punish myself for future, unspecified, crimes by riding 116 miles on the trainer on Saturday and then 87 harder ones on the Sam Woo ride on Sunday. I rode the Sunday ride with Amber. It was cold (58F) and foggy to start and we put all our layers on.

Amber did a massive pull down to the beach and it warmed up a bit so that we had to take layer off when we got there. We got to Dana Point in good spirits and noticed they have installed cute elephant statues everywhere. Here's one next to the Brig, where we ate.

By now it had warmed up to 72F and I took my vest off and slimed on some sun block. It's so gross, the way sun block and sweat mix together. Twenty-eight miles later we were at Sam Woo, but the line was long and we elected to buy Korean pastries at the market next door. They had custard tarts - yum.

I had driven to the start of the ride with my GoPro mounted on the bike, through light rain and fog, and the GoPro would not turn on. I must have got water into it somehow. I dried it for 48 hours and got it to turn on, but it wouldn't reformat the SD card. I put a new SD card in but it wouldn't format that one either. 

I started researching a new GoPro and I was maybe a minute away from clicking the buy button when my GoPro suddenly announced it had formatted the SD card. I put the old one back in and it formatted that too. It's like it knew it was going to be replaced, and tried extra hard. My 5 year old Session 4 - what a trooper. I did order a waterproof case for it, though.

One a side note, I bought a Bismuth specimen as a Christmas present for Sherry. It's really pretty.

After the Storm

 Amber, Edgar, and I rode the Back Bay ride today. It's a mainly flat route with some climbing at the end. It was crazy warm for the end of November, but actually quite nice. There was a tremendous amount of debris on the trails because of the storm a few days ago. Here's the first example.

I bet that will be gone next weekend. Parks and Recreation do a great job of maintaining this trail. Amber took a huge pull to the beach, making a point of passing as many eBikes as she could.

Here's a stupid sign - I wonder how members of the committee who came up with this could even ride a bike that slowly? By the way, this is on a downhill.

When you have rules this stupid, people won't even try

We ate at Ha Long as usual and headed home. The Vietnamese iced coffee kicked in at the top of Pioneer and we all headed to the park to use the restrooms. It was about 83F when we got back to the cars - a perfect day of cycling.

Wrong time, wrong ride

Last week I decided I needed to do a long ride on the Brompton with a medium bag attached, a semi-touring test. I thought it would be a good idea to make it a night ride after work to make it more challenging. So I decided to ride a century after work on the night before Thanksgiving.

I checked the weather forecasts and it looked like it would be cold with light winds in Anaheim on Wednesday night so I put fleece tights and a windbreaker in my bag and drove down to the Artic arriving about 5pm. It was already dark and about 70F with a light breeze. My wife texted me that it was very windy at home and would I be OK. I told her it was fine where I was. I noticed my aerobar bag rubbed on the medium Brompton bag so I had to slide it forward on the aerobars. I suspect it will not work at all with the large Bromton bag. I will have to try it out.

Everything went well as I headed to Huntington Beach but I realized my new Ergon GP4 bar ends were too high so I adjusted them at Huntington Beach. Then up the beach trail to Seal Beach with almost no trail traffic. At that point the temperature was down to 60F and as I headed inland towards South El Monte it dropped further so I had to put my tights and jacket on. By the time I got to the Shell on Peck Road it was down to 50F and I was at the limit of my gear. I prayed it wouldn't get any colder. However, the wind was still calm. Half my Monster went into the water bottle and half went into me along with half the grinder I had brought with me. I was pleased I was able to ride 50 miles on the Brompton without eating.

I quickly headed back to Seal Beach on the San Gabriel bike path because there was no way I was going to ride the Los Angeles river bike path in the dark, and when I was within five miles of the beach I suddenly got hit with a powerful cross/tailwind. It seems I should have checked the weather forecast for 11pm too, because it was much windier than the 5pm forecast. Of course I was about to turn into the wind - that goes without saying.

Once I got back to Seal Beach the temperature was up to 68F but there was a 30 mph cross/head wind all the way to Huntington Beach. The sand blowing across the beach trail was getting into my eyes, ears, mouth, etc. I'm surprised my Brompton has any paint left on it. Of course the Brompton bag did not help. There wasn't really much point going onto the aerobars with that sticking out in the wind. The weather sites say the wind was 27 mph, so we'll split the difference. I was averaging about 9 mph through this 13 mile section.

I started thinking about the other windy rides I've done and I can think of at least five that were windier. The worst was a 300k in San Luis Obispo. At one point we were riding across an exposed ridge with a 50 mph cross wind. It was impossible to ride our bikes. We had to get off, crouch down, and walk a hundred yards until we reached some shelter and could ride again. There were four Elliptigo riders on the event and one of them ended up being the first Elliptigo rider to complete PBP. I'm sure this is the ride where he realized he could do it. So, yes, it was bad but I've dealt with worse.

Of course, the turn inland kept me into the headwind but oddly it died down a bit as I headed inland for a while and then came back twice as strong once I was about 8 miles inland. I ended up with 96 miles (some math error somewhere). I had planned on finishing around 1am but didn't actually finish until 2:30am. If you look at my speed you can see where I hit the headwind at mile 70.

I learned a lot. 

• Do not assume the weather will be the same for the duration of the ride
• The aerobar bag and large Brompton bag don't work together
• I will need better cold weather gear for Ireland
• I'm still a badass

Loch Leven Hike

There is a 14 mile hike on our mountain that goes from a conference center at Loch Leven up to Angelus Oaks and back. It has a total of about 2600' of climbing and it's all on old highway 38 which was abandoned in 1933. There's quite a bit of decayed pavement left, heavily overgrown and with several land slides and fallen trees to negotiate.

My wife and I are fairly experienced hikers but our daughter, Amber, has hiked Mount Whitney twice plus Half Dome and a bunch of others just this year . We were happy she could join us. We started at 7:30am because even though this is October it's still Southern California and we expected it to get to 80F at 4000' later in the day. Fortunately at that point we would be headed downhill. 

The trail only has one short technical section. The rest is simply hiking.

We were all moving well as we climbed from 4000' to 6000', averaging 2.9 mph according to my phone which was running the ridewithgps app. We turned around at the Oaks Restaurant at Angeles Oaks where the food and service are excellent. I've only ever eaten there midway through this hike so I'm probably going to think any food is excellent at that point.

In some ways, heading down is harder because the load is now on your calf muscles instead of the larger quadriceps. I've always found the hikes with long downhill sections are harder to recover from. The temperature had risen to 72F as we started back but we had a light headwind which felt refreshing. The bugs were becoming a bit of a nuisance so we got our bug nets out

We got back to the cars in the early afternoon with an overall average of 3.3 mph. Total distance was 14.3 miles with about 2,600' of climbing. I'm not sure how we picked up another 500' on the way back.

So that's that for the year. We have such a short window for this hike between blazing heat and snow we missed it last year. Let's do it again next year.

New combination Wahoo/GoPro mount

 I currently have my Wahoo mounted near my stem and my GoPro mounted on the bridge of my aerobars. This works OK but I'd rather not have to look so far down to see my Wahoo. I also have to think about how this will work during Lejog when I'm on a rented bike. I wanted to design a mount that would place both the Wahoo and the GoPro on the bridge of the aerobars. All the designs I found on Amazon have the GoPro mounted upside down, below the Wahoo. The problem with this is it makes the GoPro controls and lights less accessible and records video upside-down.

I designed my own mount.

Haven't ridden it yet, keen to see what falls off.

Sherry's first ride in two years

 After years of procrastination I finally got Sherry on a bike ride for the first time since she broke her arm in a fall. I was surprised that her bike tubes held air and all I had to do was wash the dust off her frame and clean and lube the chain.

I didn't chose a good day for the ride because the Pacific Air Show was taking place off Huntington Beach. I've been caught by this event before and it sucks because there's like 20,000 idiots standing on the bike trail looking at the airplanes and completely oblivious to the fact they're blocking a throughway.

Sherry's crowd tolerance and bike handling skills were tested beyond her ability so we headed up to PCH where she was a lot more comfortable.

We got to the Bistro St Germain with no further issues and enjoyed their Croque Monsieur.

On the way back we took Atlanta to avoid the crowds and Sherry started to complain about her backside. Apparently she had not worn undershorts, for some reason, so - lesson learned.

Total ride distance was 27 miles at an average speed of 11 mph. I hope we can do this again soon.

Training for LeJog

I'm planning on riding LeJog again in 2022 with Peak Tours. I remember how hilly the route is, especially the first two days. For a country with a highest elevation of only 3700', it is very hilly. I decided to start focusing on hilly routes to try to get my climbing legs back. So yesterday I rode the Sam Woo ride which has more climbing than I'm used to, but not as much as LeJog. Amber came with me. The weather was perfect, overcast, about 70F, and a light 10mph breeze.

We got to Dana Point without any drama but shortly after eating lunch at the Brig I started feeling decidedly unwell. It was either the egg burrito I had for breakfast or the hot sauce I added to my hash browns at the Brig. We turned inland and my stomach got worse. The Aliso Creek bike trail is closed but you know how we cyclists are when a trail is "closed". We have to push on to see if it really is closed.

We walked and carried our bikes around construction equipment, then rode over some dried mud, then carried our bikes over 100' of boulders. 

We were seriously committed at this point. Then there were gates and fences everywhere. They were serious about cyclists not getting through. I scouted and found a section of fence I could move so I created a gap and we passed through. We were on the wrong side of the creek, but we expected we could find a way over.

As we were looking for a way back onto the route, we came across two other cyclists trying to pass through the closure in the other direction. We gave them directions and explained what they would have to deal with. They were undeterred by the idea of carrying their bikes over the boulders. They were just as stubborn as us. I must admit, if I had known how difficult it would be to get through, I would have simply taken Los Alisos Blvd. Part of the problem is we were half a mile up the trail before there were any closure signs. A sign at the start of the trail might have dissuaded us. Probably not, though.

We got to Sam Woo a bit later than planned (the trail closure probably cost us 30 minutes) and normally I love the dim sum here, but my stomach was still unhappy so I nibbled at a few pieces. Fortunately there were only 20 flat miles left. We had a headwind back to the coast, two unpleasant miles on PCH, then 13 tailwind enhanced miles to the end of the ride. Total of 87 miles with 3,000' of climbing. Average moving speed was 14.2 mph. Not bad considering I had a bad stomach and we had to deal with a major road closure.

Can I ride a double metric century on my Brompton?

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.

Upgrading to the new Wahoo Elemnt Bolt

Old Wahoo Elemnt Bolt

I have been riding a Wahoo Elemnt Bolt for a few years now and, once I had figured out its limitations, I was pretty happy with it. I use it mainly for recording rides and navigating routes. The biggest limitation was that maps look like crap on the black and white (not even mono-chrome) display. It's good enough that I no longer use a regular bicycle computer. When Wahoo announced a new, color, model, I was interested.

New Wahoo Elemnt Bolt

The obvious difference is the color screen which makes maps pop beautifully. Its a 64 color display so you can't watch videos or anything but they gave us color without diminishing the battery life. It's not obvious from the images, but the new Bolt is slightly larger and I had to move my aerobars slightly to get it to fit between them. It also has several nice features from the more expensive Roam model such as "navigate back to route" and an automatic backlight feature. Here's a photo from the end of last night's test ride taken in complete darkness with no flash. It came on automatically about 7:30pm, around 15 minutes after sunset.

The buttons and UI are pretty much the same as the old one so I had no learning curve to speak of. Deregistering my old Bolt and registering this one were a breeze. The only real problem I had was that the maps have to be selected while you have a Wi-Fi connection so I had no maps for the ride. I fixed that within a few minutes of getting home.

Like the old Bolt, it has a highly customizable screen with lots of metrics and the ability to ANT+ to heart rate monitors, power meters, and other devices. You can exchange routes and workouts with most popular training websites such as Strava and RideWithGPS.

You will want to buy this from Wahoo, REI, or other bike stores. There are some sharks trying to sell this on Amazon and eBay at inflated prices. Do not bite.

Riding the Pedal Path on the Brompton at night

 I've been doing some night riding on the Pedal Path on the north shore of Big Bear Lake recently, testing out my new dynamo package. I decided to try to get some video using my GoPro and it highlights one of the limitations of the IX-SX front light. The beam is really narrow.

You can see that when the trail is straight, the light illuminates it quite well, but tight turns are dark. I overcooked a couple of turns because I couldn't tell how tight they were. In the end I turned on my helmet light so I could look around corners. The Edelux II I have on my road bike has a wider beam, which means some light is wasted on straight sections, but I can see around corners better.

CycleChat.net

I've been participating in a UK cycling chat group at CycleChat.net and there's some very knowledgeable people in the group. I posted a question about floor pumps that are suitable for a Brompton (there's not much space between the spokes) and some clever chap suggested I take the good chuck from the bad pump and put it on the good pump. Saved me some money!

While I tend to get quick responses from the chat group, I can't say the same about getting stuff for the bike. Amazon is taking 2+ weeks to get anything to me, my LBS took 10 days to get a new bottom bracket in and still doesn't have my Wahoo Elemnt. Mind you, I tried to order one from Wahoo directly and UPS couldn't ship it, so it's probably all UPS's fault. They should rename their service "Priority two week delivery".

After 20 years or so as a member, I have left RUSA. They're not the group they were when I joined and I feel I've got everything out of them I can. I'm also worried about running events or being involved at a volunteer level because of the risk of lawsuits. It was good while it lasted, and I'm still going to do endurance rides, but they won't be constrained by a bunch of rules. I'm pretty sure Paul Rozelle is not going to host a Crackerswamp 1200k this year and that was the last thing keeping me in the group.

I did a fun ride on a really gnarly, hilly bike path on the north shore of Big Bear Lake in the dark last night on my Brompton. It's weird the way you seem to be going fast in the dark when you are actually going quite slowly. Still almost overcooked a corner. I had just installed a new chain so I was making sure it worked. I hope it lasts longer than the original Brompton chain.

Hopefully I'll get my new bottom bracket installed in time for the weekend ride.

Brompton Dynamo Package

I've been riding my Brompton at night to avoid the extreme heat we've been experiencing here in Southern California this summer. I decided to invest in a dynamo system but I don't ride enough to justify the price of a Schmidt SON. So I decided to buy a system based around a Shutter Precision dynamo.

 https://www.perennialcycle.com/shutter-precision-upgrade-dynamo-package-for-brompton.html

For almost $400 (after tax and shipping) I got...

• New front wheel built around a Shutter Precision SV-8 dynamo hub, with rim tape
• Busch & Muller IX-SX front light and mount
• Busch & Muller Toplight Line Plus tail light
• Wiring and zip ties.

Although the photo on their website shows all the pieces separate, some assembly had already been done for me. I got the black one to match my bike.

The rim tape was already on the wheel and the through-axle was installed. The front light was wired. The rear light cable is cut for a light mounted on a rack. I don't have a rack so I chose to shorten my cable.

These were my installation steps, which took about an hour.

• Turn the bike upside down, deflate the front tire and remove the wheel.
• Pull the tire and tube off the wheel and put them on the new wheel.
• Install the new wheel with the connector on the right when the bike is the right way up
• Remove the front brake from the frame and discard the front reflector and mount
• Put the front light and mount in the same place the reflector was
• Reinstall the front brake and make sure it still works correctly
• Inflate the front tire
• Plug the front light into the dynamo and use a zip tie to hold the wire in place
• Spin the wheel to make sure the light is working
• Remove the rear reflector
• Plug the rear-light wire into the spade terminals on the front light
• Route the wire along the rear brake and gear cables using zip ties as needed
• Shorten the wire if needed and expose 1cm of bare wire each
• Push the exposed wires into the two holes at the back of the tail light and slide the black lever over to lock them in. Polarity is not important.
• Install the tail light where the reflector was
• Spin the wheel again to make sure the tail light works too

You have the following parts left over. If you have more or less, check the installation steps again.

• Original front wheel with rim tape and locking nuts
• Front reflector and mount
• Rear reflector

Note: The new front light mount is wider than the old reflector mount and doesn't quite fit the frame properly. I used a vice to slightly narrow the new mount so it fitted better.

The dynamo feels very notchy (I assume it has 8 magnets from the name) but it's not fair to compare a dynamo on the 16" wheel and a 27" wheel because the larger wheel has a much greater moment of inertia. The truth is in the ride. More on that later...

So I went for a 14 mile ride up in the mountains and I have to say the SP dynamo seems to have more drag than the SON. I'm not sure how much of this is the smaller wheel and how much is the cheaper dynamo, but it's noticeable. It's also possible that I was dragging because I was at 7000' where there's way less oxygen. Let's assume there was some drag and we don't know how much. Maybe I'll try it again at sea-level.

The front light has a beam pattern that is optimized for mounting 30" above the ground. Because the Brompton mounts the light 18" above the ground, the near-field is brighter than it would ideally be although it's not a show-stopper. Other than that, the beam pattern is lovely and I could see road hazards up to 100' ahead if there weren't too many other lights around. That gives me five seconds notice at 15 mph. The light also lets photons escape to the side, which is a nice safety feature, although reflective tires work better.

The light rubs on the bottom of the front bag that my friend, Greg, made for me which is a bummer. However, my Suntique bag works fine so that will be my new go-to front bag. The photo's below show the bags with the reflector, but you can see why Greg's bag rubs the light. If your bag partially obscures your reflector, it will probably rub on a front light.

Suntique does not rub :-)

Greg's bag rubs :-(

The tail light is a Toplight Line Plus. I have the Brake version on my road bike with a custom seat-stay mount so I already like this light. It's actually one of the things that attracted me to this package. It's big and bright and has a wide viewing angle. I pair it with a Cygolite spot tail light which is very bright but has a narrow viewing angle.

Overall I would say this is a good dynamo/light package at a reasonable price. I have a far more expensive dynamo/light set on my road bike because I frequently ride all night on it, but that will never happen on my Brompton. Installation was easy and all the parts worked properly.

Review of Touhuhot 5000 lumens front bike light with free tail light

 To be honest I bought this thinking it would be crap and I would return it. It's not crap, although it certainly isn't as good as the manufacturer claims. You can see it on Amazon here.

It costs $40 so I'm going to compare it to a 1200 lumen Cygolite front light costing $80. The Touhuhot compares well.

We will look at the front light first.

Let's start with the mount which is commonly the weak point of otherwise excellent lights. It's not bad, a bit clunky, but it is certainly strong enough to hold the light in place and firmly attach to a wide variety of bar diameters. This light is probably too heavy to attach with one of those glorified rubber bands. The weakness is the release button which I circled in red above. It's too flimsy and I think it will be the first thing that fails. You have to hold it in as you slide the light into place or it won't lock and the light will slide right back off again. This is not mentioned in the instructions. Quite a few people on Amazon are complaining they are having problems with how the light locks onto the mount.

While the mount will rotate vertically, it cannot be rotated horizontally which is a problem because I like to point my light slightly towards the center of the road so I can control how much light oncoming traffic sees.

The light is quite heavy - 225gm verses 185gm for the Cygolite. It has a solid feel to it with an aluminum body, which could use some cooling fins. The usb cover is poorly designed as it butts up against the mount stop which makes it a total pain to open. I'm thinking of just ripping it off. It has a USB C port for charging and also a USB A port so you can use the battery to charge other stuff. It's also quite large and takes up more handlebar space than the Cygolite.

The light is not 5000 lumens and I did not expect it to be. A true 5000 lumen light will cost over $500. However, using a lux meter and a 1200 lumen calibrated source, I calculated this light emits around 2100 lumens. This technique is notoriously inaccurate but I am confident this light is less that 2500 lumens at its brightest setting. A 2000 lumen led requires about 20 Watts (best case). This means it's pulling about 4Amps from the battery which explains the heat issues.

When operating at maximum brightness this light gets uncomfortably hot to hold - I would say over 100F. That's why it needs cooling fins or some other heat management system. I fully charged it and then set it on the high setting. After a while it automatically dropped to a lower setting and eventually died after 7 hours. Note, this was not 7 hours at the high setting but 7 hours is very impressive for a battery light. If the lights stayed on full brightness pulling 4 Amps from a 5200mAh battery it would only run for 75 minutes. Note the marketing hype on Amazon claims 15 hours. It seems they are doubling both the brightness and duration numbers.

When operating at the lowest brightness there is no heat problem. This would be perfect as a flashlight or for riding at less than 15mph (say, up hills). The lowest setting produces about 200 lumens and runs for about 20 hours.

There is a light on the power switch that gives you a rough idea of the battery condition and it works slightly better than the same feature on the Cygolite. The power switch lets you cycle through three solid modes by single-clicking and three flashing modes by double-clicking. One of the flashing modes spells S-O-S. The marketing claims 9 modes - I only found 6.

The Cygolite gives you the option to hot-swap batteries. I've never used this feature. The Touhuhot does not offer it.

The marketing says you can fully charge it in 2 hours. It took me nearly 4 hours on a charging block which is more than I expected, but not a big deal.

Like most battery lights it has a circular beam with a bright spot in the middle. This is not a good beam pattern because the bright center washes out the road close to the cyclist and the road beyond that is invisible. If you mount the light to push the bright spot further up the road you will blind oncoming traffic so they will use their hi-beams. A better beam pattern is to become progressively brighter further "up" the beam with a sudden cut-off at the very top. This illuminates the road evenly and doesn't blind oncoming traffic. However the mirror and lenses required to do this are expensive and not found on low end lights like this.

So how do the Touhuhot and Cygolite stack up?

Cost - Touhuhot wins at less than half the price of the Cygolite
Mount - Cygolite wins with a sturdy and flexible mount
Brightness - Touhuhot wins for maximum brightness even though it can only produce it for 30 minutes before dropping to a dimmer mode
Run time - Touhuhot wins even though it doesn't come close to the the marketing hype
Convenience - Cygolite wins for the battery hot-swap and usb port design
Size - Cygolite wins because it uses 33% less handlebar space
Beam pattern - a tie 
Free tail light - Touhuhot wins because it has one

Summary - once you know what this light is really capable of it's clearly a good deal. It really doesn't need the marketing lies.

Interesting note - if this really was a 5000 lumen light that ran for 15 hours on a single charge it would need a 150000mAh battery but this light only has a 5200mAh battery)

Now let's look at the 'free' tail light

The free "$21" tail light is very similar to the CANWAY which sells for $16 on Amazon. This is not a review of the Canway - just an attempt to put a reasonable value on this tail light.

It is not very bright compared to a Cygolite 200 lumen spot tail light that costs $40. It's not visible in daylight or under city lights at night. It would be fine on a bike path or quiet road.

The mount is quite good, being a big rubber band that allows you to mount it to almost anything. You can also rotate the light from vertical to horizontal. The light attaches to the mount at a slight angle so if you mount to a seat post or seat stay you can keep the light pointing horizontally.

It has blue and red leds which can be alternated. Note it's illegal to have blue flashing light in some states - that's reserved for emergency services. Probably not going to get you a ticket, though.

Overall I would say the tail light is not up to the same standard as the front light. I've ridden Cygolite spots since they hit the market and this light isn't going to make me change my mind. The wide angle of the light and the blue options might make this a secondary light on one of my bikes.

Aerobar bag

Extending my discussion of bicycle bags, I asked my friend Richard Stum, owner and chief bottle washer at EOGear about the lack of bags that attach to aerobars. He suggested that he try altering his handlebar bag to hang vertically from aerobars. Both Amber and I have Profile T3+ aerobars which are ideal for this configuration. After a couple of tries I think Richard has the perfect aerobar bag.

It has a large main compartment with a moveable divider with full access via a double zipper. There is a zippered pocket on one side and strong velcro straps on the other for attaching a bulky item such as a wet rain jacket. It attaches to the aerobars with four short velcro fasteners.

Here's a picture from the external pocket side. You can see how the bag hangs down out of the way but doesn't obscure the front light. You can see it is more aero in this configuration compared to attaching to the handlebars.

External pocket suitable for maps, cue sheets, etc.

The double zipper makes the inside of the bag very accessible while riding. I use the movable separator to create a battery compartment at the front so I can power my GoPro. It would be easy to run a second cable back to my Wahoo for rides lasting more than 15 hours.

Here's a rider's eye view.

Easy access to snacks, glasses, and everything

 I bought one for Amber too. We far prefer these over the top tube bags that keep slipping off to one side or the other. This bag is at least twice the capacity of the largest top tube bag we could find.

For riders whose aerobars are too close to each other to use this configuration, you can also mount them sideways so that the main zipper is on the side and the external pocket is underneath.

A bag for all occasions

I rode with Greg and Stacy last week for the first time in over a year. We were all supposed to ride our Bromptons but they cheated and brought regular bikes. They hadn't seen my Brompton before so I showed it off with some pride. I hope one day we will all ride our Bromptons together.

Greg had made me a Brompton bag he made from a modified handlebar bag and a generic Brompton mount he bought on Alibaba. I now have four different bags for my Brompton.

My smallest is my 3D printed waterbottle mount with a single bottle and a bottle shaped accessory bag made by Epessa. It's perfect for shorter rides or when I know where all the water fountains are.

3D printed water bottle mount

The next largest is a small hard-shell box I bought on Amazon made by Suntique. I holds quite a bit more than the Epessa but I need to carry a strap on water bottle mount for the stem. It has a cute Union Jack on it too.

Suntique hard shell

Greg's gift is about twice as capacious as the Suntique. Here's a photo. It's a waterproof roll-top handlebar bag, repurposed for the Brompton. I think this is the bag link 

Greg's bag

Lastly, I have a proper Brompton bag for when I need more air resistance. I doubt I will never use it which is a shame because it costs a lot.

Great for shopping at Costco

Brompton Century

 I've always been curious to see how far I could ride my Brompton and I've been slowly working up to a century, which I rode yesterday. It was flat, and I stayed at the beach because SoCal is getting into yet another heatwave. I pretty much did The Crema twice. It was 91F at the end but the bulk of the ride was comfortable.

Each time I've increased the distance ridden I've found ways to make the Brompton more endurance friendly. This time I decided I need to double-wrap the top of the drops because I spend a lot of time there and there's no tape at the moment. Also, I want to move the elbow rests forward a bit so my knees don't feel like they're hitting my elbows.

I get a lot of compliments when I ride this, the best was as I approached the beach at 19mph into a light headwind, the guy drafting me pulled alongside as we reached the beach and asked if it was an e-bike!

At 25 miles I bought two ham and brie baguettes from The Crema which was second breakfast and lunch. At mile 75 I had a chicken sandwich as second lunch at the Bistro St. Germaine. It's OK to relax a bit and enjoy good food on a ride and I'm not a vegetarian when I'm endurance riding.

But the best bit was near the end. I had stopped to take some video of the ocean and this skated by. I slowed it down so you could see. I don't know who you are, but thank you.

Is a 200k in the future for my Brompton. Hell yeah!

Self riding bicycle

Who needs a rider when you have the skills this Chinese Engineer has? Check out this link (the video is not in English but gets pretty cool from about 8:00 minutes in).

https://hackaday.com/2021/06/10/a-self-driving-bicycle-is-something-to-marvel-at/

Here's an excerpt from the good part.

Bikation day 6 - Petaluma to Davis

The ride from Petaluma to Davis ended up being 91 miles with 3500' of climbing. Everything started well with the ride from Petaluma to Napa being through gently rolling wine country with lovely roads and light traffic. We somehow managed to ride all the way through Napa without seeing a coffee shop (poor route design on my part) and had to stop at a 7-11 just before we left Napa. I really don't like 7-11's, partly because they won't let you use the restroom.

After Napa we headed north on highway 121 which quickly turned into a steep, winding climb with no shoulder and heavy traffic - pretty much the definition of a death trap. I used the ridewithgps mobile app to find a safer route to Davis. I had never used this feature before but it took me less than a minute to find a safe route. I sent them a thank-you note.

After more miles over rolling hills and through scenic vineyards we got to Manker Corner just as a small café was opening (this happened a lot). We had a sandwich and soda, they filled our water bottles, and we kept riding.

After a while we found ourselves on the same route the Davis Double used to use to get us home. Roads started becoming familiar again and we found ourselves back in Davis at the impeccable Quality Inn. We were done.

Bikation day 5 - Gualala to Petaluma

I don't know why, but I had a hard time pronouncing Gualala and Petaluma so every time someone asked us where we had started or where we were going today, I sounded like I had a speech defect. Today we rode 76 miles from Gualala to Petaluma with 6100' of climbing. The first fifty miles was similar to the previous day, with a low of 46F (51 degrees cooler than the high on day two), spectacular scenery, lots of climbing, and no shoulder.

We had lunch (or was it second breakfast) at the Fort Ross store. One thing we constantly found in the small communities that only had one store is that the stores were excellent, with high quality produce and a wide selection. We never had to look far for good food.

At Bodega Bay we did a little off-roading before heading inland on the steepest, roughest, most wonderful road of the ride. At the base of the inland section we met three retired gentlemen who gave us some local advice and proceeded to trounce us up the climb (me, not Amber)

Here's some of the off-road part.

Here's some of the climbing that was rougher than the off-road!

A few miles inland we ate at the Casino bar in Bodega - a rough and ready bar run by a lady with a grill and a great attitude.

Casino bar and grill

At Petaluma, Amber found a great Japanese restaurant where we had a well deserved dinner. Gotta love Yelp.

Bikation day 4 - Fort Bragg to Gualala

 Day four saw us ride down the California coast from Fort Bragg to Gualala for 60 miles and 4500' of climbing. I don't understand why the fifth largest economy in the world can't put a decent bike lane on its premier bike route. We just want 24" in each direction. If Caltrans can find the funds to put a 20' wide road in, would another four feet really be that difficult? Mind you, the scenery is amazing and once we were ten miles south of Fort Bragg, the traffic was fairly light.

Yesterday's gale force southerly winds had died down to a mild breeze and the overcast kept the temperature to around 50F for most of the day with the high well below 70F. We had lunch at a small store in Elk which opened just as we got there.

It was very hilly so we had some gnarly downhills.

We stayed at the Gualala Country Inn for the overnight which was quite pleasant. Gualala is a small town with several motels, restaurants, and a store. Walking the beach path after eating was a good way to stretch out the legs.

Bikation day 3 - Willits to Fort Bragg

Day three was originally planned to be a 70 mile ride from Willits to Fort Bragg starting with 25 miles along the 101, crossing over some hills to the 1, then 20 miles south on the 1. However, the previous day on the 101 was so unpleasant that we decided to simply ride 35 miles on highway 20 from Willits to Fort Bragg. Ridewithgps,com did not want to route us on the 20 at all and riders were posting very negative reviews of the road. On the other hand, whenever I looked at the road with Google street level, it looked better than the 101. After a lot of research we decided to take the 20 over to Fort Bragg. The rwgps app created a route for us to follow. Love that new feature.

Highway 20 had some spectacular views and quite a lot of climbing, but it was more downhill than up.

Highway 20

Just as we got to Fort Bragg Amber's rear derailleur cable snapped which was good timing because we had just finished a ton of climbing and we were only a mile from Fort Bragg Cyclery where Mark was ready to fix it for us. Plus there was a coffee shop next door while we waited.

Mark is awesome

Once we got the bike fixed we headed over to the Skunk Train station and purchased some tickets for the 2pm train.

A lady at the Willits Expresso stand had recommended we visit the Pomo cliffs so we headed there while waiting for the train. There was a powerful southerly wind while we were there. Guess which way we were headed tomorrow?

Pomo cliffs

After viewing the cliffs we had some lunch, then headed up to the Skunk Train for a 90 minute trip inland and back. There's only 3.5 miles of restored track, but it was a lot of fun and the train was surprisingly full for mid-week.

Skunk train

After 30 minutes (yes, the train travels at 7mph but at least it left on time, unlike Amtrak) we arrived at the turn around which has some lovely hiking trails. We were able to walk around for 30 minutes before the train left.

Hiking trail at the Skunk turnaround

Once the train returned us to Fort Bragg we were able to check into our room at the Anchor Lodge which is down in the harbor area. We got a ground floor, river view room with a balcony. This was the view from the room.

View from motel room

This was the first motel to offer breakfast which was delivered in a brown paper bag.

Breakfast

There's a lot of places to eat down at the harbor. I assume all these buildings used to be fish processing and net making businesses that have closed down and been repurposed. One of them advertised fish and chips so we decided to give it a try. They had outside seating which was very scenic but the seagulls were pretty bold.

Don't turn your back

All in all this was my favorite day.