No such thing as an easy 200k

Due to the terrible mudslides around Montecito, Greg decided to run the "Between a Rock and a Rincon" route instead of the scheduled "Santa Barbara Easy" last Saturday. Fortunately both rides start and end at the same place and are quite flat.

Amber and I stayed at the Best Western in Simi Valley and we both felt the extra cost over the Motel 6 was well worth it, especially as the ride's 7am start time allowed us to enjoy a nice pre-ride breakfast at the hotel.

We had 34 riders registered and even though we had a few no-shows, a large group rolled out on a cool, calm, and dry Saturday morning. After warming up a little on the rollers of Tierra Rejada we enjoyed a gentle downhill to the coast on Santa Rosa, trying to avoid the rumble strip as best we could.

This 200k only has one receipt control but it has seven info controls. Perhaps it should have been named "Infopalooza". I managed to get to the receipt control in Carpenteria at mile 57 by digesting my enormous complementary breakfast supplemented with a ProBar. As the info control stops were quick, we made excellent time. Greg even managed to route us onto two bike paths I'd never been on before - I thought I knew them all.

In Ventura the nature of the route confused both Amber's and my navigation systems (rwgps) which suddenly though we were on the south bound portion of the route. It wasn't until a mile or so later, when I saw the ocean, that I realized what had happened and turned around. From that point until Carpenteria my gps thought I was south bound and gave me the wrong cues. Fortunately I knew how to get to Carpenteria.

Heading back south we had a gentle tail wind and the info controls made it seem like a scavenger hunt. Greg had made the info control questions multiple choice which is an excellent idea - one I shall copy. For longer rides, it's understandable that riders will be fuzzy with exhaustion and sleep deprivation so I think having multiple choices will really help them understand and answer the question correctly. Unfortunately, his first two info control questions concerned the cash price of regular gas at gas stations. Both of them had raised their prices in the 24 hours since Greg had checked them!

Everything was going well and we were on schedule for a 9:30 ride time until we were about three miles inland on Port Hueneme Road. In the space of a quarter mile we went from having a gentle tail wind to having a powerful head wind. It seems the predicted Santa Ana winds had arrived about 12 hours early.

It was clear we would have a 30mph headwind while climbing the 11 miles of Santa Rosa Road, but it turned out the real problem was the strong crosswind while we were on PCH. Sure enough,  especially in the vicinity of Point Mugu, the cliffs and Mugu Rock concentrated and diverted the wind so that it was strong enough to cause a sandstorm across PCH and forced us to stop and wait as a particularly violent gust went by.

It was actually a relief to get onto Santa Rosa Road so that the wind was in our teeth, at least I wasn't worried about being blown off my bike. When we got to Camarillo we stopped at the Chevron and ate the massive cookies we had bought in Carpenteria and refilled with a little Gatorade. The wind was fairly calm at the gas station and I thought, perhaps, we had seen the worst of it. But no, as we left the shelter, the wind came back and we crawled up Santa Rosa at 10 mph.

When we turned onto Moorpark Rd, we still had a head wind. Go figure! Finally we turned onto Tierra Rejada and had two miles of well-earned tailwind. We finished with a 10:22 ride time so the wind cost us about an hour. Like I said to Amber "If all the rides were easy ..... that would be great!"

Greg was making pizza and it was good - the four cheese was one of the best I'd ever eaten. We shot the breeze (pun intended) for 45 minutes then headed back to our cars for the drive home.

This was my first ride with my new helmet mount. I purchased a small headlight during a flash sale on Amazon for a mere $15 and was very please with it, although it's not as good as my $80 Cygolite. Still, it would make a great helmet light but it doesn't come with a helmet mount. So I decided to foray into 3D printing. I downloaded some free CAD software from Design Spark and designed a mount so I could attach this light to my existing Cygolite helmet mount. Then a friend, who owns a 3D printer, printed it for me. After a couple of iterations I had the mount shown below.

See you later.

Lucky Greek and Acorn Bags

Amber and I decided to do a different route last night and rode from Anaheim Artic to the Lucky Greek in Corona. There are fewer problems with the homeless encampments in that direction and I get a good climb up Green River Road.

On the way back we saw a high illuminated sign on the bike path saying it would be closed 1/22/18. There was no indication of why or for how long.

I finally managed to order an Acorn Bags saddlebag for myself on the third attempt and also snagged some leather straps for tying a jacket or something to the outside.

Medium Saddlebag with light jacket lashed on

Even though I still think Carradice bags are superb, this is the perfect century/200k saddle bag.

Fast solo 200k

Last Saturday I decided to celebrate getting over my cold by riding my Four Rivers 200k solo. I tried to set the best time I could, while keeping my calories to a minimum. It was a beautiful day with a high of 68F and mild winds.

Starting out on the SART

Nearly at the park

First control where they messed up my order

I got to the Jack in the Box which is the first control and ordered a breakfast croissant. Somehow I ended up with a junior breakfast sandwich and hash browns but I couldn't be bothered to wait for them to fix the order. I took one bite and burned my mouth so I shoved it into my Carradice bag and took off.

Time for breakfast

I headed up the San Gabriel bike path and about 30 minutes later I started to get hungry so I ate the breakfast sandwich which was still warm and kept going to the Shell control. There's a Subway there so I got the veggie sandwich (my favorite while riding). I got here to the halfway point in almost exactly four hours, but I'd had some tailwind.

Heading back towards the beach on the Rio Hondo bike path I picked up a headwind almost immediately. No surprises there.

Rio Hondo bike path before the Whittier Dam

I still had a decent average when I got to Long Beach. I shot some video as I approached the next control. As I passed the electronic sign I saw I was about the 700th cyclist to pass it that day.

I ate a Chronic Taco because their carnitas quesadillas are fantastic. This was my longest stop at about 30 minutes. I should take a photo of the food one day.

View from Chronic Tacos

I left well fueled and headed back towards Huntington Beach and then picked up a tailwind as I rode inland back to Yorba Linda. I got back to the car in 8:48 - one of my better times for a 200k.

Winter solstice 200k

December 21st was the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, so Kerin Huber organized a 200k from Pasadena to Oceanside starting at the Sierra Madre Gold Line station at 7pm. For a late season 200k, we had a surprisingly large turnout of 12 riders.

Starting in Pasadena

We have had terrible Santa Ana winds for the past two weeks - so strong that Amber and I had to abandon last week's ride. Fortunately the wind was fairly calm, and the prevailing northerly winds had returned for our ride. On the other hand it was bitterly cold (for California) so I had the opportunity to try out some of my new cold weather gear. I had new silk undergloves, a long-sleeved woolen RUSA jersey that I had only worn once before, and a new Showers Pass jacket.

When we started the ride it was about 46F. We rode tempo around Pasadena before heading east to the San Gabriel river trail. Charlie was unable to hold our pace and dropped off. It turns out he was not feeling well and was unable to complete the ride within the allotted time. David Nakai started late and caught us after an hour or so, then quickly rode off the front because he needed to finish before we were likely to.

Dana Point

Once we got onto the San Gabriel bike path, around mile 30, the temperature dropped even lower - bottoming out at around 36F. Fortunately as we approached the coast, it rose back up to around 41F and stayed there for the rest of the ride. Even with four layers of clothes, standing around at the controls was very cold, so several times I left before others were ready so I could warm up a little.

At Seal Beach, the McDonalds had closed early so we rode on the the Harbor House Cafe which is open 24 hours. This is good to know. The service there was pretty chaotic, but they got the job done eventually. We spent an hour here in total but at least we were well fed when we left.

We rode south with a tailwind in one or two groups, coming together and splitting as people felt stronger or weaker. Riding through Laguna Beach at two in the morning is much better than during the day. Hardly any parked cars, traffic, or pedestrians. Dana Point was quiet and we stopped at the penultimate control at the Arco to use the rest room and get water.

I showed Mark Tagawa the bike path through San Clemente which is slightly shorter and has less climbing than the bike route or PCH but because it's hard packed dirt, it is slightly slower. As we finished climbing out we saw the group that had stayed on PCH pass about 30 seconds ahead of us so I chased to get back on. Mark didn't even know the bike path existed and he said it was cool. When it's not packed with pedestrians, it is a lot more fun.

I was with the lead group of five as we approached Las Pulgas Road but I had to stop to eat some GoCubes and ended up about 1/4 mile behind them. I think they stopped at the rest area off the I5 because I saw them go in but I got to the Oceanside Amtrak before them.

My total ride time was 10:03 and the whole group, except Charlie, rolled in within another twelve minutes at 05:15. We were lucky enough to catch the 05:42 Metrolink to Los Angeles and Terri and Kerin were kind enough to show me how to buy a Gold Line ticket (and pay for it) back to Pasadena. It turns out it's not enough to buy a ticket. You buy the physical, reusable ticket and then have to load a virtual ticket onto it, and scan it as you enter. Too much for my sleep addled brain to figure out.

Ending in Oceanside

DNS

Southern California has been experiencing unprecedented Santa Ana winds for the past 10+ days. During this time of year we have normally had our first snow and started the rainy season. However, in 2017, we have had no snow and almost no rain. Instead, we have had continuous dry, warm, powerful winds blowing off the Mojave desert. The Thomas fire is wreaking havoc in Ventura County and is now the third largest fire California has ever experienced. And it's still going strong.

Amber and I were scheduled to ride from Anaheim to Oceanside, but the wind in Anaheim was very strong and would have been a side-wind on the descent of Santiago Canyon so we decided to abandon that idea and ride up the bike path to the Lucky Greek. At least the wind would have been a head-wind on the way up and a tail-wind on the way back.

I pulled 16 miles into a 20-30 mph head-wind until we reached the canyon, by which time the wind had increased to the point where it was unsafe even as a head-wind. We decided to turn around at that point and flew back. At one point we were riding at 26 mph and I could still feel a tail-wind on the back of my legs. Our average speed on the way out was 12.1 mph and on the way back was 21.2 mph.

This is what 30mph looks like on the bike.

When the lights suddenly go out

Twice in the past ten years or so, I have passed out while using the rest-room after abandoning a hard brevet. Both times were after the first 400km of a multi day ride that was much hotter than I expected.

I did some research on this to see if I could prevent it from happening again. I found this page to be very useful https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/when-the-lights-suddenly-go-out.

I had suspected this was related to dehydration. When you stand up quickly, especially from a deep sleep, the blood pressure in your brain drops suddenly and the heart takes a while to catch up. If you are dehydrated, your blood pressure is low to start with.

In addition, if you have recently eaten - and this is common at the end of a 400k, your digestive system has more than its usual allocation of blood, making less available to the brain.

So the combination of exhaustion, suddenly standing up, dehydration, and a heavy meal all add up to a recipe for passing out. It's amazing it hasn't happened to me more often. So what can I do about it?

Normally there are warning signs. I feel dizzy or break out into a clammy sweat a few seconds before passing out. I could sit down and put my head between my knees (apparently this actually works). It also seems crossing your legs and squeezing your leg muscles helps pump blood up to your head.

I should also make a more concerted effort to re-hydrate after a ride and maybe try not to eat too much before going to bed.

Last time I went down I cracked my head and elbow pretty badly. I don't want to do that again.

Anaheim to Oceanside populaire - another perfect riding day

After dire threats of rain from weather.com all week, Saturday came with perfect weather for my Anaheim to Oceanside populaire. Rather than taking the obvious coastal route, the ride goes over Santiago Canyon which means we start with a good climb, descend on Alisal Creek bike trail, and avoid Laguna Beach.

There were four of us at the start: Myself, Kerin, Len (just getting back into randonneuring), and Marc (first organized ride). At 8am the skies were blue with puffy white clouds, there was no wind, and it was slightly cool. We left Anaheim Artic and stayed as a group until the start of Santiago Canyon. By the time we reached the top at mile 26 we were split asunder.

We skipped getting a receipt at Cook's Corner because they were quite busy and settled for a selfie.

Not my best selfie

We waited for Len for a while a Cook's Corner but after ten minutes Kerin took off. Marc and I had almost given up when Len showed up so the three of us took off down Alisal Creek trail which was fun as always. I'm glad we waited because Len and Marc were not familiar with the route and would have struggled to stay on course.

Marc and I got to Crown Valley Parkway at the same time and grabbed food and Gatorade at the 76 gas station, expecting Len to show up a couple of minutes later. After a while I phoned him and it turned out he had stopped a mile or so back and told us to continue without him, which we did.

Marc and I rode on to Kaylani and once again I courted brain-freeze with one of their wonderful iced coffees. Most of it went into my water bottle. We took the beach path which Marc thought was stressful, partly because of the pedestrians and partly because he was riding narrow tires.

Beach path through San Clemente.

Riding on we got to Camp Pendleton. Marc was not pre-authorized, but Kerin had mentioned they would let people though who were not pre-authorized. We decided to give it a go, I mean what are they going to do? Shoot us? Worse case is he's denied access.

They let him through without a murmur. Interesting.

We got to Oceanside in almost exactly six hours which is a very good time for me. Kerin beat us by fifteen minutes or so and managed to get an earlier train. Len texted me to say he had DNFed at the entrance to Camp Pendleton and his wife was picking him up.

All the trains were hosed up for some reason and running very late, so I ended up getting a train to Anaheim Canyon and riding the five miles back to Anaheim. It took me almost as long to get home as it had taken me to do the ride.