Satori suspension seat post

I recently bought a Satori suspension seat post from Amazon and took it for a 50 mile test ride. I have a titanium frame and the seat post is aluminum so it was important to use Park Tools ASC-1 anti-seize grease for the installation.

At first it seemed as though my rear tire was low because I wasn't feeling the bumps that I knew were there. I quickly realized my ride was a lot more comfortable. After I uploaded the ride to rwgps.com I noticed it calculated an average power of 225 Watts but past recent efforts on this route average about 200 Watts. Is it possible the smoother ride was also faster?

My average moving speed was 16mph which isn't bad for a route that has a 10mph speed limit for half its length (which I assiduously obey, officer). Here's a frame grab of me obeying the speed limit. 😈

I do a lot of miles on my trainer and I've tried hard to calibrate it to match my normal riding. I've done it by "feel" so the trainer feels as hard as the bike. When I compare power estimates of my rides on rwgps I see I can't tell the difference between real rides and the trainer, so that's some good feedback.

Riding with RWBTC

When I started cycling and I lived in Redlands I joined the Redlands Water Bottle Transit Company (my local bike club) but when I got into long distance cycling, and they weren't, I stopped riding with them. As Amber and Edgar are skiing this weekend, I thought I would hook up with RWBTC for a ride. I was a bit apprehensive because last time I tried to ride with them, they were not interested in 'new faces' and the ride was a disaster for me.

I was pleased to see some old friends. Jerry Cowden was there and Eric Reiser, as well as Bob, Don, and others. A couple of them were on e-bikes and Jerry told me all about the new e-bike he had ordered. I definitely think I'll be buying one in ten years. I'm told Russ bought one for Linda, but typical of Russ, he got it from some guy in Morocco and it needs to be repaired before it will work.

I was on the Brompton and had only expected to ride the 30 mile option, but that ride didn't happen so I hooked up with a Palm Springs century training ride instead which was 50 miles long. At mile 16 we stopped at a Starbucks where I bought a "ham and cheese croissant". I put that in quotes because when she handed it over I could see it was only two bites. For $4.25 I was expecting something more substantial, but this is a Starbucks where their motto is "half the food for twice the price". I should write a book called the "Starbucks Diet". You can eat all the food you can afford, but you have to buy it at Starbucks.

After the Starbucks was the steepest set of hills I've ridden on the Brompton heading up Country Club and Shaker Drive. One and a half miles averaging 5% with a maximum of 12%. I seriously need to replace my 54 tooth chainring with a 44 tooth before I take it to Ireland. The following downhill had me up to about 30 mph so this is the first ride that has had me in every gear the Brompton has, all in the same ride.

After eating my micro croissant at the turn around at Citrus Park we headed over to the Upper SART which is infested with homeless encampments. I felt a lot safer riding it with a big group, but I no longer want to ride it alone. We really need Riverside to clean this up.

Some of the group at the end of the SART

I had already exhausted the meagre calories I had consumed at the park and by the time we got to the end of the SART I was hungry again and feeling the bonk. We only had eight miles to go and I knew the way, so I dropped off and finished solo. I certainly learned a lot of new roads which felt odd because I lived in the area for 10 years.

The end of the ride was at a Stater Bros so I bought some sushi and monsters for the drive home. I don't know why I was craving sushi, possibly the rice has the kind of carbs my body needed.

I'm so glad I decided to ride with the club - the warm reception I got undid the indifference I felt on the prior attempt. I will try to ride with them more often and may even join again.

I've been trying to find a way to increase the saddle set back on the Brompton so I tried a device I found on Amazon. It was terrible and I removed it after a 1/2 mile test ride. Here's the review. I'm thinking I could cut it at the left end of the bottom leg and just use the straight bit. I'll let you know how that goes.

It doesn't get any better than this

We skipped riding Christmas weekend from fear of crazy traffic getting to and from the ride. But yesterday we decided to ride Back Bay, one of my favorite rides. It was in the low 60's when we started and I thought about tights and a jacket, but in the end I went with a vest.

There was a slight tailwind as we headed to the coast, which is unusual but as we turned south we still had a tailwind which is normal. The trail was very busy, probably with New Year's resolutions. A lot of people were on e-bikes, probably because they thought they count, somehow.

When we got to the beach, the under pass was flooded and people were trying to walk around over the rocks while carrying their bikes. Or they tried, and failed, to ride through. We took a slight detour, but only after Amber realized how deep it was and got her feet wet backing out.

As we headed inland the trail was even more busy, but there were fewer e-bikes. Perhaps the residents of Orange County are smarter than the average Californian. We had a slight headwind, but no big deal. We both wanted Chicken with butter rice when we got to Ha-Long. I couldn't make the guy understand what I was ordering - between my English accent, his Vietnamese accent, and two masks. Fortunately Amber was able to communicate.

This meal is amazing and ideal for long bike rides. Butter rice (here's a version), grilled chicken, and a light salad. I added Vietnamese coffee and Amber had Vietnamese milk tea. The coffee is so heavily caffeinated I knew I would have to stop at the rest rooms at the top of Pioneer :-) It was getting into the low 70's now and the vest came off. Fortunately my Acorn saddle bag can carry a lot.

Sure enough, 20 minutes later at the top of Pioneer, I was jonesing for the rest room. Ahh - sweet relief. The second half of the ride has most of the climbing which is made harder by a full stomach. It also had most of the headwind, but a light headwind while climbing is not a problem.

The last four miles on the bike path had a tailwind again, so I held 20mph all the way. I had such a good ride.

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.