Long time no post

Anyone following my on my ridewithgps.com account will have seen some posts of me riding in the ocean off of Alaska.

Cycling in the ocean

No I haven't taken up ocean kayaking (maybe next year). I was on a cruise but I could get a GPS signal in the gym so I rode the exercise bike while recording the ship's movement on rwgps. Once the ship had covered the distance I planned on riding I closed the rwgps session and then completed the workout. As the ship was travelling slightly faster than I normally ride this worked out pretty well. The workout in Glacier Bay was spectacular.

Glacier Bay from the ship's gym

I finally got to ride my real bike on Saturday evening with Amber and we did our old standard ride from Anaheim Amtrak station to Beachwood BBQ and back. As usual we had a strong headwind all the way out and a mild tailwind on the way back.

My all-night 200k audax ride is coming up in three weeks and I have nine people signed up already. If the last two years are anything to go by we will have an amazing ride. I'm really looking forward to it.

I have booked my plane ticket for the Crackerswamp and purchased my hard case. It's starting to feel very real.

So Much Fun!

Solo 400k

Yesterday I rode my Four Rivers 200k permanent twice back-to-back. The intent was to see how I did riding a flat, hot 400k because that's like the first day of the Cracker Swamp 1200k in Florida coming up in October. My target was to complete the ride in 20 hours.

I started at 5:30 am. My first problem is that there is nothing open at that time except the McDonalds drive through so I had to get my receipt by driving through and then find somewhere to park. The first half of the ride went well although it got hotter than expected when I got back to the start and it was over 90F. I ate at the Chick-fil-a - Meh.

I was drinking one bottle of Perpetuem with Endurolytes between each control. Seems it fills me up quite well. Didn't have any bonking or cramping issues.

The second 200k was very different. A strong wind set in from the north and I had a headwind for fifty of the first sixty miles of the loop. What was soul-crushing is the knowledge that the wind would die down before I could turn around and make it a tail wind. My time out to the around control at mile 58 was about five hours and I was exhausted holding even that pace.

I turned around and within an hour the wind died down from about 20mph to about 10mph. Still - at least it wasn't a headwind any more. Riding on the Rio Hondo and Los Angeles bike paths at night is a scary process. There were lots of people furtively standing by the bike path and groups of young men walking up it that looked very suspicious to me. One guy shouted angrily at me in Spanish. I have no idea what he said but just kept riding. I would not recommend doing this to anyone.

I finished the ride in 19:54. Very tired but not sore.

I wonder how long it will be before someone is killed while playing Pokemon Go? Perhaps it has already happened. I had a couple of incidents on the beach path with people running across the bike path in front of me while holding their cell phones up in front of them. It's just a matter of time.

Oceanside ride

Amber and I rode my Anaheim to Oceanside 125km permanent again on Sunday. We started at 8am to try to beat the heat but it was pretty warm as we climbed Santiago Canyon. I was treating this ride as a stress buster because work has been pretty bad lately. Just before we started I had noticed a big bald spot on my rear tire that had me worried so I had to keep my speed down on the descents. The last thing anyone needs is a blow-out at 30mph.

I was trying to remember what might have damaged my tire, then Amber reminded me that last time we did this route I did a long skid because a car showed up at intersection at an awkward moment. That was a long time ago!

Anyhow we got to Cooks Corner and had our usual food. They were even slower than usual and we had trouble holding a conversation while we waited because someone was playing the jukebox and you just can't get away from the speakers. I have a brilliant idea - why not add a "Silence" spot on the jukebox. You put your money in and you get three minutes of silence. I would slap $5 into that no problem. Just think - no royalties, no wear and tear - it's three minutes of pure profit. How come no-one has thought of this before?

The rest of the route was pretty normal - headwind to the coast then a tailwind to Oceanside. We picked up a chap who followed us because he was not familiar with the Alisal Creek bike trail. When we got to Laguna Niguel he turned back north on PCH. I hope he remembered the trail because it's a lot of fun.

Next weekend I'm going to do some training for the Crackerswamp ride. I'm going to ride my Four Rivers 200k twice starting at 4am.

I need therapy!

Inaugural Four Rivers 200k permanent

I rode my new Four Rivers 200k permanent today. It will be the first loop of my new 200/400/600 Triple Loop brevet next year. It is a fast route that makes very heavy use of bike paths and is very flat. It's an ideal summer permanent because it never gets that far away from the coast.

Today was hot and windy and I rode it solo but I still got my best time on a 200k since two years ago. If I had made better time through the controls and had a couple of riding buddies we could easily have shaved 30 minutes off my 8:46 time.

I can see this becoming very popular.

Why can't we have nice stuff?

I just finished a cycling vacation in Colorado with Amber and Sherry. While we were riding along the bike path between Glenwood Springs and Carbondale Amber turned to me and said "This is how the SART would look if there was water in the Santa Ana River."

I thought about that for a few moments before replying "And no graffiti, no broken bottles, no trash, and no homeless encampments."

Why the difference? Why do Southern Californians trash bike paths and use them to house to homeless?

Mount San Jacinto

There are three peaks in Southern California, San Gorgonio; San Antonio (Mt Baldy); and San Jacinto, that are sometimes climbed all in one day. This is called the Three Saints Challenge. Each peak is individually challenging so completing all three in a single day is pretty impressive.

I had no intention of completing all three peaks in one day or even one year. But I have climbed San Gorgonio twice and I climbed San Antonio earlier this year so Amber and I decided to climb San Jacinto last Sunday to get the hat-trick.

On paper it looks like an easy climb. It's a little over five miles from the top of the Palm Springs Tramway to the peak with about 3000' of climbing. Then five miles back. However, the entire hike is above 8000' elevation so that might make it a little more difficult.

The trail is not too difficult for the first 2.5 miles up to a saddle which has wonderful views both north and south.

View from the saddle

Immediately after the saddle the trail gets much steeper and very technical. In many places you are simply scrambling over boulders trying to pick up the trail on the far side. Several times I would have had trouble finding the trail again if there had not been hikers on it.

I was struggling when we got to the top so it was nice to get into some shade in the emergency cabin up there. Amber and I signed the log book.

Signing the log book in the emergency cabin.

I rested and ate while Amber explored the area. I was surprised with the popularity of this hike. There were literally hundreds of hikers out that day.

Popular hike.

On the way down we noticed clouds coming in from the north which gave us occasional overcast. Much appreciated.

Headed down with clouds from the north

I'm so glad to have completed this peak. I would definitely do it again.

400 km weekend

I rode a quick 35 miles on my exercise bike on Friday night, then rode my Anaheim to Oceanside 120 km permanent on Saturday with Amber.

It was overcast as we climbed Santiago Canyon. Something happened to me that has not happened in a long while. I passed someone on a climb - in fact I passed six people. Wow that felt good. We got to Cook's corner in only two hours which is quite a bit faster than normal. The sun came out as we descended the Alisal Creek bike trail but it got overcast again once we got near the beach. Kaylani coffee was as good as usual except I put the dregs of my iced coffee into my empty water bottle and topped it up with cold water. It was good.

While climbing up the bike route out of San Clemente we were riding on the shoulder and a cyclist passed us in the lane which is marked with sharrows. As he went past a motorist started yelling at him because he was in the lane. The cyclist chased him down yelling at him. I doubt it did any good, but it's scary how many drivers don't know what sharrows are. That's why I think they're not worth the paint.

The cyclist joined us a few minute later and he was headed our way so we chatted for a while. He was riding a wooden bicycle. Very pretty.

Novaro

He turned around at Las Pulgas but before he did he warned us that the Camp Pendleton police were aggressively harassing cyclists lately. Sure enough, a few miles into the base Amber was cycling about ten feet behind me and a police car came by and had the gall to say "Single file" on his PA. What an ass! If you don't know what single file means just keep your mouth shut. We noticed about six police cars pass and re-pass us as we rode through the base. I seriously think they are looking for excuses to ban cyclists completely.

We finished the ride at 3:30 but still had to wait for the 5pm Amtrak. There really isn't much point to riding this route quickly. To kill some time we checked out a triathlon store called Endurance House. Lot's of fun things there for cyclists.

On Sunday I rode my SART 200 km permanent with Stacey. Greg is sidelined right now with an arm injury but Stacey wanted her 67th consecutive R12 and I was curious to see how I would feel after the 120k.

We headed down the SART from San Bernardino and started passing a very large group of people running/walking with backpacks. They were completing the backpack challenge which requires you cover 10km while carrying a 35lb backpack.

I was feeling great but Stacey likes to ride slow and talk. No problem, she had many great stories to tell. I got caught up with Greg's epic single-handed yacht trip back from Hawaii (and I mean single-handed). Also their PBP and 100 Cols ride and their LEL and Land's End to John O Groats plans.

We stopped at the Starbucks at the top of Green River hill Stacey pointed out a new 76 gas station that we will be using as the regrouping point about a mile after the top of Green River hill. We took amount five hours to get to Newport Burgers. I had their Mahi burger for the first time in about five years - it was good. We had a nice tailwind on the way back and stopped at the Lucky Greek. We finished in about 11 hours. My only real problem was a sore backside.

Today I went hiking with the wife. Ouch. I'm taking tomorrow off.