Triple Loop 600k brevet

Last weekend I hosted the Triple Loop 600k - it was a bruiser. I had one rider on the 200k option, one on the 400k option, and fourteen on the 600k option. They started between 5am and 6am on Saturday morning.

The staff ride did not go to plan when my chain self-destructed just short of 400k. I had a chain tool, but I didn't have the skills to repair it properly. I've have since watched the appropriate YouTube videos. All the tools, still a fool!

The first loop is nice and flat and the first rider, Daniel, got in about one in the afternoon having ridden it in just over eight hours. We had our first DNF near the end of the ride when James, suffering from an adverse vaccine reaction, had to stop just seven miles from the end. I think we all know what it's like to ride when sick.

Greg Jones (not that one) completed the 200k so he now has a 200k and a 300k and is looking forward to the Four Fingers 400 on May 1st.

I had Costco pizza, 85 Degree pastries, Monsters, and orange juice waiting for the riders and that seemed to hit the spot for them. The 400k and 600k riders headed out after a little R&R with lights and an extra layer for the cold.

The second loop has more climbing as it heads south down the coast. I had a volunteer, Renee, on standby for any riders who needed help on this loop but everyone came through well. Please thank Renee, she was there for you. Daniel was the first rider to complete the second loop just before midnight - a very impressive time. He had to ride fast because he then drove 30 minutes home to sleep, before driving back to start the third loop! To make things even more interesting the hotel lost power all Saturday evening but, fortunately, this did impact any of the riders. 

Even though the weather forecast just two days before had predicted 80F in Beaumont and 10-12 mph winds, a Santa Ana wind event sprung up and the high was above 90F with 35mph winds gusting to 50. For some reason weather.com cannot predict Santa Ana conditions more that 24 hours before they happen. So it turned out the third loop started with a sixty mile climb into a strong headwind. There were a lot of DNFs as riders looked at the wind and either decided not to start or to turn around quickly.

Out of the fourteen riders that signed up for the 600k we had eight DNFs and six finishers. Congratulations to the finishers - that was the hardest Triple Loop I have ever hosted.

200k finishers

Greg Jones: 10:25

400k finishers

Hoang Nguyen: 25:49

600k finishers

Greg Cardell: 38:20 (SR)

Gregory Goebel: 36:08

Brandon Kirisaki: 39:55

John Marino: 33:35

Lihn Nguyen: 40:00

Daniel Tran: 39:38

I turned 100 a couple of days ago. 100 metric, that is, I'm 62 in imperial measurements. I've been waiting a long time to make that joke 😂

Amber and I rode the Triple Loop 600k staff ride last weekend and it went well except that it didn't. The first 200k went smoothly and we completed it without even trying hard in 9 hours 10 minutes. The Shell at the turnaround was closed for refurbishment so we used the Mobil next door. It looks as though it will be closed on the day of the event too.

We decided to ride the inland loop next to see if motorized traffic on the upper SART was still a problem in the evenings, and it is, so I made the right decision to leave this for the third loop. We were on our target 12.5 mph overall average as we approached the turnaround when Amber got a rear-wheel flat on her supposedly indestructible Schwalbe Marathons. 

We fixed it, no problem, then two miles later the master link on my new chain failed! I suspect it was not installed correctly. I whipped out my chain tool and fixed it. I had watched a video on YouTube on how to fix a bicycle chain. I should also have watched a video on how to install a bicycle chain because I did it exactly wrong and it took me 10 minutes to thread the chain instead of the 20 seconds it should have taken. Apparently the trick is to thread from the top. Then gravity helps you instead of hindering.

We kept riding and fifty miles later my fix broke. This time the side plates were bent so I couldn't fix it without pliers to bend them back. I threw the chain away, and asked Amber to ride the last 20 miles to the hotel and come get me. In the meantime I walked to the park entrance to meet her. The thing is, now that I have watched the right videos, I could have fixed the chain again (or even properly the first time).

I have a new phrase "All the tools, still a fool".

The upside is that even after 400k with significant climbing, we both felt great and perfectly ready to ride some more. I think we're up for the Crackerswamp in November. I have a new chain which I installed myself (after buying a Parks chain hook). If it comes off now I know who to blame. I also have to replace a bottle cage because the weld on one failed during the ride. That was the least of my problems.

Talking about bottle cages, it occurred to me I could 3D print a bottle cage holder that attaches to the bag mount on the front of my Brompton so I did it. I could not find anyone selling this. It's very cool.

Brompton Water Bottle Holder 3D drawing

Brompton Water Bottle Holder in action

I took it for a short test ride today and it works like a charm. It is very easy to get the bottles in and out while riding - certainly no more difficult than a road bike. I could also replace one of the bottles with a tool bag that is designed to fit into a cage. I used some low-end bottle cages that are exceptional value for money.

I got some great feedback on this on CycleChat.

A busy day

 Yesterday, I hosted the 2021 Five Rivers 300k brevet - the first brevet I have hosted under the pandemic restrictions. I had 16 riders signed up, two were staff, one had to cancel, so there were 13 on the road yesterday. That was more than enough.

The riders started staggered between 5am and 6am. Because we pushed the date back two weeks, we were under daylight savings time, so it was dark for an hour more than I expected and it was cooler - around 50F.

The first crisis occurred at mile 4 when Eric double-flatted on a pothole and realized he didn't have a pump. I drove to meet him, but there was something wrong with his stem extender and we couldn't get air in his tires. I drove him to his home in Anaheim, he grabbed a new bike, and I drove him back so he could continue. He lost an hour, but he didn't give up.

Eric with his second bike

The next crisis happened at mile 6 when James hit some rebar and broke his light and suffered some other damage too. He decided to DNF at Duarte. Fortunately, that was the last of the crises until Greg injured his knee passing under PCH.

While they were all out enjoying the weather and the wonderful headwinds into Long Beach, I took my Brompton out to test ride my new aerobars! Checkout this sweet ride.

After I finished my test ride I started hanging out at the controls and meeting the riders. I met some of the leaders at Chronic Tacos, then drove over to the Crossroads Center and jumped back on the bike, riding back down the course to Irvine Blvd and back. Here's Back Bay for those who were riding too hard to enjoy the view.

When I got back to the Crossroads control I had some garlic noodles and waited for riders to come through.

When it got dark I headed to the end of the ride and hung out in the Goodfellas parking lot for riders.

I didn't have a hotel room booked for after the ride so about 11pm I started getting sleepy and decided to head home rather than wait for the last three riders.

I also noticed that I have just passed 100,000 miles career total on my rwgps account (nine years). Nice.

Good and bad cycling gear

I just received the cutest little Brompton case from Amazon. It's small enough that I can leave it on the Brompton when I fold it, but big enough to hold a few items. Plus it looks great. I really like it, and I'm looking forward to riding my Brompton next weekend.

I also came across this folding bicycle helmet which seems very sketchy to me. I don't know about you, but if there's even a one percent chance my helmet will fold up when I crash, it's not worth it. It's like that scene from Iron Man

2021 Five Rivers Staff Ride

Amber and I rode the Five Rivers 300k staff ride on Sat 13th. We started at 5am, a few hours after a major storm had left the area. It was 43F, dark, and calm. I had forgotten to bring my leg warmers but I had some light hiking pants and they worked. I kept them out of my chain with my reflective ankle bands.

About the only thing you need to know is that there is a protected bike lane on the left side of Green River Rd on the steep descent (about mile 5.5) that you should use. At the end of the lane the road splits three ways. You want to use the center split (keeping the construction fence on your left).

Up the middle

I like the new rules for running brevets in the pandemic and I hope we keep some of them. We skipped the official control and ate at The Crema in Seal Beach. As well as a lovely breakfast, we picked up some pastries for the next control which is a rather boring 7-Eleven. The pants came off here. I hope I didn't scare any locals when I dropped them.

Yum!

We were dismayed to find we had a gusty headwind as we headed inland to Duarte which slowed us down to about 14mph. Normally the onshore flow gives us a nice tailwind through this stretch. "Still," we thought, "we'll have a tailwind on the way back." 

There used to be a pizza store next door, but they moved.

At Duarte we ate our pastries and topped up our water bottles. When we headed to Long Beach we found we still had a headwind despite completely turning around. In reality it was a powerful crosswind which feels like a headwind in both directions. We were crawling along at 12mph most of the way to Long Beach :-( At least it wasn't raining!

After Long Beach we picked up a nice tailwind and scooted along to the Chronic Tacos in Belmont. There's a ton of places you can use for the control, but the cheese quesadillas here really hit the spot.

Cheese quesadillas, chips, salsa, and real coke

Moving on, still with a tailwind, we took the beach path through Huntington beach, which was very crowded in places. PCH would have been faster. We headed inland to Irvine, still with a tailwind, and got to the last control just before the sun set. We ate at the Ha-Long Vietnamese café and here was where Amber made a rare mistake. The coffee was very strong and Amber didn't eat much of her noodles. That came to haunt us later.

Chicken Pad-Thai, garlic noodles, Vietnamese coffee

As we rode away from Irvine the sun was setting and we still had a nice tailwind. This section has more climbing than any other section on this route. Amber's stomach started bothering her on the bike path as we were approaching Green River Rd. Tums didn't help. We assume it was the massive hit of caffeine without eating much food. We used the bike lane as we climbed Green River and I (for the first time ever) had to wait for Amber at the top. We probably averaged 5 mph over the last 10 miles.

We had about 100 miles of headwind and 60 miles of tailwind. Fortunately the tailwind was at the end and helped us up the hills. No rain except what was already on the road and thrown up by our tires. The temperature was between 43F and 75F. It was 50F at the end. No detours, and no road work. No guarantees for next week, though. That will be your adventure.

Because of the pandemic, we are relaxing the rules slightly.

• Just before you start riding, you must visit me in my room (I will post it on our Google group or you can call me), sign the waiver (I will provide the waiver) and get an official start time. You may do this any time between 5am and 6am. Please wear a mask.
• While riding you must hit the controls in order and get proof of passage. This can be a receipt, a timestamped photo, or a rwgps ride that I can look at once you have uploaded it.
• You must ride at least 188 miles - this is the official length of the route.
• When you finish, please take a photo of the hotel and text it to me with your name so I know you are done. This will be your official finish time. You need to finish within 20 hours of your start time.
• Within 48 hours of the end of the ride, please email me with either the url of your rwgps ride, copies of the photos, or scans of the receipts.

I will be driving on the course and available for SAG after about noon. There will be no SAG available before then.

Clip on drops for the Brompton

The last thing I have to fix on the Brompton is hand comfort. Even with the Ergon bar-ends the M bars just don't have enough hand positions to be comfortable for long rides. I also keep finding myself wishing for drops when there's a head-wind. I found these clip-on drop bars on Amazon that solve both these problems.

They are low-profile, ergonomic, clip-on drops for $24 a pair. They are not really compatible with the Ergon GP3 bar-ends so I drilled out the ends of the handlebar grips that originally came on the Brompton and slid them all the way onto a pair of S bars so that I had room to attach these drops. I could see replacing them with Ergon GP1 which would be an improvement over the original grips.

I also added a Satori 4cm riser for the handlebar which put it at a very good height for me. Here's how it looks with my new custom 3D printed Wahoo mount.

I printed my own Wahoo mount because all the Wahoo handlebar mounts I could find on Amazon project too far forward and strike the wheel when the bike is collapsed. Because these drops are compact and I turn them slightly up to get a good "brakehood" hand position, they don't take any more room than the M bars do when the bike is folded.

I rode a fifty mile ride on the new drops and I love them. I swear they are 50% more comfortable and 10% more efficient. I will never get to road bike efficiency because of the Brompton drive train and wheels but I am getting close in terms of air resistance.

Here's the new custom low-profile Wahoo handlebar mount. It attaches with a hoseclamp.

This is fun.

Edgar's first century

 Amber's boyfriend, Edgar, took a big step yesterday and rode his first century. We rode a modified Four Rivers that gave us 104 miles. A century ride really only needs two intermediate stops but, as this is a modified 200k and Edgar's first century, we made three civilized and relaxed stops.

First stop was The Crema, of course, which now has outdoor seating again. I had a ham and brie baguette and a Thai iced tea. Very civilized! Then we rode up to Montebello and ate at the Jack-in-the-Box there. I saw a poster on the window for a "Cluck Sandwich". They can't even commit to it being chicken? Plus it has "Mystery Sauce" - I absolutely do not want to eat this thing. There's a deluxe version that adds tomatoes and lettuce. It's going to take a lot more than that to make this edible.

So that's what Edgar ate at the halfway mark. I had a rice bowl and avoided the chicken. 

Anyone who has ever ridden any of my brevets knows the next section has a head wind at least for the last ten miles into Long Beach and today was no exception. Amber did a heroic pull into the wind and by the time we got to the marina we were ready to rest. We went to Chronic Tacos in Belmont and Amber and I split a cheese quesadilla. Edgar's stomach was bothering him but he ordered a chicken taco and a fish taco. Ouch!

The last 30 miles were a bit slower mainly because Edgar's stomach was bothering him and I got a flat. Funny thing - at the start of the ride I said to myself  "I really should replace my rear tire because it's looking very worn". I was right! I have no idea what caused the flat, but I will be replacing the tire today. It looks like I have about 5000 miles on it and that's when I find Gatorskins need to be replaced.

Congratulations to Edgar and I hope he feels better today.