Since we'll be riding so much for so many days, I convinced myself to get out of bed early again to ride skyline a second morning in a row. Sure, 50 miles with a decent amount of climb was a good training ride, but touring is punishing yourself day after day at that rate. To be honest I was a little nervous before getting on the road. My legs didn't feel 100% and my "sitting area" was a pretty sore. Starting out I could definitely feel the fatigue in my legs, but after a while things didn't seem that bad. Knowing what to expect on the route definitely helped, especially where the tough climbs were and how much flat/downhill I had in between. Also, thinking about how these two rides weren't that bad compared to what we're about to do, put my mind in a spot where toughing it out was the only option.
First, here are some pics of the route:
San Andreas Lake (San Andreas Trail) as fog burns off
The Green Monster in front of Crystal Springs Resevoir (Cañada Road)
Horses in Woodside
This time I brought along a little boom box that my girlfriend got for me. After experimenting mounting it a few different places here's where it ended up:
It actually worked really well and didn't kill my phone after 5 hours of strava and 2+ hours of music. You get a lot of looks from the roadies when you're fully loaded, adding music got more than a few laughs. It really did help keep me motivated though, and made the ride more fun since the scenery wasn't novel this time.
So how did the ride go?
Thanks Strava.
I finished barely slower than yesterday, despite the obvious handicap of riding the day before. I'd say a few things helped accomplish this. First, knowing the route was key. I knew where to turn and what to expect in terms of terrain. This saved obvious time not pulling up the map, but also helped me conserve energy when I knew I was approaching a hill. Second, I felt I did a better job of appropriately gearing. Whereas yesterday I was pretty lazy on the shifter, this ride I tried to make sure I kept up a constant cadence, irregardless of how slow I was chugging up the hills. Lastly, I had a tougher mentality than last time, as it's dawned on me what is going to be required of us and how soon we leave (Monday).
Happy to report I don't have much lingering soreness. I feel like I could do it again tomorrow (though I won't). I'm really glad I got the back to back ride experience, and am feeling more confident about our finalized route plan which I'll share in the next post.
I rode the skyline route from sf2g this morning. It was definitely tougher than the bayway, but much nicer IMO. Better scenery and less cars, but definitely more hills. I mapped out our coastal route on bikely last week, sort of scary that most days have almost triple the climb, with the worst day being 11000 ft.
I used strava for the first time on this ride. Here's the result:
I went to install my pump (Topeak Road Morph), only to find I had lost the kit for attaching it to the top tube. After considering ordering a replacement set (~$5 online), I chose to install it in place of one of my bottle cages. The LHT has 3 spots for bottles, which after doing a few long rides seems excessive. I barely got through one bottle on each of my last 40+ mile rides. So here is is on the bike:
I should also mention that I used the pump to inflate my tires last time. It was surprisingly easy to use, though the pressure gauge didn't seem super reliable, it did a few big jumps even though I wasn't pumping.
Next I went to fix the fenders. I think I mentioned in my last post that 10 minutes into my first ride with them the spokes came out of their housings. When they popped out, I also lost the bolt + fastener which was supposed to hold them in place. I decided to take a different approach this time. First, I got some "blue stik", the stuff you use to attach posters to walls, and covered the end of the spoke. The idea being that it would help hold the spoke in the plastic housing.
Once inserted, I wrapped some electrical tape first around the end of the housing, and then around the spoke. Electrical tape is pretty good at sticking to plastic, metal, as well as itself, so thought it would be a good candidate for this odd job.
On my most recent ride, which I'll talk about in a bit, I had no problems with these popping out. Success!
My brother had told me about his experience commuting in Portland and how it was important to keep the chain clean, so I did a little research on the internets. The following video was quite useful (caveat: the host is pretty cheesy):
You start by holding the chain with a rag while backpedaling.
Once you've got a decent amount of gunk off, you backpedal again while dripping chain lube onto the chain (at the gearset).
Wait five minutes or so to let the lube work it's magic, then repeat step one with the other side of the rag to remove the excess lube. Pretty simple.
Next I installed my new handlebar bag, an Arkel Big Bar Bag. I was going to go with Ortleib because I wanted to try out a brand other than Arkel, which both my sets of panniers are, but after looking at the installation instructions I reconsidered. There is some load bearing wire you have to wrap around your bars which looked much more complicated than the Arkel clamp + shim system. Both bags had the main features I wanted (zipper opens towards the rider, waterproof map insert), but Arkel just looked easier. Here are the clamps on my bars:
Once the clamps are in place (I put them as far in as possible), you need to adjust the slots on the back of the bag to the correct width. I just loosened them up, attached the bag, then tightened them back down. Here it is on the bike:
That was super easy, except to make space for the clamp on I had to reposition one of my brake lines, which was now causing the front brake to interfere with the wheel due to the added tension. So next I looked up brake adjustments. It turns out mine are cantilever, and I used this video for guidance:
Basically you unscrew one bolt with an allen wrench, give either more or less line depending on whether the breaks are too far in or out, then tighten the bolt back down. Success!
The last piece of equipment I installed was a rear light. It's a cateye that came with a pretty clever install kit. It looks like it fits 50mm, 80mm or single holed racks using all the same parts. You just screw into plastic nut-like thingies that go on the opposite side of the rack mount. Here it is:
All this stuff took less than an hour, it's cool that bike (and accessory) design has become so simple.
So with all this done, I loaded up my panniers with all my camping stuff (more on that in a future post), a change of work clothes, and my laptop, and threw them on the bike.
The front panniers are now T-28s, I returned the B-26's since I found the latching system to be too crappy.
The next morning I set out again from SF to Google, but this time I had found a new route. Actually I found three new routes at sf2g, but the one I chose was titled the "BayWay". It really does hug the bay, you're on the east side of 101 the whole time. You start out through the mission, then go up bernal heights, before dropping back down into south city. After that you go right past SFO
then along bayshore for a long time. Some parts are on bike paths, but by and large you are on the frontage road on the east side of 101.
I thought the route was a lot simpler than the previous one I took, but I wouldn't say it was easier. Perhaps it's because it's closer to the bay, but it felt like the wind was in my face the whole time. This could have been because I had way more gear on the bike this time, but by the end I was pretty tired. I went through three energy bars on the way down, and I felt like I really needed them even though I had breakfast before I left. Door to door it took just about four hours. Here's a shot at the finish:
Doesn't it look like the Google beach cruiser in the background?
The bike ran great with all the additions. The gearing felt and sounded really smooth after the cleaning. The breaks worked fine with the adjustment. And the fenders didn't try to come off this time. With all the additional weight I expected the handling to be affected, but I didn't really notice anything. It's definitely less nimble, but for some reason it felt more sturdy into and out of turns.
I had considered trying to ride home, but I was pretty beat and low on time (I'd expect it would have taken me more than four hours to get back), so I ended up taking the bus back. Next time I either want to try the round trip or the skyline route.
Monday morning I set out from Russian Hill to the Googleplex. Before discussing the ride itself, here are some updates on my bike.
I decided to put fenders on since it's possible we encounter some rain, especially up in Oregon. It'll also be nice to catch rocks and other debris kicked up on the road. Here's how they came:
Truth be told the directions for installation suck. Luckily I found this great video on youtube which I would have been completely lost without:
The hardest part was cutting the support spokes, since all I had was a dinky wire cutter. Also, I didn't have spacers like they do in the video, so it's not a uniform distance from the tire all the way around.
I also installed a front rack, a tubus tara. In retrospect I should have installed the rack first and then the fenders since the bolts for the fenders somewhat interfere with the rack itself. The solution would have been to attach the fenders to the rack, which has places to accept the same screw the fork does. Here's a good pic of the rack, as I was packing up getting ready to leave.
I was going to put my front panniers on (arkel b-26) but I decided to return them in favor of the t-28s since they seem a little heavier duty. In the rear panniers I had a change of clothes and my laptop bag, so this definitely wasn't a fully loaded ride. Here I am about to hit the road:
I left about 6:45, hoping to get to work in time for a 10am meeting. I used google maps for the route, which said it would be 44.3 miles taking just under 4 hours. I figured I'd average a little under 15mph so I thought I should be able to make it in time. Here's a pic of the route:
The map seemed like it would be pretty useless, so I typed up a subset of the turns I thought I would forget and put them in this map holder my mom got me along with the panniers.
Sun rising over the bay as I head down Pacific.
I went through Hunters Point and around the stick; sort of strange to be there when no one else is.
I ended up crossing back over 101 around brisbane. Google routed me along the train tracks (Old County Road) most of the way, before crossing back over to the bay down in Redwood City. From there you can bike through the bay lands to Google. There must be a better way to go because it seemed both round about and ugly. I was on streets with cars most of the time, albeit with bike lanes, but I would have preferred a true bike path or "boulevard." Another thing about the route is that I can't explain how many auto shops and building supply stores I passed. I can see why they say the economy runs on cars and construction.
The trip took me about 3 1/2 hours door to door. I think it would have been faster but I made a few wrong turns which required some backtracking, there was also quite a bit of stopping and starting due to lights and traffic. Hopefully on the coast we won't have either of those issues. I ended up 30 minutes late to my meeting in all my bike gear probably smelling like a gym bag.
Physically I felt pretty good on the way down. There was some initial stiffness, but once I got going it seemed to go away. About halfway I got really hungry and had to stop for a cliff bar. I've heard before that you're supposed to eat before you start to feel hungry, so I'll definitely try to keep that in mind next time. After work I rode back to my Mom's house in Palo Alto after work without any pain, though that's only 5 miles or so, so I could hitch a ride to the city.
My install job on the fenders failed within the first 10 miles. The metal spokes came out of the plastic tips, so the fender was just hanging there flapping around. I was able to get them back into ridable condition, but I had to stop and adjust a few times. I think this may be due to the fact that I didn't really tighten some of the bolts that well because I was too lazy to get out a socket wrench. In retrospect I should have also put something on the tips of the metal pieces which insert into the plastic to get them to stick in a little better. I think I'm going to try to use some lightweight glue or rubber cement to keep them in place.
Other than that things went pretty smoothly. I made it down safe and didn't have any major mechanical problems. My main worry was that I'd get a flat since I didn't have a spare tube and it was probably too early for bike shops to be open. I really need to get some practice changing a flat, it seems like it's inevitable to happen over 800 miles.
I'm looking forward to doing some more training rides. Ideally I'd find a better route and try to make it back to SF in the evening by bike rather than car. All in all I'd say it was a positive and encouraging experience. I covered 50 mile in about 4 hours; on our tour we'll have a lot more time than that to cover the goal of 80 a day.
