New dirt – Sulphur Mountain

Realizing how many times I’ve ridden Romero in the last few months, I decided I’d take advantage of yet another day off by driving out to Ojai and hitting up Sulphur Mountain.

I found out about the place via an article in the Ventura County Star. It’s basically an old road, all dirt that is gated off on either end. It snakes up the ridgeline which seperates Ojai from the rest of Ventura counties populated areas to the south.

Though it was a dirt path on a mountain, one would hardly call this mountain biking. It would be passable on a sturdy road bike. The climbing starts right away:

This is about as rough as it gets as you wind up through oak woodlands and cow pastures:

There are views the whole way. Mostly to the south overlooking the channel islands:

and camarillo, oxnard and the santa monica mountains:

Overall, it was 20 miles out-and-back, about 2300 very gradual vertical feet. Great views, a good workout on the way up and a nice mellow ride back down.

Romero… the go-to ride

Recent rains have driven me to the pavement lately but I was itching for some dirt. Paul’s season as a soccer coach is over which means getting back into the MTB thing… so we packed up early and headed to Romero. I’ve been out there a lot lately and it’s becoming my standard “quick” MTB ride.

We went up the fireroad and down the singletrack. A solid 1.5 hour ride. Just enough to get me working but still allow me to recover from Friday’s road ride. And that Romero singletrack is just SO fun. I cleaned everything but the 3 river crossings.

Here’s a view from the near the top…

And Paul working hard to jumpstart his cycling season (who needs base miles?)…

Santa Ynez base miles

It’s that time of year… time to put in lots of miles and build up that endurance. Luckily southern california weather is very conducive to such activities in the middle of winter. Today’s ride took me out to some wine country hills that I hadn’t ridden since the Solvang century of 2007.

I started in Buellton, went out to Lompoc via Santa Rosa road, climbed up Harris Grade and headed out to Los Alamos. (Random trivia: Did you know Alamos means cottonwood? I didn’t until today…). From there I crossed 101 and climbed up Aliso canyon then Foxen Canyon before making my way back to Buellton via Ballard Canyon road. It was a 73 mile ride, 3700 vertical feet (felt like less actually) in a little less than 4 hours. My HR was in zones 3/4 for 2.5 hours of that time .. no junk miles here.

I didn’t bring my camera but the vineyards and farms looked spectacular in the morning fog. I saw a few red-tailed hawks prowling the roadside… one even flew along the road in front of me for 20 second… they are truly magnificent birds. The weather was cool but not cold. Couldn’t have asked for anything better.

Well I supposed I could ask people to stop throwing sharp objects on the side of the road. I got a flat today from what appeared to be the severed end of a fish hook. Took a few minutes to patch it up and then my pump decided to rip the presta head directly off the valve stem. Frig. Not a big deal, just one more spare tube. That tube was probably on its way out anyhow … I counted 11 patches including today’s roadside patch. I am a cheap bastard.

Fixie tempo rides

This is the time of year for putting in the base miles. I’ve been ramping up volume as much as possible but I’ve also been reading a lot of Joe Friel and James Wilson’s articles about aerobic base training. Basically the idea of LSD (long steady/slow distance) riding is not very helpful for aerobic fitness. It is just junk miles (unless you’re actually training for super long distance events at low intensity).

The better approach is to push your “aerobic threshold” or AeT. AeT is about 20 beats below your lactate threshold and represents the optimal stress point for your aerobic systems.

So I set off today to do a 2.5 hour ride at 150 bpm. But aerobic endurance is not the only thing on todays schedule… this was my first of many long distance fixed gear rides. This incorporates all of Friel’s base period skills – spinning speed, force and endurance. The fixie forces you to spin like mad on the descents, spin solidly on the flats, put out weight-lifting-style low rpm grinds in the saddle. And there is no cheating by coasting… you’ve got to have your spin down because you’re going to moving those legs for 2.5 hours straight!

I went out and back to refugio on the 101 which provided some good little rollers. Some of the long downhills got me up over 30 mph for a few minutes … with my 38×16 gearing that means over 160 rpms. Trust me when I say that is harder than climbing any hill! The lack of coasting means a whole lot more work than my normal endurance rides .. I did 47 miles in 2.5 hours but I swear it feels like I just rode a century. My legs do feel really loose compared to my normal post road ride state. I think the fixed gear must help with hip flexibility a bit.

The Cowpie Classic 2008

A fun race today out in Los Olivos. It was mainly a collegiate event and they split up the pack according to collegiate A, B or C and norba beginner, sport and expert (no age groups). There were 12 of us in the sport mens class and I pulled off a 2nd place. Woo Hooo! My time was 1:27:25 for 2 laps on the 9.1 mile course.

I was a minute or so behind Jordan (didnt catch the last name..). We had been neck and neck for the first lap and a half before he pulled hard on the mid-lap climb. I shouldv’e jumped with him but instead let him go, tried to play it patient but never had the juice to catch up. But what the hell, its a training race right? Jordan, as it turns out, is a Pro downhiller who is just dabbling in XC for training purposes … no wonder we were pushing the pace so hard on the downhills!

It was a great course. Lots of little climbs, a few sustained grinds and almost all off-cambre singletrack. Kinda bumpy in spots (yeah 29 inch wheels) but there were no technical sections. The views of the oak grassland hills and wine country were fantastic. And, yes, there is a reason its called the cowpie classic… the area is a working cattle ranch and avoiding the cowpies proved to be the trickiest technical challenge on the course!

Here’s the profile of the course so you have an idea of the up-n-down nature of the course:

The Mamasita performed great as expected. I feel like I need some more acceleration on the climbs though. Yeah, yeah.. its probably just my legs. But since my Bontrager ACCX tires are wearing a bit thin, I think its time to get some real lightweight race tires.. maybe the Raven or some Schwalbe Racing Ralphs.

Here’s the map of the fantastic course. Notice the Foxen Canyon landfill just southeast of the course (where I’ve done some environmental consulting work).

Fire on the mountain

The tea fire has sprung up in the hills above Santa Barbara and Montecito and, since 6:00 Thurs Nov 13th, has spread over 2500 acres, burned hundreds of homes and forced the evacuation of 5400 people. All in less than 24 hours. No reported deaths luckily and only a handful of smoke and burn injuries.

Here’s what it looked like last night…

And its still not contained. There were flair ups all over the ridge, on the riviera, out at cold springs, rattlesnake canyon, gilbraltar road, mountain drive (all some of my favorite hiking/biking spots). Luckily the wind is relatively calm and they’ve been able to put out alot of the flare ups from what I can see from my office window. It’s pretty interesting watching the big planes dive in and drop their flame retardant.

You think your bike is light…

I did. A sub 24-pound 29er .. pretty decent weight, right?

Wrong. These bikes are by far the sickest, most ridiculously light vehicles I’ve ever seen. God knows if they’d actually hold up to a single hour of real riding but I bet they’d climb like the devil before snapping in half.

DIY Bike light design, take 1

So I have an old 6 watt nightrider halogen hooked up to a lead-acid battery that has now been getting some use since daylight savings time. My nighttime commute is now pitch black. And while a 6 watt halogen and a blinky red led taillight are barely enough to keep me visible on the road, I need something more powerful. Something that commands respect and attention. Something that burns the retinas of any driver or pedestrian that would dare get in its path. Not to mention I’d like a light that can take me on technical trails for next years foray into 12 and 24 hour endurance mountain bike racing.

My ideal setup is simple: 1 super bright red taillight, 1 wide angle handlebar light, 1 bright narrow-beam helmet light. All the batteries must be rechargeable Li-Ion. Have to be swappable amongst bikes and have at least a 3 hour run time. Adjustable brightness is a plus.

I was looking at the Dinotte and Princeton Tec lights which are amongst my favorite of the cutting edge high-power LED lights currently on the market. But the price tags are pretty ridiculous. Which led me to start researching the potential for hacking my own…

So here’s the tentative plan for the front lights:

• Night rider housings. I can reuse the old cases and mounts, just gut out the old buld and electronics. Since the casing and mount is probably the toughest part of DIY light design, I’m hoping this option works out.
• Buckpuck LED Driver with potentiometer. This will take a higher-voltage batter and regulate the current to 700mA. The potentiometer will be retrofit into the nightrider case (somehow) to allow for dimming.
• Cree MC-E LED on a star. This thing will put out 700 lumens at max current! One for the handlebar light, one for the helmet.
• Optics.. haven’t really decided. Supposedly there aren’t that many good lenses or reflectors for the MC-E yet. I’d want a wide (20+ degree) for the bars and a narrow (< 10 degree) for the helmet.
• 4.8 AH, 14.8 Volt Li-Ion battery. Probably pick two of these plus charger up from batteryspace.com. The single MCE should just suck down about 7 volts. Add another volt or two for inefficiencies and you need a minimum of 9 volts for the setup. But since the buckpuck driver can take up to 30 something volts, theres no harm in going with a larger voltage. This will give me well over 6 hours per light.

Total cost, approx $220 for the front lights. Still expensive but way cheaper than most commercial offerings considering the combo would put out about 1400 lumens!! Most of the cost is the big batteries.. maybe I could hack up some laptop or camcorder batteries for cheaper??

I don’t know exactly how I’ll tackle the taillight yet. But headlights first and we’ll see how it goes.

Jameson ride

After last weekend’s “cross training”, ie a grueling 2 day backpacking trip in the Sespe wilderness, I was ready for a weekend of two-wheel fun.

Saturday was a decent road ride; explored the Riviera up Mission Ridge, out to Montecito/Romero and back via Mountain Drive. I was not feeling stellar but pushed the climbs OK.

Sunday saw a huge turnout for the epic Chicken Ranch ride up to Jameson. Starting in Montecito, we climbed up Romero, descended the dirt road to old Juncal camp and went upstream to the Jameson Reservoir. The lake was beautiful and the weather was fanstastic … 55 and clear.

I should say that the eeather was great except for the top of Romero pass which was a wind tunnel and felt like sub zero temps. Of course this is where we decided to stop for two of our breaks…

Anyways, a great out and back. All dirt road. No technical. Lotsa climbing. 30+ miles in 4 hours with 4500 ft of vertical. I’m beat…

Here’s the map of the jameson out and back