Camp Far West Road and beyond.

On Camp Far West Road.

After a pretty mediocre Spring riding-wise, I'm finally starting to get some, (for me) good mileage in. Unfortunately an early heat wave has decided to settle over Northern California so I have to time the rides for as early in the morning as I can. I decided I wanted to take a couple of stretches of past rides and combine them for a sub-100 mile ride. I sort of succeeded, but did end up with a bit of a longer ride than I planned!

The route I planned would include about 6 miles of gravel above Camp Far West so I chose the Mercian Olympic I had modified with 650B wheels and Panaracer Col de Vie tires.

The 650B equipped Olympic was the ride for the day.

My plan was to ride to Lincoln then take McCourtney Road up to Camp Far West and ride the gravel road from there to Yeager road, then on to Smartsville road. From there I would turn west and take the long open stretch past Beale Air Base to near Linda, turning off on Griffith Avenue and going south to Wheatland, then back to Lincoln and Loomis. Here's the route:

Screenshot of my route (from MapMyRide).

I wanted to start as early as possible since triple digit heat was forecast in the afternoon. Well, the best I could do was to roll out the driveway at 7:30. But I was thinking it would be a 4 hour ride so I wouldn't be back too late!

The start was nice with nice mild temperatures and no wind to speak of. Eventually I came to Camp Far West Reservoir, which has a lot of water right now!

The very full reservoir at Camp Far West.

I haven't taken this route for some time now, maybe a few years, so I was pleasantly surprised to find the steep grade just past the campground entrance has be resurfaced! It's perfectly smooth right to the start of the gravel! It's still as steep as ever though!

New pavement on the climb past the campground!

After cresting this hill you drop a short distance to the start of the gravel. The condition of the gravel road is no better or worse than I remember. The first section tends to have a fair amount of washboard, probably due to heavier traffic on that stretch. After you finally turn away from the lake things begin to smooth out. The 38mm tires performed quite well on the road. In the past I've ridden with tires as narrow as 28mm, so the extra tire width was just gravy!

Camp Far West Road.

Eventually Camp Far West Road ends at a junction with Spenceville Road. Turning left, Spenceville Road travels a short distance to Waldo Junction at a small bridge.

Waldo Bridge over Dry Creek.

 After crossing this bridge you travel a short distance on some blacktop but that ends in about 100 yards and you're back on the gravel, grunting over a couple of testy little hills. Eventually you finish the gravel section of our ride at Chuck Yeager Road.

Turning left would take you to Beale AFB. Back before 9/11, I had been able to pass through the Airbase heading to Wheatland. Alas, nowadays you can't get in without a Military ID. So, we must turn right, continuing on a log climb heading northeast. Eventually you crest the hills and descend to "Hammonton/Smartsville Road.

Here I turned left climbing for a short while but soon I was on top of the ridge and looking down on the Northern Sacramento Valley! This is a spot where I have taken a photo every time I passed through!

On Smartsville Road, you can just make out the Sutter Buttes in the distance.

The rest of the ride was pretty straightforward. Past the Air Base you eventually will come to Griffith Avenue. Turn left here and proceed for a mile or so until you come to a "T" at Erle road. You turn left here and are on your way through rural roads, Eventually you are on your way to Wheatland. Instead of riding down busy highway 65, I turned off on Dairy Road which turned out to be a very pleasant alternative. Eventually I had to make a left turn to get back to town but it was definitely worth the extra few minutes.

I stopped at a convenience store while in town and filled my two empty water bottles and bought a large soda with lots of ice! By now it was 11:30, well past my planned finish time, and it was getting warm, probably the low 90s. I had over 60 miles done by then too, so it was going to be at least an 80 mile day.

For some reason I thought this would be around 60 miles,maybe a 4 hour ride. I underestimated the distance and ended up doing 82 miles in about 6 hours of riding!

Anyway, the rest of the ride was over very familiar territory, and I ended up at home in time for a late lunch.

So this was a pretty nice ride, I used sun sleeves and wore a wicking t-shirt under a white lightweight jersey and I was pretty comfortable for the most part. The Mercian performed very well with no mechanical issues at all.

Parting shot, looking back on Waldo Road at the end of the gravel section.

A last few Cyclist Articles.

Thanks to iBOB Craig Montgomery I have a copy of a "Tourlines" article I had lost over the years. "The Right Stuff" reminds us that it's not always about the bike!

Also I've included a couple "Snapshot" articles from Owen Mulholland; "Jacques Anquetil, party boy", I just thought was a funny episode from his career. "The Lion of Flanders" illustrated just how tough the Anciens really were.

Hope you enjoy the reads!

More "Cyclist" articles.

I thought I'd post a couple more of Ed Stiles' Tourlines from Cyclist Magazine. "The Bare Essentials" is from the May, 1985 issue.  "The Amazing Patch Story" is from June of 1986.  "In praise of Older Bikes", may be an appropriate read for iBOB's; we all seem to have picked up a used bike here and there, no?

Finally, I'm including a scan of Owen Mulholland's Snapshot piece, a vignette of Eddy Merckx and his first Tour victory. It's really an enjoyable read. Mr. Mulholland wrote many of these Snapshot segments and in 2006 published a very nice book, Cycling's Golden Age, a collection of great stories and photographs. One of the few hardback books I've ever paid full retail for, I was so excited to find his work again!

And now...a word from our sponsor:

"Cyclist" Magazine: Tourlines' take on gearing.

From August of 1985. Typically, Tourlines takes a minimalist view of gearing at a time when triples were all the rage!

Nowadays, with the advent of "1X" gearing, the views of these ancients seems very relevant. For me, I have found the most useful gearing for the kind of terrain I encounter here in Northern California is a wide geared double, almost a 1X plus granny if you will, with a big ring in the mid 40's range and a small ring of between 26 to 30 teeth. I continue to use an 8 speed cassette on the rear, these seem to provide more than enough of a gear selection for my riding.

"Cyclist" Magazine - Tourlines article on saddlebags.

Another Tourlines article, this one from the March, 1985 issue. Before I read this article, I hadn't known much about English style saddlebags. After reading it, I wanted to find one but in those "pre-internet" days, they were exotic objects I could only dream about. It wasn't until I discovered Rivendell in the 90's that I was able to get a Carradice Camper!

I now own several Carradice bags, the Camper longflap, a Nelson, a Pendle and a Junior(no longer available). They're great and I encourage every cyclist to get one, if for nothing more than to eep the wonderful Carradice company in business!

"Cyclist" Magazine Tourlines articles from the '80s.

Back in the 80s I was living in the cycling backwaters of Winnemucca, NV. At the local Raley's Supermarket I discovered "Cyclist" Magazine, a wonderful if somewhat short-lived periodical.

One recurring feature was Ed Stiles wonderful "Tourlines" articles, some of which were downright "retrogrouch" in tone. I loved them.

In fact, all of Cyclist Magazine struck me as somewhat retro in it's outlook. Alas, that probably was one of the factors in it's demise!

I've saved quite a few of the old issues and have decided to scan and post a few of them here, (I don't think there will be any copyright issues for a defunct magazine article from over 30 years ago!)

Here's a good one from the December, 1985 issue about dirt road touring, hope you enjoy it.

A 650b Mercian and year end musings.

The Mercian in it's 650b shoes!

2018 is now done, where has the time gone? I've had a pretty busy year, again proving that you have to be in good shape to endure retirement! Despite some big gaps in my riding, I have been able to log over 4600 miles this year, a respectable total for me. This included 2 century rides, but no overnight tours this year. I'll have to try to get a couple in next year.

Nothing much changed in my equipment until November when I decided to sell my Felt V-100. It was a good bike but, but my garage space is limited and I didn't want to sit on it too long so I returned it to stock and sold it on Craigslist. Considering how little I paid for it initially, I really didn't lose much money, about $100 for 1 3/4 years use. (not counting the extras I had added, which stayed with me). It was worth it to sample a modern bike with an aluminum frame and carbon fork.

Anyhow, I did miss having a 650b bike with relatively wide tires. I decided to try my "Zac19" wheelset, (which I had previously used on my Surly Pacer and LHT), on my updated 1980 Mercian Olympic. Fitting the 650b wheels was not a problem, I already had the Mercian's rear dropouts spread to 135mm; but the brakes would be the challenge.

The 2 pictures above show brake clearances with the Tetro 559's. The rear brake shoes are just about maxed, but there's still some space in the front.

I had a set of Tektro 559 long reach brakes from my Pacer conversion on hand. However, these were made for the recessed allen fitting of modern frames. I was able to fit the front brake on the rear brake bridge, borrowing some hardware from my spares. (An interesting sidenote: modern front brake bolts are exactly the same length as the old fashioned rear brake bolts!)

The problem then was to fit the front brake. I considered looking for a longer replacement brakebolt but while on eBay I found a complete front 559 with the long bolt for $23. I just ordered that and installed it.

The Panaracer Col de Vie's promised to give me fits in installing. They can be hard to mount on the Zac19's and often will not set the bead correctly. After several attempts, which included spraying Pledge into the bead seat and over inflating the tires, I was ready to give up. But I did some online research and found that the problem sometimes can be with the rim tape interfering with the tire's seating. I pulled the tire and tube off one of the rims and had a look. Sure enough, the overly wide cloth rim tape had shifted position and was lying out of the well in some places! Also, it was soaking wet from all that Pledge I had sprayed on! I pulled that old tape out and replaced it with the narrow plastic strips that were on my 650b disc wheels left over from the Felt. The new tape snugged right into the well.

I now remounted the Col de Vie's. Now, while it didn't instantly seat, it was a lot closer. With about 15 lbs. of pressure in them, I was able to massage the bead into place. I then pumped the tires up to 65 lbs. and heard the reassuring snap of the beads hopping into place. Yay!

Chainstay clearance with the Col de Vie's. 38C tires should not be a problem.

While the new rim tape has seemed to help a lot with the tire seating problem, I hope to build up a set of wheels using a better rim. Clearance with the 37c Col de Vie's is adequate and I think most 38's will fit fine, but I'd have to do some metal bending to get anything bigger in there.

The old Blackburn rack.

Another addition to the Mercian is a front rack. I have had an old Jim Blackburn front rack languishing in my parts bin for literally decades. I realized that this rack would serve well for a Rando style handlebar bag. The rack seemed a little misaligned, it could have been bent sometime in the past 30 years! I got it aligned, (more or less), and it seems good, although not perfectly centered. I attached my enormous Ostrich bag to it and all seems good right now. Notice that I use 3 "P-clips to secure the bag to the rack.

I've taken the Mercian out for a few short rides and I've enjoyed it! I'm looking forward to riding some gravel roads soon. I'm also looking forward to building some nicer quality wheels. I've got the  Deore T610 hubs on order, they look like Tiagra quality hubs that come in 135mm rear spacing. For rims, I decided on a pair of Velo Orange Diagonales. These will be 36 spoke rear/32 front wheels, like several of my other sets.

Handlebar Fail!

A minor disaster befell my K.O.M. Mercian on the last day of the year. I had just completed a climb up Sierra College Blvd when my left arm suddenly dropped. My handlebar had snapped at the stem! Well, it was an pretty old 3TTT, probably 30-35 years old, so I can't say I didn't get a good life out of it. Fortunately, the break occurred on the level crest of the hill and I didn't go down. I had to turn around and descend though. That was a little exciting. I started to feel a little shimmy developing about halfway down. A block from my house the last thread of material holding the bars together finally gave and completely separated. It was an interesting ride.

End of the line for a 3ttt Merckx bar!

Looking through my stock of handlebars, I decided to try out my old Nashbar Mustache bars. I've always had a hard time finding a place for these, I decided this would be a good time to give them a trial on a decent bike. I figure I'll leave them on for about 400 miles to see if I really like them.

Installation was a snap, since I didn't bother to install bar end shifters at this time. Everything transferred across with no drama. I used a pretty ugly stem since it was all I had that had the rise and length I wanted. (Generally mustache bars should be a bit higher and closer-in than drop bars). If I decide to keep these on, I'll want a better looking stem!

Initial installation with an ugly old stem.

A view with a new, slightly better looking stem!

Happy New Year to everyone! Enjoy your riding!