2022 edition of my Three Rivers Ride

 

It's early July so I felt it was time to attempt a century. I had several 100K and 50 milers under my belt by this time, so I figured it was time to try the 100 miles. The weather forecast suggested cooler than normal temperatures for the week, (highs in the low to mid 90s), so what better time for the attempt?

Screen shot of Map My Ride's plot of my ride.

Here are the basic stats for the ride.

I chose to ride my King Of Mercia Touring for this ride. The riding position with the moustache bars and the 32mm tires both make for a reasonably comfortable ride for this distance.

The KOM, pre-ride.

The morning started off underneath an overcast of low clouds! This was welcome since I was bound to spend a lot of time under bright sunshine for a lot of this ride!

Just outside of Lincoln. The clouds persisted until I reached Sheridan.

This year, I decided to follow the route I tried last year, going north from Lincoln then turning west to Sheridan and Nicolaus. This gives me a nice path through less crowded roads. 

Nicolaus, quiet as usual!

After passing through Nicolaus I soon reached the Garden Highway as it runs along the Feather River. The Garden Highway is generally a nice route for bikes except for a couple of miles of really bad pavement. It's those few miles that make the 32mm tires worthwhile! 

On the Garden highway.

Eventually the Garden Highway comes to the Interstate 5 overpass. Here is a very nice picnic and boat launch site at just about the halfway point of my ride. I always stop here for a lunch break and to stretch and massage my foot a bit!

At the I-5 overpass.

After that break, it's time to head into Sacramento. This year I am happy to report that the Garden Highway is again open through to Discovery Park! Last year's detours are gone, although there is considerable construction going on along side the roadway.

The transition from the Garden Highway to the American River Bikeway at Discovery Park seems a bit easier this year, I can't really say what the difference is but I found myself at Discovery Park a bit sooner than I expected!

On the American River Parkway.

The ride along the Parkway was uneventful, all the way up to Beale's Point on Folsom Lake. Sadly, the snack bar is closed down at the visitor's center, so I had to be content with just refilling my water bottles. 

Heading home on Auburn Folsom Road, I found the road blocked off at Dick Cook Road! I later found out that a car had knocked some power lines down onto the road, forcing the closure. This meant having to go over a couple of very steep pitches while heading to Val Verde Road. 

Post ride.

All in all, this was a pretty satisfying ride. I made an effort to eat frequently on this ride, popping pieces of red licorice once an hour. I also tried to make sure I drank often. I brought some powdered lemonade to add to my water bottles to make the water from the fountains on the trail more palatable. These things, along with using lower gears and spinning more, all helped me avoid any cramping this year. (Temperatures mostly in the 80s and low 90s also helped a lot!)

With the century behind me now, I am looking forward to some other rides coming up, including Iowa Hill/ Yankee Jim's road, which is something I haven't done in a couple of years.

Equipment notes:

The Mercian, with it's triple crankset and 32mm tires performed perfectly well again. Not even a flat, which is always a plus! I used Panaracer Gravel King tires, which have become my favorite. I wore my old Sugoi bib shorts which had always been great in the past. however, this year they did not protect me from a bit of chafing, so this may be the last century for them.

I also used a sun sleeves and a sun hat, essentially a short billed baseball cap with a flap of cloth hanging down the sides and back to keep the sun off. I think protection from the sun really helped your endurance up on these hot summer days.

Late Spring; Riding around Camp Far West and some equipment notes.

 

On Long Ravine Road.

I've been a little lazy writing this blog, but I haven't been doing too much of interest while recovering from a bout with tendonitis that developed last fall.  I'm happy to report that my knee pain has pretty much disappeared! The winter's been mild and unfortunately dry so I've been able to ride regularly, putting in about 400 miles per month. I've installed smaller chainrings on my bikes to reduce the strain on my knees, as well as raising the saddle up back to a level I had it earlier. My knees seem to have recovered, thank goodness! I think raising the saddle was the most important factor, but that's just my guess.

Anyway, I've been gradually increasing my mileage and finally felt ready to try a 100 km gravel and pavement ride, the Camp Far West loop!

For this ride I chose the Ritchey Ascent, shod with 650b X 48mm Panaracer Gravel King slicks, set up as tubeless. These are very nice tires and roll nicely on pavement as well as over gravel.

A stop at Racoon Creek.

I've done this ride a couple of times now and I'm getting more comfortable with it. It's starts with about 20 miles of pavement from Loomis, through Lincoln and up McCourtney Road to Camp Far West.

Camp Far West

Passing the Camp Far West Entrance, you begin a very steep climb, actually two! After cresting the second climb you come to the start of the gravel. This year, the road is in fair shape, but there's a lot of washboard to contend with. I didn't lower the air pressure in the Gravel Kings, I just kept them at a little over 40 lbs. of pressure. While this gave a bit of a rough ride, the width of the tires provided good support and I didn't really have any big problems with the dirt roads. 

Starting down Long Ravine Road.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm starting to get familiar with this route, I didn't even have to refer to Google Maps pre-ride! 

Coming to the bridge on McCourtney Road.

I followed Long Ravine until it turns into McCourtney, (the other McCourtney, north of CFW.), then turned on White Oak Drive to Perimeter Road. On Perimeter I ran into a road grading crew, which probably means a better road surface for folks doing this ride now!

Eventually Perimeter becomes paved and after a while you will come to MacDonald Road. Although marked as a locked, private road, it is passable by bicycles. I confirmed this when chatting to a resident there. The road is indeed gated, but he said it's just to prevent automobile traffic, bikes were not a problem. That's good news as it is a good way to connect to Garden Bar.

After reaching Garden Bar Road, it's pretty much pavement for the rest of the ride. I took a short break at Higgins Corner for a snack and to relax my foot which can get uncomfortable on longer rides. 

After that, it was the usual jaunt up Hwy. 49 to Auburn and then home. With temperatures in the 70s and 80s, I was pretty comfortable and had no real problems. Total distance was 62.24 miles, (I'll call it 100 K's), time was 5 1/2 hours. 

Equipment Notes:

As I said, I rode my Ritchey Ascent with 48mm tires. These were very adequate for these conditions. It might be helpful to reduce tire pressure to absorb some of the washboard, but I didn't bother. Even though these are "slick" tires, I had no trouble with slipping at all.

One new piece of equipment is a Pelago front rack to support the massive Ostriche Handlebar bag. I've been hunting for a front rack for this bike for some time since I've become a real fan of handlebar bags. The Pelago is aluminum and comes with a lot of fittings to accommodate various bikes. The unique problem I had with finding a rack for the Ritchey is the fork crown fitting. The  Ritchey's fork only has a threaded hole in the back of the crown, nothing in front, so this made mounting a rack tricky. The Pelago rack came with two metal struts for mounting to the fork and one of them was able actually reach under the fork crown and be bolted to that rear hole! Perfect!

The Pelago front rack.

Here's a shot of the fork crown mounting.

And here's a shot with the rack and the Ostriche bag.

I'm quite happy with this arrangement, although the Ostriche bag is a bit too much, I really don't need that much capacity so I may try to find a smaller alternative.

As I mentioned earlier, I've been reducing my gearing in order to protect my knees. On my fixed gear ride, I replaced the 46 with a brand new narrow/wide 44. The results were a surprise to me. first, the narrow/wide chainring was very quiet! Things really quieted down in my drivetrain, I don't know if  it was because of the narrow/wide configuration, or maybe a new chainring is just quieter? I'm still using the old chain, too!

Also, i found that descending hills with the reduced gearing was actually easier! I feel like I can backpedal a little more effectively, so that is a plus!

The fixed gear with the new chainring.

That's about it for now, I'll close with a gratuitous shot of my KOM on Chamberlain Road.

Year's end thoughts, activities and mileage.

 

On McCourtney road

Looks like I won't be riding much this last week of the year, so I think it a good time to jot down some reflections on this strange year. Besides the usual Covid related issues, I had an unexpected physical problem develop by late summer; I was experiencing some sharp pain in my left knee. I mentioned it to my doctor at my annual physical so he ordered an x-ray. This revealed I had developed tendonitis in that knee, (along with a little arthritis which I think has probably been there for some time). 

Therefore, I was forced off my bike for a good month while trying various remedies including rest, ice and topical ointments. I was able to gradually start biking again, but only for short rides. I built up to 20-30 mile rides at a pretty slow pace, even for me!

One other thing I did was reduce my gearing, I changed my big rings on my two main bikes, (the Mercian KOM and the Ritchey). I replaced the 46's with 44's and actually used my granny gears for almost all of my climbing, never standing up on the hills as that caused my knee a lot of discomfort. Another thing I changed was my seat height, I found that raising the saddle about 1.5 centimeters seemed to ease some pressure on that knee!

By the time of this writing, (just after Christmas), I'm happy to report that almost all of my knee pain seems to have disappeared!

Reflecting on this episode, I now suspect that one possible cause of my tendonitis may have been my lowering my saddle earlier this year while experimenting with my riding position and trying to resolve a problem I had with my right foot! When I raised my saddle back to it's original height I definitely felt better! Interesting! 

Despite my knee problem, and only riding one century, I managed to again accumulate over 5,000 miles on the bikes in 2021, 5,220 miles to be exact! I was surprised to hit 5,000 with so much time off the bike.

Because of my injury my rides were not so noteworthy this year. Besides the century I did enjoy one long mixed gravel/pavement ride with the Ritchey that was about 100 kilometers. Most other rides ranged from 15 to 35 miles around the area.  Here's a link to the ride report on my century: First century for 2021  and here's a link for the gravel ride: Ride around Camp Far West

Along the Feather River on this year's century.

On the gravel north of Camp Far West.

Another interesting, but short ride was from Cisco Grove along frontage roads to Donner Summit outside of Soda Springs. The road through Soda Springs was undergoing a rebuild and I would have been better served to have ridden my Ritchey through there! The Mercian managed quite well, though!

On Donner Pass Road at the Summit. 

As far as equipment news, there were two items I worked on this year. I built a set of tubeless wheels for the Ritchey which allowed me to try 48mm Gravel King tires. The lightness of this tubeless set up is pretty impressive and they performed pretty well although I think 48mm may be a bit of overkill for most of my riding!

The Ritchey with 48's!

The other mod I performed was to change to triple chainrings. This turned out to be quite timely as I really needed the lower midrange when my knee went bad!

The Mercian's triple.

...and the Ritchey's.

Here's a link to some photos from this year: 2021 Rides

Next year I hope to ride a couple of centuries and also try to get a camping trip in! I haven't decided where the camping will be done yet. I hope my knee holds up!

First Century for 2021, the Three River Ride.

 

Along the Feather River.

Time had arrived for me to attempt a Century ride. I've managed a few 100 kilometer rides recently and the weather was forecast to be favorable for an 8 hour jaunt with a high in the lower 90s, so I took the opportunity to go on my annual "3 River's Tour". The rivers being the Feather, the Sacramento and the American Rivers. Here's a screenshot of the actual route:

This year, I anticipated I'd have to add a little distance at the start of the ride to compensate for shortening the ride at the end due to recent road work on Auburn Folsom Road. In the event, the road work had been completed so my ride ended up being a little longer that usual! There was a detour off the Garden Highway which added a mile or two to the ride as well!

The extension I came up with at the start of the ride involved riding up to Sheridan then following Rioso Road and Bear River Drive to Pleasant Grove Road,  dropping down to Cornelius Road and entering East Nicolaus there. This had the added benefit of bypassing Nicolaus Road out of Lincoln, which is narrow and can have some traffic.

The ride was pretty uneventful except for the detour on the Garden Highway. After regaining my planned route I was on the American River Bikeway until reaching Beales Point on Folsom Lake. At that point I got on Auburn Folsom road and braced myself for whatever route change I would face. Happily, the work on A/F road is completed and I was able to follow my traditional route up to King Road then on King to home. Total mileage came to a little over 112 miles, so it was a good effort! 

The Mercian worked well, really no issues, not even any flats. I continue to appreciate the moustache handlebars for long distance riding.

Here are a few pictures of this year's ride:

Along McCourtney Road

On Rioso Road, looking southwest.

At sleepy little Nicolaus.

Looking out on the Feather River on the Garden Highway levee road

The old riverboat is still there, but the nearby RV Park has closed down.

My rest stop at the small park under the I-5 overpass.

Shortly past the rest stop, the Garden Highway is shut down for road work! The detour took me several miles out of my way!

Post-ride view of my Mercian. No mechanical issues at all this time, not even any flats!

Late, late Spring ride around Camp Far West

A pause at Camp Far West Reservoir.

 I decided to try the loop around Camp Far West, taking advantage of an unseasonably cool weather pattern. It was a pretty nice ride with no real issues. Camp Far West Road was not in the greatest condition with heavy washboard on a lot of it. Long Ravine was a little bumpy too. Things smoothed out somewhat on McCourtney and beyond, probably because there tends to be less traffic on those roads.

This is a repeat of a ride I discovered last year, see:  Roads north of Camp Far West. I adjusted the route just a little.

 Not much commentary this time, I'll supply some info in the captions.

On McCourtney Road, heading to Camp Far West.

Camp Far West is pretty low this year!

At the intersection of  Camp Far West Road and Long Ravine Road, looking down Long Ravine Rd.

On Long Ravine Road, the irrigated fields on the right added some greenery.

At the junction of Long Ravine Rd. and McCourtney! This end of McCourtney is cut off from the lower, (southern) section by the reservoir.

A pretty solid bridge on this stretch of McCourtney!

Coming to the intersection of McCourtney and White Oak Road. McCourtney goes straight but becomes a private road and dead-ends; You need to go left on White Oak.

This is the sign on McCourtney that's on the right side of the picture above. It also has a handy mileage indicator!

You follow White Oak for a couple of miles until you reach Perimeter Road. At this point, Perimeter is graveled but eventually becomes paved.

A view from Perimeter Road, looking west.

This year, I took MacDonald Road off of Perimeter to reach Garden Bar. Here. I'm approaching Cabrera Road, (coming in from the left), which is the route I took last year. In either case, you're on a private drive so you have to be...discreet!  

Eventually, MacDonald reaches Garden Bar and now the rest of the ride will be on pavement.

Equipment notes:

Of course I took the Ritchey for this ride. I used my new 650b wheelset, tubeless with 48mm Gravel King tires. I kept these at about 45 lbs pressure and didn't bother to lower the pressure for the gravel. The slick tires performed nicely and I only had them slip on loose stuff maybe once or twice.

Having indexed shifting is really a benefit on a ride like this where you encounter conditions that demand concentration on bike handling and not shifting! The old Ultegra bar-ends worked great with the STX rear derailleur! 

Really no issues this time. I did miss having a handlebar bag, I may look into getting a front rack and "Rando" style front bag some day.

Post-ride shot of the Ritchey, a little dusty but no worse for wear!

Springtime 2021 and the return of the triple crankset!

 

Shimano DX crankset, circa 1985.

In the past few years, single chainring cranksets have become de rigueur in mountain buke circles and the pattern has been creeping into the gravel and road biking world as well. In some ways it makes sense; one less derailleur saves some weight and complexity. It does require an enormous rear cassette cog, (some are approaching 50 teeth!), and a specially designed rear mechanism to handle that large cog. 

Of course, in light of these trends, I have moved in the opposite direction and have converted two of my bikes to triple cranks! I have been using compact, wide range doubles over the past several years. These have been fine, but when using this system, I tend to look at it as a 1X plus granny, which necessitates running the chain across all the rear cogs with the large ring, increasing "chain deflection" and possibly reducing chain life.

I got to thinking, why not add that middle ring and increase the number of gears available while reducing chain deflection? I have several old 110/74 BCD triple cranks laying around and all the necessary chainrings. So I constructed two triples and put them on my Mercian KOM and Ritchey Ascent. The result has been satisfying!

On the Mercian, I installed a venerable Shimano DX, a very nice quality triple from the '80s. i had the appropriate rear derailleur in the parts bin so I installed that as well, using my SunTour Barcons for shift levers. 

For the Ritchey, I used a Shimano RSX triple, again from the part bin. I purchased new, (old) derailleurs for it. An RSX triple front and an STX GS rear. To shift these, I kept the Ultegra 8-speed bar end shifters.