Exploring roads north of Camp Far West

Looking down Long Ravine Road.

Having ridden my new Ritchey Ascent on most of my local training circuits, I decided it was time to do some dirt road exploring with it. I wanted to check out a route which would take me from Camp Far West, off McCourtney Road, eastward to eventually connect to Highway 49 just north of Auburn.

Along McCourtney Road

The ride along McCourtney was uneventful, it was a pleasant morning with little wind. But it was starting to warm up! 

Camp Far West Reservoir

Passing Camp Far West, it looked like the water was quite high. I went up the steep, paved road which goes by the campground entrance and then hit the gravel! The first part of the road was a little chewed up with a fair amount of washboard but the 42mm Gravel Kings handled the rough stuff well. I soon came to the junction of Camp Far West and Long Ravine Roads.

Junction of Camp Far West and Long Ravine Roads

Now I turned east and road down Long Ravine. It was a very good road with just short sections of washboard and practically no traffic!

The start of Long Ravine Road

Along Long Ravine Road.

Long Ravine Road.

Following the main road bearing right I found McCourtney Road again! Apparently a portion which had been cut off by Camp Far West Reservior's construction. (McCourtney actually continues northeast all the way to Grass Valley. That might be an interesting ride for the future!) Continuing  right on McCourtney a short distance brings you to to the junction with White Oak Drive and there is a sign here pointing you to the left, onto White Oak Drive.

If you follow the road which looks the most traveled, you will go in the right direction! Eventually I came to Perimeter Road which I was to follow for quite a while. Eventually, Perimeter Road turns to pavement, although it is still very lightly traveled.

I had to decide where to leave Perimeter Road to get over to Highway 49 without too much meandering! I passed MacDonald Road, which looked like a possibility. Passing that I came to Cabrera Road. This road was shown on my Google map as going through to MacDonald, but it was posted as a private road with no outlet! As I stopped there wondering if I should go back to MacDonald, a fellow drove by and I asked him about the road. Turns out he is something of a cyclist himself! He said to go ahead it actually did go through to MacDonald, and, although it is gated, bikes can get through no problem!

On Cabrera Road, closed to cars, but bikes are OK I guess, but I recommend taking Macdonald road.

Well, while this road gets a little small and feels more like a driveway in some spots, you do get to the gate! As you can see in the above photo a cyclist has no problem getting through. After the gate you follow a narrow drive(and past a small pond) and soon you reach MacDonald Road.

Now on MacDonald Road, looking back at where Cabrerra Rd, (right) joins MacDonald.

Turning around on the point where the previous picture was taken, looking down MacDonald.

All in all, I would recommend just taking MacDonald Road in the future! At the junction with Cabrera, MacDonald Road is dirt with some good climbs. After a mile or so you will come to Garden Bar Road and now the rest of your ride will be on pavement. While stopping at Wolf Road for a snack break I managed to pause my Ride tracking software; not restarting it until I stopped at a Taco Bell in Auburn, so my ride mapping is a little off!

Map of the ride, note that the Mapper was accidentally paused just before getting on Hwy 49!

Overall this was a satisfying ride but the total distance on gravel was a little low, I would guess about 12 to 15 miles was on dirt roads. The Ritchey performed well and was excellent on the dirt. I would recommend this ride during the cooler months of the year since there are few facilities between Camp Far West and Auburn.

No bike photo from this actual ride, but here's the Ritchey it was as pictured but with 2 bottle cages.

Riding during the COVID 19 shutdown and new bike day!

Taken at Auburn State Recreational Area in early May.

COVID and me.

While COVID-19 has brought the world to a halt, strangely it's had little effect on a retired guy's riding in California! Even when the Governor issued the Stay At Home order, there were exceptions for solo bicycling which is pretty much all I do. I did restrict my riding to 20 to 30 mile rides through April, but in May I started extending them out a bit. As of the time of this writing, (5/17), my longest ride has been 49 miles.

Even with these restrictions I've been able to keep my mileage up to 4-500 miles per month for all but December thanks to good riding weather this Spring so I'm on track for at least a normal yearly mileage.

New Bike Day!!

In the U.S. the Federal Government issued "Stimulus checks" to virtually all citizens, (at least those who had filed taxes in the recent past). In my case, my wife and I each received a $1,200 stipend! What could I possibly do with $1,200 that had to be spent to keep our economy going? 

I had been following a thread on Google Groups iBOB list about a recently discontinued "Allroads" bike by Tom Ritchey, the Ascent. This bike was designed for Quick Release disc brake wheels which probably doomed it in 2016...by then the trend was going to thru-axles. However, I had a set of 650b, Q/R disc wheels left over from my Felt and I had been searching for the right frame. I had been considering the Surly Bridge Club and Midnight Special as well, but the Ritchey is a slightly higher quality frame with lighter tubing and the stack and top tube measurements looked better for my size.

Best of all, Universal Cycles was closing the Ascents out at $500 off! So I pulled the trigger on a "Large" and it arrived withing 2 days of my order!

New bike day! The Ritchey Ascent.

I had almost everything I needed to assemble the bike except for handlebars, cabling and bar tape. I opted for mustache style handlebars since I have enjoyed them so much on my Mercian. I have learned that you really should use bar end shifters when running mustache bars and I had a set of Shimano 8-speed shifters in the parts bin. For derailleurs, I used a Shimano RSX double up front. The rear derailleur was a little trickier, as I wanted to use the shifter's indexing. After a few different attempts, I finally found that a long-cage, 9-speed Tiagra, again from the parts bin, worked quite well.

Inititially, I installed the Tiagra 4700 series compact crank but I wasn't satisfied with the gearing it provided. I finally took the Sugino Messenger crank from my KOM and installed it on this bike. More about the K.O.M. later!

The Spyre brakes were left over from my Felt. I used some Shimano aero brake levers with them. It's taken a bit of patience to install and adjust these to feel about right to me. The flat mounts provided on this frame are nice and eliminate the need for additional brackets. The rear brake cable takes a really long run of housing! I needed an extra length from the parts to be able to install the front!

Front 3/4 view showing off the Origin 8 Tiki (mustache) handlebars.

Once everything was assembled I took it out for a test spin around the block. No longer rides initially as I was awaiting the handlebar tape to arrive. Everything felt pretty good, although I had to tweak the brake adjustment a bit.

A look at the rear brake, a TRP Spyre

...and a look at the front.

Finally, the tape was installed and it was time for a real ride! I planned to do a short 20 mile hop over to Lincoln. Everything was going so well that once in Lincoln I decided to press on to Chamberlain Road to get a taste of gravel with this bike. That went quite well so I continued into the foothills via Wise Road. The ride ended up being 39 miles with no problems. The bike handled quite well after I got used to the feel of the 42mm Gravel King tires again! That takes a little getting used to but once you are, then they are a lot of fun!

The only complaint I have about this bike is the (to me) excessive amount of seatpost that is exposed with this compact style frame. It is a "Large", so the stack and reach are okay, but I feel the seat post is a little short, (for aesthetic reasons only). Had I gone with an "Extra-Large", the top tube would have been a bit long and I would have required a very short stem, (and have only gained 2.5 cm's of seat tube). I suppose this is just a question of style, as the feel of the bike is just fine.

One final comment, I did not even touch the steerer tube of this frameset. You can see in the pictures that there is about a centimeter of steerer above the stem! I'll just leave that alone.

Post-maiden ride shot. 

A new Crankset for the Mercian K.O.M.

I mentioned that I had installed the Messenger crank onto the Ritchey. Lest you think that I've left the Mercian hanging there without a crankset, here is an update!

Some time ago I had found an 86mm BCD crankset on eBay, a Stronglight 80. I have been interested in the 86mm BCD pattern since reading an article in "Cyclist" magazine in the mid 80s! Here's the article: Cyclist magazine tourlines

The crank came with 42/52 chainwheels but I eventually found some NOS chainwheels on 30/46. Later I also found a 28 that I'm saving. I'll want to try 28/44 for loaded touring sometime.

With the Messenger crank now on the Ritchey, I was able to install my Stronglight on the Mercian. The one catch with this crankset is that you really should use a bottom bracket with an ISO style taper which is a little different from the standard you find on the ubiquitous Shimano UN range of BB's. I did find a nice unit, (another Origin 8 product!) and used it. The BB didn't want to fit into my frame's shell initially. It had two raised ridges on the dust cover that fits between the cartridge bearings. Well, that was weird, I filed the ridges down until they cleared the shell. I don't know why they are even there!

Anyway, the crank is now installed and looks great! I took the bike out for a ride and the gearing is quite good for day riding, although I may want to go lower gears when camping.

The Stronglight 80, finally installed.

Refreshing the older Mercians.

Since my Ritchey will now be my 650b bike, I decided to revert my older Mercian Olympic/Classic to 700c. This entailed swapping wheels of course and swapping brakes; I returned the Campy Nouvo Record sidepulls to service. Since I had been swapping cranksets all around, I also changed the crank on the Olympic back to the Velo Orange compact 110mm BCD crank for no particular reason!

I took this bike out for a longer ride the other day. It seemed kind of sluggish. By the time I got to Lincoln I thought I had a flat tire it was so slow! I pulled over to inspect the wheel. It turned out that the rear wheel had slipped,(horizontal dropouts!), and the tire had been rubbing against the chainstay! I would guess this had been the case for at least 5 miles!

The '80 Mercian with 700c wheels again.

After adjusting the wheel and tightening the Q/R, the bike felt like a rocket!

Finally, in order to make room for the Ritchey, I had to get rid of a bike. I sold the Nishiki as a frame and transferred the fixed gear equipment over to the '82 Mercian since I still wanted a fixed gear bike available.

The '82 Classic in fixed gear mode.

2019 year end review and this Winter's projects.

At Olmstead Point, Yosemite NP.

The year in review:

Another year has come and gone! 2019 was a pretty successful year for me, (by my modest standards)! The highlight of this year's riding was my High Sierra tour, which included climbs of Tioga and Sonora Passes. Other interesting rides included a couple of gravel road adventures  Camp Far West and beyond , Loon Lake bikehike, and the my two century rides, Three rivers century. , Foothill century. This year, I added Foresthill and Yankee Jims Road to my foothill route which made it pretty challenging.

Another significant, (to me), accomplishment was my total yearly mileage which topped 5,000 miles this year!

So it was a pretty good riding year.

Winter Projects:

K.O.M. conversion to mustache bars is finalized.

Mercian with Mustache Bars 

Winter is the time for maintenance. With the KOM Mercian, I decided to commit completely to the mustache handlebar installation. I trimmed down the brake cables to a better fit, (they had been left unchanged from the drop bar configuration). I also installed my old but relatively lightly used SunTour Barcons, handlebar-end shifters. These are basically friction shifters, but have a light ratcheting action which is useful when trimming the derailleurs. Handlebar mounted shifters are generally preferred for mustache bars for ease of access. A new tape job, in black this year, finished off the package.

The barcons did require the cable housing to hang in front of the handlebars so I removed my handlebar bag and rack, replacing them with my Carradice Pendle saddlebag. This combo rides quite nicely but I rather miss the convenience of a handlebar bag. I may have to revisit this at a later date.

With these installed, I've pretty much committed myself to the mustache bar configuration.

Finally, I replaced the SKS Longboard fenders with SKS Bluemel "Commuter" fenders which come in a 53mm width. I've liked the wider fenders on my 650b conversion so these seemed like a good idea. Like all SKS fenders these went on without drama, although I did shave off a bit on the front fender to clear the fork blades.

Just a bit shaved off to clear the fork to allow the fender to spread with no bending.

Front bag for the fixed gear:

The old Blackburn front rack on the Nishiki.

 With the front bag which was formerly mounted on the KOM now languishing, I decided to mount it on my Nishiki International fixie. To do this I used my very old Jim Blackburn front rack which needed a little twisting to get set on the bike. Now I've got a little more capacity for my fixed gear rides.

650b Mercian updates:

Just a few minor changes were made to my 650b Mercian conversion. I replaced the Campagnolo brake levers with nearly identical SunTour Superbe levers. Mostly I wanted to protect the old Campy levers from possible damage as the Superbes are little less valuable. I also felt funny about mixing Italian levers with Asian brakes. Silly, I know.

Actually, the quality of the SunTour levers seem just as high as the Campagnolo.

The Superbe Levers on the Mercian.

One final equipment note; this year I've tried some new pedals, "two-way" Shimano PD-EH500 pedals. These offer a platform surface on one side, and a SPD interface on the other. I wanted to experiment with platform to give my feet the chance to move around. I've found that I can get some foot pain when I keep feet in a fixed spot for an extended period of time.

Shimano PD-EH500 two way pedals.

I actually used these on my KOM during my Sierra tour. They worked well. The only negative I have found is that ground clearance is a little restricted when using the SPD side; the platform hangs a little lower and I did experience a pedal strike once when cornering while using the SPD side.

A new home for my bikes!

My youngest son recently returned to the West Coast and is currently staying with us. He is currently between jobs ans so was looking for something to do. We had mentioned that we wanted to have a shed set up to provide a storage site for my bikes. He jumped at this chance. He designed the shed using a CAD program he owned. We supplied the materials and bought some of the tools he needed. We agreed to pay him the same amount that we were going to pay for a store-bought shed, less the costs of the materials and tools.

It took a few weeks and we had to help here and there but generally, the shed was his product and it came out pretty nicely. I now have all of my bikes hanging, along with Shelly's. Also a couple of the grandkid's bikes are thrown in, along with our Christmas decoration storage boxes.

The new bike shed!

With the new year upon me, I have to plan my riding, I managed to avoid Iowa Hill in 2019, something I'll have to remedy in 2020. I want to do more overnight tours, I'm not sure where to at this time. As for equipment, I'd still like to get some sort of disc braked gravel bike frame, but I don't have any room left in the shed!