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.

Late season ride on Ponderosa Way and Yankee Jims Road. 2020 year's end review.

 

At the Ponderosa Road Bridge

Fall was speeding by and the holiday season was fast approaching. It was time, (11/12/2020) for a last adventure ride before by seasonal training ride routine began.

I decided to take the Ritchey to Ponderosa Way, it would be interesting to see how it handled that rough road.

As usual, I started this ride at the old Park and Ride at Colfax, by the site of the old "Dingus McGees". This is a handy jumping off point for both this ride and for Iowa Hill. 

At the Colfax Park and Ride

For this ride you start by heading west, up to Placer Hills Road. You then follow Placer Hills for a few miles to the Weimar Crossing Road intersection.

At the Weimar Sign

Up over a little rise then you descend into the little village of Weimar. From there you are on Ponderosa Way, which you will follow all the way to Foresthill Divide Road. The paved portion of Ponderosa includes a pretty good climb up to the border of the Auburn State Recreational Area. At that point you start a long descent. You eventually come to an open gate that has a sign indicating that the bridge is out! Don't worry, it is closed to vehicular traffic, but pedestrians and bikes are free to use it.

At the State Recreation Area.

The road now turns to dirt/gravel and it's condition goes downhill along with the road! This is one of the worst roads I've ridden, lots of ruts and holes. I rode the brakes quite a bit, glad to have the Spyre discs on this ride. The mustache handlebars also give you a nice stable riding position. Generally, I was pretty satisfied with the Ritchey's performance here. 

At the Ponderosa Bridge, now closed to cars.

After the long, rough descent I came to the bridge over the North Fork of the American River. I don't know what has caused the closure of this bridge, but it does look a little bit shabbier than the bridge at Yankee Jims. In any event, I'm glad it is closed as this reduces the traffic on the road to practically nothing! I did meet one fellow in a Jeep on the other side of the bridge who was wondering if it was okay to park, that was about the extent of the traffic on this weekday!

Ponderosa Bridge over the N. fork of the American River.

It was now time for the long climb to Foresthill Divide Road. This side of the road is in better condition than the north side so climbing wasn't technical at all, just laborious! I was passed by a trail bike, (motorcycle), at one point, that was the extent of the traffic until I reached Foresthill divide Road!

Pausing on the climb up from the Ponderosa Bridge.

After reaching the pavement, the climb continued into Foresthill. There, I stopped at Worton's Grocery Store and ate a snack at their wonderful picnic tables. Then I was off to Yankee Jims Road.

View from Worton's

I've described Yankee Jims many times in these pages so I won't go into much detail here. Generally the road was okay this year, maybe a little more washboard than I like. At the bottom I hit the corrugated steel plate that forms the road surface of the bridge a little too hard and this caused a pinch flat on my rear tire! This would turn out to be the only mechanical issue of this ride.

At the bottom of Yankee Jims Road, note the deflated rear tire!

Obligatory view back at Yankee Jims Bridge!

The rest of the ride was the usual climb up to Colfax. Nothing unusual here, one or two cars encountered but really, traffic was very light. 

Although this is a relatively short distance ride, (35 miles), the climbing, (4958 feet in elevation gain), and the road conditions really slow you down. It took me four hours to finish the ride!

End of the ride shot.

Equipment notes:

No mechanical issues outside the flat at Yankee Jims Bridge!

This was a good ride to test out the Ritchey Ascent and I was pretty happy with it's performance. Handling-wise, it sort of disappears on the pavement and is pretty stable on the rough stuff. Of course, having the 42mm Gravel King tires and disc brakes goes a long way to inspiring confidence on rough roads. 

I have set up this bike with indexed, (8-speed) bar end shifters. On rough roads like this, I like having positive shifts without having to adjust shifter position a lot which of course the indexing provides. It's really the only bike I have with indexing but I think that it is appropriate for this style of riding.

Finally, mustache handlebars have once again proven to me that they are perfect for this type of mixed surface riding. They can afford a comfortable aero position on the road and a very stable stance on the rough stuff.

Year's end notes:

Thus ended my last "adventure" ride of 2020. COVID had some impact on my riding this year. I avoided a lot of long rides, only riding one century this year. That one was the flat "Three River Century" I do every year. I also managed a 100km ride which included a long stretch of gravel around Camp Far West.

I did get a lot of shorter rides in. In fact my cumulative mileage for 2020 was one of my highest, 5,265 miles!

Equipment wise, the big item was the Ritchey. Initially I set this bike up with the 650b wheels left over from my Felt. Towards the end of the year I collected the components for a new set of 650b wheels, this time they were to be tubeless.  I chose Sun-Ringle Helix rims, Shimano M525A disc hubs and Panaracer Gravel King Slicks, 650X48mm.

This is the first time I ever tried to set up a tubeless tire system and I was anxious to see how it works. There were a couple of hiccups but I finally was able to get the tires working. I haven't put many miles on these yet, but on the short test rides I've taken the wheels seem quite light, and the ride seems very nice!

The Ritchey's new shoes!

Well, that's a wrap for 2020, good riddance! Looking forward to 2021!