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.