Road Ride Report A 40 mile bike ride turns into...

...a century! (for a few of us. Hell on earth for others, much more than 100 for one crazy tall guy, and hopefully good times of different mileages for everyone else)

A few days ago I got a PM from Jay asking if I wanted to ride from Yorba Regional Park to the beach. ~45 miles at most. I had bought my first road bike one week ago, Aaron (Chewyeti) and Zach (graves.z) had both bought road bikes as well this week, so this ride was supposed to be a good feeler on how us road noobies would fare.

Turns out Dan aka Sperminator was doing this same ride, he posted up a thread, and before you know it 20 of us gathered at the park at 8:00am and took off.

First of all, all you hardcore roadies that can routinely pull 24-25mph, you can go suck a lemon. God dang that's hard!

Anywho, less talk, more pictures.

2nd regroup, all 20 riders so far still on the ride.




The goal, the beach. Yes, a Pain_Freak sighting.






There was talk of doing some extra credit and heading over to The Wedge over in Newport. That place was packed this morning, and dodging cars was at times, very insane. We were told it wasn't too far, so what the hell, why not....





It got crazy packed with cars on one way streets, screwed up intersections, etc. Having barely been riding, I saw a couple close calls with the cars and genuinely freaked me out at times with cars pulling in front, making already tight areas even tighter, and a few comments about roadies and the TdF from passengers with their windows down. Good times! Quick learning curve though.



we parked our bikes here next to hundreds of people...



...to see some crazy waves and some boarders take their chance.


A bunch of us were getting pretty hungry, so a lunch destination was decided on. Unfortunately, it was 15 miles away up another few beaches and back through traffic.




We would lose a few that decided to head back up to the cars. The rest of us rode PCH forever it seemed to get some lunch somewhere near Huntington Beach, which was quite crowded as expected.



The professional roadies of the group: Jox2 & Duke777


The lunch crew, considerably smaller than the group we set out with.


Then it was time to ride the back path at a "leisurely" pace back to where we came from.

Duke777 and Chewyeti


We all regroup and Jojo snapped my pic with these other dudes who got in my picture.


Then it became pure hell. I had to adjust my seat not too far into our return trip. It took no more than 20 seconds, and I spent the next half hour trying to catch the group, which i could see, but never get any closer to. I realized many times today that this is the most frustrating part of riding road. I only caught up once we regroupped.

Then I got to lead, at MY pace.
They catching me!


A few of the guys started at Chewyeti's house, 10 miles up the road in Corona. Jox2 and myself had the option of bailing once we saw our cars, but decided to join this group and head to Chewy's house and hoped the numbers would work out to 100 miles.

Somewhere near the 91 and Green River...in the heat.


Corona is considerably hotter than the beach. We were down to 6 guys at this point. Jojo was well ahead of me, and the other 4 stopped because of cramps. I stopped and waited, and waited, and waited. Called Chewy, couldn't understand him, then a couple minutes later the group catches up.


We took a detour to add some mileage as it was going to be close on whether we would hit 100 miles.

96 miles in, we raided the Jack in the Box for ice/water.


See that black Specialized in the middle. I love it.

Unfortunately, we were less than a mile from Chewy's house.

Chewy and myself when we got there.


Now for the WTF moment of the day. This loop turned out to be 97 miles. Jay, who has done centuries before, decided he needed those 3 more miles. He took a lap around the block. 6/10ths of a mile he said. He goes out and does 4 more to complete the 100 miler.


his crazy numbers for the day


Jay, Chewy, Duke777, and Sperminator all started here in the morning so they were done. Jojo and I were not. We had to make the returning 10 mile trip back to the cars to say we did the same loop as those 4 guys. So off we went...





Jojo and I traded off who would lead, and didn't say a word to each other for the first 5 miles or so. Not that we don't like each other, but it was just too long of a day at this point. We had some crazy winds coming from all directions, there was virtually no one else on the bike paths, we were burnt. At the same moment we both speak. Seems we are both considering adding an extra 3 miles somewhere. I'm no expert roadie yet, but it seemed to me that you can't just end your ride at 97 miles. And Jojo had put up a thread in the last couple days asking about whether he was ready to do a century.

We saw our cars.

Then we saw this.


So off we went. Another 1.5 miles out...


and back. And we got our garmin's to say 100 miles!

I know Jojo can do 50 miles, not sure if he's gotten much further than that before


and I bought my bike last week, and it wasn't all that bad today! Legs still feel good, I had another 20 miles in them easily, but my back and butt were killing me.


Hell yeah!

Jeff aka J_Sims joined us this morning as well. He was probably around 130 miles! I met a couple other new folks today as expected, and missed the names of so many more. I met Chris aka IMALLSLO who is apparently just up the road from me here in the San Gabriels. I know Glenn and Zach were out today who I normally only see on the Sunday morning fully loop.

And I know there were other pictures, post them up!

 

Jay burnt 9500 calories......that's about 1 large bowl of Pho!:lol:

 

Very Cool! That looked like a great ride. I love to mix it up between my mountain bike and road bike.

 

*on my picture, i cant seem to see which one is the bike and which one is the rider, my bike and I blend pretty well.:lol:
for the stats whore:

100.1 miles
6:05 Saddle time
and a sore butt.

 

Nice report. I need a road bike.

 

Holy Sh*t. Thats a lot of calories.

 

Wow nice ride and great pictures.

I can't wait until I get my Specialized road bike, but I guess I'll have to get the other color option :lol:

 

a seriously kick ass first road ride. I loved it.

our whole ride averaged 18 mph. The ride back was considerably slower paced... awesome

 

Im no roadie, but that looked like it was a pretty kick a$$ ride!:beer:

 

My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail?? Well maybe next time.

Looks like everyone had a good time though.

 

18 mph average is really fast.:clap:

You can do a variation on this ride by returning up via the San Gabriel river/Coyote Creek bike path to the west or via the Back Bay/Irvine Bike path to the east of where you ended on the SART.

 

TML = too much lycra









j/k (sort of) well done

 

Whatever......

 

Now that we've got that silly century thing out of the way, whose up for a double?

Welcome to a whole new world of hurt.

 

lol i only got 24 hours in a day Mike. Very nice to see you!

 

Wow... a century? I am good with my 3/5th century...... Good job guys!

 

Good job on the century guys!

Wow PF on a road bike! I miss that. I love how he wears his California Triple Crown jersey just to rub it in.

 

I was happy with my Metric Century. 72.9 miles 4:03 17.9 average. You guys that rode 100+ mad props. It was a hot one yesterday and was feelin the heat just short of the parking lot.
DavidB,Chewy...officially roadies
J_Sims....130+ just damn
Dizle....fixed gear droppin guys....animal
PainFreak....nice seein ya again man. Good luck with everything starting tomorrow!
I had a great day dodging traffic with a bunch of mountain bikers in lycra{thumup}

 

damn I should have stayed with you guys! fun ride. now I'm not scared to ride my fixed bike with a bunch of roadies

Everyone was really cool on the ride, met an old friend (Sol) and lots of new faces. We need to set up more rode rides!

 

Awesome ride, and taught me how much I need to change for road riding. Proper fit, road pedals/shoes, Lycra (damn it):lol:, and proper cadence (spinning is better than power in a big gear...so opposite of how I mtn ride).