The Birds and the Bees (and the Bikes)

Marcello completed the ride at 7:06 am this morning in 85 hours and 6 minutes. Congratulations we are proud of you!

Just talked to Marcello he’s about 90 miles from the finish and predicting he will be done around 4 or 5 am. He is in good spirits other than having missed a chance at real hot food as all real restaurants are closed at 9PM. One last junk food stop and hopefully he will be able to get a real breakfast after the finish but before passing out at the hotel.

As of late last night Marcello had napped 2 times less than 90 min each time and was headed out again. He was figuring to be out of phone range for about 24 hours. Some of the guys are past the turn around and headed back.

Marcello is off on his adventure to GRR!  You can keep up with the riders here for times, (Updated after everyone gets through the control.) and here for written updates. ( updated about once an hour give or take a bit.)

Back in March, I wrote a series of posts looking at each leg of the Gold Rush Randonnee route, from the start in Davis to the turn around point in Davis Creek. Now that we are only 8 days from the start, I realize that I never finished looking at the rest of the route. Here is a quick rundown of the climbs on the way back. Since the elevation at Alturas is at 4400 feet, that means that there is going to be more descending than climbing on the way back to Davis. The course profiles are on the previous posts, and since this is an out-and-back ride, we can just look at the same profiles in reverse… [Read more →]

One of the members of the Randon mailing list, Tom (don’t know the last name) is riding the Gold Rush Randonnee next month, and he did a ride this past weekend from Susanville to Taylorville and back, and then from Susanville to Adin. That section is the part of the GRR route with most of the more challenging climbs. He sent a ride report to the mailing list that is very interesting, and it has some good information on traffic, rumble strips, and more. Worth reading.

I read all the ride reports that I could find from the 2005 Gold Rush Randonnee, which was held at the end of July. I also talked with a few riders who completed that ride. All of them remember vividly the brutal heat. It was scorching hot, over 100F, in the Central Valley between Davis and Oroville, but it was hot even at altitude through the rest of the ride. The climb to Antelope pass and the ride to Susanville were especially tough because of the heat.

In 2001 the ride was held in early July, and the weather was hot in the valley and reasonable at altitude, with occasional showers and thunderstorms.

I looked at a couple of weather web sites for historical weather patterns. Looks like Davis, Oroville and Alturas have airports that collect weather data, and the other control locations don’t. This means that if you search for Susanville or Adin, you actually get the Alturas data. Which may be OK, since they are all in the high altitude desert part of the sierras.

For July 6 through 10, Davis typical high/low temperature is 92/58 and Oroville 92/61 (no surprise, and no significant difference here). For Alturas, the typical temperature is 87/44. So the high is a few degrees lower than on the valley floow, but not enough to make a big difference. If it is hot at the start, it will be almost as hot during the day all through the ride. The low temperature (which is usually right before sunrise) is quite a bit lower in the high desert. Again, not surprising, but it may be worth having an extra layer with us for riding at night and in the early morning hours.

So what is it going to be like this year? Chances are, scorching hot in the central valley, fairly hot during the day on the rest of the route, and pretty cold at night and in the early morning. Sounds like 2001 had fairly typical weather, while 2005 was warmer than normal. I am hoping for a return of typical weather for this year.

The crank that came standard with my bike has always been trouble. On the last day of my first 1000 km brevet three years ago, after crossing the northern Cascades, I started to panic when the left crank arm started getting loose. It’s been a pain ever since, and on the 600k brevet last month I had to stop and adjust it just about every hour. Which meant getting left behind by whatever group I was riding with. I ended up riding alone most of that brevet. Not fun when you have wicked headwinds.

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A couple of days ago I was riding along Washington County farmland towards the hills, for a training ride, when suddenly I was overwhelmed by a wonderful scent. Ripe strawberries. I looked to my left, and across the street was a field covered in strawberry plants, and I could see the bright red dots of the ripe fruit among the dark green. I had the same experience last month on the 600k brevet, when I was riding on the roads south of Santa Cruz, and the wind would carry the scent of ripe strawberries to me, before I could see the fields. And I loved the scent of the artichokes as I rode past field covered in plants as far as I could see, in that hot California day.

Feeling the scents around you, being immersed in the experience of the fields and the forests you ride through, is something that is easy to miss when you drive along the same roads in your air conditioned car.

I carry a cell phone on my rides. But fairly often, I end up in areas where T-Mobile has no reception. The staffed control in Vernonia on our spring Birkie 200 brevet is one of them. You can call if you have ATT or Verizon, but not T-Mobile. Same story along the coast on the 3 Capes 300k brevet. I decided to look at the coverage maps on the provider’s web sites to see how service will be along the GRR route. [Read more →]