My goal was to break 400 miles in an October and somehow I managed. I know for a “real” cyclist it’s nothing, but I don’t suffer from that condition, so for me it was a nice accomplishment. Like normal I did end up getting sick – 3 times! – but I somehow was able to still get enough days in. The last week has been particularly difficult. Monday I was flat on my back, don’t even talk to me sick. Tuesday, I realized I had left my cycling shoes at work. I rode anyways in my worn out Van’s, both feet went numb, my phone (mp3 player) hated me, and I had to take detours. Not to mention I had a late start due to an early morning dentist appointment. My teeth were awesome, but still it’s never fun. Wednesday, my knees were sore for some reason, probably due to riding Tuesday without the right gear, and I had to leave work late which meant riding home in the dark. Again, I know all of the “real” cyclists immediately want to chime in with how the dark is nothing, and they’ve endured much worse… I guess I don’t care much since this is my blog and I’m just an average joe that needs to get his cholesterol under control. Anyways, back to my complaining, I still haven’t put the front light on my bike or converted my sunglasses to the clear lenses, so riding in the dark was a pain especially since I was in some pain. Regardless, I accomplished what I set out to do and even finished a day early.

Tomorrow begins November. I have no goal for November since November has historically been a horrible month to me in regards to riding. Not only have I been frequently sick, the sun sets at 4:30, and then there’s always 12 billion things to do relating to the holidays. Not to say that I don’t like November, I actually love it, but I know it will test my discipline and diligence. I just wish they wouldn’t do the time change thing…

Yesterday during my evening commute I exited the SART (Santa Ana River Trail) at Chapman to test out a new route.  This was after getting rear whipped by a stinky guy on a crappy, heavy mountain bike!  The guy didn’t even have any calves.  I managed to keep pace but it seemed like I was working and he was cruising…

So yeah, I exited on Chapman which actually wasn’t half bad for a bridge with no shoulder followed by a freeway onramp.  Compared to Orangewood earlier this week it was actually enjoyable.

I then turned south on Flower which wasn’t particularly busy but the asphalt was pretty lousy.  From Flower I turned east on Almond Ave which turned out to be a nice ride.  The surface isn’t great, but it’s not horrible.  There were some cars parked in the right hand lane at times but not a ton of them.  From Flower to Cambridge I was only passed 6 times (and this was during rush hour), and the cars had room to pass me without having to cross the center divider.

The route also takes you right by Orange Cycle which I’ve been to, but it seems like a plus to have a bike shop available to you on your way home.  The route also takes you right by the Orange Circle if you wanted to take a break.

I ended the route at Cambridge which has a bike lane, allowing you to go south to Santiago Creek bike trail or north up to Walnut.

I don’t know that I’ll ever take this route again, but it’s not a bad way to go.

Yesterday was evidently a SART (Santa Ana River Trail) cleaning day. There were trash trucks out in full effect. In riding by today, it appears that any changes were temporary. Not that I don’t appreciate the effort, because I absolutely do. Maybe even as much as I appreciate street sweepers. I got to say, I really do appreciate street sweepers; it’s amazing how quickly the roads can become almost unrideable for a road bike if they are not cleaned weekly.

Anyways, as I was passing the First Street under crossing or maybe it was Warner, there were 4 cops cars on the “on ramp” to SART.  I’ve been searching the news for any idea of what was going on but to no avail.

I did come across a series of stories about people throwing crappy bikes out in front of cyclists and they fly down the underpasses.  After the cyclist crashes, they beat them and steal they’re bikes.  It’s not a pleasant thought, and it makes me wonder why the cities or county or whoever’s in charge leaves so much room under the bridges for people to hideout.

On another note, significant progress has been made on the Edinger bridge, which hopefully means the Harbor detour may soon become a thing of the past.  I’ll be the first to admit I won’t miss riding my bike down Harbor one bit.  So far I’ve had to take the detour twice this week.

Update: CrimeMapping.com shows a disturbing the peace violation at 7:26am near the the riverbed and 1st St.  Maybe someone got pissed that the garbage trucks took their stuff.

Regardless, November 3rd will mark the end of daylight savings time.  This means that on November the sun will set at 4:57pm.  Which means the sun will set before I get off work, which of course means riding home in the dark. Then it will be March 2014 before I can get home before sunset again.  Four cold, dark, lonely months.  I think we should just adopt daylight savings time year round.  Maybe I can convince my work…

Anyways, I’m thinking about finding some alternate routes that avoid the SART during the dark months.  It’s just too easy to pick off a lone rider at night, especially since all the MAMILs (middle aged men in lycra) riding in their herds and the young male UCI students with something to prove have all abandoned the trail.

We will see, I’ve never had a problem, but it’s pretty crappy that other people have.  It would be amazing if someday the O.C. made an attempt to be cyclist friendly instead of just telling people to ride to work on the sides of buses.

Fire in Orange

Somehow I missed this by a few minutes on Friday.  On Monday, I rode by the same area and was startled to see it blackened!

The fire was at approximately 33.778175,-117.84617

According to my GPS, here’s where I was :

<trkpt lat=”33.778144999999995″ lon=”-117.84625199999999″><ele>21.899999618530273</ele><time>2013-10-04T23:46:53Z</time></trkpt>
<trkpt lat=”33.778104″ lon=”-117.846064″><ele>24.299999237060547</ele><time>2013-10-04T23:46:57Z</time></trkpt>

23:46 – 7hours for PST – 12 (to get to 12hr time) = 4:46pm

According to the article the fire was called in before 5pm.  Pretty crazy.