i dreamt last night that you made us keep going to vegas

Do you know if it's ok to JetBoil at the campsite we're at? I need my morning coffee...

Don't you mean rain, shine or snow? 

http://obs.astro.ucla.edu/towercam.htm

I'm in for the 80 miler if it's happening next weekend. I can't do the April one.

And isignay, if you can't find someone to ride with I was serious about the train. Amtrak SD to LA is probably cheaper than gas and then from downtown you could either ride up or take a Gold Line to Pasadena or Metrolink to Burbank. Just a thought.

take the train and ride out from downtown!

looks like a fun trip! do you have a gpx for it by chance?

Yeah that was my original bailout, to drop down the canyon to Chantry Flats. If you haven't ridden the Upper Winter Creek trail, it's pretty sweet. Sort of technical with steep drops on the side of the trail, would be interesting on a loaded bike!

If you're taking random riders I might be interested in joining.

So I decided to do trebor's ride this weekend, but I had to be home by 7pm so I cut out the Verdugo mountains portion and instead parked by JPL. It's a pretty spectacular ride with 7500 feet of pretty tough climbing (although with the Verdugo's it's probably twice that, oof). I've hiked portions but never ridden it, the paved part of the road up Mt. Lowe is BRUTAL but once you hit the end of the pavement, right around the Echo Mt. trailhead, it turns quite nice. Riding through trees and even patches of snow. Never done the Rincon Red Box trail before, it's pretty incredible, nice flowy fire road down along a stream bed passing a couple campgounds. I was totally unprepared for the climb out when you pass the West Fork campground. Seems to go on FOREVER and some pretty muddy sections due to snow melt. I was glad to be on the descent again and found the trail out of there, it says "Road closed, locked gate ahead". Ignore it, it's only locked for cars apparently. It drops you into Monrovia and then a steady uphill through the city to get back to the car. Then I ate a burger and a pizza.

Didn't take too many photos but here's a couple:

Really shocked to see snow considering how warm it's been.


One of the many rest stops on the climb out of West Fork. Granny gear in full effect.

Huntington to Santa Monica there are a decent amount of bike lanes. North of that is less fun, especially the stretch between Santa Monica and Malibu.

Something to consider: if you're headed south to north along PCH you're most likely going to have a decent headwind to contend with, especially in the afternoon. You may either want to switch directions and start in Santa Barbara, that way you'll have a tail wind for most of it.

But, yeah, it's all road riding with LOTS of cars flying by.

Any advice on nutrition to avoid cramping? I've been training and finding that at around the 5-6 hour mark my legs start cramping on climbs. I try to eat a bar every hour and a half and some trail mix in between. My hunch is that it's salt related since I sweat like a mofo.

Garmin has an app called "MapInstall" that works on a Mac. Works with my eTrex 20 fine.

I still use the Continental Contacts that came on my LHT. Obviously great on the road but they're also totally fine for fire roads on decent climbs with some loose gravel. I had a tough time in the sand with them. Most of the classic touring guys swear by Schwalbe Marathons.

Really depends on the type of riding you do or want to do. I have a Surly Long Haul Trucker that I use mostly for road touring. I can load up the racks and ride it all day, no problem. It can handle gravel, jeep trails, hard dirt pretty well. Not so great on techy singletracks and sand. For bikepacking I use my HT 29er which is a lot more fun. My wife has a Fargo with two sets of tires, skinny ones for when we road tour and fat ones when we take the trails.

If you're happy with the Hardrock you might first want to try a second set of tires before investing in a new bike.

Yeah a quick google search found a million different clones. This one is interesting:

http://www.dhgate.com/p-ff80808139bf06020139c4d7df127b08.html?utm_source=GMC&utm_medium=Adwords&utm_campaign=batteryfactory&utm_term=143449453&f=bm%7c143449453%7c%7cGMC%7cAdwords%7c%7cbatteryfactory%7c%7c%7c&gclid=CMSWyp6AkbUCFeGDQgodYAsAOw

It'll take AAA batteries and it's 14 bucks. High quality stuff I'm sure!

I'm looking to upgrade my bike light and ran across these guys:

http://www.stupidbright.com/Products.php

Wondering if anyone's used them? $50 for 1000lumens. Seems too cheap to be good?

Anyone have an Alpkit bag? They look pretty nice.

Well I was lucky enough to find a local shop that had both bikes in stock. It was a really tough choice as both felt great, having me jump back and forth between bikes over and over again. The El Mariachi had that sturdy steel feel that I was expecting but surprisingly light and quick. You can't go wrong with that bike. But in the end I went with the Cannondale. It rides amazing, super nimble, smooth, and fast. It was last year's model so I got a good deal on it.

I took it for a short 10 mile afternoon shakeout ride. I was not disappointed as I crushed my previous fasted time. It sure does like to go fast.

I've heard good things about the lefty but haven't ridden one yet. Planning on demoing both the F29 and the Salsa this weekend.

I'm in the market for a new hardtail 29er for this year's Stagecoach 400. My wife gently suggested that a 4k titanium rig isn't in my future. So assuming a max budget of 2500, I'm thinking about the following:

Salsa El Mariachi 2 (steel)
Cannondale F291 (aluminum)
Used Cannondale F29 Carbon 3

Thoughts on which would be best for multi-day racing? Is carbon a bad idea? Is used carbon a really bad idea? Any better options I'm not thinking about?

Thanks!

This looks amazing! I'd love to do this with my wife someday. What route did you take? Are there trail maps or a gps track you used?