Epic Ride Saturdays - Laguna Canyon

Laguna Canyon

About 1.22 million years ago, Laguna Canyon began to form when the San Diego Creek started cutting through the rising San Joaquin Hills.  The Canyon runs roughly north/south for 8 miles, is a wide and shallow valley on the north end, and a deep and narrow gorge on the south end.  CA Route 133 runs straight through, and is a really popular road for cyclists.  You'll also see a lot of mountain bikes - access to the Laguna Coast Wilderness (and thus a large trail system), is found about half way through the canyon.

As usual, OC Velo met at Worthy Park in Huntington Beach and then headed south on Pacific Coast Highway picking up a bunch of additional riders.  We took PCH all the way down to Laguna, which is about a 17 mile trip through Newport Beach, Corona Del Mar and Newport Coast/Crystal Cove State Park.

The ride through Newport Coast is always great.  It's about a 4 mile stretch were the Pacific is directly  to the right and the coastal mountains are directly to the left.  The road undulates through this stretch.  But none of the climbs are particularly steep, so with a good group you can fly through this section.

The Cottages @ Crystal Cove

One of the cool points of interest along this stretch of PCH are the Crystal Cove Cottages.  Originally built in the 1920's, the 48 cottages where initially private residences.  At some point, they where all abandoned and fell into disrepair.  But eventually, they were restored and in 2006 opened up as rentals to overnight guests.  I've been down on the beach, but have never stayed in the cottages.  Apparently, a rental is pretty tricky to get - they are all booked at least a year in advance and reservations only open up once a month.  Typically, each month's allotment can sell out within hours.  One of these days Mary, Ian and I will spend a few nights there.  In the meantime, I recommend them to anyone who is looking for a slightly left-of-center California beach vacation with access to great riding, open water swimming and trail running literally just off the porch.

OC Velo

We regrouped in Laguna Beach and then turned left into the Canyon.  From the south, the first 5 miles are either false flats or gentle climbs.  But at mile 6, you are faced with a more significant climb.  It's nothing crazy, but there is no doubt in your legs that you are climbing.  The climb is about 2 miles long.  For about a mile and a half, I had been leading the group and feeling pretty good about it.  But once we hit the climb, a couple of guys pulled out of the line and shot by me.  One of them turned to me as he passed and said "Nice pull" without a hint of irony in his voice.  No good deed goes unpunished.

I took off after them, but I was never able to bridge the gap.  Instead, I hooked up with a solo rider about halfway up the climb and we traded pulls to the top.  The top is where the wind hit.

We are having pretty strong Santa Ana winds this weekend.  Santa Ana's blow from the north-east, and since they come in off the desert, they are hot.  Today they where strong.  Once I hit height of land, the wind hit me like a blast furnace from out of nowhere from about my 2 o'clock.  And they where so strong that I nearly went down.  It was probably more of a case of not expecting them, but even after I recovered and adjusted they still made for an interesting descent out of the canyon.  I met the guys who passed me at the bottom of the hill, and then we all waited for everyone else.  To a rider, everyone had a hairy "oh-my-gosh-the-wind-nearly-knocked-me-on-my-ass" story.

The rest of the ride was pretty routine, save for when the two guys who punched my ticket on the climb took off down the multi-use path in the Back Bay.  But this time I didn't let them go - I jumped on the wheel of the second guy and we tore along at about 26 MPH.  Then it was coffee at the HB Pier and the last 8 miles home.

Final Ride Stats

Distance:  55 Miles
Moving Time:  2:56
Average Speed: 18.8 MPH
Top Speed: 43.0 MPH
Climbing:  1,130 Feet

Epic Ride Saturdays Are Back (Thankfully)

What really got me out of bed.

Even though I've had some decent rides the last few weeks, I must admit I've been a little down on the bike.  Due to weather, I didn't ride much in December.  But when I did, I was having a ton of mechanical issues.  And then, of course, there was last Saturday's epic failure on the New Year's Day ride.

So when the alarm clock went of at 6 AM this morning, for the first time in a long time the thought crossed my mind to stay in bed and blow off riding.  But guilt quickly set in.  And possibly an even stronger motivator was that I had just received my 2011 OC Velo kit, so I was looking forward trying it out.  Vanity, I know, but you've got to go with what works, right?

I rolled out of bed, got myself sorted and headed out to meet the crew downtown.  When I got there and was handed the day's ride slip, I started to feel good about my decision to ride.  We where scheduled to head south down the Coast Highway and then cut inland through an industrial area of Irvine - all pretty routine.  But then I saw that we where then going to cut back to the Coast Highway for the ride home via El Toro Road and Laguna Canyon Road.  This is some good riding.

The first half of the ride through Irvine was pretty routine.  It was a big group today and the mood in the pack was friendly and conversational as we moved along at a moderate 17-18 MPH.  Then it was time to cut back towards the coast.  To get to El Toro Road, we had to make a 3 mile climb up Irvine Center Drive, which is under construction - not the most ideal scenario.  But where the hill crests at the junction for El Toro, you suddenly find yourself in the wild (to the extent a major thoroughfare in Orange County can be considered "wild") and going downhill - all the way to the ocean.

View of Laguna Canyon.  El Toro Road comes in from the left just after the freeway crossing near the top of the picture.

About 4 of us jumped off the front and headed down El Toro towards Laguna Canyon Road, which is about 5 miles to the north.  There was not much traffic and the road was surprisingly clean of debris given all the storms we've had.  At Laguna Canyon, we got a green light and without pause took a left and kept rolling until we hit downtown Laguna Beach.

We stopped at the "officially designated" OC Velo regroup point, which is a Circle K Market (note: no bathrooms, use the gas station next door).  Everyone else came in about 5 minutes later.  After a quick re-group, we set off north up the Coast Highway.

As we started to ride, the first thing I noticed is we had a tail wind.  "Nice", I thought, "This will be fun".  And it was.

PCH North of Laguna Beach

The stretch of Coast Highway between Laguna Beach and Corona Del Mar may be the best stretch of riding in Orange County.  It's right along the beach, well surfaced, rolling and relatively undeveloped due to the surrounding area being a state park.  We formed a pace line and took turns taking 30 second pulls all the way to Corona Del Mar.

From Corona Del Mar to Huntington, it's pretty congested with a lot of traffic signals, so it's tough to keep a rhythm and the pace line ceased.  Instead we all just rode along.  We pulled into Huntington Beach about a half hour later, which is the end of the "official" ride.

But after we had a coffee, one of the other club members and I still had to ride another 5 miles on the Coast Highway to get home.  This is where the real fun started.  At the last red light before a long stretch of open road, 2 other riders caught up to us.  You could tell by just looking at them that they where fast.  So when then the light turned green, my friend and I nodded at each other and immediately got on their wheels.  I guess we figured that even if they where the sensitive types who didn't like hangers-on, they wouldn't even notice us as we'd already have been dropped before it even occurred to them to glance back.

Trip mile/Split time/Split/MPH (Don't forget we had a tail wind)

But we didn't get dropped and stayed with them for the 4 miles until our turn off.  The first two miles are slightly uphill.  The second two are pretty much flat.  Why didn't I have this speed last weekend when I really needed it?  By the way, the guys where totally cool with giving us a free pull.

So yeah, this was a well timed and great ride - order in my biking world seems to have been restored.

The Ride...