I completed the OC Gran Fondo on October 8 but probably won't do it again. With so many great roads in Orange County we rode almost 25 miles of bike trails that were narrow and had pedestrians on them. I passed one accident that happened at the crest of one of the may underpasses and at least two people were down with Santa Ana ambulances and fire/rescue on the scene.
After the Santa Ana River Trail portion, the climbing began. It certainly was an eye opener to hit Cannon at almost 10% from the north side after cruising for over 30 miles of nearly dead flat road. Then onto Santiago Canyon, Live Oak Canyon, Glenn Ranch, Saddleback Ranch and finally returning through Santiago Canyon in the opposite direction. This portion was 38 miles of very challenging climbing with very few breaks and was the best part of the ride. Just to make things tougher, the last part of Santiago Canyon had a significant headwind.
Even the descent of Jamboree was made tough by headwinds strong enough that you had to pedal downhill! After the mild ascent on Portola Pkwy the most annoying part of the ride began. The last fifteen miles was just riding around Irvine for the sake of accumulating miles. Traffic, traffic lights, go that way three miles, then turn around and go back on yet another bike/pedestrian trail. That's about 1/3 of the century on bike trails. Gimme a break!
And blame me for not reading before signing on the dotted line... One of the beneficiaries of the proceeds is the St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Irvine. It doesn't sit right with me that the Catholic Church with its millions of dollars (after all, they offered to buy the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove) and its issues with child abuse should be the beneficiary of any of my hard earned money. I'm generally not one to force my personal opinions out in public but this has been gnawing at me for a couple of days.
The OC GranFondo has potential since it seems I'm always traveling somewhere else to do a century. However, the route needs a lot of improvement. And what's the deal with two port-a-potties at SAG stops with one of them zip tied locked? This was the case at two of the SAG stops. There it is again... Gimme a break!
Thanks to Bianchi but also a big thanks to A Road Bike 4U and Bike Religion.
Who sang the Star Spangled Banner at the start? That was awesome!
