I had to get a very old bike out, one that I hadn’t ridden in decades and was moribund, in order to set up some cleats. For over 25 years I’ve been exclusively using some variation of SPD cleats. Before that I was using Look Delta cleats on all my road bikes. They worked very well for me for many years. Between mountain biking, doing a lot more bicycle touring, and commuting by bike I ended up on SPDs because they’re much easier to walk on. Walking on Look cleats on smooth floors is an invitation to slip and fall. The negative heel is an annoyance also. But I have always liked the vise-like grip I had with Look black cleats so I thought I’d try them out again.
Except that the ancient Adidas Eddy Merckx shoes—they are 40 years old!—that had the Look cleats were worn and stretched out from tens of thousands of miles and I could barely fit in them now. I also can’t fit an orthotic in these old shoes. I was going to set up a new pair of shoes with Look Delta cleats. The last time I had Look cleats fitted was when the old City Cycle on Union Street was still run by Clay Mankin. He and his staff did an excellent job using a Fit Kit RAD (Rotational Adjustment Device) to get the cleats angled perfectly. I never had an issue of knee pain (except when I did something stupid). But Clay is dead and City Cycle as a uber-professional shop is long gone.
I came across a tool called Cleat Key, which clamps to a shoe with a Look cleat and then you can measure the angle you are toed-out or toed-in. I was able to use this to measure the angle of the cleats on the old shoes and to some degree replicate it on the new shoes.
I say “to some degree” because it turns out there is some artistry involved. I got the cleats mounted with the angle of the cleats the same as the angles on the old shoes. Then I did a test ride. It didn’t feel quite right—the left shoe felt like it was toed-out too much. But it wasn’t. I readjusted the cleat and tried again. Better but still not quite right. With the old shoes I didn’t feel like my foot wanted to move in or out—the cleat angle was just right.
Then I tried backing the angle down by half, which is a lot. It felt better. Hmm, that was not what I expected!
In looking at the two sets of shoes I noticed something for the first time: those old Adidas have a very aggressive heel lift whereas the new shoes have a flatter profile. This also fit with something I felt on this old bike: I was straining to reach the pedals on the downstroke with the new shoes. With the old shoes, pedaling didn’t feel odd and I wasn’t straining at the bottom of the pedal stroke. That was probably because the high heel lift gave me slightly more leg extension.
So my speculation is that the angle of toe-in/toe-out is also affected by the shape of the sole, specifically the amount of heel lift. Hence fitting new cleats involves some artistry. It’s not just a straightforward measure-and-replicate procedure.
I have a different tool for measuring cleats for my SPD shoes, made by Ergon. It’s essentially the same idea: measure the location of the cleat and the angle of your current shoes, then replicate it with the new shoes (or if you’re replacing just the cleats, on your old shoes). This has worked very well for me over the years and I never had to tweak the angle adjustment on a different pair of shoes. This is probably because SPD-compatible shoes are almost all MTB shoes and the soles are much flatter. Comparing the old Adidas shoes to some newer road shoes, the degree of heel lift on the Adidas is far more pronounced. Perhaps this has changed over the years in general. In addition most versions of SPD have some float so getting the toe-in/toe-out a little off is usually okay.
The lesson for me is that there is more subtlety involved in why things “work” or “don’t work” on a bicycle. Despite what you may have read or heard about fit and equipment, there are likely many more variables involved, some of which may yet be uncovered. This experience also reinforces a nascent belief that ultimately one should pay attention to how things feel rather than just the objective numbers.
That was all a long digression even if related, which it is. The old bike that had the Look pedals is one that I rode in all conditions. I commuted on it, rode centuries, did errands, you name it. Since it’s an old ten-speed bike it had 20 mm tires—yes, 20 mm, a size you can’t even buy anymore. Tires that narrow were common back in the ‘80s and 90s. They felt fast as long as you pumped them up to pressures that today seem ridiculous. In my case it was 95 front/105 rear PSI. At that pressure they felt rock hard when you pressed on the tread. I hadn’t ridden on this bike in I don’t know how many decades; the tires and tubes probably go back to the mid-1990s. But I pumped them up and they held pressure, so I took it out for a spin in the neighborhood to check out the cleat alignment on my new shoes.
The bike felt great! This was a light bike by 1980s standards. But today it wouldn’t even qualify. It’s so old it doesn’t have a freehub—it has a heavy, steel, 7-speed freewheel. So when you pick up the rear wheel it feels like a boat anchor. But the wheels have light rims and those incredibly narrow—and hence light—tires and tubes. So the bike just zings even uphill. Surprisingly those narrow tires did not feel horrible. I was expecting that at those astronomical pressures it would feel like I was riding on steel rather than rubber. Instead it felt comfortable. Admittedly a big part of that comfort is attributable to the design of the frame and fork. After over a decade of riding big rubber—30 mm wide or more—I thought riding 20mm tires would be hellish. It wasn’t. Which makes sense because my recollection of riding them was that it was pretty “normal”.
This isn’t to say that riding 20 mm tires is no different than riding 28 mm tires. It’s definitely noticeable. But it can be a difference in degree, not in kind, and if you’re on reasonable asphalt narrow tires can feel very, very fast particularly when you have light rims. They just spin up quickly and feel nimble and spritely. And as mentioned, the rest of the bicycle affects how those narrow tires actually feel.
Contrary to our previous belief that narrow tires are faster than wider tires, we have evidence that the opposite is at least sometimes true, i.e. wider tires such as 28, 32, 35, and even 40 mm tires can be just as fast or faster than a 20 or 23 mm tire. So right now there is a trend to switch to wide rubber. This has been such a sea change that 20 mm tires are no longer available from any of the major bicycle tire manufacturers.
Until about 2005 I wasn’t willing to ride anything wider than 23 mm; 25 mm width tires seemed enormous and overkill. Plus, they were heavier. Now I’m mostly riding on 30 mm, often on 35 or 42 mm tires. The trade off for their plush comfort is that those tires are heavier and they require more effort to accelerate on the flats or uphill.
Almost all discussions about tire widths focus on speed. If you’re racing, then that’s a legitimate concern. But as recreational riders the remit we give our tires is more complex. Given the choice all other things being equal, cyclists will go for lighter. But we also don’t like to be beaten to death over bumps and pavement irregularities, which are increasingly common in decaying Bay Area roads. How fast or slow a tire feels and how comfortable or uncomfortable they seem are, for recreational riders, subjective evaluations. Something that feels fast may be objectively slower. What is comfortable for one cyclist may not be for another. I happen to live in a community with one of the highest pavement quality indices in the Bay Area, i.e. I get to ride on really good asphalt most of the time. Going out for a ride on 20 mm tires is a very pleasant experience—zippy, fast, and moderately comfortable. Conversely when I ride in Sonoma county, which has some of the worst PQI numbers, e.g. Sebastopol is 50 (the PQI scale is 0 to 100 with 100 being the best), I’m on at least 30 mm tires. Since I don’t care to swap tires or even wheels when I go for rides—that’s way too much work!—I stick with the 30 mm tires all the time.
Like with the shoes and cleats, tires are to a great degree a question of feel and what we prefer rather than an objectively determined decision. It’s worth trying different width tires (and pressures) and seeing what you like the best for different conditions. So experimentation is worth it since it’s ultimately a personal decision. And pay attention to your bike setup if you change shoes or cleats!
Today I read this review of the new Pirelli tire at cyclingweekly.com. Road tires keep getting fatter and fatter. This one is 40 mm wide, which makes me wonder when we’ll get to the “too wide” red line for road bikes since 28 mm tires seemed positively bloated just three years ago and we’re already settling on 30 mm as the new normal with 32 mm tires starting to edge in. Nancy already rides 32 mm and I envy her. Of course the problem for many of us is that when you have short reach rim brakes, which was the norm until gravel bikes hit the scene, you’re pretty much done at 28 mm. Anything wider and you’re looking at getting a bike with disc brakes or possibly a bike that can take medium reach brakes such as a Rivendell.
But this isn’t a post about tire widths. It’s about tire fitment. The writer of the review said the following: “…the P-Zeros are one of the hardest tyres I have ever had to fit. I had at least half a dozen attempts and a good couple of hours of wrestling. Two of the chunkiest tyre levers I own finally got them over the line, and sheer brute force. This incredible tight fit meant that there were little to no arguments when it came to inflation, as they popped up almost instantly with a track pump and sealed straight away – a silver lining, despite my red, raw hands.”
Two hours to fit a tire on a rim–is this a joke? Now imagine yourself on the road and having to fit a flat with this tire and having to get the tire off and back on the rim.
In fairness to Pirelli this tire occupies a murky grey area between road and all-road/gravel. So the likelihood that it’s intended to be used tubeless is fairly high. It also has flat protection belts. So getting a flat is probably less likely than with a light, thin road tire. If you set them up tubeless, then hopefully you won’t have to demount the tires and the sealant will do its job or you’re carrying a Dynaplug. Yet I have used Continental Gatorskins and even Specialized Armadillos, which are highly flat resistant, and flatted them.
The other stupid development forcing the use of extremely tight tires is hookless rims. These reduce the margin of error for fitment even more so that tire manufacturers have to protect their ass by producing tire beads so tight so that the average consumer not blow them off a hookless rim.
The development of such ridiculously tight fitting tires is not a good thing. You should be able to do a roadside repair with any tire and the Pirelli and its ilk are a step backward. If you’re racing, fine. But that’s a special use case. For everyday riders being able to handle a tire repair on the road is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. I don’t have a team car behind me to swap out my bike when I get a flat. Tires like the Pirelli make roadside repair next to impossible and that is patently stupid.
Portable battery powered bike pumps are now officially a “thing”. Previously a novelty they are now center stage as the next bike toy to market to the masses, at least the masses who stay up with trendy things. It seems anything electric will sell these days. Shifters? No mechanical cables for me—I have wireless! Rear view mirror? No thanks, I’ve got Varia radar! Minipump? Nope, now I’ve got a battery powered inflator!
I admit I originally approached the arrival of battery pumps with disinterest and rolling eyes thinking, “No one needs this stuff!” Yet curiosity got the better of me when I found out you can get one with a digital pressure gauge and a battery powerful enough to inflate four road tires from zero to 90.
I was never a fan of CO2 cartridges because it’s one-and-done in the negative sense: after you’ve blasted your cartridge you have nothing left to do a roadside repair except rely on the benevolence of your ride mates. If you’re alone, then you’ll have to call for a ride or if you’re lucky, do a short walk to the nearest bike shop. When I carry a CO2 inflator, which isn’t often, I always have at least two cartridges and I also carry a pump. I am less interested in saving weight as much as I was in saving my arm from pumping 250 exhausting strokes on a minipump. Although incurring two flats on a ride is a low probability event, it does happen. Or at least it’s happened to me. More than once, which may say something about how poorly I ride or that it just sucks to be me.
The best solution I’ve found is a “minipump” that you can pump like a floor pump such as the Topeak Morphe. There’s even a model with a gauge. But it’s about twice the size and weight of a typical minipump. It makes short and easy work of inflating and it’s always there for your multiple flats. But it is heavier than a minipump and it’s ungainly and immediately puts you in the Fred zone. As someone who loves his helmet mirror, helmet visor, and bell that’s the last thing I should be concerned about. That Topeak has saved my ass many times.
Let’s see–press a button or do 200 arm pumps?
But what if you could have it all, or almost all? Battery inflators are getting there. They’re not any heavier than a decent minipump. The fredly Topeak Morphe G that I love is 220 grams; the battery powered inflator is 161. The Lezyne Gauge Drive HV, which is a decent minipump is 140 grams; the Silca Tattico, which is either at or near the top of the heap of minipumps, is 165 grams. So there. The inflator I bought can inflate four tires and the bigger model even more. And all you have to do is push a button and sit back.
On an impulse buy—it was on sale—I snagged a Cycplus inflator, the middle sized model AS2 Pro. (The small size has no gauge and I think does only two tires.) I haven’t had to use it roadside yet but I’ve been playing around with it and I’m impressed. It doesn’t take long to charge up, well less than an hour. It’s a simple press-on Presta/Schrader head or you can use a separate hose that allows you hold the little beast away from the spokes. You set the pressure you want and then hit the start button. What ensues is a startling racket as the little motor is loud. This is not a pump you’re going to want to use indoors unless you want to wake the dead. Your family members and your dog or cat will hate it. It pumps up your tire faster than a minipump. Your arms get a vacation and no reminder that going to the gym might be a good idea. You will also notice that the little pump gets pretty hot from the adiabatic effect; hence the rubber cover to shield your dainty fingers.
I’ve used it on tires with butyl and TPU inner tubes and it’s fine. I haven’t tried it on tubeless tires yet but I imagine it will work as well. The inflation rate is steady—about 2 psi per second—so most likely you will not be able to use a battery pump to set your tubeless tires unless you have a really stellar fit between your rim and tire. I’d be a little concerned about getting tire sealant into the pump because it’s not a cheap device. They run about $100. Nonetheless a hundred dollars is a hundred dollars when you get a decent minipump for about $50 or less.
If you’re not running tubeless, then by the time you eventually get that hella tight tire off the rim, insert a replacement tube and then wrestle the tire bead back onto the rim, your thumbs and arms are probably done for the day. Or maybe you just have weak, scrawny arms that are better for lifting a cocktail than applying force to a minipump 200+ times. You are not going to regret having a battery powered inflator.
Of course it’s another battery powered device, which means that if you forget to charge it or the electronics go south, you’ve got just a brick. At least it isn’t a heavy brick. (That’s why I carry a pump too: always have a plan B.)
Do I trust this device? Yeah, sort of. For short rides near home I’m good. But for longer rides especially if I’m away from home I’m still carrying a pump because, y’know, boy scout and be prepared. Maybe at some future point I’ll be so utterly confident that I’ll forego the pump. But it’s awesome not to have to pump at all for just 161 grams of extra weight!
There is little doubt in my mind that battery pumps are going to make CO2 obsolete for all but racing, when time is of the essence. And since you can’t carry CO2 cartridges on a plane, for travel the battery pump is the way to go. It has a USB-C port so just charge it up with your iPhone charger. (Sadly no magnetic induction charging. Yet.)
You may have noticed that everybody and their brother is coming out with battery inflators. You might notice that they almost all have the same form factor and seem to have more than a passing resemblance to each other. My guess is that they are likely all coming from the same factory in China with some minor design and branding differences. They probably all work more or less the same.
Get one. You won’t regret it.
Maybe the next time we give prizes at a membership meeting a lucky soul will walk away with a new pump…
I did a “gravel ride” recently that had me mulling over this genre of cycling. In our area is gravel biking any different than mountain biking? Clearly in the Midwest, where gravel biking was created, it is different. The Midwest is not mountainous and has an immense network of farm roads that are not paved and usually covered with gravel. When folks go gravel riding here, they’re riding on fire roads and trails that we’ve been riding with mountain bikes (and sometimes just our road bikes). It’s not like “gravel” roads are appearing out of nowhere in the Bay Area. Although gravel is used to patch fire roads and some trails, long sections of pure gravel in the Bay Area are like hen’s teeth. So is there any reason to get a gravel bike at all?
The loop I did is similar to a loop that Grizzly Peak Cyclists does every Thursday on their regular mixed terrain ride: up Pinehurst to the East Ridge Trail and then climb to Skyline before entering Sibley Volcanic Park to roam about and then drop steeply into the Wilder subdivision of Orinda. In total it’s about 22 miles. I had ridden East Ridge before but only going downhill; I’ve ridden in Sibley a fair amount but hadn’t gone into Wilder, which is technically private property.
I did this ride on a Cannondale Slate, which if you’re not familiar, is an older all-road bike. A concession to dirt is the 42mm slick tires and front suspension with about one inch of travel. That suspension is only good for smoothing out small bumps. In contrast my mountain bike has 53mm knobby tires and a lot lower gearing, 22 gear-inches versus a high 33 on the Slate.
The advantage of this kind of bike is that riding pavement is not a lot different than riding on a road bike. Getting to East Ridge was relatively easy. If I had been on my mountain bike it literally would have been a drag. The fatter, knobbier tires are great in the dirt but less so on asphalt. I don’t do any pure dirt riding nor do I drive to a trailhead to ride. So some kind of bike with more road-like gearing and quicker tires are better on the paved sections even if they’re not optimal for dirt. But once I started climbing on East Ridge I immediately felt at a disadvantage. It’s a stairstep climb with multiple short, steep sections broken up by flatter and sometimes even downhill sections. I could have used that lower gearing on the steep sections. The surface was also highly variable even though East Ridge is a fire road. The surface is rutted by runoff and it hasn’t seen a grader in many a year (if ever); and you encounter every kind of dry surface imaginable except for a rock garden: sand, slick rock, hardpacked clay, inconsistent gravel, debris rocks, and lots of ruts. The inconsistent surface meant I had to be attentive to my weight distribution to steer straight, not lose my front or rear wheel, and not topple over. In other words, it was just like mountain biking. The major difference was that I was on drop bars instead of flat bars. Did I mention I was undergeared?
East Ridge looks like a remnant fire road—it’s quite wide—but I had forgotten how steep it is. I was immediately in my lowest gear and struggling to spin up the first section, which is quite steep. The trail stairsteps up for almost its entire distance alternating very steep with flatter and even a few short downhill sections. But the steep sections were rutted from runoff and the surface wildly varied from sandy to rocky to slicker rock and there was plenty of pebble sized gravel here and there. The trail looks like it hasn’t seen a grader in years. In a couple of places the park district had dumped a lot of loose gravel and spread it out, and it was definitely trickier to stay upright. It was very challenging for me, much more technical than I was expecting. If you were introduced to gravel biking thinking it was just going to be road riding except on non-asphalt, you would have been rudely made aware that this kind of gravel riding is actually mountain biking. The only thing missing was a serious rock garden with baby heads.
Fortunately it was in the late afternoon when most walkers and cyclists would have finished their jaunt already. So there was little traffic, which was good since I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to keep a straight line trying to stay upright while navigating a host of obstacles and sketchy terrain. Someone bombing downhill would have presented just another trail hazard (or vice versa).
In my pain reverie I heard the distinctive whirring sound and was gently passed by two people on e-mountain bikes. They didn’t look like newbies either—they were pedaling smoothly. At that moment boy, I wished I had one too! (er, of course I mean a mountain bike!)
There were sections I wish I had a dropper post. The steep pitches especially the ones through ruts and rocks (which was almost all of them) would have been safer if I had been able to move my butt back easily in order not to go over the bars and to keep more weight over the rear wheel. This was really important on the gravelly downhill sections when I could have easily lost control of either wheel.
Sibley presented similar issues although in general it wasn’t as steep. I usually ride Sibley on a cross bike with 35 mm tires and it is fine because the dirt roads weren’t horribly rutted and were mostly hardpacked dirt. But currently there is a thin layer of gravel on some of the roads making it not only bumpier but also more treacherous on slicks.
Behind Sibley to the east is Wilder. You exit Sibley through a gate where you’re informed you’re entering private property. Wilder originally was intended to be a gated community a la Blackhawk. But I believe the developer went bankrupt (or so they say) and the city seems to have brokered an arrangement where the community is no longer gated. But I’m not sure how legal that trail is. On the other side of the gate is a straight, old-fashioned singletrack that is a steep downhill (>15%), rutted, rocky, and for extra fun has a super quick hairpin where you can practice quickly hoisting your front wheel to avoid launching into space. I was tightly on the brakes the entire way down. (This is why disc brakes are a godsend for mountain biking.) When I got to the streets of Wilder there was no indication that this was an actual trail other than a couple of orange traffic cones placed on the curb. The views were great but I was more focused on not crashing!
Now in Wilder it was surface streets until I got near the back entrance where the paved road ends and it becomes an emergency exit/entrance. There the road is a broad section of thick gravel completely covering the entire width of the street. Now that was more like what you’d find in the Midwest. 42 mm slicks might be fine for packed dirt but I would have felt a lot less anxious if I had had my mountain bike with its 53 mm tires. I carefully traversed the gravel section and eventually got onto Orinda streets where it was asphalt all the way home.
Overall I would have been better off on my ancient mountain bike that doesn’t have a whit of suspension. The lower gearing, fatter and knobbier tires, plus the longer wheelbase would have been better for these fire roads and trails. Getting to the trailhead on a mountain bike is certainly possible. But one of the reasons you see lots of mountain bikers driving their rigs to the start is that dirt bikes are just ponderous and slow on pavement. I used to ride my mountain bike from the City to the Headlands or Tam all the time. But that was all pre-suspension when a mountain bike would roll like a road bike except you were on knobbies. Joan certainly has no problems hammering her full suspension mountain bike on the roads. But she’s a pretty smooth pedaler and rarely stands—she just spins faster if she wants to accelerate.
There just comes a point where a “gravel” bike is overwhelmed by trail conditions and you’re better off with something that can handle gnarlier terrain. This is probably why gravel bikes are evolving in the direction of mountain bikes: really slack head angles, long top tubes, dropper post, one-by, suspension—basically becoming drop bar mountain bikes. But why not just ride a mountain bike if you need that much dirt technology? And around here that’s mostly what we have for gravel riding. What I’m seeing now is gravel bikes primarily being ridden on the road but then used to hop onto shorter sections of non-pavement; basically gravel bikes around here are used as all road bikes. It’s ironic because when mountain bikes hit the scene folks were riding them all the time on pavement because they were more comfortable bikes. Now I’m seeing the same thing with gravel bikes. The fatter tires, longer wheelbase, and more upright posture make road riding more enjoyable.
If you’re thinking of getting a gravel bike for riding on dirt around here, you may want to consider something closer to the mountain bike side. Or else just get a mountain bike—it’s not going to hold you back at all. However if you’re like me and ride a lot of pavement to get to the dirt, you’ll need to think about the compromises you may have to incur. Or else stay on the easier dirt byways and leave the gnarlier stuff for your mountain bike. If you live in SF and your dirt riding is mostly going to be the Headlands and maybe some fire roads on Tam, what are marketed as gravel bikes will likely be a good choice since most of that is broad, flat fire roads with little technical stuff. Just make sure you’ve got low gearing!
Ed. Chris, the ride host for June’s Jersey Ride, submitted the following.
“We had a good mix of riders in age range and pacing. Kate, Sara, and Alden took off, being veterans of ALC. I believe they did last year’s ALC but not this year’s. David G. took off as well on the hills of Paradise Drive. I tried to keep up until the cold realization that he’s on the Short & Sassy and I had better save some for the return trip and climb up to the Golden Gate Bridge. I definitely hadn’t quite recovered from the Three Bears ride, led by Nancy and Cathy, the previous weekend. We lingered a bit longer over lunch. Everyone seemed excited to be part of this ride and catching up socially. I paid dearly on the ride home but we got safely back in the Castro by 2:30 PM.”
Members can see more photos of the ride on the club website.
I had a fabulous time on Cathy and Nancy’s Three Bears ride this past weekend. Since this ride is in my town it’s hardly new territory for me. That said I tend to take it for granted as it’s generally a ho-hum ride for me since I’ve done it a zillion times. The Three Bears is the East Bay’s Tiburon loop. For out-of-towners Tib loop is wonderful. But if you live in SF it’s such a go-to route that it fades into the background of your awareness and even becomes dreadfully boring. But doing a ride alone and doing it with friends makes all the difference in the world.
It’s also one of our lucky, stuck-in-the-middle-of-the-suburbs rides that doesn’t feel like that at all. It’s mostly rural road because development isn’t allowed to happen. A big portion of the ride abuts East Bay Municipal Utility District land and its watershed so it’s essentially unblemished. Having San Pablo and Briones reservoirs as scenery doesn’t hurt either. The rest of the adjacent land is ranches—a scattering of cows, horse stables, and scattered homes. The one oddity is a Jewish cemetery stuck between two ranches. It’s always rather quiet and peaceful, disturbed only by the sports cars and motos who use Alhambra Valley Road and Bear Creek Road to practice laps. You can ride the Three Bears for relaxation, for training hard—it has a series of short, challenging inclines for long intervals or threshold workouts—or to get away from civilization.
The Three Bears loop is not without its blemishes. The most distressing is that San Pablo Dam Road is slowly slumping into the reservoir. The wet winter of 2023 caused more serious damage to the roadway including one big slump, and although some of it has been “repaired” it’s immediately apparent to any cyclist avoiding the plethora of obstacles—big cracks, uplifting, roadway debris, broken bollards—that the road could use some love from a paver. But the county doesn’t have the dough for such a major repair, so this is our new normal. The second bit of ugliness, which we didn’t have to abide this past weekend much to my amazement, is that sections of the Alhambra Valley Road and Bear Creek are dumping grounds for household furniture and appliances. I’ve counted as many as 15 big piles on one ride. But this time I didn’t see any. I did notice that there is now a big sign posted with phone numbers to report illegal dumping; at one point there was a security cam placed at one location that was often the site of a truckful of crap time after time.
In addition to the co-leaders Cathy and Nancy, were Stephanie, Michelle, Chris, Peter, and I. The weather was partly cloudy but it soon became full sun and the temperature never strayed from comfortable. I almost didn’t make this ride due to hosting guests from Germany for the past week, leaving us with a raft of delayed household tasks. But a half-hour before the start I decided to take a break from being rushed and dutiful and instead indulge in the company of fellow Spokers after a week of non-riding.
I had a chance to chat with almost everybody at some point. I really appreciate the effort Nancy and Cathy are putting into leading rides this summer. They’re testing out routes and if they like them, they’ll post them on our ride calendar. You should definitely keep your eyes open for more of their enjoyable forays! Cathy now has more free time to ride so we should be seeing more of her. Peter’s sporting a new bike full of the latest greatest and apparently is able to ride more now that his hip seems to be somewhat under control. Apparently that is why he has rejoined the club too.
For me this was a social ride full of conversation and with little intent to go fast or keep up; in fact much of the time I was in the back. Back in the day my rides with Different Spokes were “social” in the sense that the animals all went fast but we chatted when we occasionally slowed down. Being in grad school and working part time wasn’t conducive to hanging out much after rides since I always had to be somewhere or hit the books. I’ve slowed down considerably in both senses and riding amiably and chatting are one of my favorite pastimes now.
Despite being contradicted by other riders I am not convinced that the one short but steep hill on Castro Ranch Road is not Baby Bear. Yes, it’s not on Bear Creek Road. But the other little lumps sandwiched between Mama, Papa, and San Pablo Dam Road can’t all be Baby Bear even though bears actually can have litters of three cubs. In order not to do damage to the story of Goldilocks, my vote is still for the ugly lump on Castro Ranch Road as the one and only official Baby Bear.
We stopped on Alhambra Valley Road so that some could remove excess wardrobe and there I noticed how striking the few oak trees stood against the now dun colored hills and the blue sky. Usually I’m enamored of the lush green grass and poppies we get in spring. But even the dry season has its beauty. While on Mama we stopped to take in the view of Briones Reservoir, which is currently full to the brim to get ready for the summer heat.
For a change Cathy and Nancy added Old El Toyonal after the Bears. To get there of course you have to go up Wildcat Canyon Road, which is currently still closed to cars but open to bicyclists. But that will end this July when the county finally will begin the repair of the collapsed section, at which point the bottom of the road will be closed completely until construction is done. The bottom of Wildcat is fairly steep but not horrible. Without cars it’s a dream. If only we had more roads like this! If you think Wildcat is steep, try climbing up the only other alternative, El Toyonal, which has multiple sections greater than 15%! At Old El Toyonal we cut left by the horse stables, which was bustling with activity and continued up, again without cars. Nancy remarked that OET reminded her of Morgan Territory Road and that is indeed an apt comparison (especially now that Morgan got a long needed repaving a couple of years ago!) OET is quiet, almost completely hidden under tall trees, and a challenging uphill climb as well. Once we turned onto El Toyonal we dropped by the manse where I bid the group “tata”. What a nice morning! To those of you who forwent this ride, please join Nancy and Cathy for their next social adventure!
Michael John, Gay Freedom Day,June 26, 1983, DSSF Parade contingent
Michael John was one of the early members of the club and served as the ChainLetter editor as well as the club’s second president. He was instrumental in the creation, production, and execution of the first AIDS Bike-A-Thon in 1985. In addition he was a prolific ride leader, created many of the club’s early iconic rides, and led several long distance tours. He currently lives in North Carolina with his husband. In this interview he talks about being a member of the club, the origin of the first AIDS Bike-A-Thon, and how both indelibly affected his life.
HOW THE FIRST AIDS BIKE-A-THON CAME TO BE
AM: My understanding is that the club was approached by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, which was fairly new at the time, and they wanted help with an event and that you and Bob Humason were the leads or somehow the two of you were critically involved in negotiating with the AIDS Foundation.
MJ: Well, I have a very vivid recollection of the whole thing. My memory usually isn’t this good but I believe I have a really good recollection of it and I’ve never lost it because it was such a monumental event for us.
AM: Yeah, and the club was new.
MJ: It was new and we had to do a lot fast, as you know. I remember even where I was when Bob Humason gave me that phone call. So let me start from the beginning. What I have in front of me is the original article in the Bay Area Reporter, which they wrote a really good article. I know you’ve seen it numerous times. So anyways I thought it was early March, it could have been late February [when the SFAF contacted the club]. The BAR article says that they thought it was about a six-week period between when Bob was contacted and we actually had the event. So I’ll go with late February. And I received a phone call from Bob Humason. It was in the middle of the afternoon and he told me the whole idea. He told me first he got a call from who I believe was Ken Jones of the SFAF.
Now, the two people from the Foundation that were key to us were Ken Jones and Ricky Johnson. So evidently I think someone from the AIDS Foundation must have written this article with the BAR because it went into the following issue. It seems that Ricky Johnson or Ken Jones called Bob Humason and I believe it was Ken Jones; he was the Volunteer Coordinator. Ricky Johnson was connected to the Foundation. He was like the nurse. The article says that Ricky Johnson came up with the idea, that he would organize the bike-a-thon to raise money for AIDS, for the fight for AIDS, and Ken Jones told Ricky to organize the whole thing and get back to him.
So I bet it was Ricky who called Bob Humason, and Bob Humason took the whole information down and called me right away because I had just given up the president role to him. So he wanted to ask my opinion of all this. He said, “I don’t know if we should take this whole thing on or not”, and I, the eternal optimist and cheerleader, said “Of course we’re gonna do this because this will be fantastic for the club because we will get so much publicity and we’ll get a lot of new members!” That’s all I cared about, I guess, and so we agreed after our conversation that we would go with it. He and I basically split the whole task of working with the Foundation about 50-50. He was the main contact of course because he was president and he was the one running the show. But I was like his right-hand man. I would be the one who would do things like make up the maps, contact and organize the sag wagons, and come up with the plan of what the route would be like, and I think we had already done a 100-mile route to Guerneville and back with the club. You would have to check again the ChainLetters to see when the actual first ride all the way to Fife’s was. [AM: It was July 15-17, 1983.] I organized the very first Fife’s camping trip as well as the Apple Blossom ride, by the way, and so it was kind of a given that we knew already it was exactly 100 miles from the Castro to Fife’s. It was uncanny. We already knew that. So it was a given that we would use that route for the Bike-A-Thon. We wouldn’t have to come up with anything new.
So, we got the wheels in motion, the Foundation was all excited, very good communication between us, the club was gungho. But we had to work really fast: we had the route in order and we had plenty of volunteers outside and within the club, and there were all kinds of organizations who the Foundation had to give us a hand, like sag wagons and setting up food tables and so on. Laurie McBride is in the article as someone who drove one of the vans. [AM: Who was Laurie McBride?] There were people from all over the city who helped with this. It was a big event. It was so new.
Ken Jones, SFAF, with Bob Humason and Michael John.
AM: That was one of my questions. It was only two months and I know that subsequent Bike-A-Thons took almost a year to pull together. And it’s always amazed me: how did this happen that you got the logistics all organized in such a short period of time—food, and tables, the sag wagons, and the First Aids stations? It was like it all magically came together so quickly and it sounds like you guys were able to tap into a preexisting network or set of services that were out there that were willing to volunteer.
MJ: It is a good question. How did we pull it off within like six to eight weeks? I think it was closer to six weeks. I just think it was youthful ambition. I was very motivated, Bob Humason was very motivated, and we got motivation from our club. I remember we had a lot of people, just helping out as much as they could and so for however we pulled it off we did things like organize where the food stops were going to be along the way. We suggested where we should end the route and the original concept was Fife’s. [AM: Fife’s is now Dawn Ranch.] You brought this up in one of your questions. I even have it on the original notes that I made for the riders that we crossed out Fife’s and put in Molly Brown’s. [AM: Molly Brown’s is now the site of Autocamp.] So that must have been a kind of last-minute change. I don’t recall why we would jump from Fife’s to Molly Brown’s but Molly Brown’s had more of a facility for handling buses and running cars and bikes and all that stuff, a big parking lot in front. If I’m correct I think Fife’s was owned by Molly Brown’s or vice versa. So it was easy to do that. I believe the reason it shifted from Fife’s to Molly Brown’s was strictly logistics and if I’m not mistaken the two are owned by the same owners. It makes a lot more sense. It is very possible we had already planned- or I should say that the AIDS Foundation did all this: they planned the celebration the next day. They put that whole thing together, on Sunday. That was their deal. It was kinda like Different Spokes did Saturday along with their assistance and our direction, and they did everything on Sunday. Our job was done when we arrived in Guerneville.
AM: Okay. By the way I went though all the old ChainLetters and wrote down a list of all the rides and that first Guerneville Overnighter was on July 15th through 17th of 1983.
MJ: Okay, so that was the year I started with the club and I would have organized that. So you’re right: we had that route under our belt already. So anyways- oh and another thing we did: I remember a couple of days before the ride like a Wednesday or Thursday before the ride, I can remember a crew of us going on the entire hundred-mile route and spraypainting the road with arrows, with markers. So we had that all together because we wanted to make sure we didn’t lose anybody. We didn’t lose anyone. So there was only one route that year, it was the one-hundred mile route and it was marked and we told the Foundation where to station the vans for food. They organized all the food. So they were the ones who fed us. That was not a Different Spokes thing if I remember correctly. I’m sure it was not. They were so grateful to us for actually being able to pull the logistics of the ride off, they were bending over backwards to make sure that the riders had everything that we needed. And I will never forget that. Ricky Johnson and Ken Jones especially, those two were the two people from the Foundation we were in contact with all the time, and they made sure that we had everything that we thought we would need for this ride.
Jerry Walker, center, Mrs. Field’s Cookie Ride, September 4, 1983
AM: Also it was my understanding that Jerry Walker [Club member and original owner of the Freewheel Bike Shop on Hayes] was providing repairs or some kind of bike maintenance service for people. Do you recall if he was traveling along the road or was he stationed in one place or were there were other bike shops involved or how did the mechanical assistance thing work on that ride?
MJ: I think he was the only person available for that kind of thing, for bike repairs and bike needs. I don’t recall— it was Jerry, right? Okay, so Jerry Walker was the one who must have come up to us and said, “I’ll have this repair station.” I’m sure that’s right. Or he could have been in a mobile van but I doubt it because we had no communication.
AM: Ah, okay no radio.
MJ: No radios. As far as I remember we had no communication: it was just us. We were on the road and we were going from point A to point B and that was it. It’s hard to believe I’m sure. A lot of people say, “How did you do this with no cell phones et cetera?” How we could do this without being able to talk to each other? Well, we did it all the time.
AM: Well, in those days you know the centuries that were being put on by bicycle clubs they did have radio support. But it was always from getting help from some ham radio group that was in the town or community that these clubs existed in. But there were no cells phones then.
MJ: Right, there was nothing like that, not that I can remember. No one would have owned one. I think the guy I worked for at the time he had one of those big shoe box sized cell phones. But we were pretty much on our own.
AM: What about the publicity? The club decides to do this thing and I know that the club had a table in front of Hibernia Beach to recruit people and I guess you were going around with flyers to bike shops. Bob Krumm had mentioned to me that he recruited members for the club by putting little flyers on bikes whenever he saw one in the Castro, “Hey, there’s this new gay bike club starting up!” I’m wondering how did the word get out about the ride.
Riders of the first AIDS Bike-A-Thon
MJ: Well, I’m looking at the list: we had 62 riders. [AM: There were actually 63 riders who started and 57 completed the ride. The BAR was incorrect.] Most of those people were probably Spokers and we just talked it up. I think the word just spread like wildfire within the bike club because we had only a monthly newsletter if that, and we just would get on the phone. I guess Bob and I decided that for this to be a success for the Foundation—because it was all for them, it wasn’t for us—we would have to do our best to recruit as many bicyclists as we could and I can kinda remember when we reached the 62 point total number, we were pretty floored that there were that many people who were gonna try and do this. So we somehow got that word out; we probably had a table but to be honest if we had any promotion at all it was probably just a table at Hibernia Beach. We just didn’t have the mechanics and the stuff to do much more than that. [AM: Two-thirds of the riders were club members.]
AM: It’s also my understanding that when the riders got to Guerneville they were provided lodging. Was that true?
MJ: Oh yes! That was another thing that the AIDS Foundation did for us. Again that was something that we needed. We said we’re gonna need accommodations and the Foundation was able to contact enough guest houses for everyone to have a place and I’m not talking about camping at Fife’s! I’m talking about cabins, inns, or guest houses. I was one of the lucky ones who stayed up at the Elfen Lodge. There were about six or eight of us who stayed up there. But the Foundation, being who they were, had a lot of pull and all they had to do was make some phone calls and I guess there were a lot of inns who just donated a number of rooms. People bunked up in them and I don’t recall anyone who stayed in any place other than the ones we stayed in. So I can’t vouch for any of that stuff. But I do remember I stayed with Bob Humason and a few other people, maybe Tom Walther, at Elfen Lodge, which was a real- one of these fairy places. It was very cute. I have some pictures of us staying there.
MJ at the Elfen Lodge after the Bike-A-Thon
They were very accommodating. We were tired as all get-out. By the time we got up to Elfen we were so tired. When we got to Molly Brown’s, the Foundation did have a spread for us and then we just went up to Elfen and crashed. Then we got up the next morning and we were just kind of leisurely relaxing, and there was a time when we were supposed to get to Molly Brown’s to start the thank-you event. It was the appreciation event. And that’s how the Foundation billed it: as an appreciation event. They not only arranged to have accommodations for all the riders—comfortable accommodations!—they also provided buses for all the riders to get back to the city with their bikes.
AM: That was my other question. I know there was some way that people were brought back from Guerneville. So it was buses and that was organized by the AIDS Foundation?
MJ: Yes, again everything that happened on Sunday was the AIDS Foundation thing. All we did was hang out in our Speedos and just have a good time. [laughs] So again I remember everyone getting on a bus and heading back. It wasn’t until mid to late afternoon that that all happened. It was a number of hours of appreciation, talks, just good time stuff and we just kinda hung out. It was great!
AM: Now you didn’t ride on Saturday? You were obviously doing logistical type stuff and zooming around on the road in a car or something. Is that correct?
MJ: No, I was riding ‘cause I had pledges! I actually rode that day and Bob did too. We had the act all together. We were so confident, I guess. We had all of our ducks in order, the riders, that we felt comfortable enough taking our pledges and joining in and being two of the 62 riders. No, both of us rode up ‘cause I remember getting there. I remember getting there around 5 o’clock. The Foundation’s name for the ride, the original name, was “Pedaling for Pride in ’85” and it became the Bike-A-Thon, in fact the event was a generic bike-a-thon. We called it the Bike-A-Thon. I don’t remember how it all happened but their original name for it was called the Pedaling for Pride event, the entire weekend Saturday and Sunday.
BEING A MEMBER OF DIFFERENT SPOKES
AM: I also have just a few questions about you personally. How did you get involved with Different Spokes?
MJ: I decided to go from solo bicycling in San Francisco to a club and when I found out that this club existed—and I wasn’t a club joiner at the time. It was 1983, I believe. I remember going to my first club meeting and saying, “These are my soulmates here! My people!” I used to do everything on my own, ride a bicycle, but I thought it would be a lot more fun to do it with a lot more people and it just became a big deal for me personally. I was a real developmental thing for myself personally. I changed a lot and as you can imagine I really got into it. Bob Krumm was president at the time, I made a lot of friends in the club, I organized a number of rides that kept me involved and by the end of the year I was approached to run for president, president for ’84.
AM: But you were the ChainLetter editor at some point too. Was that before or after you were president?
MJ: That was probably before ‘cause I was working in a situation where I could take that over. I don’t think I took it over while I was president, I was doing plenty then. [AM: MJ actually was the ChainLetter Editor and President concurrently.] I think I had already started doing it. Someone else was doing the ChainLetter. Peter Renteria I think was doing the ChainLetter before I did. One question after another and before you know it the club is saying, “Well, you can take it over if you want!” This was before I was involved with desktop publishing as it was known at the time and I loved graphics design and layout. So it was natural for me to take on the newsletter project. It was all typewritten and then xeroxed or mimeographed or however we did it back then, it was amazing, and then I had my hands on a Macintosh computer around 1985—I think it was around then— and that’s when I could do it on the computer by using Pagemaker. Wow. And so that was kind of a fun thing for me. That was my kind of extracurricular activity for Different Spokes, was editing the ChainLetter.
AM: At some point you left the club. Do you remember when that was?
MJ: Yeah, I did three long distance rides and the last one was ’87 so I was involved with the club at least through the fall of ’87. Now in 1988 was when I started living with somebody who needed my personal attention because he was sick. We were dating. I had lost my partner and he had lost his and we met up at a Shanti grievance group. Remember those things? And we fell together as a couple, Lee and I did, in 1988. So when I was with Lee for four years, ’88 to ’92, that’s when I didn’t make as much time for the bike club. I spent very little time with the club. Here and there I would take a ride with the club and I pretty much being less involved starting around 1988.
AM: Okay. That’s sort of my general recollection. I left the club in ’94 [AM: It was 1992, not 1994.] and my recollection was that you weren’t around a whole lot in that period before.
MJ: No, by ’94 I had bought a house in Petaluma and moved. So I was pretty much out of the Bay Area directly. I was leading bike rides on my own or some friends at AAA where I was working at the time. Like, I did an Apple Blossom Ride with them, that sort of thing. So yeah, It was for about four or five years. And also I was into the Rawhide [2] scene. I was hanging out at the Rawhide a lot. This was probably starting around ’85 or ’86 and so I was splitting my social time between the bike club and the Rawhide, and I can even remember organizing a couple of benefits for Bike-A-Thons, for Different Spokes at the Rawhide. It’s kind of a funny thing! [laughs]
AM: Combining both interests!
MJ: Yeah. All that ended about 1989, yeah around then.
AM: Okay, so besides the very first Bike-A-Thon were you involved in subsequent Bike-A-Thons or were you just moving away from that?
MJ: No, I did not take part in future Bike-A-Thons. After the first BAT I’m not sure but I think the next one was the one we did without the AIDS Foundation.
AM: I’d have to go look at the beneficiary list. [AM: in 1986 SFAF was one of the eight beneficiaries.]
MJ: Yeah, we probably did it to benefit the Foundation but I don’t think the AIDS Foundation was involved anymore [with organizing the event.]
AM: Oh no, they weren’t involved in subsequent- because it went from being a benefit for the AIDS Foundation to a benefit for beneficiaries that the club selected. And usually the AIDS Foundation was one of those.
MJ: Right, and I think there was probably some discussion do we want to spread our good will amongst other beneficiaries. So I believe it would have been the ’86 BAT—you can correct me—but this one was organized strictly by Different Spokes.
AM: I’m pretty sure that’s correct.
MJ: And it really started ramping up. Now, the people in the club who did the ’86 BAT as far as I recall were Tom Walther and Jim King.
AM: Yeah, I think Jim was the BAT Coordinator that year.
MJ: Yeah, and Tom Walther was really close to him and I think the two of them pulled it off. I don’t remember the politics behind it. I do remember there was just a tiny, tiny bit of bad blood. [AM: You will get an explanation about the “bad blood” between the SFAF and Different Spokes in the future interview with Jim King.]
AM: Yeah, well I know that [laughs]—Tom was my partner for several years. Did you know that?
MJ: No, I didn’t know that.
AM: Yeah, he and I got together in ’89. So Bob was dying. We were dating when Bob was dying and in fact I remember Harry and Jean, Bob’s parents, came up from San Diego to take care of him, and it was in that building on 14th Street, and Tom was often over there with them. Little did I know that one of the reasons why he liked to go there was that both he and Jean were “ex-smokers” and they were smoking up a storm there because they were so stressed [laughs]!
MJ: There were quite a few “ex-smokers” who smoked.
AM: Yeah, I noticed that there were a whole lot of people in the club who smoked, like Mark Reverdy and Dennis [Westler] and Luis [Dufau]. Luis smoked a lot! And these are all strong riders! It was totally freaking me out. I remember ending a ride in Orinda and they all went to their cars and whipped out cigarettes and started smoking [laughs].
MJ: Going back to BAT ’86 briefly, like I was saying about transition between Bob and me on the first one and Tom and Jim King for the second one, I just remember emotionally and it really wasn’t a big departure for us to say, “You guys do it, it’s fine with us.” It took a lot of energy to pull the first one off and it was gonna take a lot of energy to do it again, a second time, because now we were on a roll. We had to do everything the Foundation did, part of Saturday and all of Sunday. It probably changed a little bit. I don’t know if we did the overnight thing on Sunday. [AM: Subsequent BATs were loop rides starting in the Castro.] I don’t think I rode it that year. I think in fact ’85, the first one, was the only one I actually rode. So there was a pretty quick transition in the organization of the Different Spokes Bike-A-Thon.
AM: Well, actually Jim King is on my list of people to reach out to. I originally was going to interview him as part of this because he was in the first BAT as well. But he was also the BAT Coordinator for the second BAT and I wanted to talk to him since he had been involved in both, what that was like to change from being a rider to being one of the principal organizers of that ride. But that’ll be another day.
MJ: Also he should have a really good recollection of how it transitioned from the first year to the second year organization-wise ‘cause I just don’t remember. It wasn’t that it was a bad episode or anything. I just remember kind of going, “Hey you guys have it”, y’know it was one of those things…”be my guest”. So yeah, see what Jim can tell you about that.
AM: What kind of a cyclist were you before you did the BAT? I know you were into bike touring ‘cause you led several tours and it sounds like you were into solo bike riding before you joined the club.
MJ on 1984 Guerneville Weekend
MJ: I was into solo bike riding before and I remember loving long distance cycling. And now the bike club gave me the reason to plan longer trips like the Guerneville ride, which was the longest, and then things like the Apple Blossom, which were outside of the City or Marin. I tried to pull people up into Sonoma County because I loved Sonoma County and so I was organizing numerous rides up there, I can remember, and down the Peninsula too somewhat. I loved going across the bridge on the bike and maybe taking the boat back, that kind of thing.
AM: In the early days of the club there were some pretty hardcore bike tourists, Bob Krumm, Shay Huston. There were some people who really liked to go overnight. They went to Pigeon Point, Tomales Bay, there were these places they liked to do these overnighters.
MJ: Yeah, I remember.
AM: Were you that kind of a cyclist too? Did you like to camp?
MJ: I did and I had the equipment. Like I said we were all camping at Fife’s on the first Fife’s trip up. That was all camping always. I remember Bob Krumm’s Pigeon Point overnighter. I remember doing that ride. I have photos of that one. Occasionally there were others but I don’t really remember many. Oh, I organized trips to Yosemite, Lake Tahoe with the club.
AM: Oh. I know there was the Lake Tahoe Spectacular. I thought Derek organized that. Was that you?
MJ: I don’t know if he did the first one of if I did the first one. But it probably became one of the annual events.
AM: It did.
MJ: Like Guerneville. I remember doing Yosemite a couple of times and so on.
AM: I remember Derek making a comment to me that the house that we used, the octagon house near Carnelian Bay, that he found that through the Sierra Club or through connections to the Sierra Club. So I just presumed that he had organized the first one but maybe not.
MJ (r) with Bob Munk (l), 1985 Lake Tahoe Spectacular Weekend
MJ: Yeah, I don’t remember that. I remember cycling on that ride but I don’t remember if I organized it. It could very well have been Derek. [AM: Derek organized the first “Lake Tahoe Weekend Spectacular held on September 27-29, 1985.] But I do remember I organized one or more Yosemite Valley rides. We would cycle up from probably from Mariposa or something like that. We went right up to the entrance of the park and then we’d stay—I don’t remember what the overnight accommodations were. I don’t think we were camping. It probably was Curry Village or something.
AM: Yeah, there are many places in the Valley, you can stay in the campgrounds, you can stay at Yosemite Lodge, you can stay in Curry Village. There are a bunch of options of where to stay.
MJ: Right. We just didn’t always have a lot of money, so I don’t know. I don’t recall where we spent the nights on those trips. Then I did three very long distance rides. The first one was Cape Cod and that one was ’84 and Bike-A-Thon was ’85, and ’86 was Expo ’86 in Vancouver. We cycled from Seattle to Vancouver and back. And then the last one I did was the year after in ’87 and that was the upper New England foliage ride.
AM: Right. I’m pretty sure Derek was on those rides.
MJ: He was on all three of them. He was the only one who was on all three.
AIDS AND THE CLUB
AM: Did you know anyone personally who had AIDS before you did the BAT?
MJ: Gosh, the first person I know who had AIDS and who died of AIDS was in our bike club, and you’d know his name too.
AM: Jerry Basso, was it Jerry Basso?
MJ: No, oh poor Jerry, we were such good friends. Um no, it was before him and I have a picture of him at one of the- I had his name in my head a couple of weeks ago. But anyways he was at one of the Pride parades. I have a photograph-
AM: Oh, Hal Baughman!
MJ: Hal Baughman, yes.
AM: Marian the librarian! [AM: Hal was the club librarian.]
MJ: I didn’t know him by “Marian the librarian” but I do remember he was the first person I knew who died from AIDS, probably the first person I knew who had it. Hal Baughman, he smoked too.
AM: Yes, he did!
MJ: Oh dear!
AM: Yeah, I thought of Jerry first because he was one of the first people I met in the club and I rode a fair amount with him and he just vanished. And the rumors were circulating. And then he reappeared and he mentioned that he was having vision problems and it was hard for him to ride and then he disappeared again and we never saw him again. And the next thing I knew- in a matter of two months I had heard he had died. It was really fast.
Jerry Basso (left) with Derek Liecty (right) at 1984 Gay Pride.
MJ: It happened really fast. He and I were very close. Like you said he vanished from the scene. I also heard his family did not want- they didn’t want to know about it. It was a bad family scene going on there.
AM: Exactly. Yeah, I’ve heard that too. Yeah, I heard that they refused to acknowledge or didn’t want to acknowledge that he had AIDS.
MJ: There was so many in the club— it may have been the time that the Quilt was happening and we wanted to do the quilt and they [Jerry’s family] said, “No, no, it was nothing”.
Hal Baughman with broken leg on back of the DSSF “float” at 1983 Pride Parade.
AM: I had forgotten about Hal. I have this picture in my mind of him with a broken leg on Richard Palmer’s pickup truck at the Pride Parade.
MJ: Right. Right, I’ve got that Polaroid. And I scanned that Polaroid again recently with all those films. Yeah, he was on the back of Dick Palmer’s truck.
AM: Did that in any way affect your decision to participate? I guess you had this ulterior motive which was to get more members in the club and I’m wondering to what extent your experience of AIDS in the community informed your decision to participate in BAT.
MJ: You were there and you remember how politically charged the whole thing was then and we were still in the middle of discovering what AIDS was all about. I don’t even think that at the time of the BAT it was confirmed how it was transmitted. So there was a lot of stuff up in the air and all we knew was we were young kids looking at weekly obituaries every week, of multiple people our age dying. Looking back it all these years later, so much of it was traumatic for so many people including myself. It’s just that we were so numb to it at the time. There were so many people dropping at the time that we were just all trying to do whatever we could. We didn’t have a lot of money to donate to these things. That wasn’t up to us to donate money to the Foundation, that was up to the rich people who they knew, who their board would snag for cash. Well, we would do things like volunteer for anything we could, and so I think that the BAT may have been part of our- gosh, what can I say? our San Francisco DNA. It just grew into us. And AIDS was a daily routine: AIDS, AIDS, AIDS all the time. I don’t think it was even known as HIV at the time. It was all AIDS-this-and-AIDS-that. You know, it was shellacking our community. So we were very honored, we were quite honored to be actually approached by the Foundation to take part in this activity that they came up with. This was their idea. I read in the story again in the BAR before I talked to you today how Ricky Johnson had the idea and approached the Foundation with it, and the Foundation told him go ahead, you put it together, and we’ll back it. And that’s when Ken Jones got involved as the volunteer coordinator for the Foundation and the two of them were the ones who we would approach with whatever we needed to make it happen.
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE RIDE
AM: Okay. Now onto the second part about the day of the ride. What sticks in your memory as memorable about that day?
MJ (l) and Bob Humason (r) gathering pledge forms at the start.
MJ: It was a chilly morning, as usual a San Francisco foggy morning in the Castro. I remember being at Hibernia Beach looking up the road to the intersection, 17th, and seeing a huge crowd of people at whatever time it was, 7:30 in the morning, quarter of 8, and I was so proud and I remember hugging Bob and I said, “Look, this thing is really happening!” [AM: The official start time was 6:30 AM.] It wasn’t just the riders assembling, it was all this publicity and all these fancy people like politicians. There’s a pretty picture of Supervisor Louise Renne, who came down to wish us well. There were other people too who just came down to be part of the story. That’s my recollection: the Foundation got on the megaphone, there were the cyclists at the bottom of Castro and 18th by Hibernia Beach, we were kinda all got into a big mass and then we all took off and of course you go up that hill at Divisadero and everybody thins out right there.
The start in the Castro.
AM: Yeah, steep!
MJ: It’s kinda steep. I just remember there being a lot of people and it wasn’t just riders. It was very exciting. Very exciting. And I really believed that Bob and I felt that it was going to be a success right then and there.
AM: Of course people spread out and rode at whatever pace they ride. Did you ride with anybody or did you end up riding by yourself?
MJ: I don’t recall. I’m someone who would always go my own pace. I might overtake somebody or pair up with somebody. But all I remember is checking in at each of the stops to make sure that everyone had what they needed and I remember spending a little time at two or three vans. There were vans set up with water and bananas and whatever we needed back then. And I remember spending a little extra time at those places to connect with the Foundation people and to make sure, just to check in with them because they had no clue what was going on. They didn’t have an idea what this was all about. They didn’t know what a bike ride with 60-some odd people going a hundred miles was going to be all about. We did. But they had no idea.
AM: Okay. I know that Tom Walther and Jim King rode together because Tom had told me that they were concerned that they were lagging and that Gene was gonna pass them. [laughs]
MJ: [laughs] That was not gonna happen!
AM: Yeah, so they hurried up and they got to Guerneville just before Gene got there!
MJ: Well, I think Gene got there after dark, if I’m not mistaken.
AM: I don’t know what time he arrived there but I know he was the last person. [laughs]
Gene Howard, last finisher at the first Bike-A-Thon 1985
MJ: He was the last person. I think it was about like 6:30 and I do remember that we were all concerned because it was dark and they were following him with headlights on. Yes, they knew where he was. They knew where every one of us was. And of course the sag wagons were following behind the last person. Gene ended up being the last person and somewhere around Bodega or maybe even closer to Guerneville Road or River Road, they escorted him up all the way with headlights because it was dark.
AM: Yeah, and it’s a dangerous road too.
MJ: Yeah yeah and we were all waiting for him. Everybody who rode was at Molly Brown’s hanging on. They had food for us. We were eating like crazy and we all knew that Gene was the last one. Somehow we got word and we just were in utter anticipation of welcoming Gene home and boy, I’ll never forget the look on his face.
AM: I’m sure it was the longest ride he had ever done.
MJ: He thought everyone was gonna be gone by the time he arrived!
AM: Was that a hard ride for you or was it just a walk in the park? What kind of a ride was that for you?
MJ: That ride was always long for me but I would always pace myself real well. I love that ride. I absolutely love cycling Route One and all that stuff, going up into the Headlands and coming down to Bolinas and all that. I loved that ride and so I would always get excited doing that. Now it’s a very long ride and I remember having to pace myself because I didn’t want to burn out and have someone drive me the rest of the way. I’ve never had that happen. But no, I loved that ride.
AM: Do you remember arriving at Molly Brown’s? What was that like?
Molly Brown’s, the finish.
MJ: Yes, I remember it being late afternoon, I remember it being 5 o’clock. I was not the first in nor anything close to it. [AM: Bruce Matasci was likely the first person.] I wouldn’t be anyway being on my own. I was trying to make sure everyone was doing well. So I would fall back, hang out with the vans, I would then catch up, I would then cycle with another group of people. It was kind of like I was being a den mother. So I arrived there I believe it was around 5 o’clock. It wasn’t dark. It wasn’t quite dark yet but it was the end of the afternoon and I just remember everyone there cheering everyone who arrived. Anyone who came up on a bicycle into Molly Brown’s there was cheering and then the next person there would be more cheering. It was a real social event at the end. Again the Foundation had set up lots of food for us to eat so basically we were having dinner. There was lots of food there and that was going to be food for the day. So they fed us at Molly Brown’s if I remember correctly, we picked our places to go to. I remember that Bob Humason and I, we tried to get one of the “good” places. We had heard that the Elfen Lodge was a little ways up into the mountain but it was a really nice spot. So we were able to get one of the spots up there. I have just a couple of photos of us hanging around the table and eating breakfast or whatever, coffee and donuts or something. And then [the next day] we all got our act together and headed down to Molly’s again for the volunteer appreciation event. [AM: MJ and I have had a discussion subsequent to this interview and we now believe the BAR article about the event was correct and the Sunday event was held at the Woods, not Molly Brown’s.]
SUNDAY
AM: So on Sunday what was that like, the experience of that ceremony?
MJ: Well it was a lot of fun. I know we were all hanging around in our skivvies, laying on blankets and sheets and we were just teaming up with our best pals. I’m sure I’m on a blanket with Jerry Basso and Bobby and Kevin Anderson and a few others. It was a very leisurely event. I think there were comedians-
AM: Oh, there was a program?
MJ: Yes, there was a program. This was all done by the Foundation. They had an event planned for us. Oh yeah, this was not just gathering for iced tea or whatever, hanging out with each other. No, there was an event, a schedule going on all day. I remember the AIDS Foundation was very appreciative of what we had done, and they were giving us a lot of thanks. So I remember the event being a lot of fun. We were all real happy that we didn’t have to get on our bikes again that day. What we had done the day before was plenty and we were looking forward to just hanging out with each other. There was a lot of laughing and a lot of fun.
Half of the 1985 Bike-A-Thon riders…..and the other half.
GETTING PLEDGES
AM: What about fundraising? Nobody likes to do it. What was that experience like for you?
MJ: I really wasn’t into it either, to be honest. I wasn’t a big fan of it. So I had a handful of pledges from just people I knew. I didn’t really go out and solicit pledges from stores or other strangers. So no, it was very casual. I was busy enough that I didn’t want to go out and get more pledges too. I think Tom Walther was the top, wasn’t he?
AM: I don’t know but it wouldn’t surprise me if he had been. That would very much fit in with Tom’s ability to approach anybody and speak to them.
MJ: Here it is, Tony, the four top getters were Craig Schaffert for $2,230; BJ Irwin, $1,810; Tom Walther was $1,480 and Ron Henderson, $1365. I probably had a couple hundred.
AM: Tom had a lot of chutzpah. He would approach anybody.
MJ: He had a way of selling it!
AM: Yeah, very much so and he was very personable. It would have been very hard to say no to him.
MJ: He had a charming smile, I loved talking to him. He was a good bicyclist and good friend to be with. I enjoyed my time with him.
IMPACT OF BAT
AM: How did the Bike-A-Thon affect you? Do you feel in some way the BAT affected your subsequent life? Or you just went back to your regular life and it was just another thing that you did? Or did it somehow lodge in your brain somewhere that you were a changed person?
MJ: Yes. The answer to all that is yes and I’ll tell you what: it started when I first began with the club. Joining Different Spokes and being part of a group of people was a real game changer for me personally, and BAT was one of these culminations of self-confidence, knowing that there was self-worth in there somewhere, that I could actually pull this thing off. I didn’t doubt that this would be something that I could do. But after it was all over I really felt like, “Oh that was pretty good!” I was part of an organization, two organizations—that was a part of it—that not only raised a bunch of money for a great cause but we safely pulled off an event where no one got hurt.
AM: Yeah, that’s big.
MJ: And it could have been fraught with disaster. That hundred miles: no shoulders, creepy people, you name it. There could have been one disaster. One would have been too many. It’s one thing bringing a group of six or eight or ten people up to Fife’s for a camping trip or a Guerneville weekend trip. But it’s another for a rambling 62 riders and all the support stuff. And so if it affected my life in any way I would really attribute that to Different Spokes. Being part of that club was really, really important for me personally and it was a real confidence booster because I had never done anything like that in my life. I had never been a part of a group like that.
It was a good group of people in that club. There were very few- I didn’t feel there were a lot ego problems. When we were cycling everyone seemed to be on the same level even though, yeah sure, there were some people who could cycle faster than others. But other than that we were doing that 50% for the social and 50% for the exercise, the activity itself, bicycling. We weren’t showing off fancy bikes or fancy bike clothes. It was in the early days and those things barely existed. Plus we had our own fashion styles anyway. I just remember it being a real pleasant experience and I looked forward to each weekend’s bike ride and I tried to do as many as I possibly could when I was deeply involved in the club.
AM: You know Karry Kelley was pretty involved and he joined the club before I did or at least showed up on rides before I did and was pretty involved for roughly the same period that I was there in the late ’80s and early ‘90s and then he got a husband and moved to Alameda and had kids and dropped out of the club. Strangely enough when we led that Apple Blossom ride in 2012 he out of the absolute blue showed up. Like, dude where have you been all this time! He showed up on his ancient Klein bicycle. And it was, God, I missed you! Where have you been? That ride was over and he vanished again and just before or during the Pandemic he showed up. He was going through a divorce from his husband and he rejoined the club. Coincidentally in 2022 we put on the 40th anniversary banquet and I had this video that Tom had—I really don’t know the history of this video. But it’s a video of the ’89 BAT. I think it was made as a PR thing. In any case I rediscovered it in my pile of crap down in the storage room and I got it digitized.
MJ: Wow, that must be something to see!
AM: If you want watch it, it’s up on the Web. I can send you the URL too. It’s in our Flickr account and it’s a video up there. Anyway I revealed that video at the 40th banquet and Karry was there. And his reaction- he was just emotionally struck by this video because all these people that he knew who had died were in the video. Bob was in the video, Tom Walther was in the video…and I’m in the video too, which I thought, ”Really?!?” Anyway, he talked about the club being really important to him because he was coming out at that time and he said it was an important part of his social development to be involved with the club at that point and I could only nod and say I totally understand what you’re saying. I mean it was really true for me too. It was discovering a family of like-meets-like and it had that impact that here it is more than 40 years later and I’m still a member of the club, still involved in the club. I’m trying to make sure it survives. That’s always the issue that’s been on my mind is: can this club survive? People have to love it and put energy into it to make it continue.
MJ: You have to evangelize right from the very beginning.
AM: At this point there is a new cohort of people who have those feelings for the club. I think there’s a reasonable chance it will survive another ten years.
MJ: That’s good to hear. Well, maybe I’ll come to the 50th anniversary of the BAT!
AM: Well, we’re all going to be pretty decrepit, I’ll tell you!
Nancy reports: “So it was me, Cathy, Ginny, Jeff, and Roger- on his birthday! The birthday surprise was that it was windy and cold at the start. Enough so that some wondered whether they wanted to ride. But we persevered and we were rewarded with sun and less wind! Everybody enjoyed the climb, especially those of us who haven’t done it for years. But when we got to the top, it was more wind, cold, and nastiness than we signed up for on a Memorial Day weekend. The group decision was to descend Old La Honda—with Ginny, Jeff, and Roger making it an out-and-back—with a stop at Robert’s Market for a well-deserved sandwich and snacks. Cathy and I decided to use the opportunity to scout another ride that we are planning, which was a great idea and a bit of an adventure. When we got back to the start, lo and behold, Roger was relaxing in his car, out of the wind, and receiving many birthday wishes on Facebook!”
Jeff reports: “We modified the route, turning back at the top of Old La Honda because it was pretty cold and we thought the stretch of Skyline might be scary since it has no shoulder. Ginny, Roger, and I just retraced our steps stopping for lunch at Robert’s Market where we celebrated Roger’s birthday, sharing a scrumptious dessert that Ginny bought. Nancy and Cathy headed towards Alpine Road for more adventures. We also stopped at the Pulgas Water Temple and watched girls all dressed up for a quinceañera party—delightful!”
Ed. Members may peruse more pictures of the ride at the Different Spokes website.
It turned out not to be much of an escape after all. Getting from the East Bay to Woodside for this ride meant crossing a bridge. And it wasn’t going to be the Bay Bridge since it was the morning of the Original Party-on!-Foot (says Wayne). Seasoned San Franciscans know this is the morning you avoid trying to get across town unless you like to wait for 75,000 drunk and high “runners” to get out of your way. But checking Google Maps before leaving the manse it said the quickest way to Woodside Town Hall was via the Bay Bridge. What?
Against my gut feeling we headed for the toll plaza because Google Is Always Correct. Just the other side of Yerba Buena Island the legions of cars slowed to a molasses-like crawl. “Lane closure” the sign read. This couldn’t be another traffic disaster like yesterday, right? In case you didn’t hear, Caltrans scheduled a closure of the #4 bore of the Caldecott Tunnel for this past Saturday and it didn’t go well. A crash in the #3 bore—the only other westbound bore—meant that traffic backed up all yesterday morning and most of the afternoon since all that “light” Saturday traffic had to funnel down to one lane. I know this because Waze directed hundreds of cars up my street as they frantically tried to escape car hell. Desperate drivers overflowed into Orinda like rats fleeing a burning building. That “lane closure” turned out just to be the far right lane to the Fremont Street exit being closed because Bay to Breakers. This is standard practice every year. It wouldn’t be a biggie except that thousands of drivers insisted upon driving to downtown San Francisco anyway. So they jammed the bridge trying desperately to get into the far left lane to exit at Fremont. What were they thinking?? It’s Bay to Breakers day and the chaos starts downtown! That exit was massively backed up onto the bridge making the whole area a mosh pit of cars. Only after getting past that insane mess did we discover that traffic was actually light on the 101. Seriously, just stay away from San Francisco on Bay to Breakers day.
Things were much better when we arrived in Woodside. It was sunny and warm, so warm I was overdressed in a longsleeved jersey and gilet. As usual for a Sunday, Woodside was packed with cyclists. Our ride was starting so late—10:30 AM—that riders were turning into the Town Hall parking lot because they were finishing their rides! Well, we made the better choice: not only was it warmer but by the time we got to Old La Honda the road was empty. Honestly, like just four or five cars passed us on OLH (all but one being Teslas) and we saw exactly seven other cyclists. There are times riding up OLH you feel like you’re a salmon heading upstream. Along with hundreds of your fellow salmon. But not today—it was quiet, undisturbed. Basically it was awesome having the road all to ourselves.
Old La Honda is, well, old because it goes back to the 19th century when the lumber industry needed roads in the Coast Range. I’m uncertain of the history of La Honda Road, which is also State Highway 84, and of what is now Old La Honda Road. Perhaps the two roads had the same name because they eventually ended (or started) at the town of La Honda. In the 19th century these weren’t public roads anyway. They were logging roads or perhaps toll roads built after logging made the Coast Range more inhabited. In any case what is now Highway 84 became the main road for car traffic probably because it’s wider and less winding than what is now called Old La Honda Road. That was good news for cyclists as cars took 84 to get to and from the coast and to roam up and down Skyline Boulevard leaving Old La Honda as a mostly forgotten byway.
In the late 1960s my high school friends and I would ride our bikes over to the coast on weekends and we usually took Highway 84 instead of Old La Honda because Old La Honda was steeper. We were also on very modest bikes. I was riding a Schwinn Continental, my first ten-speed. This boat anchor of a bike probably weighed well over 30 pounds with its chrome rims, chrome cotter-pin crankset, chrome handlebars, chrome seatpost, and kickstand—basically it was all steel. Oh, and I hadn’t figured out that it would help to have toeclips and straps to get over the hills. And it was a true ten-speed: a “racing” standard 52-42 crank with a five-gear freewheel, probably a 13-28. It wasn’t made for going uphill at least by the feeble (or feeble minded). So Highway 84 involved the least amount of suffering. Also the summit, Skylonda, is lower than the top of Old La Honda. So in all ways it was easier except for the incessant automobile traffic. We did occasionally go up Old La Honda, Kings Mountain, and even Page Mill Road to get to the coast. But they were a lot harder.
Today we were intent on checking out Old La Honda, specifically the west side, because that portion of road had a serious collapse the winter of 2023 resulting in its long term closure. The county wasn’t able to find the money, line up a contractor, and get it repaired until last July. But we hadn’t been back to check out the road since our last club ride through there in 2022. West Old La Honda is nice for avoiding the jam-up at Skylonda and although not essential for the usual loop out Haskins Hill and back Tunitas, it makes it a much more pleasant adventure. It was also a chance to check out the northern section of Skyline Boulevard, which I hadn’t ridden in many a year.
On Sand Hill Road we were passed by two cyclists like we were roadside litter and made the turn onto OLH. That was the theme of the day: we got passed a lot more than we passed anyone.
The climb starts immediately on OLH and continues unabated until you arrive at Skyline about three-and-a-half miles. I was tired and I merely wanted to check out the roads and survive them, not burn them up. I soon dropped into the granny. Although I wasn’t in my lowest gear, I was getting mighty close! Since there was surprisingly little traffic on OLH we had a peaceful ascent. The road is almost entirely shaded by redwoods and pines making it a good choice on hot days. Although it wasn’t hot, the shade was welcome. OLH has an average grade of about 7%. But it often feels a lot worse due to its frequent turning and the gradient increasing in the curves. OLH is in decent shape still. It’s not often repaved and the last chip seal seems to be holding up well. Well, until you get near the top and you see the road becomes one lane and is controlled by a timed stoplight: that portion is collapsing down the slope.
Repair of 2023 road collapse on west Old La Honda
Dropping down west OLH was the objective. Back in the day west OLH was a dirt road. I believe it wasn’t paved until well into the 1980s. At that point I started to use it a lot more since it was a lot less bumpy and rutted. The upper section is looking worn but okay; midway you can see a newer chip seal that’s rather smooth. It wasn’t until about halfway down that we finally saw the repaired collapse. The retaining wall is impressive. Further down it looks like the county also did some patching to the roadway. We encountered just one car heading uphill.
Turning onto Highway 84 to head to Skylonda, you’re in a different world, the world of impatient cars, loud motos, and weekend Ferraris. Highway 84 is adequately wide but the shoulder is often nonexistent. We saw one pickup driver give a downhill cyclist a punishment pass. The cyclist was right up against the edge of the road and the pickup driver leaned on his horn as he roared by. Back in the 1970s the attitude of car drivers was in some ways much worse. There were fewer cyclists and we were viewed as real oddities and there was a lot less awareness about sharing the road. In thinking about that poor cyclist, riding in the gutter was exactly the wrong thing to do. Instead he should have taken the lane and forced the driver to slow down, as he would have gotten the horn anyway.
Fortunately the climb is only about two miles and it’s rather gentle, about 3%. At Skylonda it was the usual mess of motos, cars, and cyclists trying to get through the intersection. Traffic on Skyline has no stop sign so they are typically pedal-to-the-metal, making any crossing an anxious and hurried affair. When you’ve got an expensive and powerful sports car or moto, where can you drive it at full throttle? Skyline Boulevard!
By now I was tired and the climb up Skyline to Skeggs Point is several miles at about 6% or so. We lucked out in that there was surprisingly little traffic traveling on it for a Sunday. I watched Roger inch ahead of me as my legs got slower and slower. If you are planning to ride Skyline, it’s better to ride it in the opposite direction, i.e. from Kings Mountain to Skylonda, rather than the way we did it. A better loop would have been to go up Kings Mountain, then Skyline to west OLH. But then we would have had to descend OLH and that can be sketchy with weaving uphill cyclists sprawled all over the road including in the blind corners because, of course, no sane cyclist goes down OLH! I was relieved to finally arrive at Skeggs Point. Whew, that was a work out!
After Skeggs it’s easy-peasy with a fast drop down to Kings Mountain. From there it was literally all downhill, about six miles of constant descent. Although it was only three years ago since we went down Kings Mountain, a lot can happen to a roadway in that time. So we took it carefully in case we encountered potholes, debris, or a car crossing the centerline. We passed a lot of cyclists heading up the road, all of them slowly. After all that climbing it was a wonderful way to end a ride. Old La Honda is back on the menu again!
Three weeks ago Roger and I went up to Sacramento and rode the American River Bike Trail on a Monday. We had been thinking of going up to do it on the weekend. But the weather on Saturday and then Sunday was less than ideal. A weekday would actually be a better day to ride it because there would be less traffic on the trail or so we thought. We thought about listing the ride on the club calendar. However we were indecisive when we would actually do the ride given the sudden change in the weather.
The American River Bike Trail, also known as the Jedediah Smith Memorial Trail, runs from Sacramento all the way to the Folsom Dam recreation area, about 32 miles one way. The entire distance is well paved and although technically a multi-use path it is really intended for cyclists. Much of the way has parks and picnic areas as you wend your way up the American River with plenty of places to take a break, get water, use a restroom, and enjoy the river setting. The trail officially starts at Discovery Park in Sacramento but you can enter the trail at almost any location since suburban development has proceeded all the way to Folsom and beyond with plenty of entry and exit points. If you need something it’s easy to leave the trail and head into a town to look for food or a bike shop if need be. You can make this ride shorter or longer depending on your mood. Although technically ending at Beals Point at Folsom Dam, the trail actually continues further north to Granite Bay.
Given that we are ostensibly a San Francisco based cycling club, Sacramento is pretty far away for a club ride. The club first started going up there in May 1984 courtesy of Derek Liecty and Richard Palmer. Derek led it annually for several years and then Tom Harrison, who worked in Sacramento and eventually moved up there, led it for a while. Derek is still with us but he is no longer riding his bicycle; both Dick and Tom have passed.
The first time Derek led it the ChainLetter reported that “over 35” people attended. Other than the Pride Ride, that kind of attendance is highly unusual. Off the top of my head the only other regular club ride in recent history that had a number that high was a Mt. Hamilton ride that David Gaus led many years ago and that was because he cross-posted the ride on social media. In 1985 “social media” was your landline phone! In recent years Roger and I have led this ride off-and-on and we are lucky if we get two other participants. So the “pull date” for this ride is long past. Yet we continue to go up there because we like to ride it and if others would like to try it out, great. This is in harmony with our ride leading philosophy, that you should lead rides that you enjoy doing. If you’re leading a ride for the club because you “have to”, that might be welcomed by others but it’s not going to do wonders for your mental health. So post rides you love to do!
Admittedly the American River Bike Trail is an acquired taste. First, you have to enjoy riding on a multi-use path. If you like to go fast, maybe it’s not a good choice because the ostensible speed limit is 15 MPH, the same as on every other MUP. But like the speed limit on freeways, this is completely ignored. Local clubs do rides on the ARBT and racers train on it including hammerheads on tri-bars. The other choice is to ride on Sacramento city streets and then you’ll have to deal with cars and a myriad number of stoplights between Sacto and Granite Bay. The good news is that the ARBT is not like other MUPs: it’s a bike trail. Since we last went rode it the trail has had a repaving. Prior to the repaving there were clear markings on the pavement that pedestrians were to stay off the pavement and instead walk/run on the dirt shoulders. Even further back in the day there were explicit signs forbidding skateboarders. Of course enforcement is another issue and as far as I can tell there isn’t any. Nonetheless most of the peds we encounter do indeed stick to the sides of the trail and we saw just one skateboarder poaching the trail. So the ARBT is a paragon MUP for cyclists. It’s nice to be treated well for a change!
Second, the ARBT is hella flat. Until you go beyond the Nimbus Fish Hatchery where the little climbing this trail has hits you in the face after all that flat goodness. But in this case flat isn’t boring. You’re constantly wending your way along the river passing parks, natural habitat, and river scenery including occasional glimpses of the burbs on either side. And no matter how “isolated” you seem to be you’re actually very close to civilization. So that mid-ride Starbucks frappucino is always at hand!
Third, you’re probably going to enjoy this ride more if you pay attention to the weather. Spring and autumn are the best times to enjoy it because the temperature is mild. Once the valley starts to heat up in mid-spring you should be careful about picking your ride date. Summers in Sacramento can be blisteringly hot—well above 90F for days—and since most of the trail is not shaded, you’d better enjoy riding in hot weather. I’ve ridden the ARBT in every season, even summer, and I’ve never had a bad time (well, maybe a tad uncomfortable when it was in the 90s). On hotter days you ride earlier or later in the day or you just do a shorter out-and-back.
Your reward if you make it all the way to Beals Point is a fantastic view of the reservoir as well as a pleasant beach. If it’s warm enough, you’re welcome to go in for a dip too. That presumes that we’ve had a wet enough year and the dams upriver are releasing into Folsom Lake. We’ve been at Beals Point in drought years and it’s a loooong walk to get into the water! On weekends there is a snack bar at Beals Point; having a chili dog with Fritos was my reward! This was my sole regret about riding the trail on a weekday.
In previous years we’ve started our ride at the very beginning of the trail in Discovery Park just north of Old Sacramento. This year we decided to start six miles upstream at the Cal Expo site. This wasn’t just to cut the mileage but for some peace of mind. Discovery Park is just a short walk from “Homeless Central” in Sacramento—the north of the railroad yard—and there have been homeless encampments nearby along the river. The day was sunny and in the low to mid-60s, perfect for cycling. Since it was a Monday we were expecting fewer users on the trail. That turned out to be somewhat true but there was still a lot of cyclists rolling along the trail including a few training groups. Wherever we stopped to drink, use a restroom, or get water we encountered other cyclists and we often were either passing or being passed by others. E-bikes? Yep, there are plenty of them using the ARBT. There’s no escaping them these days.
It was somewhat disorienting at first because we were starting in a new location and the entrance to the trail was convoluted. We did find the route but we encountered workmen digging up the trail with heavy equipment. After some odd stares as we passed we encountered workmen who informed us the trail was blocked ahead and that we had to turn back and ride on the levee road instead. The levee is just above the ARBT and varies from dirt to pavement. We eventually found a workman who let us cut through a chainlink barrier up to the levee and eventually we got past the closed portion. That was the only mishap of the day.
Being a weekday the picnic areas were devoid of users; on weekends with good weather they are packed. Monday was clearly the day the park services takes advantage to mow the enormous acreage of lawns they have to maintain. The smell of freshly cut grass was everywhere.
Once we arrived at the Nimbus Fish Hatchery we had our first “climb”: across the bridge to the north side to continue. After all that flatness it was a struggle! After the climb there is a steep drop down to Lake Natoma. Lake Natoma is a long, placid body of water that scullers use to full advantage. Rowing Nationals have been held here and even on a weekday rowers were plying the water. This section of the trail was closed about a decade ago in order not to disturb a pair of Bald Eagles that had set up a nest above the trail. Then not long after they vacated, a rock slide during a wet winter completely blocked the trail and took a long time to be rehabilitated. Now it’s back to its former glory. Continuing towards the town of Folsom we climbed again. We didn’t drop into Folsom, which we have in the past for lunch, and instead forged on to Beals Point. Just out of Folsom you’ll see the dam ahead. As you approach it you leave the river behind and emerge from the river valley to find you are actually in a suburb with plenty of traffic. But the trail is still separate and you continue for another mile up a gentle climb to Beals Point.
At Beals we stopped to have our packed lunch as we watched the paddleboarders get their equipment ready. There were several groups of young picnickers on the beach. Although we didn’t intend to go to Granite Bay, the trail north of Beals is currently shut down for repairs.
After a relaxing break we headed back to Sacramento. Typically there is a headwind of some sort as you head westward but not today. We took our time in no rush to get back to the car. An added benefit of riding the ARBT on a Monday was that the lighter traffic on I-80; on Sundays there is inevitably a crush of afternoon traffic as the Tahoe crowd returns. However with the current construction to I-80 just west of Sacramento we still had to fight to get past Davis.
This year it was just the two of us. I wonder what it would have been like to ride with 33 other Spokers!
The Chain Letter 