We went down to the Midpeninsula to ride down Cañada Road through Woodside and Portola Valley. Ever since gasoline prices rocketed up, we’ve barely taken the van elsewhere to ride preferring either to ride from home or maybe get on BART to go somewhere. We’ve both had a rough spring physically so doing short rides near home has fit the bill. As you know, it may be more boring riding from your home but it is a lot less hassle. It saves time, gas, and whatever additional irritation you reap by playing bumper cars with all the other drivers out there.

Ostensibly it was Bicycle Sunday. But when we got to the north end of Cañada Road there was no barrier to block cars. Also there was plenty of parking when usually you have to hunt and shoehorn your vehicle into some weird spot because it’s so crowded. As we cycled south there was the sign that the Bicycle Sunday was cancelled for the day and no reason was given. Apparently a lot of other people didn’t know in advance either because there were still a lot of cyclists including families with kids, which is the major benefactor for car-free cycling on a very wide road. They got to shepherd their little ones while dodging cars doing 50+ MPH. Fortunately there weren’t many cars, I suspect because local car drivers know about Bicycle Sunday and presume they can’t drive down Cañada. So it was actually pretty safe.

We thought perhaps it was an event at Filoli that had triggered a request to the county to suspend Bicycle Sunday. Filoli has been there just off Cañada Road ever since I’ve been in the Bay Area (since 1969). When exactly it blossomed as a public venue I can’t recall. That led to a lot more cars using Cañada. “A lot” should be taken with a grain of salt because back in the day most of the cars were using the road as a cut-through from I-280. Before I-280 opened Cañada was the alternate route for cars avoiding the inevitable jams on 101. Then when sections of I-280 opened in the early 1970s this section of it was not completed until later, so cars on 280 would exit and take Cañada up to Highway 92 and get back on 280. The cars would always speed as if they were still on the freeway. I learned never to ride Cañada during the morning commute time. As we passed Filoli there actually was a lot of construction that was taking place. Only after I returned home did I check its website to find out that the front entrance is indeed being redone. But that wasn’t why Bicycle Sunday was suspended.

Filoli has interesting and at times wonderful gardens. You can also get a giggle if you remember the old “Dynasty” TV show when you look at the front door of the main building and recognize it from the program. I guess they need to garner entrance fees to support their work. But it’s irksome for cyclists. Bicycle Sunday used to be longer, from the north end of Cañada all the way to Edgewood Road. Some years back it was shortened so that cars could access the north entrance of Filoli on Sundays. There used to be a south entrance at Edgewood and there must have been a reason why they wanted cars to switch to using the north entrance. Anyway, it meant that Bicycle Sunday became Bicycle Sunday Lite.

If you roll south on Canada you will encounter two stop signs. They’ve always been there. In high school I never paid any attention to them because no cyclist did. To boot Canada is a great time trial route and everybody goes full bore to beat their previous time. If you didn’t ride through the stop signs, you must have been a law abiding, nambypamby Fred. When there weren’t many cyclists, Woodside residents did little more than grumble and rant. But on weekends now Cañada Road almost has more bikes than cars. At some point residents’ ranting actually got the Woodside police to start giving tickets. In the 1980s we had a club ride and of course riders proceeded to blast downhill through the stop sign without an ounce of awareness. Then the police car pulled out of the side street and proceeded to hand out tickets left and right. Dennis Westler and I were, uncharacteristically, in the back and so we were able to slow down before the Man could get us. I admit that seeing the Hand of the Law give out tickets ($) encouraged me to slow down and at least look before I ran those stop signs again. Today, there were no cops at the stops—cool! In my morbid adulthood I now, finally, obey the law because law. Well, that and not wanting to get creamed by a car because we all know cars don’t obey the traffic laws either.

Speaking of time trials, as usual there were a fair number of bros riding aero road bikes but almost none of them had tri-bars or the usual triathlete accoutrements because bros. Carbon wheels, which used to be so rare, are officially a de rigueur commonplace of the latest generation of cyclists. Cycling does strange things to your priority list. A cycling and equestrian friend once said to us, “You know what owning horses is like? It’s like digging a big hole in the ground and shoveling money into it!” The same could be said about cycling as I personally can attest. Yeah, gotta get that next fix or I’ll commence shaking uncontrollably. The low end of high end road bikes is about $10,000 and the high end is now above $20,000. That is patently ridiculous. Cyclists don’t seem to think so as they cash in their IRAs to pay for that new Pinarello Dogma. Of course I said the same thing ages ago when a top of the line Colnago cost a mere five grand. My, how we’ve grown!

It was strangely quiet. At the intersection at Woodside Road in front of Robert’s Market, there were actually no cars (!) and just a couple of cyclists. On weekends this is Where Worlds Collide: a jillion cars and cyclists trying to get through a four-way stop signed intersection as quickly as possible. Why doesn’t Woodside just put up a stoplight and end this chaos? And yes, we stopped, put our feet down, looked both ways, and crossed all for no good reason except blind obediance to the law and (bad) habit. This continued on Mountain Home Road: no cars, hardly any cyclists.

In Portola Valley the strange lack of cyclists continued. We turned up Willowbrook to go up to the Alpine trailhead. Willowbrook is the same street that The Sequoias is on. You probably don’t know what The Sequoias is. It’s a retirement home. When I fret about where I’m going to end up when I’m a mere step away from decrepitude, this is the place I can aspire to. Senior retirement communities—“continuing care communities”—are the latest hot investment. They’re springing up all over the place as Boomers teeter at the verge of the boneyard. We have friends who moved into one in Pleasanton three years ago. They get housekeeping, one meal a day at one of the campus restaurants, and they get to keep their dog and car, and the management takes care of them like a baby. There’s a bus that can take them into town to go shopping. They no longer have to take care of a house, fix broken pipes, deal with landscaping, or put the garbage cans out. These places aren’t cheap and no one who’s on Medicaid is going to be let in the front door (although you might see them working in the kitchen). I have a fantasy of living at The Sequoias in beautiful Portala Valley and being able to wheel my bike—although by then it would probably be an e-bike—and creaking body out the front door to ride the Portola loop. Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

Past the Sequoias you get an ample peek at the ‘semi-rural’ homes of the very well-heeled—private horse paddocks and barns, lots of metal gates, beautiful landscaping. I also noticed the very dry conditions and envisioned a major wildfire making all of that go away in a day. You’re also literally just feet away from the San Andreas faultline. It’s going to be ugly at the Sequoias when it shakes again. But yes, it would be lovely to live there until then.

On Alpine Road the houses thin out and eventually it’s just the road and Damiani Creek threading into the hills. The creek is lovely and reminds me of San Leandro Creek, which meanders next to Pinehurst Road. Back in the day Alpine Road was an actual packed dirt road intended for cars. You could take it from Portola Valley all the way up to Page Mill Road just before it intersected Skyline. In high school we would ride up it because the main route up Page Mill Road, was narrow, curvy, and full of speeding cars. The gradient of Alpine was actually quite reasonable and steady whereas Page Mill had a few steep sections. The one caveat was to avoid Alpine when it rained or else you and your bike would get pretty dirty. All of that came to an end in the early 1990s when culverts under the dirt road failed and it collapsed into the creek turning Alpine Road into a mountain-bike only trail. Now it’s been restored but I have yet to ride up the old/new dirt road. But I will. Soon.

Alpine seems to be very well used now that the road has been reopened. There was a time when most roadies avoided it because it was dirt and not asphalt. Probably gravel bikes has something to do with its popularity now. We saw a steady stream of cyclists heading up, most of them on some kind of road bike. There were a few mountain bikes. Three cyclists passed us going up, not exactly old farts but definitely up there with grey hair. Two of the three were clad in very contemporary road cycling fashion: pastel colored jerseys, non-black bibshorts, and course carbon, carbon, carbon with disc brakes. They were waiting for us at the top sharing a snack and conversation about the US bombing out of the World Cup. When we were descending they passed us. It seems they weren’t up for doing the dirty on their road bikes either.

Speaking of cycling fashion, it used to be that (we) wannabes put on the latest pro team jersey assuming they weren’t in club kit. You’d go out for a ride and see your fellow cognoscenti dressed in PDM, Skil, Panasonic, Renault-ELF, or Raleigh jerseys. After Lemond you saw a slew of Z jerseys. That all ended around the time of Sky’s dominance in the Aughts. Today you never see a contemporary pro jersey worn by the everyday cyclist. Instead it’s back to solid but pastel colors. Black shorts? Still there but increasingly other colors like wine, forest green, navy blue. When it was all gaudy Italian colors—remember fluorescent?—on pro jerseys, I was hoping for pastels. Now that pastels are everywhere I can barely stand them. It just shows you that I was just as much a fashion Fred as everyone else, just contrarian. Now I’m fully embracing my inner Fred-dom sporting my Z jersey.

Alpine Road may have been extensively redone since I was in college, so much so that I hardly recognized the lower portion when we descended. The upper portion looked familiar except my recollection, maybe incorrect, is that the dirt section started sooner. The asphalt was in good condition for an ‘old’ road. The last time we had ridden Alpine to the trailhead was probably 15-20 years ago. We descended through Los Trancos Woods and it was steep, straight, and exceptionally scary. When I was in college we used to climb up another even steeper road in Los Trancos Woods because it dead-ended at the back of Foothill Park. Foothill Park was open only to Palo Alto residents. So the only way to get in was through the back. We never got caught. We’d descend on Page Mill.

Since the theme of this ride was to chill out and not think too much, we ended up getting lunch at same-old, same-old: Amigos Grill in the Ladera Center. Konditorei is next door and Nancy went there to get a bagel because the burritos at Amigos are on the big side. Last time she had to take home half her burrito. Konditorei is somewhat a misnomer. In Germany a konditorei serves pastries, cake, and coffee. Although Konditorei does have some pastries, it primarily serves bagels and sandwiches. Nancy was happy with her bagel. Incidentally Konditorei is one of the few businesses that is still around since I lived in Portola Valley over forty years ago. That’s a good streak! Roger and I split a veggie burrito from Amigos and half was plenty for both of us, not enough to induce food coma but enough to fuel the rest of the ride and then some.

Portola Valley is a big horse town. As we sat outside dining, a number of equestrians in jodhpurs showed up to get lunch. Where we live, Orinda, is also a horse town although nothing compared to Portola Valley. The Orinda Horseman’s Association facility is just down the road from us and I rarely see anyone in jodhpurs. Here there were many indicating that English riding as opposed to Western is preferred there. I’ve always thought that jodhpurs were pretentious even though they are functional for English riding. It’s a class thing—fox hunts, jumping, precision riding as opposed to going out in jeans to ride trails on your nag. The same could be said of cycling clothes. We put on our costumes, standard road riding gear, to cosplay that we’re in the Tour de France. Wearing garish—now pastel—and tightfitting cycling clothes is no different than a horseman sporting jodhpurs. And jodhpurs are tightfitting and kinda sexy too. But they’re all tan colored. What they need is pastels and “pro” labeling. But professional equestrians don’t need advertising sponsors because they come from a wealthier stratum compared to all those working class bicycle racers.

After college I lived just at the edge of Portola Valley in a shared house with some ex-college mates and the landlord, who was a raging alcoholic. It was très hippie. I had friends who lived deep in PV in another shared house now long gone. In those days PV was pretty sleepy, more like a slightly wealthier and rural Palo Alto. Nowadays PV is more like Woodside: layered with money and merrily bourgeois. I can’t imagine any young college or post-college ages kids being able to afford to live in PV now unless they were rolling in IPO money. At least we can still ride on their roads.

The route we took back to Cañada was not up Sand Hill Road, where you can actually glimpse the offices of Silicon Valley’s venture capital kings. Instead we went north on Alameda de las Pulgas, which afforded me an opportunity to glimpse at another old neighborhood I used to live in. The Dutch Goose is still there and probably still frequented by Stanford students. We’d go there to play pinball or foosball during our study breaks. Menlo Park and Redwood City are much more suburban than PV or Woodside—houses densely bunched together on small lots. But it’s all still very expensive. Alameda de las Pulgas has undergone some pleasant adaptations for the increasing number of cyclists in the area. When I lived there, there were no bike lanes at all and you’d better get out of the way of the cars speeding up and down Alameda. Now there are painted—not protected—bike lanes and dedicated bike lights.

We rolled up 84 back to Woodside. Back in the day cycling on 84 always made me nervous because the cars were seemingly all speeding up the road to get onto I-280. You had to play Frogger to get across the entrance ramp lane. But the same could be said of Sand Hill because you have to cross I-280 and the cars on Sand Hill were/are always racing to get on the freeway while you’re trying to cross the ramp entrance lane without getting squashed.

Rolling north on Cañada brought back a lot of memories. When I lived in the Midpeninsula, this was the local “Tiburon loop”. With no other plan in mind such as to go over to coastside, it was always “Oh, let’s just go up Cañada.” I must have done this ride a million times and came to detest it as much as I later could no longer stomach another Tiburon loop. It was just overdone. Even though I rarely ride on it now, it’s familiar and reflexive, so familiar that I was startled to espy two new signs indicating new trails off to the side of the road. When I moved to San Francisco I was glad I no longer had to ride the same roads over and over. Now I go back to Cañada and it’s refreshing, replete with memories, and gives me a chance to see how that part of the world has changed. Pleasantly some things have not changed at all. Riding down on the Midpeninsula, despite being urbanized like hell, can still be a treat. Even with all the bros on aero bikes.

We were coming up on the third anniversary of David Sexton’s death. Three years ago he was a victim of a hit-and-run in Richmond, a murder that is still unresolved. By chance we were thinking of heading up to ride Mt. Veeder since it had been three years since we last traversed that climb. We got some friends of Gordon to come along to enjoy the day and Gordon agreed to meet us for lunch. Cycling up Veeder was a near-perfect ride to honor his memory. Alas, a life stolen. The gods adore those who die young.

We started at Buttercream Bakery in Napa. This place is a blast from the past at least in terms of commercial decor. It looks like something out of the 1950s, no surprise since it opened here 75 years ago. The pastries are excellent. After a brief tour of the residential areas of Napa on the west side we started going slowly up. Then the road started going up more quickly and I was going up more slowly.

Confessions of an Aged Cyclist
As I tediously pulled over into the little bit of shade at the top of Veeder, Jen said, “Look at you! You’re not even using your lowest gear!” My legs were pretty whipped—the last mile or so of Veeder is 10% so it’s no walk in the park. Nonetheless there I was honking a 39×24 gear all the way up. After I caught my breath, I blurted out, “I don’t go lower than this gear because it was the lowest gear I ever used when I was 30 and hella strong.” Now, what’s the formal definition of ‘delusional’? Let’s see, my dictionary says: “characterized by or holding false beliefs or judgment about external reality that are held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, typically as a symptom of a mental condition”. Yeah, that sounds about right. I can’t admit that I’ve gotten old (note: not getting old but gotten old) despite every day having the bare facts shoved in my face. As they say, denial is not just a river in Egypt.

When faced with a choice of relenting and using a lower gear and likely going objectively faster, or continuing to deny reality and mash that “low” gear at a ridiculously sluggish cadence, I choose the latter. At the moment my delusion/excuse is that after losing a lot of muscle mass this last year, I could gain some of it back—Blanche, it’s never all coming back!—by mashing. I’m too lazy to go to the gym and do proper squats. But what’s the point? I’m not racing and my bike has a granny that will get me up anything in the Bay Area even on a bad day. One day reality will come crashing through the front door and smash me in the face when my body ultimately fails me. DNR. In the meantime I can continue in denial. “But you are, Blanche, you are!”

History
At the top of Veeder we took a well-earned break. Remember when you didn’t take breaks on rides? Or rather, you didn’t need to take breaks. As we were guzzling our water and Nancy’s cookies, three very fit women came up the other side of Veeder. We all commented on how wonderful it was that Veeder had so little traffic on a holiday. Heading south up Veeder is the harder way. It does stairstep up but the worst of it comes right at the beginning with a fairly long leg that has to be greater than 12%. Coming up from the south it starts easy and the last mile and a half are somewhere around 10%, so not as bad. Someone asked where the name Veeder came from; none of us knew. Afterwards I looked it up. It’s named for a Dutch pastor, Peter Veeder, who lived in Napa during the Civil War era and hiked throughout the area.

Biblical rain, fire
The descent was a revelation. The last time Roger and I had ridden Veeder was in 2023 when a section of the road just north of the summit had collapsed from the torrential winter rains. The road was closed but that made it perfect for cycling. We were able to walk the bikes across the rubble and continue downward. Today we could see that there were several new retaining walls and sections of guardrails. Gordon told us later that PGE has been undergrounding the power lines and perhaps that was the reason for the new work. Veeder was also burned in the 2017 Nuns fire but you can’t see any obvious trace of the fire now.

Going down
You can either continue your descent down Oakville Grade, which is 15% and straight, or turn onto Dry Creek Road to head south back to Napa. In the old days of the club Oakville Grade was considered a benchmark climb. We’d start at the Oakville Grocery and start up. It’s not long but it’s foolishly steep. Oh, and in those days we didn’t have anything much lower than a 42×24 or a 39×23. The only way to make it up was to stand and honk. The descent was challenging but in a different way because you picked up speed scarily fast. It’s essentially straight down so it was a test of your bravery or foolishness. I always chickened out. Back then my alarm bell went off somewhere close to 40 MPH; nowadays my instinct for self-preservation has me hitting the brakes around 30 MPH. I remember Bruce Matasci blasting down like a rocket. Scary fast. Those who die young the gods adore.

We turned down Dry Creek to discover that, while never a road in great condition, it was perhaps slightly better than in 2023 when it was a disaster zone in all but name. The asphalt was not just uneven but had alligator cracking all over the place. I hit a pothole that I couldn’t see in a shady area—I was thankful I was on fat road tires. It used to be fun; now it’s more of a chore to take Dry Creek. The other option is to descend Oakville to the valley and then contend with a jillion cars. It might be better to ascend Dry Creek in the future. Or bring 42 mm tires! Despite my moaning about the road, the scenery is rural and placid—just what I was looking for.

While Dry Creek is mainly downhill there are several short uphills with the very last one being the worst. Just before you hit the valley there is an egregiously steep section—but short!—that I always manage to hit just when cars are passing. This time was no exception. It’s a cursed section of road. It sucks to be me.

We regrouped at Alston Park. This park now has real bathrooms and that’s a good thing. Once you start up Veeder there isn’t a public restroom. Does a bear shit in the woods? Yeah, and cyclists too. Alston Park, being in the city of Napa, has flush toilets and not the pit toilets that are common in the boondocks. At this point we were heading over to the east side of Napa before arriving at our destination—what else?—a restaurant for lunch!

Go East, Young Man
We were going to do one more loop before heading to lunch at Stateline Smokehouse. Most cyclists parade on the roads north of the city of Napa. Not many ply the roads east of town and south of the Silverado Trail. But this rural area—ranches and vineyards—is quiet and devoid of tourists the way the valley used to be before the wine industrial market came knocking at the door. We had to cut across town on Trancas, which is about as bad as it can get: a major arterial in town on a road lined with strip malls, a major shopping center, and the regional hospital. Dodging cars was not too gruesome because the stoplights seemed to be countersynced and all traffic had to slow down. The transition from city to rural is abrupt on the east side. If you’re heading up the Monticello Road, which most cyclists are, you’ll miss the Vichy Springs area. Here the terrain is gently rolling and the density is low. Horse paddocks are interspersed with grapes. You’re literally just a mile from strip malls! We dropped back into Napa and it was another world of crowds, cars, and commotion.

Getting Smoked
We got to Stateline Smokehouse and Gordon was already there holding our place in line. None of us had been to Stateline before. David Goldsmith recommended it but his recommendation was based on a TV review; he had never been there either. He’s on a barbecue/smoker kick these days after Chris gave him a home smoker. Finding good barbecue is not as bad as the search for the Grail. But there is a difference between ‘okay’ barbecue and something stellar. Once you’ve had stellar, you’re not looking back.

Stateline had a band jamming inside. Stateline also has an outdoor patio in the back and today it was mysteriously devoid of patrons, so we had the whole place to ourselves and could avoid the din. Stateline was started by a chef whose background and training are fine dining. Now he’s doing a more downhome joint and it was hopping. The line was out the door when we arrived. You order and follow your tray down the line to the cashier. In the meantime you can see what others have ordered and regret your choice (and recommit to coming back and trying more stuff). I saw some ribs that were amazing. What was I doing with a sandwich?? Well, at least I won’t be in a food coma afterwards. I can’t remember what Steph ordered but Jen had to make do with the side dishes because there were no main vegetarian dishes. Is Stateline being uncompromising or making a mistake in not capturing that part of the market? I’ve had smoked tofu before and there is absolutely no point when you can have smoked ribs. But it’s a choice only for those who have no other choice. So maybe Stateline is being uncompromising. Maybe some day they’ll perfect smoked tofu and when they do it’ll be hella delicious.

Roger and I had pulled pork sandwiches. They were pretty damn good. The best pulled pork sandwich I ever had was at the old Jimtown Store. Stateline’s was right up there. Gordon and Nancy got the fish special whose presentation was something you’d find at a place of fine dining: it was beautiful and appealing. Both exclaimed afterwards it was excellent. The coleslaw was different in not being mayonnaise based. Roger and I split a large and I could have easily eaten one all by myself as it was that good. As I was following my tray earlier I saw an order of french fries. I impulsively asked the cashier if it was too late to get some. Nope! They were very, very good. I wanted to order a fresh peach crumble since peaches are in season. But I got distracted by the french fries and forgot!

Over lunch the conversation was mostly catching up with Gordon. None of us had seen him since last summer. At the moment he’s not into cycling much and instead is walking four or five miles everyday early in the morning. He’s doing better than I am! Yet he still searches for deals on bicycles online. Go figure! By his own admission he fell into cycling hard and got addicted. One year he did over 16,000 miles. Whew. But things change. I know: it happened to me too. In the mid-1990s I stopped cycling because of life circumstances. Actually, I stopped exercising altogether. I then put on twenty pounds and was either going to have to start exercising again or make a trip to Macy’s to buy all new pants. Gordon isn’t the first Spoker to let cycling lie fallow. We know that it can be much more than simply exercise, a way to meet friends, or recreation. It often hits undercurrents deep within us that we don’t realize or understand at the time and when life changes alter those undercurrents, the siren call of cycling fades and we must move on.

The other main topic was gardening, a topic that Roger never gets tired of. We compared what vegetables we are growing in our gardens. Even though Napa has warmer summers than Orinda, its cooler winters meant our veggies are ahead of Gordon’s. Gordon mentioned that he and David had dry-farmed tomatoes and got spectacular tomatoes. I had heard that the best grapes are those that are dry-farmed and not irrigated. Maybe that works for tomatoes too.

It turns out I didn’t need that peach crumble. I was full. It will have to wait for next time. And there will be a next time because I’ll want to check out the baby back ribs. Steph reminded me that Jimtown Store is now reopened. Oh, we’ll want to ride out that way to check it out even if it’s no longer the pulled pork paradise it once was. (It’s now Asian fusion.) Return to the Jimtown Store!

Over an hour later we parted ways. Maybe the next time we come up to Napa to ride (or eat), we can convince Gordon to do a spin with us again.

Last week I rode some dirt—actually, a lot of dirt—with Valley Spokesmen, one of the other clubs I ride with. Unlike the late 1980s and 1990s, Different Spokes today has few exponents of offroad cycling. Back then a mountain bike ride would bring out anywhere from four to ten people and there were several of us who regularly led club dirt rides. The club’s annual trip to Lake Tahoe, which started out as a road tour, started to attract dirt riders due to burgeoning interest among the Spokerati who were curious about the famous Flume Trail as well as the copious trails around the lake. Alas, no more. About half the time David Millard gets no one to join his easy and convenient dirt rides in San Francisco and the Marin Headlands. Joan seems to have ridden off into the sunset since no one ever joined her for her all-day dirt escapades.

What of other clubs? There are a very few clubs with mountain bike rides including Almaden Touring, Fremont Freewheelers, and Grizzly Peak Cyclists. However the latter is noteworthy because it has two weekly “gravel bike” rides, one taking in routes in Redwood Regional Park and Sibley Volcanic, and the other Tilden and Wildcat Canyon Regional Parks. This makes it a real outlier by having two rides every week. It’s also noteworthy that these rides are called ‘mixed terrain’ rides with neither ‘gravel’ nor ‘mountain bike’ nomenclature. They’re rides that include paved and non-paved terrain and you can show up on any kind of bike.

Valley Spokesmen rarely has had dirt rides. But now something is stirring. One of the VS dirterati is trying to gather the unruly masses to get something regular going. Rich, as I found out in talking to him, has a long history of mountain bike and road cycling. He’s quite familiar with dirt terrain all over the East Bay. Apparently he and a few VSBC friends do dirt rides together but nothing has been publicly listed in the ride calendar. Now that’s about to change.

When I saw the listing for a gravel ride, after getting over my astonishment I was intrigued. But the weather forecast for the day of the ride was 95F in Walnut Creek. I wrote to Rich and told him I was interested but not interested enough to endure such hot weather. He apparently later concurred because I saw he canceled the ride due to heat. But he relisted it the following week and I signed up.

We met at Heather Farms in Walnut Creek. Heather Farms is a big city park with playing fields, playgrounds, and ample parking as befits a suburban amenity. It’s also a frequently used start for rides by Valley Spokesmen, Diablo Cyclists, and occasionally by Grizzly Peak. Although Valley Spokesmen is based in Dublin there must be significant northern membership because a ride starts here every week. I rode to the start from Orinda, about thirteen miles. As I waited I noticed the bike traffic, or rather the car traffic with bikes on racks coming into the park. Riding to a trailhead is de rigueur for mountain bikes. But road bikes?? Actually yes, because Heather Farms conveniently joins the Contra Costa Canal Trail, a well used multi-use path, and it’s very close to the Iron Horse Trail as well as the Ygnacio Canal Trail. In other words, you can go all over central Contra Costa starting at Heather Farms and pleasantly avoid cars. I love living here!

Amidst all the bikes I eventually found Rich. It was a small group, initially just Rich, me, and another VSer Frank. A fourth, Justin, had emailed Rich that he was running late and he’d meet us on the trail. The route he had selected was an ‘easy, beginner’ gravel route. I hadn’t paid any attention to the RWGPS map because what caught my notice was that it was in the Shell Ridge Open Space, an area that I thought I had never ridden and thus was unfamiliar with. But just before the ride I inspected the route to see what I was getting into and realized that I had ridden a long section of it years ago, the Briones-Mt. Diablo Trail, a ride I used to do on my ‘cross bike up and into Mt. Diablo State Park. It has one crazy steep section before Rock City that I could barely do in my ridiculous 34×26 gear. Gratefully Rich’s route turns around well before that wall. Maybe it was going to be an easy ride after all, which was just what I was looking for, being in no condition to do anything butch. I had no idea how strong the other riders would be and I imagined them all to be young. I mean, old farts don’t do dirt because crashing equals ‘game over’. What gave me heart was that it was a no-drop ride and I shouldn’t be left for dead. Not dead yet!

Rich and Frank were riding e-mountain bikes, full suspension. I was on my all-road bike with one-inch suspension in the front. Rich explained that he switched to an e-mountain bike after it got so hard on his regular mountain bike that it wasn’t fun anymore. When it stops being fun, why are you doing it? Admittedly mortification of the flesh may assist one’s spiritual awakening and it’s a practice to remind oneself that it’s only a body and to keep one’s eye firmly on the transcendental. But cycling is for many the exact opposite: to relish one’s current incarnation and all the delight a body can provide. Isn’t that also what it means to be gay? That’s what we’re told anyway. The worship of suffering may be a Rapha marketing trope but suffering also hones the blade in many ways, some of which we don’t appreciate or understand at the time. That’s where faith comes in.

We had an interesting conversation—well, interesting to me—about how they ended up on e-bikes. Rich had serious medical issues and was getting old. The experience pulled back the curtain on suffering to reveal that that Wizard of Pain wasn’t so magical after all. Getting an e-bike restored his faith rather than denying it. Rich proselytized Frank, who was also having a harder time on dirt; Frank tried an e-bike and he was converted. Baptism comes so easily these days. Both Frank and Rich are older than I am. They’re thin and muscular and I’m sure were killing it when they were younger. The gods adore those who die young so we must be looked upon with some disdain. But seeing even older old farts inspires me. Incidentally, Rich mentioned to me that he switched to an e-mountain bike years ago when he was 72.

After cutting through the Eichler neighborhood behind the John Muir Medical Center and discovering where the mansions of the rich and famous are in Walnut Creek, we went through a gate and there we were on Shell Ridge. It’s mid-June and all the grass in Contra Costa is dun colored and ripe for wildfires. The day started at 70F but it wasn’t going to stay that cool for long. The route was entirely fire road/double-track totaling only 14 miles, seven in and seven out. Easy-peasy, right? Well, not exactly. The entire route had a sawtooth profile of ups and downs, and a few of those ups were Sisypheanly steep, as in 24%. It would be challenging on asphalt but on dirt it’s even more difficult.

Rich led the way. Frank said, “Go ahead, I’m slow.” I demurred, “I think you better go ahead.” The two of them motored off as I got my bearings on dirt. The good news was a grader had recently gone over the fire road; the bad news was a grader had recently gone over the fire road. I don’t know what condition the road was in before the grader did the nasty but now there were interesting sand pits that previously had been just humungous ruts. Now they were filled in with sand and loose dirt, of uncertain depth, and of course I didn’t see some of them until I was wheel-deep. It reminded me of skiing except when I used to ski I was in control. My adrenaline skyrocketed. But those energy bursts helped me get up the steep gradients. There’s nothing like a sand pit AND a 20% grade to test your legs. For those roadies unacquainted with riding on dirt, note: when it gets hella steep, you can’t just stand up on your bike to get you out of trouble. Why? Because you’ll likely lose traction on your rear wheel. You also have to lean forward because if you sit upright as you would on a road bike, you are then “prone” [pun intended] to losing your front wheel. So you sit, lean forward as much as possible, and grunt. I lost count how many times I had to do that.

When descending steep declines, the opposite is true: you’ll want to get off your saddle and stand on your pedals. If you don’t and you hit a hard bump, it’ll launch your butt over the bars. You also have to get your butt as far back as you can, even behind the saddle in order not to go over the bars. That’s why mountain bikers (and now gravelistas) use dropper seatposts. I did my best imitation of Superman going downhill. Uh, that would be a Superman who is going really, really slow and timidly. Even if a dropper post adds a pound of extra weight, it’s going to pay dividends almost every time you go down. (And you like to go down, don’t you?) I need to get a dropper post; unfortunately no one makes one that fits my bike. Sigh.

Besides the numerous sand pits there was the usual off-camber and uneven road surface peppered with rocks and egregiously lumpy bumps making for lots of type 2 fun. Yes, this was an easy, beginner ride. In the meantime our fourth rider Justin caught up with us. He was riding a Surly that looked like a mountain bike sans suspension but was cleverly set up as a gravel bike. He’s a big guy and looked like he had the motor to power that mass. He was also about forty years younger than us. Clearly my role was to sweep the ride. I asked Justin how long he had been mountain biking. He said “Never done it.” I then asked him how long he had had his bike. He said he just got it from a friend at this year’s Chico Wildflower and this was the second time he had ridden it!

We continued along and Rich was very supportive and patient. He and Frank waited at the top of each rise and at each cattle gate—there were at least four—for Justin and me to catch up. In watching Rich and Frank and talking with them at each stop I learned why e-mountain bikes are selling like hotcakes. As you get older, muscle strength naturally declines even if your endurance remains steady. Muscle strength is important when you’re riding dirt, not just to control the bike but for the times when you hit a bump or the gradient suddenly gets worse, you need a burst of power to get over it (or else fall off). That motor can get you out of a lot of trouble by just stomping the pedals and activating the motor assist to power you over the bump. It’s hard to emphasize how draining dealing the terrain incongruities can be; it’s not just the gradient but the surface texture that affects your energy expenditure. The fact that Rich and Frank had full suspension was not lost on me either: those boingers smoothed out a lot of the bumps and made it easier to steer and control the bike especially when going downhill.

Speaking of downhills, each one was a thrillfest and I don’t mean that in a positive way. The downhills were as steep as the uphills and equally bumpy, rutted, and with sand pits. My measly one-inch of front suspension was useless. I was also on slick tires, meaning I had very little grip and in the sand, none; I had to let the bike roll as straight as possible or else crash. Of course if going straight meant I was going to dive into a rut, I’d crash anyway. At the bottom of each decline I sighed in relief—I was still in one piece.

Justin wasn’t having the greatest time either. He had lower gears than I, much lower, but he looked to outweigh me by sixty or seventy pounds. So he was able to spin up the climbs but he wasn’t going faster than I—he just was more “comfortable”. He had no suspension either but at least he had knobby tires and could ace the downhills.

The turnaround point was China Wall, a rock formation of exposed, uplifted seabed. In the past I had kept going to Mt. Diablo State Park via Wall Point Road. But this was plenty for me. We took a break at China Wall, did a selfie, and took in the view, which is of Mt. Diablo in one direction and a stately, mansiony subsection of Alamo in the other. A lone equestrian came up the hill from there. We chatted—she had a fine, feisty horse that liked to prance sideways. I was reminded of the Lippizzaner stallions when we did a cycle tour of Slovenia years ago. By now it was warming up and the sun was burning hot.

The return was more of the same. Rich had planned a diversion down to Castle Rock Recreation Area, not too long but a steep climb back up. He asked us what we wanted to do. Hesitation and silence. I know what that means! I blurted out that this was enough for me and my legs were getting toasty. Justin then breathed a sigh of relief and concurred. I was glad to know I wasn’t the only one fried. I could tell that each successive grunt uphill was progressively tiring my legs out and getting too tired would mean making errors and falling. I’m conservative in my old age: live to fight another day.

Rich offered a coffee/snack stop at the San Miguel Center. Normally I would have taken up the offer. (A Sweet Affair Bakery is there and it’s wonderful!) But my legs were fried and I was ready to head home even though we had only been out for about three hours and just 14 miles of dirt. I told Rich I was definitely up for more dirt rides but next time I would bring my mountain bike (because lower gears, fatter tires, knobby).

Speaking of which, it wasn’t lost of me that offering a beginner gravel ride but then having the leader show up on a mountain bike was odd. Why didn’t he just list it as a mountain bike ride? Of course after I saw the terrain—which in memory didn’t seem that hard (when I was younger)—it totally made sense even if I previously had been able to do it on a ‘cross bike. But getting to Heather Farms from Orinda was sweet on my road bike.

I’m looking forward to more group dirt riding. But I’m not up for technical terrain. ‘Technical’ generally means ‘tough’ but not necessarily tough because of the gradient but tough because the skills needed to navigate the terrain are really dirt-specific: picking lines, handling bumps and tree roots, rock gardens, etc. All of that stuff scares me now and the last thing I need is another broken bone(s) or head injury. I’ll stick to fire roads even if they have their own challenges.

The Disconnect
I’ve been pondering for some time the disconnect between the publicity that gravel bikes get and the reality here in the Bay Area. In the Midwest it’s obvious that a gravel bike makes a great deal of sense and that clubs there would offer gravel rides. You get to the city limits of just about any town in Iowa, Nebraska, or Kansas and you have gravel roads. It’s quite a bit different here. The vast majority of “gravel” rides in our area have historically been mountain bike rides. There aren’t a lot of flatter dirt/gravel roads around here because development has taken over all the buildable land. Those Midwestern gravel roads coexist with ample farmland. Well, that all vanished in the Bay Area many decades ago. There might have been gravel roads in the Santa Clara Valley and Contra Costa when they were mostly farm land. But now it’s wall-to-wall suburbs and all that is left is tiny remnant farms. Now 99.99% of those dirt roads are paved. What’s left for dirt is the steep stuff on unbuildable land. The closest thing to copious “gravel” routes is heading out of the cities to national forest lands where you can ride fire roads and forest routes to your heart’s delight.

You would think that a burgeoning trend like gravel would mean recreational clubs’ calendars would be rife with gravel rides. That isn’t the case. Are there gravel clubs? None that I know of. Where are the gravel riders? I certainly see a lot of gravel bikes being ridden around on the streets. But I’m not sure how much dirt they’re seeing. Forty-five years ago it was the same with mountain bikes: most of them were used to ride around in the City, never seeing dirt except maybe in Golden Gate Park. As I learned a few years ago there are quite a few gravel bikes in the Marin Headlands and that terrain is well suited for that kind of bike. Even the tame fire roads that I ride on regularly—the Nimitz, Wildcat, Old Haul Road, Old San Pablo Dam Road—if I see other cyclists they’re usually on mountain bikes, not gravel bikes. One positive sign is that a few local centuries are starting to include gravel as their route options. That they continue to do so must mean that there are gravel cyclists plunking down money to register. They’re out there somewhere.

Perhaps the lack of gravel cyclists is partly due to ignorance. Unless you’re already mountain biking you’re not really sure where to go. And gravel riding requires many of the same skills that mountain biking demands but which road bikers lack. When I started mountain biking in 1988, I crashed five times that year, more crashes than in all the years of road biking. Getting used to your tires drifting around especially your front tire, keeping traction, reading the terrain, and picking lines over varied surfaces took a lot of time to assimilate. This assumes that gravel cyclists are coming from the road side. Frankly I’m not sure why a mountain biker would ever want a gravel bike. On dirt they are less capable than mountain bikes. They are a compromise vehicle: okay on road, limited on dirt. That’s why gravel bikes today are evolving into drop bar mountain bikes: when on dirt mountain bikes just rule. If you’re coming to gravel from the road side, which most of us are, a gravel bike can be an intriguing, realm-expanding vehicle despite its limitations. Riding on dirt gets you away from cars, gets you away from most urban distractions, and let’s you get your dose of “green showers”. But you don’t know that until you’ve been shown the way.

In the early days of the club I was “dirt curious”. But I had to be shown the way, i.e. initiated. And who was the older, wiser man who presided over that rite of initiation? None other than the Den Daddy Derek Liecty. He had offered to take me on my very first mountain bike ride. Ever the trend setter and early adopter, Derek had gone over to the dirt side years before and he even had two mountain bikes. “Hi Derek, um, I’m wondering if I could take you up on your offer to show me the ropes- I mean, show me the trails as I’m still a dirt virgin.” We set the date and he took me up somewhere in Redwood Regional Park for an easy dirt ride. My recollection was that I was underwhelmed. I was expecting the earth to move- well, it sort of did but not in the way I was hoping. Nonetheless it stuck in my mind. One day I was passing by Jitensha Studio in Berkeley and the next thing I know I’m walking out with a mountain bike that Hiroshi sold me on a deal. The rest is history. Anyway, my point is that unless you’re the brazen, not-craven type you’re not going to get a gravel bike and head out on your first ride without some help and maybe that’s the situation with the club: the dirt curious need to be initiated.

I know of two club members who have modern gravel bikes. But they don’t get ridden on dirt (well, unless they’re keeping it a secret). I actually don’t have a gravel bike. I have a bike I refer to as my ‘gravel’ bike but it’s actually a road bike. I also ride dirt on my ‘cross bike but its minimalist 35mm tires are getting, well, “tiresome”. Getting to know where to ride a gravel bike while having fun is the secret. But those places also need to be conveniently near where people live. David Millard is doing a great job of leading rides in San Francisco taking advantage of the tidbits of dirt on Twin Peaks, the Presidio, and Golden Gate Park. Realistically that’s what gravel riding is in the Bay Area if you’re going to do it from home: a fair amount of regular pavement and then diverting off onto some dirt. What we have here is more accurately called ‘mixed terrain’ since it combines pavement and dirt. A gravel bike—essentially a road bike but with much bigger tires and lower gearing—is a better horse for this course than a mountain bike with its complicated suspension. (Don’t tell Joan that—she rips on pavement with her full suspension rig.)

There were several reasons why I switched over to mountain biking back in the late 1980s. One of them is still compelling today: it’s dangerous on the roads and it’s not getting better, only worse. Although drivers in the Bay Area are now better adjusted to the presence of cyclists on “their” roads, the behavior they exhibit is much worse, so much so that it nullifies any gain in forebearance. I don’t ever recall seeing a car run through a red light when I was younger; while cycling I’ve seen two run through solidly red lights in the past year and I’ve seen many more in the past decade. Just yesterday while driving, I saw two cars run a red light in front of me. I’ve learned never to go through a stoplight first. Drivers are distracted or they just don’t care anymore. A driver nearly killed me in crosswalk a few weeks ago. He knew I was there: he smiled and waved at me as he practically brushed my front wheel as I tried to cross the intersection. The club has had two members killed in two separate incidents by hit-and-run drivers. The level of impatience and road rage I’ve witnessed by drivers in my own neighborhood is frightening. There is a stop sign in front of our house. Every day drivers go through it without stopping, many without even slowing down. Six years ago just a few miles from home I barely avoided getting hit by a car driver who didn’t stop at a stop sign and launched his car into the street. The guy in front of me was hit. It seems safer on trails although perhaps the threats are just different. If you’re tired of conflicts with car drivers, then getting into any kind of dirt riding will be a welcome relief. Gravel bikes just make it easier to get to the trails and fire roads than a mountain bike. That hardly seems like a plaudit these days because everybody is throwing their bike regardless of type onto a car and driving somewhere else in order to ride. Perhaps one day another group of dirt enthusiasts will arise in Different Spokes. But I doubt it. In the meantime I’m dirt riding with other clubs: birds of a feather flock together.