Fun With Tubeless Tires: When Tight Isn’t Erotic

It took me an hour to change a tire the other day. Normally this simple task would involve no more than five minutes even working at a slow and meticulous pace, and I wouldn’t have blinked an eye at the task. But I was changing a tubeless tire and all bets are off when it comes to how easy or ridiculous this can turn out. In this case it was ridiculous.

Like a good Boy Scout I was topping off my tubeless tires with sealant after a wet ride. There are a couple of ways you can add sealant to a tire and I did it the easiest way: unscrew the presta valve, and using the short hose that came with the sealant bottle just inject a couple of ounces into the tire. Job done. But since I had been riding in wet weather, I decided to wipe the tires down and check for anything pointy things sticking in the rubber. Finding nothing I thought I was free and clear but, uh-oh, there it was in the rear tire: a bare patch of tire casing. Shit, now I’ve got a friggin’ tire full of sealant that I have to take off!

All tires wear out and if you’re fortunate you get to ride them until all that rubbery goodness has worn away. With tires pushing $90 these days I am loathe to retire a tire until I absolutely have to. This tire was done—with more rain ahead I dared not risk eking out a couple hundred more miles. I learned my lesson: a dozen years ago or so Roger and I went down to ride the Solvang on our tandem. The tires were worn but I thought they’d last through the day. Nope. About 20 miles from the start we started to flat—we had actually worn through the casing so much that the tube deflated. I stuck a new tube and tire boot in there in hopes that would suffice. Barely. I couldn’t pump it up to full pressure without the tire bulging pustulantly. So we limped to the first rest stop where, very luckily, there was a vendor selling new tires. Day saved thanks to the kindness of strangers (and about $40). But I learned my lesson: see casing, better stop!

I had a new tire at hand and could have changed it right away. However I had just filled the damn tire up with about two ounces of new sealant. Unmounting that tire likely would result in a big mess. You’re thinking: so what’s the problem? Stop whining and just replace the tire. It’s gonna cost you less than five minutes of your oh-so precious time.

Um, that is unless it’s a tubeless tire. Replacing a tube in a regular clincher takes about lickety-split. But with tubeless tires you never know because mounting or unmounting tubeless tires can be a protracted struggle. Why is that? Because they are extraordinarily tight. So I walked away from the whole thing unwilling to face another pointless ordeal.

A month later despite having implored the saints nightly my tire did not heal itself. So I got up the courage and time to confront the inevitable and replace the damn tire. It took me an hour and each frustrating minute I was frittering away at this stupidly complicated task was making me angrier and angrier at the direction that bike technology has taken.

I’ve replaced this rear tire before so I knew pretty much what I was up against. Which is why after I discovered the bare patch I waited over a month before resigning myself to fixing it. It’s never as simple as you imagine and it’s definitely never as simple as changing a tubed tire.

Tubeless tires need to mate well with the rim in order for a good seal to form so that air won’t leak out. This isn’t just a nuisance issue of having to pump up your tire every other day; it is a safety issue too because you don’t want your tire to unexpectedly and savagely deflate while you’re riding—like while you’re turning—as this can lead to a crash. Ten years ago I started playing with road tubeless, everything was in the experimental stage (ie. you and I were the guinea pigs). Some tire-rim combinations just didn’t work well because the fit between the two wasn’t precise enough. Rim manufacturers such as Enve then started to evaluate tires on the market and would recommend certain tires that they found would fit well with their rims and warn consumers away from other tires that didn’t work. That’s the last thing tire manufacturers want: a penumbra of doubt—maybe it’ll work or maybe it won’t. Worse, they don’t want a rim manufacturer saying DON’T use their tire!

This led to the European Tyre and Rim Technical Organization (ETRTO), which sets standards for rims and tires, to produce new standards for tubeless rims and tires that literally tightened up the manufacturing variation in rim dimensions and tubeless tire bead diameter so that tires would fit more precisely and not blow off rims and would seal and hold air. You may think this is a good thing—yay! standardization! But it is now more difficult to mount or unmount an ETRTO compliant clincher tire onto an ETRTO compliant rim. Those slacker standards pre-tubeless allowed us to pick and choose rims and tires and they all worked pretty well together. The reason? Even if the dimensions were less than ideal the tube once inflated would force the tire against the rim bead hook and hold it there securely, preventing the tube from blowing out. Without a tube the only thing containing the air inside is a tight fit of rim and tire bead. Any slop results in bleeding air or worse, the tire being able to blow off the rim easily. You would think that making the rim/tire fit tighter would make it easier to inflate road tubeless tires; ironically it may have made it worse. And guess what? Soon all rims and tires will end up complying with the new ETRTO specs because those in the business of making money on bike products want to make sure you can use any of their products in tubeless applications even if you never intend to switch over.

The bottom line is that more often than not it will be a struggle to put a new tire onto a contemporary rim. And the converse is also true: unmounting the tire can become an ordeal. If you have a flat on the road—yes, it does happen with tubeless tires too—you will have double the trouble: unmounting the tire to put in a spare tube and then remounting it (while your hands are covered with slobbery tire sealant) can, nay will, become a time-consuming shitshow. And yes, I have unfortunately experienced this too.

Here’s what I did. Holding the wheel vertically, I let the sealant pool to the bottom. I stuck a tire lever under the bead at the top of the tire and then carefully a second lever near it. This can be difficult with regular clinchers and it’s usually worse with ETRTO compliant tires and rims. Prying a tight bead off with short, flexible tire levers can be nearly impossible—they don’t have much leverage and they bend so much that you think they’re going to snap in two. The trick was not to do it violently despite the difficulty because then sealant might go flying especially if you then drop the wheel. Putting just one lever in wouldn’t have been any good—the bead is so tight that I wouldn’t be able to stick a second in, so I had to try to lever the bead off with two right away. The problem is that it is harder to pry a bead off in two places at once. In the past I’ve done this and it’s been a struggle. This time was no different and with forceful efforts I finally got part of the bead off the rim—without spilling any sealant! A flick of one lever slowly around the perimeter of the bead and I got the first bead off.

Thanks to Jeff Mishler for a tip I had the perfect tool for removing the sealant: a Park TSI-1. It’s basically a big syringe that can suck up all the sealant so I don’t have to spill it. This also conserved the sealant and I could reinject it into the new tire. I did this before removing the second bead in order not to end up with sealant all over the floor (and me).

The second bead came off more easily. The next step was to clean the rim and inspect it for any problems. What sort of problems? Well, like your rim tape coming loose. Almost all rims have spoke holes and these are covered with a special rim tape so that the rim cavity is completely sealed and can contain air at pressure. Tape can migrate and the air pressure can force sealant around the edges compromising the seal. By the way, did you know that the ammonia in some sealants can corrode aluminum alloy spoke nipples? (I’m looking at you, Stan’s!) So you don’t want there to be any leakage into those spoke holes.

I thought at this point the hardest part was over. I was wrong. With a tubed clincher inflating a tire is simple: Just pump. The tube inflates and pushes the tire against the rim wall until it catches the bead hook. Voila! You’re done! But there is no tube with tubeless tires. So whether or not a tubeless tire “just inflates” when you pump is a big question mark. In my experience the answer is “mostly not.” The problem is that most floor pumps don’t inject air fast enough to push the tire out against the rim wall. Since there is no seal between the tire and rim, air just leaks out between the two. In theory a tighter, more precise fit should make it easier to inflate but that isn’t always the case.

After futilely pumping as fast as I could and getting nowhere, I had to get out the (literally) “heavy machinery”: an air compressor. As I’ve mentioned before, an air compressor is a handy-dandy tool for running a nail gun, inflating your car tires, and for blowing compressed air when you want to clean up an area. It’s also very useful for inflating tubeless tires. Unfortunately they are bulky and quite heavy; if you don’t have a workshop, it’s a bit much to have one around. (Instead you can invest in one of the newer floor pumps that have an air reservoir that you can pump up to 160 lbs. or so pressure. Opening a valve releases the air quickly into your tire and hopefully gets it to seat against the rim and seal.) After priming the air compressor I tried inflating the tire. The goal wasn’t to fully inflate the tire but rather just to force the beads against the rim wall and seal. Since I had removed the presta valve core, there was no way the tire could remain at pressure anyway. Once I had the beads seated, I would add sealant, screw in the presta valve core, and then inflate to riding pressure with the floor pump. That was the plan anyway.

The tire inflated and pushed against the rim walls. Most tires these days make telltale ‘snap’ sounds when the bead pops into place. With old-school tires, apparently the beads were sufficiently loose that you rarely experienced that. The ‘snap’ is the bead popping out of the wheel well onto the rim shelf; in addition some rims designed for tubeless tires have a little lip that holds the rim bead and the bead has to pop over that lip. I heard the snaps—there’s usually more than one as the bead snaps into place in different locations around the rim. But once I stopped inflating, the beads popped right off the rim wall and the tire deflated much to my dismay. I tried inflating longer and to higher pressures. (But I wasn’t going to go beyond 85 psi because a tire of this size on a wide rim is not designed to hold the kind of pressure an old school clincher rim can. The latter are narrower—about 17 mm—and the tires were usually no wider than 25 mm (if that). In this case I had moderately wide rims (21 mm) and a 30 mm wide tire. With the bigger volume the total pressure the air exerts against the rim wall is much greater even at a “lower” pressure such as 85 psi.) I tried more than a half dozen times and the ending was the same: the tire beads would pop against the rim walls but after deflating they would pop off. I was getting very frustrated.

The next thing I tried was inflating the tire to 85 psi and then trying to quickly insert the presta valve core so the beads wouldn’t pop off. It didn’t work. I wasn’t fast enough and the air blasting out of the valve made it difficult to insert the core. I tried this three or four times.

In the past I had used the air compressor and it worked perfectly. But it was usually when there had been sealant in the tire. I reconsidered my decision not to put in sealant before seating the beads. The tradeoff would be the sealant might help the tire make a better seal with the rim right away; but if I weren’t careful, I was likely to have sealant all over the place. I had run out of ideas and inflating a dry tire just wasn’t working. Of course you can’t slosh sealant around in an unmounted tire but I was hoping the blast of air would help spread it around enough. Once the sealant was in the tire, the blast of air snapped the beads into place long enough for me to insert the presta valve and attach a regular floor pump to get the tire up to 80 psi. It worked! The beads stayed in place long enough for me to screw in the core and pump the tire up. I then quickly rotated the wheel every which way in order to spread sealant thoroughly around the tire and then let it sit. Checking the rim I could see sealant had seeped out at a couple locations indicating the seal was not perfect. But the sealant would take care of that. I was done.

I let the wheel sit overnight and the next day it was still at pressure. So I deflated it to its usual pressure, 58 psi. I rode it two days in a row and it has worked flawlessly. Certainly I was relieved that all that effort and time eventually paid off. But really, spending an hour to replace a tire?? That’s absurd. As much as I enjoy the benefit of tubeless tires—fewer flats on the road—it is not a movement overall towards user-friendliness and simplicity. The cynical part of me sees this as indifference by manufacturers and product designers. They want to push the field in this direction and make some money with a new! better! product. The problem is that it is not a better product—it’s a different product—and overpromising is just so tiresome.

Being able to do basic repair and maintenance on your bike is a dying value and product designers seem intent on accelerating that trend. Stupid ideas like tubeless tires that are a chore to inflate are pushing recreational cycling in the direction that automobiles went: all the technology is turning bikes into just one big black box and when something doesn’t work, you have to haul it to the shop. I can completely understand a regular Joe/Josephine Cyclist, eyes glazing over at the prospect of needing an air compressor and hour of time to literally wrestle a tire off and on a rim, just saying, ‘fuck it, I’ll take it to Mike’s Bikes and let them deal with it.’ Oh, and that will be $60, please, for the labor. If you wear out tires infrequently, maybe that’s a cost/time-effective solution for you.

Am I saying that road tubeless tires are a waste of time and money? No. But to embrace them is a choice you make hopefully after understanding what that choice entails. When I don’t flat in the rain, I love tubeless tires. So there you go: one convenience is traded off for an inconvenience.

There is one thing I could have done to avoid this shitshow. I could have mounted the new tire on a spare rim with a tube, inflated it to pressure, and let it sit for a few weeks. That time allows the tire and its beads to stretch out a bit so that it would be easier to mount and for the beads to pop into place. Just make sure you have a spare rim. This is an interesting throwback to the days of yore when we rode sewup tires. A new sewup was nearly impossible to stretch onto a rim, which was inevitably covered with sticky sewup tire glue. A mess was unavoidable. (So, lots of acetone afterwards!) We learned to stretch new sewups onto a clean, spare rim and leave them for a couple of weeks so they’d be easier to mount when we actually needed to replace a tire. They were manufactured tight because you didn’t want a loose tire that wouldn’t line up straight and would be too easily decoupled from the rim in a hard turn. And here we are again. What’s old is new!

Apparently I’m not the only home mechanic who’s frustrated with road tubeless tires: https://velo.outsideonline.com/gear/technical-faq-tubeless-troubles/

And if you want to see a “pro” mechanic install a tire, you can watch him suffer through a similar debacle. Note that the video is edited down so that the actual amount of time he spent is much more than what you see (12 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=fgEzCJT7yEw

Now, why is it you’re interested in converting to tubeless tires?

2024: Enter the Drag(on)

Last year we were draggin’; this year Different Spokes San Francisco is getting its drag on! With a reinvigorated board and handful—and I do mean just a handful—of eager volunteers we’re bolting out of the gates with a refreshed club program. We listened to what you’ve been saying—or at least what those voices in my head tell me—and we’re breaking out of the old mold and doing something a bit different this year.

We have a lot to look forward to. By now it’s looking like we’re having a ‘normal’ winter, ie. not 33 atmospheric rivers despite whatever El Nino dread we might have had. To date we have had but one in NorCal. By this time last year we had massive road closures and depressingly we’re still living with a bunch of them because the repairs needed have been massive. But you never know: March is the month that is cursed for cyclists whether it’s a wet year or a rainy one. For mysterious reasons it doesn’t matter what the weather has been like all winter as March is often wet and ruinous.
With that in mind I’ll hazard an optimistic prediction that this is going to be an awesome year for us and the first reason is that several key roads are going to have their repairs done. Which roads?
Highway 84 a.k.a. La Honda Road. Highway 84 from Woodside to Skylonda broke up and died last winter. It’s not a road that cyclists prefer to take and having it reopen isn’t going to mean we’ll be flocking up that ascent. But it is one of the main road for cars to get from the Midpeninsula to coastside, which does mean that once it reopens they’ll go back to it rather than racing up Kings Mountain, Old La Honda, and Page Mill where we prefer to dawdle. Highway 84 currently has one lane open and it’s controlled by a traffic light. But it’s scheduled to open fully this spring. Once that happens we’ll be able to use those three roads again in relative peace and safety. Well, sort of: West Old La Honda is still ruined with no repair in sight.
Alpine Road. Most road cyclists aren’t familiar with Alpine Road except for the civilized section from Stanford to Portola Valley. But it used to continue up to Page Mill Road just below where it intersects Skyline. The catch was that it was a dirt road but very lovely and smooth. I used to ride it when I lived in Palo Alto in the 70s and 80s. It was never maintained resulting in the roadbed collapsing due to culvert failures. It’s been left to degenerate into a mountain bike trail. I thought that was the end as did a lot of cyclists, RIP. In that condition going up on a road bike was not fun and it entered into the “rough stuff” category, ie. “I always take my bike when I go for a walk!” But the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District got control of the road and to everyone’s shock has started rebuilding the road. It’s expected to open this spring. Wow. There’s gonna be a club ride up that baby as soon as it opens!
Highway One in Big Sur. Paul’s Slide put an end to Highway One last January. After a mind-blowingly huge and long repair it’s expected to reopen this spring as well. How many of you ride through Big Sur? Probably not many. But having it reopened paves the way (pun intended) for rides up Nacimiento-Fergusson Road, which has also been closed because of the very same rains and which is expected to reopen in August. Do I smell a two-day ride up NF to the Fort Liggett Hacienda? Stay tuned…
Finally Wildcat Canyon…it’s actually scheduled to reopen in 2025 rather than this year. But in this sole case that’s a good thing because bikes can still ride it without cars for another year!

Second, you can also look forward to more social events. We’ve had the stalwarts (or is that stale-warts?)—the kick off meeting, annual picnic, Orinda pool party, the fall social, and the holiday party—and we’re hoping to add some new social gatherings that are cycling-adjacent or even completely separate from riding our bikes. We’re planning on putting together a basic bike repair & maintenance training later this spring. We’re also planning more rides with post-ride refreshment (adult or otherwise). So instead of just staring at the wheel in front of you, you’ll actually be able to talk to that member! And we might even revive the old Dish ’n Dine gatherings where we meet after work for a social meal—no cycling talk allowed! (Just kidding.)

And a getaway weekend? We have one in the works for Grass Valley/Nevada City, which is a cycling hotspot west of Sacramento and high enough in elevation to avoid the debilitating valley heat. Stay tuned!

Ride Recap: Pescadero & Stage Road

It was a long year waiting for Stage Road to reopen. Although it did not fall victim to the New Year’s Eve Massacre, which closed Mines, Patterson, Redwood, Veeder, Calaveras, and scads of roads in the Santa Cruz Mountains, it succumbed a couple of months later and was closed for repair until late November. With so many roads closed throughout the Bay Area, San Mateo County had to work to line up a contractor who could fit it into its schedule. I’m sure it wasn’t cheap too. In the meantime club trips to coastside were severely constrained because Stage Road features in several of our favored routes. The fact that Old La Honda and Highway 84 were also closed didn’t help at all. How many Gazos Creek loops and Kings Mtn. Road loops didn’t take place because of all the mishegos?

I didn’t want to delay any longer to see how the rebuilt section of Stage Road turned out as well as to revel in the greening splendor after the recent rains. The weather was iffy until the morning of the ride when the rains completely vanished and we had bright blue sky! Hemming and hawing now put to rest, there were six of us out for a welcome winter jaunt: Cathy, Jeff, Ginny, my husband Roger, Alden, and I.

Ever since David cut the Gordian knot and started leading Pescadero loop rides from Pescadero instead of Palo Alto or Half Moon Bay, the scales have fallen off my eyes and I wholeheartedly embrace this much shorter version. It is heretical for me to say but I really don’t like cycling on Highway One. So I don’t miss the long section north of Stage Road especially if I start the ride in SF. Yeah, it’s beautiful, the Pacific is awesome, etc. But it’s replete with dangerous drivers especially on a weekend afternoon when they’re beered up and heading down the highway at 70 mph, oh, and passing the drivers who are already speeding but not speeding enough for their taste into the oncoming lane directly at us. Add in the tourists in rental Mustangs gawking and the at times nonexistent shoulder and it’s nerve wracking enough to ruin a nice day’s ride.

We started at the now closed Pescadero High School just at the edge of town and immediately went through the tiny town on Stage Road. The road was just slightly damp and the sun was ashining. The group took off as Cathy and I caught up on news; Roger did a one-eighty and headed back to the car because we had forgotten to lock it. (Not that Pescadero is like San Francisco, mind you, but old habits die hard.) Stage Road has three short climbs and just past the first one we encountered a short repaved section of road with a new guardrail. Could this be it? It seemed too early. Because I didn’t think it was the repaired section I didn’t stop to take a photo. But we didn’t spot any other obvious new pavement continuing on, so that must have been it. We caught up with the group at the San Gregorio Store and stopped to chat and reflect on how fortunate we were to be riding in dry, sunny weather.

After the last climb up to Highway One we bombed down the coast southward. Unlike the drive down, traffic on One was now brisk. It was a smooth, breezy ride with just a couple of sections of shoulder fully encroached by the ever-moving sand dunes. Eventually we arrived at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, which was doing brisk business. The lighthouse itself has been closed for ages—I thought it would never reopen. But I’m wrong: a restoration is starting this spring and is expected to last two years at which point we will have a beautifully restored and open lighthouse that we can actually go up to take a gander at the Pacific from the height. Bathroom stop and selfies done, we paraded a couple miles further south to Gazos Creek Road.

Riding on Gazos is always welcome. You’re finally away from cars, the road is in great shape, and Gazos Creek is always a gurgling treat. Only us oldtimers remember when Gazos was a dirt road. It was still pretty good to ride on back then but I like the asphalt better! Here the best of coastside is on display: Gazos Creek was roaring from the previous night’s rain and quite a turbid brown. But it was swaddled in green vegetation making it a pastoral delight. Gazos continues into Big Basin State Park where it’s dirt and goes all the way to the park center, which is now completely burned down. We turned off Gazos onto Cloverdale and were greeted by the soothing, greening hills completely devoid of urbanization. Did we even pass anyone? I think we encountered exactly one car the entire way.

Back at the high school Jeff, Alden, and Cathy decided to ride to the Loma Mar Store while Ginny, Roger, and I took the easy way and got into our cars. We all arrived at Loma Mar at the same time!

Loma Mar is also a survivor of another age. Back in the day Loma Mar was a PO and just a store. So I used to ride to Pescadero to get grub at Arcangeli Market or Duarte’s. But after a long closure for a complete rebuild, Loma Mar finally reopened and with addition of a restaurant. And it’s a good one too. So it’s now my fave for lunch (unless I absolutely have to have the artichoke bread at Arcangeli or the artichoke soup at Duarte’s). Like restaurants elsewhere dishes at Loma Mar aren’t ‘cheap’ anymore. A very good sandwich and a coffee is going to add up to more than $20 after tax and tip. We all sat there gabbing for an age about wildfires, the difficulty getting house insurance, and cycling coastside.

Finally we moved our butts and headed home. What a great ride with great company and scenery!

2024 Centuries: May through July [updated 6/14/24]

MAY
4 Saturday. Delta Century. 100-, 67-, and 26-mile routes. $75-$55. Very flat rides starting in Woodbridge tour the Sacramento Delta. Registration ~~opens in early 2024~~ is open.
4 Sunday. Wine Country Century. 100-, 63- and 35-mile routes. $140-$115. A club fave and great food. It always sells out so register early. Limited to 2,500. This is the 50th anniversary so SRCC has something special planned. ~~Registration is open.~~ SOLD OUT.
4? Saturday. Mr. Frog’s Wild Ride. 55-, 43- and 21-mile routes? $?. A challenging hilly ride out of Murphys including Sheep Ranch Road. No 2024 date yet. APPARENTLY NOT HAPPENING THIS YEAR.
5 Sunday. Grizzly Peak Century. 100-, 75-, 50-, and 30-mile routes. And a 100- or 50-km gravel routes. $100-$70. Limit of 1,000 riders. The start in Moraga is easy to get to and the delicious food is largely homemade. Registration is open.
18 Saturday. I Care Classic. 100-mile, 100-, 50- and 20-km routes. $95-$80. Riding in the Santa Clara Valley between San Jose and Gilroy. Run by the Almaden Lions Club. Registration is open.
18 Saturday. Tour delle Vigne. $75. 100k, 60k, and 30k routes. Flat valley rides out of Lodi sponsored by the Lodi Rotary Club. Registration is open.
18 Saturday. Davis Double. $160. 200 miles, period. Limited to 500 riders. ~~Registration opens first week of March with route information to follow.~~ Registration is now open.
18-19 Saturday & Sunday. Siskiyou Scenic Bicycle Tour. 104-, 67-, 40-, and 21-mile road routes on Saturday; 63- and 39-mile gravel routes on Sunday. $85-$55. Riding in the beautiful area around Yreka. Registration is open.
19 Sunday. Strawberry Fields Forever. 102-, 64-, and 30-mile routes. $100. Out of Watsonville and into the Santa Cruz Mountains. Registration ~~is not yet open~~ is open.
25-26 Saturday-Sunday. The Art of Survival Century. 100-, 60-, 38-mile road routes & 74-, 54-mile gravel routes. $80-$60. Rides near the Oregon border in NW California remembering the Tule Lake internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII. Road rides on Saturday; gravel rides on Sunday. Registration is open.

JUNE 

1 Saturday. Gold Country Challenge. 100-, 74-, 54-, and 35-mile road routes; also 42- and 62-mile mixed terrain routes. $95-45. Registration is open.
1 Saturday. Ojai Valley Century. 103-, 63-, and 31-mile routes as well as 102-, 50-, and 35-mile gravel routes. $125-$105. A bit further south in Ventura County in the Ojai Valley out to Santa Barbara and back. (No Class 3 e-bikes.) Registration is open.
2 Sunday. Sequoia Century. 100-, 72-, and 62-, and 38-mile routes. $145-90. A venerable century going from the Midpeninsula over the Coast Range to coastside and back. The routes change every year. Registration is open but just 91 slots left.
7-9 Sunday to Tuesday. Cycle Oregon (Gravel). 65 to 115 mile options. $510. Registration limited to 600. Several route options each day around Big Summit Prairie, OR. Camping. Registration is open.
15 Saturday. Mile High 100. 100-, 68- and 33-mile routes. $95-$75. Rides around Lake Almanor near Chester, CA and Lassen. Registration is open.
22 Saturday. Climb to Kaiser. $140-$125. 155- and 99-mile routes. The hardest climb in California: 15,000 vertical gain. Registration ~~is not yet open~~ is open.
17 Sunday to 24 Sunday. Sierra to the Sea. 420 miles over 8 days. $1,650. Limit of 85 riders; 40 slots left. Registration is open.
29 Saturday. Alta Alpina Challenge. $205-170. Another version of the Death Ride. Registration is open.
29 Saturday. Giro Bello. $125-100. 101 mile, 67 mile, and 50k routes. New routes for 2024. Similar to the Wine Country Century and in the same area. ~~No information yet.~~ Registration is now open.

JULY

 20 Saturday. Fall River Century. $75-50. 200k, 100k-, 100-, and 25-mile routes. Beautiful ride east of Mt. Shasta. Limit of 500 riders. Registration is open.
12-14 Friday to Sunday. Cycle Oregon Weekender. 127 to 30 miles. $500. Variety of gravel routes near McMinnville, OR. Camping near town. Registration is open
13 Saturday. Death Ride. $209. 103 miles. Monitor, Ebbetts, and Pacific Grade summit for 14,000 vertical gain. This used to be a club ‘thing’. But now it’s just passé. Registration is open.
29 Saturday. Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge. 125-, 100-, 75-, 50- or 36-mile routes? ~~No word yet on a 2024 offering of this venerable ride.~~ It’s not being offered this year.

Ride Recap: Winter Solstice Night Ride

[Ed. Night rides are something very special even more so in the Marin Headlands. Very few cars, very few other trail users, and the scenery is transformed at night into an unfamiliar world. When I lived in SF, I used to regularly explore the Headlands at night on my mountain bike. If you haven’t done so, you’re missing out!]

We had a good ride. We stayed on pavement—a wise move, I think. [Ed. It had been raining the days before.] I started to go on Rodeo Valley trail on the way back. But the gravel parking lot leading to it was muddy so I turned back right away.

We stopped at Rodeo Beach and had hot chocolate and cookies. The weather was great, mid 50’s, no wind, super clear with some lovely clouds. Ian had to get home quickly so he took off directly from there. I went up around the Battery Townsley loop before heading back.

I’m looking forward to doing another night ride in January!

—David Millard

2023 In the Rear View Mirror

Last year is so last year. And don’t we just move on to the next thing and wipe our memory regardless of how awesome or gruesome it all was? Here’s one last look at lowlights and highlights of 2023 before we consign it to the historical dustbin.

The year started off with a whimper when the January 1 Resolution Ride had to be cancelled. It wouldn’t be the first time it was cancelled due to rain. But this time it was due to the effects of the New Year’s Eve atmospheric river that caused North Gate Road to collapse and closed all of Mt. Diablo State Park. Everyone else had the common sense to find something else to do. But Roger and I had to break in the new year with a ride. So we went for a ride out to Redwood Road only to discover…a huge section didn’t exist anymore again due to the storm. It still doesn’t exist today! It turned into a cyclocross day with plenty of walking, mud, and a long clean up afterwards.

The lowest of lowlights had to be David Sexton’s murder. On July 1 David was murdered—oh excuse me, he was a victim of ‘vehicular manslaughter’ since getting murdered by car drivers has its own lesser category—when he was hit in Richmond, CA while cycling to Napa to visit Gordon. At the time the police indicated they knew who did it. But no arrest has been made to date. David was much loved in the club and his loss is/was a hard one. Although a lot of Spokers have passed over the years, very few have been due to car drivers; the last one was Dennis Nix, who was a club secretary in the late 90’s, who was killed in 2015 by a hit-and-run driver in San Francisco.

The incredible rainfall in the first quarter of 2023 was the other lowlight. Although the prolific atmospheric rivers—33 altogether, I believe—finally ended the multi-year drought, it made cycling even more character building. Every single club ride in March was either cancelled or postponed. As was the case in 2014 a raft of roads popular and well-used by cyclists ended up being closed due to road failure or landslides. Many of them are still closed today, more than a year after the New Year’s Eve deluge that wiped out most of them. On the bright side, some eventually reopened although it took a long time. We’re still waiting for Mountain Charlie, Redwood Road, Wildcat, and Highway One.

All that rain as well as Covid resulted in the cancellation of the annual Kick Off Meeting. When the rains stopped and David got over Covid, the lack of enthusiasm by the board to host the KOM was evident. Ironically we eventually did have a ‘kick off meeting’ of sorts but it was at the very end of October. Which turned out to be a highlight because the end result of a long discussion about the future of the club was a slate of volunteers to step up and become the new board. Yahoo!

One of the highlights at least for me was the rerun in April of New Speedway Boogie, an oblique reference to riding up to Altamont Pass via Patterson Road. Patterson was closed due to a rain-induced landslide but was quickly reopened (compared to just about every other road closure, that is) in time for a club foray to catch the still luxurious green hills. And riding along the California Aqueduct is always a gas!

An intriguing highlight was the club going to the Golden State Warriors game on LBGT night. Yes, we’ve had Gay Games, Angel Island LGBT Sports Day, the Amgen Tour of California, the Coors Classic, and even club time trials around Lake Merced. But this was the first time the club went to a non-cycling spectator sports event. We sold out our allotment of 29 tickets! Spectator sports are the antithesis of cycling, which is all about moving your body. Nevertheless the event was an unexpected hit. Let’s do it again!

The final highlight of the year was the increasing popularity of the Short & Sassy rides, which goes to show that there are club members who would like short(er) rides, like less than 25 miles. A Short & Sassy South Bay ride drew six riders, which is great for a first-timer; the Short & Sassy Tib loop now draws almost as many riders as the Jersey Ride.

Happy Happy, Joy Joy

The 2023 DSSF Holiday party was held at board secretary Stephen Shirreffs’ home in the SF Castro district on the evening of Sunday, December 17. Stephen is a crazy Christmas fan, and the house was filled with Christmas decor including his infamous tree with its nearly 700 glass ornaments. There was fine turnout for the event, with a total of twenty people attending. Four of the attendees were guests of the members.

Before the catering from La Mediterrannée arrived, Stephen took a moment to welcome everyone and give a history of his Christmas collection. It all started in 1989 when Stephen and two close personal friends held a party specifically for people living with AIDS. That tradition continued through 2017 and then took a break. So the DSSF party was the first time that a group of community people had “done” Christmas at Stephen’s place in six years.

We also took the moment to introduce board candidates. Prospective President Jeff Mishler outlined his plan to hold quarterly membership get-togethers primarily to discuss what folks want to do int the following quarter but also just to hang out. Prospective Vice President Stephen Shirreffs had said enough already. Prospective Treasurer Ginny Watson confirmed her happiness at joining the board. And Prospective Membership Coordinator and understudy to the Ride Coordinator, David Millard, expressed his interest in creating a wide array of rides including more gravel events. Prospective Webmaster Roger Sayre confirmed he will remain in his position.

The food from La Med was great … but next year order the large platter! … and the desserts were plentiful. Conversation, both in-depth and more fun-loving, went on for hours. It was a great way to end 2023 and to kick off 2024.

–Stephen Shirreffs

2024 Centuries: January-April [updated 4/14/24]

Here’s what we know so far for the first months of 2024. April is when the calendar really starts to get packed.

January 

1 Monday. Resolution Ride/New Year’s Day Up Diablo. 38 miles. No fee. This isn’t a century but it’s the first “big” ride of the year and practically a club tradition. See the listing in the club calendar.

February 

10 Saturday. Tour of Palm Springs. 102-, 85-, 56-, 34-, 25-, and 7-mile routes. $120-$35. Fees go up on Jan. 1. This is by today’s standards a huge ride—many thousands of cyclists. It’s a long drive south but hey, it’s Palm Springs! Registration is open.
~~18 Sunday.~~ Velo Love Ride. 60 miles. No fee. This event had been put on by Chico Velo since at least the mid-Aughts if not earlier. It’s a much lower key event than their Wildflower, attracting only a couple hundred cyclists in a good year. It’s pleasantly flat and tours the scenic valley area around the Sutter Buttes providing an excellent early season metric. Unfortunately Chico Velo hasn’t been able to find a member willing to organize this long held ride. But Different Spokes is going to go up there to ride it anyway as long as it doesn’t rain. See the listing in the club calendar. If you’re unfamiliar with the Velo Love Ride, you can read about it here, here, and here. [POSTPONED TO MARCH 3]
24 Saturday. Pedaling Paths to Independence. 65- and 25-mile routes. $55 and $45. This benefit for the Community Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired is their annual fundraising ride out of Linden, which is just east of Stockton. It’s a small event of about 250-300 riders. It tours the rolling ag land south and east of the town. If you’re unfamiliar with this ride, you can read more about it here. Registration is open.
24 Saturday. Death Valley Century. 100-, 62- and 55-mile routes. $165. Limited to 300 cyclists. Registration is open. [1/15/24: 180 slots still open.]

March

 2 Saturday. Solvang Century. 101-, 68-, and 52-mile routes. $189-$159. Limit of 1,000 riders. Registration ~~opens December 31~~ is open. No day-of-event registration
3 Sunday. Velo Love Ride. 60 miles. No fee. This event had been put on by Chico Velo since at least the mid-Aughts if not earlier. It’s a much lower key event than their Wildflower, attracting only a couple hundred cyclists in a good year. It’s pleasantly flat and tours the scenic valley area around the Sutter Buttes providing an excellent early season metric. Unfortunately Chico Velo hasn’t been able to find a member willing to organize this long held ride. But Different Spokes is going to go up there to ride it anyway as long as it doesn’t rain. See the listing in the club calendar. If you’re unfamiliar with the Velo Love Ride, you can read about it here, here, and here. [POSTPONED]
17 Sunday. Ride & Walk4Art. 70-, 45-, and 30-mile routes. $105-$45. Limit of 300 riders. The Calaveras County Arts Council is putting on a cycling & walking & art show fundraiser for arts education in the Calaveras county public schools. Loops out of Valley Springs, CA (20 miles east of Linden) by the three big reservoirs. Registration is open.
April 

13 Saturday. Cinderella Classic & Challenge. 93-, 63-, and 40-mile routes. $80-$55. Limit of 1,000 riders; women/girls only. The Classic starts at Las Positas College near Livermore and traverses a big loop through Danville, Dublin, and Pleasanton. Registration ~~opens January 1~~ is open.
13 Saturday. Tierra Bella Century. 100-, 77-, 55-, and 33-mile routes. $70-$50. Limit of 1,200. Starts in Gilroy and takes in the climbs and reservoirs in Santa Clara Valley. New routes this year. Registration ~~opens January 1~~ is open.
13 Saturday. Levi’s Gran Fondo. 139-, 120-, 81-, 63-, 40-, and 22-mile routes. $295-$100. Registration is open.
13 Saturday. Bike Around the Buttes. $70-$45. 100-, 70-, 40-, and 20-mile routes. Yuba-Sutter Lions Club fundraiser for diabetes and sight. Registration is open.
18-21 Thursday through Sunday. Sea Otter Classic. 85- and 50- mile road routes, 21-mile MTB route. $130. Registration is open.
20 Saturday. SLO Wildflower. 80-, 52- and 30-mile routes. $110. Limit of 1,000. This year the 80-mile route returns with some hope of catching wildflowers. In 2022 the club went down to do this ride and had a great time. ~~Registration opens Dec. 31 is open.~~ Registration is now closed.
21 Sunday. Primavera Century. 100-, 85-, 63-, and 25-mile routes. $110-$40. Starting in Fremont the 100-mile route reverses direction this year and heads out Niles Canyon to Palomares before heading out to Altamont Pass and then back around Calaveras Reservoir before returning to Fremont. Registration is open.
27 Saturday. Devil Mountain Double. 205- and 195-mile routes. $140. ~~Details to come later.~~ the 205-mile route has 20,639 feet of vertical; the 195-mile route ‘only’ 17,639 feet by removing Mt. Diablo. Climb Diablo, Morgan Territory, Altamont Pass, the back side of Hamilton, Calaveras, and Palomares. Registration is open.
27 Saturday. Jane Fondo. 24-, 38-, and 770-mile routes. $90-$150 or more. Marin County Bicycle Coalition fundraiser with routes in Marin starting out of Olema. Women only.
28 Sunday. Chico Wildflower. 125-, 100-, 65-, 60-, 30-, and 12-mile routes. $105-$75. This used to be the ‘must do’ club ride qua getaway weekend. Terrific riding despite the incineration of Paradise five years ago during the Camp Fire. Registration is open.

It Was 45 Years Ago Today

A small group of nine Spokers took the tour down to Colma to visit the gravesites of SF Mayor George Moscone and celebrated SF gay pioneer Jose Sarria before returning to the SF Columbarium to view the memorial niche for Supervisor Harvey Milk. Moscone and Milk were assassinated by disgruntled, ex-Supervisor Dan White on November 27, 1978 in City Hall after he was able to sneak by the metal detectors because he was an ex-cop. That day was burned in the memories of so many San Franciscans, and here it was 45 years later that we recalled it.

Although a bit chilly the sun was mostly out and we had a fabulous ride down the Great Highway eyeballing the large ten-foot waves pounding Ocean Beach. The SF Fire Dept. was deployed in case someone was carried away by a sneaker wave. After wending through Daly City’s Westlake Shopping Center we entered Colma, basically a huge underground condo development for the deceased; there are more dead people in Colma than the living.

Jose Sarria is buried in Woodlawn Memorial Park, which necessitates getting off Hillside Boulevard, Colma’s main drag. Up a steep hill near the top of Woodlawn there is his grave just in front of the Emperor Norton’s. Sarria’s drag persona, the Widow Norton, took the joke to another level when he found out the gravesite in front of the notorious Emperor Norton was available. Sarria’s site is surrounded by small metal plaques of deceased members of the Imperial Court, which he founded, and on his headstone is the memorable, “United We Stand But Divided They Catch Us One By One”

Then it was off to Holy Cross to visit Moscone. In contrast to the innumerable majestic (or gaudy) tombstones thronging the cemetery, Moscone’s is a simple plaque in the ground with the heart rending inscription in the bottom, “We Love You, Dad.” He took two bullets to the head thanks to Dan White. Harvey got five, two of them to the head. An overdone execution–but what do you expect from a mediocre cop? The jury deemed it just “manslaughter.”

The good weather and mostly sunny skies brought out a lot of other people visiting their family members and friends interred in Holy Cross. And they were warmly greeted by the honking Canadian geese who lurked everywhere in search of food…like tasty flowers.

We headed back to SF. Until then the traffic was light but now Westlake Shopping Center and then Lake Merced Blvd. was packed with cars, undoubtedly filled with folks exercising their shopping muscles at Stonestown. We headed back to GG Park and up Arguello to the little-known and hidden Columbarium. Harvey’s cremains aren’t actually in the Columbarium but a memorial niche has been the closest thing we have to a gravesite. Afterwards riders scattered except for Jordan, Karry, Roger, and me. We went to the nearby Arguello Market and had lunch remininscing about a time two generations ago.

Jose, Harvey, and George—Thanks for the good fight. We remember.
¡Presente!

Becoming a Ride Leader

I’ve pondered why more members are not leading rides. My own trajectory to leading rides was slow. I joined the club and—if my recollection is accurate—I didn’t attend a club ride until maybe a year later. Part of it was time: I was in graduate school and working part time. I was also mainly into running at that point but did lots of errands in SF on my bike. But I kept getting running injuries and decided I had to get back to cycling. I can’t recall if I attended one of the monthly club meetings or a ride first. On one of my early club rides I met Ron Decamp, a member who lived in the South Bay. We talked about riding on the Midpeninsula and eventually we agreed to colead a ride since the club didn’t ride there often enough despite the area’s marvelous cycling routes. Neither of us had led a club ride before. After that first time coleading, it was easy to lead on my own even though I still didn’t lead often.

Making friends in the club led to doing more club rides and often we just got together to ride when there wasn’t a club ride (or a club ride that appealed to us). We also had the now vanished Decide & Ride: show up at McLaren Lodge on any Sunday at 10 am. Whoever came would decide where to ride. There almost always was a small group who showed up when there wasn’t another club ride. That all led to leading more rides. But I rarely led more than maybe three rides per year—usually less—unlike in recent years when I’ve led or co-led a couple per month.

We used to have monthly club meetings back then and I think they helped draw out some ride leaders. Those meetings always involved exhortations from the ride coordinator as well as a preview of next month’s rides and the slots in the calendar that needed filling. (We printed a monthly newsletter, the ChainLetter, which included the ride calendar for the month. So rides had to be gathered at least three weeks in advance.) At the meeting ride hosts would talk about their rides to encourage participation and informally members would talk about where they were interested in riding and get encouragement from others to lead a ride. Everyone was gently encouraged to lead a ride they liked and I think hesitant members got enough positive feedback at those meetings to step up and lead their ride.

Of course we no longer have regular meetings and most of our communication has shifted from in-person to the Internet. This I think makes it harder to foster ride hosting. Personal contact makes a difference in persuading members that they can lead a ride, and that other members will indeed show up. The most commonly mentioned reason not to lead a ride is “but what if no one else shows up?” and that fear was assuaged by people telling the potential ride leader’s face that they were interested in that ride.

Believe me I’ve posted rides and been the only person to show up. But I’ve made it a point to post rides that I wanted to do. So if no one else showed up, I still got to do a ride I wanted to do. It was hardly a burden if I was going to ride anyway.

I’m not sure why there is reticence today to lead a ride. There are the usual reasons: not wanting to be “obligated” to do it (FOMO??); being shy (as if we were going to judge you based on your ride); and “I wouldn’t know where to lead a ride”. At some level it is a matter of personality: some people are afraid of being in a leadership role. Is that due to lack of self-confidence? Chris Thomas is one of the shiest people I know and yet he went from volunteering to lead a ride in Fresno, where he lived at the time, to leading a zillion AIDS Lifecycle training rides and then Double Bay Double training rides. (Incidentally when he did list that ride, we drove all the way to Fresno to do his ride and support him as did a few other Bay Area members.)

But I don’t believe ride leaders are born even if personality makes it easier for some people to make the move. Ride leaders are made and we don’t yet have a proven recipe for developing ride leaders despite 40 years of existence. We are indeed slow learners! One thing I do know is that I cannot recall a single case of someone new to the club showing up and then leading a ride very shortly thereafter. Someone new to the club comes on a ride, checks us out, and decides whether to come a second time. If they like the experience, then maybe they come on a few rides and make friends in the club. Only at that point do they offer to lead a ride. That rarely happens nowadays. Coleading a ride with another member makes it easier to step up. Also, having a coleader means that someone else is guaranteed to show up!

I also suspect that we rely too much on self-volunteering rather than directly asking, “Hey, would you be interested in leading a ride for the club?” We replicate what we know and in my case no one needed to ask me to lead a ride. I haven’t started cold calling members but maybe that’s the next ride coordinator’s decision.

Stepping up to leading a ride is surely a sign of some emotional investment in the club. When you make friends in the club, leading a ride becomes much easier. We certainly don’t expect every member to lead rides (although that would be wonderful!) But at our membership level we should have about 15-20 active ride leaders in any year and we’re below that.