Author: tonydssf

2023 Centuries: August-November [updated 8/30/23]

August

5 Saturday. Marin Century. No information on the 2022 Marin Century yet. 100- and 62-mile courses. $120-$140. Registration opens mid-February is open.

6 Sunday. Civilized Century. $40. 100-, 75-, 60- and 35-mile routes. Registration opens June 1. Limited to 200 riders. Here’s the ‘new kid on the block’. The 100-mile route starts in Redwood City goes up to SFO and returns before crossing the Dumbarton and returning around the South Bay.

19 Saturday. Cool Breeze Century. 125-, 107-, 95-, 60- and 34-mile routes. $105. A pleasant, not-too-difficult century down in Ventura county with great weather. Registration opens April 1 (no fooling’!) is now open. Limit of 2,000.

September

2 Saturday. Tour de Fuzz. 100-, 63-, and 35-mile routes. $129-$109. Travels routes similar to the Wine Country centuries. Limit of 1,250. Registration is open. SOLD OUT

9-16 Sunday to Sunday. Cycle Oregon. 350 to 454 miles. $1,450. The best week tour on the West Coast. Limited to 1,350 and it always sells out quickly. This year’s route is big clockwise loop west of Salem. Registration is open. NOW CLOSED.

9-10 Saturday to Sunday. Bike MS: Waves to Wine. $20 start fee. Ride from San Francisco to Rohnert Park. Minimum $350 fundraising. Currently limited information at website.

15- 17 Friday to Sunday. Eroica California. 108-, 81-, 73-, and 36-mile routes. $150. Limit of 1,500. Only ‘classic’ bikes—usually 1987 or earlier—are allowed. See site for detailed rules. Mixed terrain routes. Registration is open.

16 Saturday. Tour of the Unknown Coast. 100- and 62-mile routes. $100. Tour the redwoods in Humboldt County. Registration opens May 1. is open.

23 Saturday. Napa Valley Ride to Defeat ALS. 100-, 62-, 47-, 28-, and 9-mile routes. $60. Minimum $150 fundraising. Registration fee and then minimum fundraising amount. 100-, 62-, 47-, 28- and 9-mile routes. Registration is open. Routes are pending approval.

30 Saturday. Lighthouse Century. $110. 100-, 75- and 50-mile routes. Limit of 1,000. San Luis Obispo Bicycle Club’s other century. From Morro Bay a detour inland before heading back to the coast and halfway up Highway 1 and back. Registration opens June 4.

October

7 Saturday. Best of the Bay. 200 miles. $150. Date set but no information yet. Site up and registration is open.

14 Saturday. Best Buddies Challenge. $100 start fee and $5,000 minimum fundraising. 72 mile route. No longer run along Highway 1 and now the route is a loop in west Marin. Registration is open.

21 Saturday. Foxy Fall Century. $72-$35. 100-, 100k, and 50k-routes. No information yet. Limit of 1,500. Registration opens in July. is now open.

21 Saturday. Tour de Lincoln. 100k-, 50k-, and 25k-routes. $75-$55. If Foxy Fall is too crowded for you, here’s a community ride just up the road in Lincoln. Registration is open.

21 Saturday. Ride Santa Barbara. 100-, 62-, and 34-mile routes. $149-$69. It’s a longish drive south but Santa Barbara is a great place to do century with beach front views and fantastic climbs in the Santa Ynez Mountains including Gibraltar. Registration is open.

?. Tour of the Sacramento River Delta (TOSRD). No information yet. Annual ride from Brannan Island to Sacramento via the Delta on Saturday and return on Sunday. Stay at La Quinta near old town. Includes lunch on Saturday and a post-ride bbq on Sunday.

November

18 Saturday. Death Valley Century. $165. Limited to 300 riders. Route is a uncertain since in 2022 roads were damaged by rains and their repair in time for the event in unclear. Ride starts in Furnace Creek. Registration is open.

2023 Centuries: May-July [Updated 5/17/23]

Here are noteworthy century rides mostly in the NorCal area.

MAY
6 Saturday. Delta Century. 100-, 67-, and 26-mile routes. $65-$45. Very flat rides starting in Woodbridge tour the Sacramento Delta. Registration should open in January is open.

6 Sunday. Wine Country Century. 100-, 63- and 34-mile routes. $110-$80. A club fave and great food. It always sells out so register early. Limited to 2,500. Registration is open. SOLD OUT!

6 Saturday. Mr. Frog’s Wild Ride. 55-, 43- and 21-mile routes. $75-$40. A challenging hilly ride out of Murphys including Sheep Ranch Road. Registration is open.

7 Sunday. Grizzly Peak Century. 100-, 75-, and 50-mile routes. And a 60-mile gravel route. $90. Limit of 1,000 riders. Registration opens mid-January is open.

13? Sunday. I Care Classic. 100-, 62-, 32- and 10-mile routes. $95. Riding in the Santa Clara Valley between San Jose and Gilroy. Run by the Almaden Lions Club. Registration is open.

20? Saturday. Davis Double. 200 miles, period. $140. Limited to 500 riders. Registration opens March 1. is open.

21 Sunday. Strawberry Fields Forever. 102-, 64-, and 30-mile routes. $100. Out of Watsonville and into the Santa Cruz Mountains. Registration is open.

19-21 Friday to Sunday. Cycle Oregon (Gravel). 66 & 61-mile, or 34 & 26-mile days. $375. Cycle Oregon is offering a two-day gravel trip. Limited to 500. Registration opens January 24 is open. SOLD OUT!

27-28? Saturday-Sunday. The Art of Survival Century. 100-, 60-, 38-mile road routes & 74-, 54-mile gravel routes. $75-$25. Rides near the Oregon border in NW California. Registration is open.

JUNE
3 Saturday. Gold Country Challenge. 100-, 74-, 54-, and 35-mile road routes; also 42- and 62-mile mixed terrain routes. $80-$60. Registration is open.

3 Saturday. Ojai Valley Century. 128-, 102-, 67-, and 35-mile routes. $90-$60. A bit further south in Ventura County in the Ojai Valley out to Santa Barbara and back. Registration is open.

4 Sunday. Sequoia Century. 101-, 76-, and 59-mile routes. $125-95. A venerable century going from the Midpeninsula over the Coast Range to coastside and back. Will Stage Road be repaired and open by June? Registration is open.

17 Saturday. Climb to Kaiser. $125. 155- and 99-mile routes. The hardest climb in California: 15,000 vertical gain. Registration is open.

17 Sunday to 24 Sunday. Sierra to the Sea. 420 miles over 8 days. $1,500. Limit of 85 riders. Registration is open.

18 Sunday. Mile High 100. 108-, 56- and 33-mile routes. $95-$65. Rides around Lake Almanor near Chester, CA and Lassen. Registration is open.

24 Saturday. Alta Alpina Challenge. Registration is not yet open.

24 Saturday. Giro Bello. 100-, 63- and 35-miles routes. $100-$75. Similar to the Wine Country Century and in the same area. Registration is open.

JULY
15 Saturday. Fall River Century. 200k, 100k-, 100-, and 25-mile routes. $75-$50. Beautiful rides east of Mt. Shasta. Registration is open.

15 Saturday. Death Ride. $139. 103 miles. Monitor, Ebbetts, and Pacific Grade summit for 14,000 vertical gain. Registration is open.

15-16 Saturday-Sunday. STP. 206 miles. $200-$160. The big ride: Seattle to Portland. Overnight in Centralia with camping or cheap lodging from $50-$25. But you’re doing it in one day, right?

29 Saturday. Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge. 125-, 100-, and 50-mile routes. $90. Registration opens February 1 is open. Despite storm damage there are defined RWGPS routes for all of them.

2022: Parting Glances, part 2

There were some club rides in 2022 that I found especially enjoyable and I hope we shall do them again this year. And there were a few rides I didn’t get to do last year and that I desperately want to do this year, Allah willing, and I’ll address those in a separate post.

Tony’s 2022 favs, in no particular order.

Stage Road and Coastside. These roads are wellworn and no surprise—they’re beautiful, scenic, and mostly quiet. Who doesn’t love riding down the San Mateo coast along Highway One? If there is no fog or rain, the views of the Pacific are borderline astonishing accompanied by the redolent salt air. And despite being so close to SillyCon Valley, the tiny town of Pescadero and Stage Road are usually untrafficked and quiet allowing you to ride in pastoral serenity undisturbed by the mishegoss just over the hills. And I and many Spokers have ridden it many times. But what made this ride a breakthrough for me last year was that we did it without starting in either Half Moon Bay or Palo Alto, which would have made it a 60-mile day. Instead the Davids’ innovation was to start it in Pescadero making it only a 31-mile loop and without a big climb over the Coast range. I finally understood the meaning of “eat dessert first” and how impatience can be a virtue.

New Speedway Boogie (Patterson and Altamont Passes). The club doesn’t go up Altamont very often. It is infamous more for the daily logjammed commute on Highway 580 than for its beauty. But beautiful it is when you go there at the right time. Hit it in winter or early spring when the as-yet undeveloped hills are intensely green and you’ll experience what it used to be like decades ago when all of the land east of Livermore was pristine: no cars, lonely country roads, and grassland hills with oak trees. In 2022 we went up Patterson and took the California Aqueduct bikeway north to Altamont Pass for the return. Right at the turnaround point there is Valero minimart with—among many other things—coffee, fried chicken, a taqueria, a Subway, and a Wienerschnitzel! And the views at the top of both passes can’t be beat!

Velo Love Ride. I’m an unadulterated proponent of this ride, which until 2022 Roger and I were the only Spokers who had done it. It’s a beautiful winter ride around the Sutter Buttes not too far from the Oroville Dam, a slightly long drive from the Bay Area. Chico Velo offered this supported century at the oddest time of the year, early February when it is likely to be rained out and at the very least would proffer up challenging weather. It’s been on hiatus for a few years but not for us: we go up there every year as long as it isn’t raining. It’s dead-flat for 60 miles with only one small hill. The loop takes in the rice fields, ag land, and many fruit and nut orchards, which often are starting to bloom around Valentine’s Day, the traditional weekend to do this ride. It can be cold and since it’s during the rainy season it can be wet. But the real challenge of the ride can be wind since you’re completely exposed for much of the ride. But other than the start town of Gridley and midway hitting Sutter the ride is completely rural and devoid of traffic. In 2022 David Goldsmith decided to join us and we got to gape at all the flowering orchards this time. Maybe you’ll join us in 2023?

Old La Honda and Tunitas Creek. Also no surprise here since these roads are so well-trodden as to be posterchildren for Northern California riding. But I hadn’t done them in quite a while (because there was a time when I did these roads ALL the time and burned out on them). But this time was special because the Loma Mar Store finally reopened after about a yearslong remodel and it’s now an even better place for a midride stop. Their new restaurant is a welcome change from Arcangeli Store in Pescadero. Loma Mar’s food and coffee are excellent and the new owners are a peach. We also took our time on this ride and turned it into a day-long jaunt! Taking a long—even if unnecessary—break at the Bike Hut just to chat and look at the birds made it a special day. That’s something we don’t often do: stop to take a break just because we could!

SLO Wildflower. This is a century that I have known about for ages. But like many of you I never did it because the drive to the Paso Robles area is long enough to be a deterrent. The San Luis Obispo Bicycling Club also usually mounts this event the same weekend as the Chico Wildflower and/or the Primavera. The latter is a mere hop, skip, and a jump away in Fremont making it the lazy person’s default century and the former was for many years the club spring century must-do with hordes of Spokers driving up to Chico to make it a default getaway weekend. So when David Goldsmith and Roger Sayre suggested this ride I gave it a pass until my husband’s eyes twinkled at the prospect of riding someplace different for a change. When Adrienne, a former member who now lives near Paso, enthusiastically offered to host a barbecue at her place, the deal was signed, sealed, and delivered! It all turned out to be a fabulous weekend with almost 30 Spokers making the trip. The weather cooperated with a beautifully sunny, if chilly, morning. Although I had ridden in this area about 30 years ago, it was a welcome rediscovery as the Wildflower route is amazingly beautiful, quiet, and even had decent pavement! Oak woodland in California in its unspoiled state is charming and inviting during spring. Those who did the full hundred-mile route had to endure some the worst county roads in California for about 15 miles. But those of us who did the 80- or 50-mile route escaped that and had a totally perfect day. That won’t be a problem in 2023 since SLOBC has axed the one hundred mile route due to the disappearance of the wildflowers along the long route due to climage change. Just maybe we’ll go back in 2023?

Alpine Dam. This is another club fav, which in a previous incarnation was called the Evil Stepsisters ride when it was offered annually on the same day as the Cinderella Century, which is for women/girls only. You can climb Tam and descend to Alpine Dam or come from Fairfax to the Dam and then climb up the Seven Sisters to Tam and down. This ride was planned to be done clockwise, which I like less because then one has to descend the Seven Sisters. That descent is almost a straight line down to the Dam so either you go very fast or you ride the brakes. I prefer to climb up through Fairfax, which is less trafficked than Pan Toll, and go up the Seven Sisters. Fortuitously Jeff and Mark decided at the last minute to invert the loop, so we ended up riding it counterclockwise! This is another ride that I had done to death when I lived in SF. But after a twenty-year hiatus revisiting this old ride reminded me of why I used to ride it so often: it’s beautiful and challenging.

Cavedale. This was a discovery for me. I had never done Cavedale before and probably for a good reason: until now it was a wretched, pothole-ridden example of why riding in Sonoma county is a blessing and a curse: the scenery can be so enticing yet the road quality is akin to what one would find in an undeveloped country. It also intersects with Trinity, which often is heavily trafficked. But we fortuitiously chose a day to climb this steep road when it was being repaved to a glassy sheen thanks to none other than PG&E. For most of the climb it was beautiful, fresh asphalt as smooth as can be; the last third hadn’t been reconstructed yet and we got to taste what it had been like for the past 30 years or so. The views of the Sonoma Valley are robust and breathtaking making stops a must even if you don’t have to catch your breath.

But what made all of these rides so pleasurable? It wasn’t just the road quality, the weather, or the scenery—it was the company. Riding with fellow Spokers who enjoy riding in Northern California as much as I do, having idle yet memorable conversations with Spokerati, sharing a midride meal, and building memories of fun days on two wheels. That’s what made these rides my faves for 2022!

2022: Parting Glances, part 1

Fond Farewell To An Effulgent 2022!

Before we launch into 2023, let’s take a final look at what the past year was like for our club. In no particular order and without further ado:

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. We had 100 rides. That’s roughly two rides every week on average. We hadn’t had this many since 2014. Our ride calendar had been dropping off a cliff since 2012 and hit a lowly 52 in 2017. We have slowly rebuilt the membership and consequently the number of ride leaders and rides since then. When David Goldsmith became president in 2019, he said he was hoping for two rides every week. Mission accomplished! David had a big role in us hitting the number too: he was the most prolific ride leader of 2022 with 44 rides! I was in second place with a comparatively teeny 19 rides; our treasurer Mark Cook was third with 12 as was David Millard, who led the dirt contingent. And membership? In 2021 our membership climbed slowly and we wondered if we’d make it back to 100 by the end of the year. We did but just barely! In 2022 we topped that by growing 20% up to 121. If we can make it up to 130 or so in 2023, we’ll be back to where we were twenty years ago!

Short-sighted. Talk about schizophrenic behavior: although the previous board had all but resolved not to chase after so-called casual cyclists, that all changed when Laura joined and wanted to make a go of it. She convinced David and they started the Short & Sassy rides. In 2022 S&S rides were mostly short versions of the Jersey Ride but they still managed to attract some attendance. One disappointment this year was the complete lack of interest in the Rosie the Riveter ride, which is part of the annual Fall Social. This ride is an easy, flat ride that should have brought out the S&S folks. (Perhaps next year we’ll replace it with a dirt ride instead, which used to be a popular option in the late ‘90s.) Perhaps we’ll see a surge of interest in shorter rides in 2023!

“Mixed” Feelings. After sputtering attempts to restart interest in riding off-asphalt, the club finally hit its stride in 2022 thanks to David Millard. He led a spate of mixed surface and dirt rides including a beautiful jaunt to Purisima Creek east of Half Moon Bay and a whole lot of rides in the Headlands. Getting even dirtier he led a pretty serious ride on Eldridge on Mt. Tam that even had some bloodshed! “Gravel” rides in 2023, anyone?

Swept Away. David Goldsmith and David Gaus led a wonderful “training” series in January through May ostensibly to get ready for the SLO Wildflower—more on that below—and other century rides. The very first ride, which was to cross the Bay Bridge, ended up being cancelled by a tsunami due to the eruption of the underwater volcano near Tonga. Other than that the drought meant we had few rides cancelled by rain this year.

Merrily We Roll Along. We had no less than three ride series in 2022. To celebrate our 40th year, Roger and I put together a ride each month scattered around the Bay Area just as we did for our 30th in 2012. For the latter we resurrected a bunch of popular and unusual rides from the early days of the club; this time we did some Golden Oldies but also threw in a bunch of newer rides that Spokers love such as Pleasants Valley and Franz Valley. The Davids’ spring series was also very popular and ran the gamut from the Three Bears to SF-to-SJ. The Foxy Fall Century’s pandemic hiatus ended and so David Goldsmith led a short series in the late summer to get ready for it as well culminating in a big group of Spokers heading to the Valley to enjoy a surprisingly mild fall day.

“When you’re alone and life is making you lonely…” The 2020 Kick Off Meeting just squeaked by on February 26, 2020 and then the statewide Shelter-In-Place order went out. For 2021 we had to make do with an online Zoom Kick Off instead. But it was back to real life for 2022 thanks to Nancy for hosting us at her spacious outdoor back patio in the heart of the City. There was a thirst for getting together IRL—27 people attended, a huge jump from the usual number—to hear club plans for the year including the upcoming getaway weekend to the SLO Wildflower and the 40th anniversary celebration events. Will we be back to Sports Basement in 2023? Let’s hope so.

Flower Power. The San Luis Obispo Wildflower century unexpectedly yet organically turned into 2022’s getaway weekend. The Monterey/Pajaro Dunes Weekend was unfortunately cancelled in 2020 and again in 2021 by the pandemic. Our getaway weekends usually involve renting a house or camping area where the entire group can stay together and cook dinner together. The SLO Wildflower was just going to be your usual century ride but just a little bit further out of the Bay Area than we usually go. There turned out to be a lot of interest in going to SLO maybe because it was an unfamiliar-to-DSSF ride in an area that was a reputation for stellar riding, Paso Robles. We also happen to have a former member who now lives down there, Adrienne, who enthusiastically opened her house to us for a hosted barbecue dinner. Something like 25 Spokers and fellow travelers showed up for a beautiful weekend in Central California. The Friday evening dinner was potluck but Adrienne and her husband really did the lion’s share of the labor by fronting slabs of barbecued ribs and all the sides. And vegetarian and vegan choices too! Thanks Adrienne!! Saturday’s ride had most of the Spokers doing the full century with a difficult final twenty miles on some of the worst paved roads in California; the smart set did the shorter 80-mile ride that skipped the plethora of potholes and got us back to the finish to sup without feeling beaten to death. The even smarter set did the 50-mile route, which the initial scenic loop through some of the nicest roads we’ve seen in years. Will we go back in 2023? If so there will be one more Spoker to join the crowd: Adrienne’s new baby!

Born This Way. The 2022 Pride followed the successful playbook of 2021: two short rides—an ascent up Twin Peaks to the Pink Triangle for the animals and then a subsequent loop down to Lake Merced for those wanting an easier celebration. And of course, punctuated by coffee and deliciously decorated Pride donuts! It was our most popular ride of 2022. Can we top this in 2023? Pride bagels perhaps? Pink mimosas?

And Now For Something Completely Different Spokes. I didn’t attend this event qua ride but it certainly was something très different: the KAV factory tour. Coming from the fertile mind of David Goldsmith, he was so impressed with his new 3D printed custom helmet that he got KAV, which is based in Redwood City, to offer a tour of their facility and custom fit anyone who attended as well as provide a free lunch! It doesn’t get better than that. Oh yeah, and since it’s local why not turn it into a fun ride as well from SF down the Bay Trail? Done.

Forty is the new Thirty. Forty revolutions around the Sun called nothing less than a celebratory dinner and a memorable program along with a ride that was on point. The soiree and ride were held in September, the month with the predictably best weather for San Francisco. So of course we had the freak rainstorm wash out plans for an outdoor “night under the stars” at Il Casaro on Church Street. Hurriedly we reset up inside and ended up having a cozy party. Thanks to David Goldsmith for suggesting the restaurant, which did a stellar job in welcoming us and producing a delicious dinner with so much food that they even made doggie boxes for everyone to take home! Bob Krumm, our long-gone first president, made it a really special evening by coming all the way out from New Jersey to join us and recount the origins of the club along with the other surviving founder, Dave Freling. Bob Krumm and I had managed to hunt down and roust a bunch of old (in both senses of the word) Spokers from the very early days of the club to come out and see how their foundling child has been doing. Pretty good I’d say! The ride the day before was not rained out but instead was a pleasant, sunny day that brought out a huge crowd only dwarfed by the Pride Rides. Now if we can make it to 50… (Will any of the old farts still be around by then?)

2023 Centuries: January-April [updated 2/28/23]

What’s happening in 2023? Clubs and organizations mostly came back in 2022 and offered their usual centuries. A few did not such as the Pedaling Paths to Independence and the Crater Lake Century. Let’s hope they have the interest and energy to put them back on the calendar for 2023. The risk of event postponement or cancellation due to Covid seems over barring something unforeseen. Vaccinations seem to have greatly reduced the chances of a superspreader event.

Here’s what we know so far for the first months of 2023. April is when the calendar really starts to get packed.

January
1 Saturday. 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
11 Saturday. Tour of Palm Springs. 102-, 85-, 56-, 34-, 25-, and 7-mile routes. $100-$30. 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.

12 Sunday. Velo Love Ride. 60 miles. No fee. This event had put on by Chico Velo since at least the mid-Oughts 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.

25 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 and this year is their comeback from the pandemic. 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.

March
4 Saturday. Solvang Century. 101-, 68-, and 52-mile routes. $125-$105 Now $135-$115. Although the Solvang has never been short of participants—several thousand is the usual number—since being sold to Planet Ultra there is now a limit of 1,000 riders. Registration opens December 25 is now open.

April
15 Saturday. Cinderella Classic & Challenge. 95-, 65-, and 30-mile routes. $70-$30. Limit of 900 riders; women/girls only. The Classic starts at Las Positas College near Livermore and traverses a big loop through Danville, Dublin, and Pleasanton. Registration will open January 5 is now open.

22 Saturday. Tierra Bella Century. 100-, 77-, 55-, and 33-mile routes. $65 Now $75. Limit of 1,500. Starts in Gilroy and takes in the climbs and reservoirs in Santa Clara Valley. New routes this year. Registration opens Jan. 1 is now open. There may be masking required at rest stops. And new “Southern Picnic” meal after ride!

22 Saturday. Levi’s Gran Fondo. 139-, 120-, 81-, 63-, 40-, and 22-mile routes. $295-$140. Some new routes this year. Registration is open.

20-23 Thursday through Sunday. Sea Otter Classic. 92- and 50- mile road routes. $125. Sea Otter returns to its usual April slot. Registration is open.

23 Sunday. Primavera Century. 100-, 90-, 63-, and 25-mile routes. $95-$40. Starting in Fremont the 100-mile route heads up Calaveras, around the reservoir and then out to Patterson Pass before returning and over Palomares to Fremont. Registration is open.

29 Saturday. SLO Wildflower. 63-, 52- and 30-mile routes. $85 Now $105. Limit of 1,000. SLOBC has decided to cancel the 100-mile route due to climate change, ie. the wildflowers have all disappeared from the route. Last year the club went down to do this ride and had a great time. Registration is open.

30 Sunday. Chico Wildflower. 125-, 100-, 65-, 60-, 30-, and 12-mile routes. $85-$25 Now $95-$35. This used to be the ‘must do’ club ride qua getaway weekend. Terrific riding despite the incineration of Paradise four years ago during the Camp Fire. Registration is open.

Fun With Tubeless Tires: Dodging A Bullet. Again.

I’m so modern!

Typically when I return from a ride, I throw the bike in the corner and forget about it until later; sometimes ‘later’ is the next time I ride it. In this case I rode the bike with the tubeless tires and when I got home, I felt the tires: the rear was soft. In no mood to deal with it then, I put it off until the evening. I hate having to deal with bike repair issues when I’m tired but in this case I figured it wouldn’t take too long. I cleaned the tire and managed to pull out flints and small sharp objects embedded in the rubber. Then I felt the air rushing out and knew it was a simple, small puncture. But why wasn’t the sealant working?

I removed the valve core, which was semi-clogged with sealant—another issue I should deal with, and stuck a probe into the tire; it came out dry. Well, that answers that: I had allowed all the sealant to dry up and apparently hadn’t topped it off in recent months hence the leak. With Stan’s Sealant I wouldn’t have been surprised since in my experience I have needed to add Stan’s about every three or four months. But I have been using Orange Seal Endurance since giving up on Stan’s and this stuff lasts much longer, something like eight to ten months. Had it been that long since I had added sealant?

So here are a few words of advice if you’re running tubeless tires and sealant. First, mark down when you’ve added sealant or make a note in your calendar to check it at regular intervals. Despite my best intentions I never do this but I am sure that if my phone nagged me to do it, I would at least give it a second thought before ignoring it!

Second, put in more sealant than you think you need—I mean, a LOT more. That extra weight in your tire? Honestly you won’t feel it. And anyway, it’s going to evaporate more quickly than you realize leaving you with less weight and the joy of experiencing flats again. Also, putting more in means you can ignore it for a really long time until it dries up completely!

Third, just because you’re using sealant doesn’t mean you can forget about your tires. The previous rear tire I wore down to the casing. Was it because I’m a cheap ass? Well, yes partly. But it was also because I had gotten lulled into ignoring it as I wasn’t giving me any problems. I just happened to notice one day while out on a ride that I could see large sections of casing! So look at your tires every now and then. I also do this to pull pieces of glass, wire, and flints out, giving me the satisfaction that running tubeless plus sealant was a good decision.

Back to the flat tire: of course after I pulled a piece of glass out of the tire, the air rushed out as there wasn’t any sealant left in the tire. Adding more sealant was easy. I don’t like to pull off the tire bead and pour it in because it’s just asking to be spilled all over when I try to get the tight bead back on the rim. However the advantage of doing that is I can see more accurately how much sealant I’m adding. Instead I prefer to remove the valve core and attach a tube to the stem to pump the sealant in. Less fuss, no mess. The disadvantage is I have no idea how much sealant I’m adding. So I just pump a lot in because having ‘too much’ is kinda impossible. When I did this and then aired up the tire, the puncture started to spit sealant—thank god it was a tiny puncture because otherwise it might not seal and I’d have a bigger problem. All I had to do now was roll the tire so the puncture was at the bottom. In a few minutes it was sealed. I went to bed. Next day I checked the tire: still hard, so success!

In this case I was probably very lucky either to have had a very slow leak or to have punctured close to home because it certainly didn’t feel soft when I was riding. The last time I made this same mistake I flatted about a mile from home, so it was pretty easy to get back to the manse to deal with it. At least if I had been far from home with a flat and had to put a tube in, I wouldn’t have gotten covered in wet sealant unlike the last time.

Different Spokes Blues

Now Father Time is catching up with me
Gone is my youth
I look in the mirror everyday
And let it tell me the truth
I’m singing the blues
Mm, I just have to sing the blues
I’ve been around a long time
Yes, yes, I’ve really paid some dues
—BB King

What has forty years of the club wrought? There have been a lot of friendships and some serious relationships (and break-ups too). There’s been a lot of water that’s flowed under this bridge! The club is different than it was yet in critical ways it is much the same. We find each other through the love of cycling—or in a few instances the fear of cycling!—and unlike almost all other cycling clubs it’s the other love that keeps us together. The club endures because the purpose for which it was formed—to provide a haven for queer cyclists—is still relevant. Today it may seem that cycling is normcore to the max. But it isn’t really and it definitely wasn’t the case forty years ago. Back then being into cycling put you in an unlovable oddball category, the bike nerd. I submit for evidence the character Dave Stoller in the best bicycling movie ever, Breaking Away. He’s one of us and…he’s portrayed as a misfit nerd. That cycling somehow in recent years caught the misnomer of ‘the new golf’ is laughable because nobody makes jokes about killing golfers but many still do today about killing cyclists. As if you didn’t know: we are hated. Doesn’t that sound familiar? Being bullied for being queer or run down because you ride a bike, radio shock jocks like us both for fodder. So birds of a feather flock together and boy, do we flock!

I’m still not sure how it is that the club is still running. But I’m happy it is. In other communities there are no LGBTQ cycling clubs and it’s not because the community is too small to support such a niche organization. It’s likely because it is harder today to start a cycling club—any club —because frankly, no one wants to do the work. Instead what we find are Meetup groups. Some clubs have Meetup counterparts as we did for a short while and those seem to persist longer because the club is already in place. But new LGBTQ cycling Meetup groups seem to fizzle out after a while as it’s usually one or two people who are doing all the work. Why isn’t there a Different Spokes San Jose or South Bay? It’s not that we don’t have members there; we do have a few. But what are all the other LGBTQ cyclists doing? The South Bay is a huge environ with millions of residents and it supports two large recreational cycling clubs, Western Wheelers and ACTC and a bunch of amateur racing clubs. There really should be a Different Spokes South Bay. It isn’t rocket science to form a cycling club and the idea has no patent.

The dirty little secret is that it’s hard to keep a club running these days let alone start a new one. If you look at the websites of other small local clubs what you see may surprise you. Typically there is a very limited number of rides, maybe two to four per month (if that). More typically they have a list of regular weekly rides but no listed ride leaders. Whether these rides actually take place is unknown and I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them don’t. In other words they’re more likely aspirational ride listings. Even among some larger clubs, who do populate their ride calendars with a plethora of listings, you see the same rides offered every week with just a few—or even no—new rides. That’s because offering a new ride presumes you have a member willing to create and lead it and that takes motivation and work.

For clubs that list ride leaders a close inspection will show that it’s almost always the same people over and over. That is not a surprise because only about 10-15% of members do more than passively belong, ie. lead rides, take on officer roles, or do the scut work that keeps a club running and vibrant. For a club like Grizzly Peak Cyclists whose current membership is about 800 that should mean 80-120 active members yet when you look at their leadership page and the listed ride leaders in a typical month it’s more like 40-50, which seems like plenty for any club. But in our case since we have less than 120 members—really no more than we had than at the end of 1983 after just one year of existence—we can expect about 12-18. And that’s about the number we have for the entire ride leader cohort and board. In other words we can’t do any more than we are doing without beating the odds to raise more volunteers. It’s downright amazing we have such a robust ride calendar despite a small set of volunteers. But upon closer inspection you’ll see that that most of our rides are led by about five people. When one of these members gets injured or gets overloaded with work or personal issues and can’t lead rides, the ride calendar noticeably contracts—there isn’t a lot of ‘slop’ room.

Different Spokes over forty years has had its up and downs. At the end of 2001 we almost folded. We didn’t because a small group led by Chris Larussell, who became president in 2002, made it her personal effort to revive the club and pull it back from the brink. Did you know that one of the results of that is the creation of our monthly Jersey Ride, which happens to be the most popular ride on our calendar month after month? Then around 2018 our membership was down to a little above 60—not enough to keep the lights on—and we had to claw our way back to where we are today at 121, which still isn’t enough to keep the lights on! Our annual membership fees in toto are not enough to pay our bills. Again it was the determination of the board to reinvigorate the club by streamlining website management, leading more rides, broadening the types of rides we offer, and putting on different kinds of social events.

So here we are still alive and kicking. But just. That’s due to a sizeable injection of effort, creativity, and devotion from your board and ride leaders. The current board isn’t going to last forever; ride leaders come and go. If we want to make sure that Different Spokes survives another year, let alone forty, we are going to need people like you who love Different Spokes to make the club your personal effort, to volunteer and put energy into the club. Everybody’s lives are busy. But if you don’t make space to give to Different Spokes, there may not be a Different Spokes at some point. You can walk away from the club—after all you can always ride by yourself or join one of the other local non-LGBTQ clubs when you want some company—but heaven forbid that Different Spokes ever folds as did Different Spokes Seattle only a few years ago! It would take a lot more effort to revive it at a future point, more effort than keeping it chugging along. But who would do the work to revive it? We could end up as a Meetup group after all. Birds of a feather may flock together—but where will they flock?

Tune In, Turn On, Drop Down

LSD: long, slow distance!

I just installed a dropper seat post, which is not something I would have imagined I would ever do. If you are a road-only cyclist, then “dropper post” is likely not part of your everyday parlance as it has heretofore been a piece of equipment you would find over on the dirt side of things. But now so-called gravel bikes are being touted as the new frontier for dropper posts as companies, ever seeking a new market, are hoping to convince you gravelleurs that you must have one so you can be as rad as possible on the trails. So like fat tires, suspension, hydraulic brakes, and one-by drivetrains we’re seeing adoption by roadies of yet another bit of mountain bike technology. Although I also ride dirt, I’m a relic of another era as I have no suspension, no hydraulic brakes, a triple crank, and only seven cogs in back. Oh, and no dropper post, not even a Hite-Rite.

So what was I doing trying to figure out how to install a dropper post? Roger has been carrying a second e-bike battery on the back of his bike for our longer and climbier rides. That has meant putting a rack on his bike. With the additional length on the back, his arabesque when he mounts or dismounts has to be more pronounced in order to clear all that mishegoss in the rear. So why not just lower the seat to make that a tad easier? Hence the dropper post. On a road bike!

Dropper posts for road and gravel bikes are getting easier to find. Roger’s bike although it does have a sloping top tube, doesn’t have kind of super long seatpost extension one typically sees on dirt bikes. Dropper posts are built for a lot of extension, which is less common on road bikes. But we were able to find a “short” dropper post made by PNW, the Cascade, with just 125mm of extension, which was just short enough to work on his bike. If you’re really old school and your seat post doesn’t stick out much above your top tube, then a dropper post is unlikely to be in your future. Now with the flick of a lever Roger can lower the seat and then be able to get his leg over all his stuff more easily since he’s no longer hurdling an elevated seat.

Never having even seen a dropper post before I dutifully read the installation instructions. It didn’t look hard. And it turned out it wasn’t complex but just fiddly due to the tiny parts requiring a 2- and 3-mm hex wrenches. Working on seat posts is an ugly reminder that there are almost no good designs to be found for attaching a saddle to a post. Almost all of them involve contorting your fingers into the tiny space under a saddle to adjust a nut or a screw and the PNW post was no different. Levelling a saddle also requires the patience of Job. But at least the adjusting bolts could be turned from below the post rather than under the saddle unlike the ancient Campy seat post (and that also required a special wrench). As fate or lassitude would have it, I have the proper tools but they’re not laid out nicely and easy to find. So I have to march all over the shop peeking into bins looking for the correct wrenches; this was not a job for the multitools I usually default to out of sheer laziness. And no home maintenance work would be complete without fumbling and dropping said small parts on the shop floor and watching them vanish into crevices or under a tool chest.

Eventually I got the saddle attached to the new post, sort of. Then I switched over to inserting the post, which was easy for a change. Things got interesting in trying to attach the control lever to the handlebars. Roger’s handlebars are cluttered. He’s got a Spurcycle bell, a mount for his computer and Cycliq light/camera, and then a big, honking control panel for his e-bike. In other words all the real estate is already taken. I had to nudge the bell and the computer mount to create enough room for the lever mount and just barely got the space to squeeze it onto his bars. What was left was attaching the control cable from the seat post to the lever. This is where the small, fiddly parts came in and I needed Roger’s assistance because it required three hands. I could have used a bench vise in lieu of a third hand but that wasn’t nearby, and I needed another hand anyway because the cable had to be pulled taut while I tightened the set screw. Much fumbling and cursing ensued but eventually it was put together. We tested it and it worked—push the lever and we could push the saddle down; release the lever and the saddle popped right back up!

The next day we went for a test ride. The ride itself is a story that I won’t go into except to say that despite seeing the forecast for some rain, we of course went out anyway and just to make it extra fun we didn’t have fenders or extra raingear because it wasn’t going to rain, right? We got dumped on and for good measure Roger then got a flat for an extra kick in the ass. But the post worked as advertised. He was able to pop the lever, drop the post, and dismount like a ballerina!

Ride Recap: Mt. Hamilton in the Fall

Ed. Ride leader Stephen Shirreffs submitted the following ride recap of our annual Mt. Hamilton in the Fall ride. Looks like it was hella fun!

On November 19 seven hardy but cheery club members gathered at the Berryessa Community Center in San Jose for the club’s annual Mount Hamilton in the Fall ride. Thanks to President David Goldsmith’s efforts four of the participants arrived together by BART and for future reference that mode of transportation went well now that BART is only three miles away. As is pretty usual on this ride, once we got into the climbing we quickly devolved into a few groups but we reconnected at the first rest stop at Joseph D. Grant Park and again at the top where we had a lengthy regroup and refresh. Stephen, in his first stint as a club ride leader (ably assisted by co-leader Roger), enjoyed his annual Starbucks chilled Frappucino from the tuck shop. Eric was meanwhile geeking out at the astronomy tech. We eventually herded the cats back together for a victory photo. A usual the descent was long and magnificent with very little traffic making it all the more enjoyable. The weather was surprisingly warm. But all those layers shed on the way up were still mighty welcome for the long descent in the cool autumn air.

It Was 44 Years Ago Today

SFO Museum Exhibition; “Moscone, Milk Shot to Death” November 27, 1978 San Francisco ExaminerHarvey Milk Archives-Scott Smith Collection,James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center, SFPL R2020.0602.019

Sunday November 27 is the 44th anniversary of the assassinations of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone by ex-Supervisor Dan White. It was nearly a lifetime ago and for most of you it’s easily forgettable historical trivia. But for those of us who lived through it, it left an emotional scar so deep that we bear the mark of it for the rest of our lives.

This year Roger and I are not leading the ride to visit Harvey’s memorium in the San Francisco Columbarium nor the gravesite of his predecessor Jose Sarria and of Moscone in Colma. But that does not mean we are ignoring it. Perhaps we will next year if we are still alive and hale.

In the meantime I refer you to last year’s ChainLetter blog post about the ride, which was no more than a recapitulation of the first time that we led it in 2018 on the 40th anniversary of the assassination.