Boy, it couldn’t have been better than it was last Sunday for the Velo Love ride, a metric century starting in Gridley, CA and going around the anomalous Sutter Buttes. A confluence of incredibly good weather, an early bloom, and a high of 75F was a welcome Valentine. Roger and I have been doing the Velo Love ride for about ten years. Originally this was called the Rice Valley Tandem Rally by Chico Velo, who originated the ride, probably because it’s almost pan-flat and a prime rice growing zone. But at some point they decided a catchier name was the Velo Love Ride since it was usually close to Valentine’s Day.

Scheduling a long ride, in this case a metric century, in February requires chutzpah. The weather is always unpredictable, nay questionable, and winter sloth is hard to shake off especially when it’s very chilly as it is prone to be in the Sacramento Valley. We’ve done this ride when it’s been bone-chilling with dreary, spirit-busting cloud cover and other times when it’s been sunny albeit brisk. However we’ve never done it in rain. Drive 130 miles to spend the day getting soused? That’s positively Seattle-ish! No thanks. In 2017 the rain stopped before the ride and we rode it but turned around at the half-way point when it became clear an upcoming section of road was completely flooded (ahem, rice paddies, darling!) and we’d have to portage the tandem. In 2019 we and Roger S. were planning to go but it rained and we bagged it.

The Velo Love Ride has always been a small event—maybe a couple hundred participants at most—and the unpredictable weather has always been buzzkilling. Chico Velo didn’t put on the event in 2020 because no one in the club wanted to coordinate it. We went up anyway and did it on our own in the worst windstorm I’ve ever ridden in.

This year we struck gold. Climate change apparently means less rain for California and when it comes it’ll be in the form of atmospheric rivers just as we’ve experienced this season. A weird “heat” wave coupled with a month-long dry spell meant not only bone-dry roads but also an early bloom of the almond and plum orchards that surround the Buttes making for a heartwarming flower display. Despite the lack of rain many of the rice paddies—rice being one of the biggest crops in the area—were flooded and filled with birdlife. Coupled with the rich green grass surrounding the Buttes we were visually entertained in a way I can’t remember in all the times we’ve ridden there.

This year we were joined by David Goldsmith, who was inspired by having driven through the area a few years ago and been taken by the almond blossoms. The initial part of the ride is a straight shot west out of Gridley six miles and then drops directly south five miles to get to the loop around the Buttes. You have the pleasure of traversing these segments again on the return; however the west leg out of Gridley is the Colusa Highway and although devoid of traffic early on a Sunday, is not quite so bike-friendly in the early afternoon when you’re returning. Nonetheless even when “busy” this road makes Marin roads seem like superhighways in comparison. Heading south we picked up the very slight tailwind and started to pass the rice fields. The Gray Lodge Wildlife Area is midway, where we made a pitstop and chatted with the rangers who were hosting a veterans’ hunting event. The prodigious number of birds makes this a popular birding area as well.

A couple of miles southward and you’re on the 38-mile loop around the Sutter Buttes. There are still plenty of rice paddies but it’s orchard country. This year the warm weather seems to have sparked the almonds and plums to bloom a bit earlier than usual so we were treated to an explosion of color. Although we’ve done the Velo Love Ride when the trees were flowering, this was by far the brightest and most prodigious number of trees in bloom we had seen. Against the Sutter Buttes the efflorescence was jaw-droppingly picturesque. We kept looking for the best place for the moneyshot. In places where the trees were incandescent they were so tall that they obscured the Buttes; in other places the orchards were so far from the road that they hardly made a dent in your eyeballs. We managed to find a couple of nice locations to frame the entire landscape, Buttes and orchards both.

All this time we were keeping a rather torrid pace despite our searching for photo ops. On flat ground it’s much easier to keep up your speed even if the pavement is typical country road asphalt bouncing you along. Originally I was imagining we’d be taking our time and moseying. Instead we were pacelining! We rolled into Sutter, the halfway point and lunch stop, and bumped into a small crowd of cyclists also having lunch. They were also out for the Velo Love Ride! However they were doing the short loop by starting at Gray Lodge Wildlife Area. That cuts out about sixteen miles and makes for a really pleasant bike ride by omitting the Colusa Highway.

After downing our sandwiches we headed out of town and started the only ascent of the day, a gigantic 300-foot climb. Our total elevation gain for the day would be about 400 feet!

The area south and west of the Buttes is mostly ranchland but there were still large orchards interspersed. The road writhes left and right mostly at 90-degree angles that carve out the different properties. By this time I was getting tired and apparently so was David, who hadn’t done a ride this long in over two years. This was Roger’s and my first metric of the year, the last one being the Pedaling Paths to Independence long ago in February 2020 just before the Pandemic broke. We stopped for a break—butts and hands were getting tired as well—and immediately I got a hamstring cramp. Out came the pickle juice. Although David didn’t have cramps, he decided he’d have some as well so we toasted each other with our little green bottles. After more pictures and gabbing we resaddled and took off. I felt much better but nonetheless I had no shame sitting on Roger’s wheel—I wanted to make sure I made it to the end!

We were slowing down and I probably would have gone even slower if I hadn’t had a wheel to follow. There is a point in a century, even one as spectacular as was this Love Ride when it’s all about gritting out the miles. I could feel myself enter that zone: lots of glances at the cyclometer and counting down the tenths of a mile. Gray Lodge, Colusa Highway, city limit sign, finale. Whew. Just under 61 miles. The rolling average was 15.7 mph. Well, by Different Spokes standards that’s a D-pace so quite a bit faster than the B-to-C I had imagined beforehand. Yet another example of club pace inflation. David opined that it wasn’t really because the route was practically dead flat so a higher speed should be expected.

Although we didn’t have a proper meal during the ride, we went to Los Charros just down the street. Two years ago Roger and I found this place and had a delicious meal after doing an exhausting Velo Love Ride with 20-40 mph headwinds. I had had a taco and enchilada plate and after sucking it down I had contemplated ordering another. But I didn’t. Although not quite so hungry nor worn out this time, I was still looking forward to a satisfying meal. In 2020 the place had been almost deserted. Not this time: the place was hopping despite being 2:30 in the afternoon. Was it people tanking up before the Super Bowl? Doubtful: too early and not enough to-go. From the looks of things, the Pandemic is either over in Gridley or else it’s just going to get its second wind: almost no one was making an effort at social distancing and masks inside were rare except on the staff. Maybe it’s because it’s Trump country. We waited for our takeout and sat on the tailgate of the van to woof down our goodies. David had gotten inspired from my story and ordered the taco and enchilada plate. Roger on a lark ordered a “California” burrito; to keep the order simple I did the same. What made it a California burrito was having a raft of french fries rolled into the tortilla along with everything else. It hit all the right notes: (1) huge, (2) friggin’ stuffed, (3) charred, juicy beef, (4) french fries. OMG it was so delicious! I found religion and I’m now a believer.

After bidding goodbye to David, Roger and I rolled back to the Bay Area in the minivan and unlike almost every other Sunday afternoon on I-80 there was hardly any traffic jam outside of Sacramento. Although sitting an additional fifteen minutes on the freeway would merely have given our guts extra time to digest and enjoy a post-ride feeding frenzy, I was glad to make time getting home this year. All in all it was a twelve-hour day: up at 5:30, home at 5:30. A long day bookended by slightly tedious drives but the middle part was so, so worth it. That was a proper Valentine: a long bike ride and a delicious meal (that I didn’t have to make!)

A spur of the moment decision to go to Yosemite in January led to the Feb. 6 ride up Altamont Pass. Being disconsolate at the cancellation of our Austria tour and finally getting cabin fever after almost two years of sheltering mostly in place, we jumped in the car and went to Yosemite Valley for a couple of days. On the way out and back we drove I-680 into the valley and we were mesmerized by the emerald green grass on Altamont—no surprise, I guess, given the inordinate rain in December. This is the time to go, I thought, and began mulling over when would be a good time to ride up there. Of course, silly me, I was thinking that the rains would start up soon since we hadn’t had any for almost two weeks. By February the long range forecast was for “sun, sun, sun, ’til her daddy takes the Colnago away”. Well, there’s no time like the present so up went the ride posting.

The day of the ride was perfect: sunny, absolutely no clouds, and still air albeit chilly. There were seven of us including stalwarts Will, Roger S., and Alan. Alan is new to the club and as I found out also new to cycling. Moving from upstate NY to California apparently meant cycling might just be enjoyable! In any case Alan is a classic case of MAMILs gone wild and he’s grinding out the miles like there’s no tomorrow. Stephanie emerged from her house remodel and other domestic responsibilities to join the ride. In fact I consulted Stephanie while planning the ride because she’s usually the one who’s leading a jaunt up the Altamont hills and I hadn’t ridden up there in two decades or more. Her response was, “oh, any of those roads are great.” A non-Spoker Paul also joined us for his first club ride.

There are only three public roads over Altamont: Patterson Pass Road, Altamont Pass Road, and Tesla/Corral Hollow. We did the first two. But any permutation will do when the hills green up since the roads are primarily used by local traffic while everybody else is either hauling ass or creeping along at five miles per hour on I-680. We went up Patterson to the outskirts of Tracy and then climbed up Altamont to return to Livermore.

Livermore is a city in transition. It’s aspiring to Pleasanton or Danville grandeur but it’s still got farming roots. It already has a sign of greatness: homeless people sleeping in cars at the Livermore library where we parked. With growth pressure breathing down its neck, Livermore is going to be a “big” city in short order. East and north of downtown Livermore is either vineyards or ranch land with a few farms stuck in there for show. Nothing a little rezoning and lots, lots, lots of subdivisions won’t solve… But I digress. We headed east on Tesla Road, which is all wineries and vineyards, and starting climbing at Cross Road, which eventually takes you to Patterson Road where the real fun begins. Cross is a gentle ascent in absolutely deserted grassland. After turning onto Patterson the slope became more severe. It was all so beautiful that I was caught up in the splendor and forget that the grade was creeping up. We started to glimpse wind turbines but today there was no wind to speak of so they were as still as statues. The summit of Patterson was only about eight miles from where we started but the last half-mile was like climbing up a wall. It’s 15-16% just before the pass and that ain’t no momentary blip. Everybody was scrambling for their lowest gear and some were probably wishing for something lower. Suddenly those crazy 46- or 50-tooth rear cogs don’t seem so absurd. Roger H. made it to the top first just in time to snap a shot of Alan who was just behind him.

Everybody made it up fine and we soaked in the view all the way to Tracy: rolling green hills, wind turbines, and powerlines. The descent was crazy fast and everybody else shot off like rockets whereas I creeped down quite cautiously; the pavement is aging chipseal, there’s no shoulder, and the road winds like a snake. On one left curve there was an ominous “15 MPH!” sign obviously placed there because vehicles and cyclists have occasionally done their best Space-X imitation and launched into space. Other than passing the gigantic PG&E Tesla substation it was all beautiful countryside. The road flattened out as we were now in the valley. Usually you head north to the Mountain House community before heading west. But after crossing I-580 the road becomes full of traffic including a fair number of trucks from all the logistics centers in Tracy for companies like Amazon and Costco. But there is an alternate route, the California Aqueduct Bikeway, that gets you off the road away from traffic. In fact we rolled over the Aqueduct and stopped at a Valero gas station at the intersection. I had suggested that people bring snacks because I didn’t think there were any services on the route. But the Valero proved to be a veritable cornucopia of delectable gas station food. The Valero was doing its best Costco imitation with aisles that had to be the longest I’ve ever seen in a gas station convenience store. The temptation was too great and just about everyone piled in to use the restroom and, uh, stock up. The front window was advertising their “Krispy Krunchy fried chicken”. I was going to buy some but the thought of hurling all that good food on Altamont restrained me. In Roger S.’s case it didn’t and he emerged with a five-piece bag to gnaw on. Next door was a taqueria, which I’ll try the next time, as well as a Subway and a Wienerschnitzel. I’m telling you this oasis has everything you need.

Suitably restocked we turned around and turned onto the Aqueduct Bikeway, which has a gate under which you can carefully roll your bike. Only Will had been on the Bikeway before, long ago when he was training for double centuries. Stephanie, who knows this area like the back of her hand, had never taken it before. The pavement was surprisingly rideable: aging chip seal, slightly bumpy but wide and free of obstacles. The Bikeway rolls about 3-4 miles to Grant Line Road. We stopped in the middle to take in the view and munch on goodies. Roger S. chowed down on his fried chicken. Lucky me, he offered to share a piece. Yum. There isn’t much more goodness than fried chicken when you’re hungry from cycling. The whine of cars on adjacent 580 was the only thing that destroyed the peacefulness.

At Grant Line we headed west and had to put up with traffic just until Altamont Pass Road about a mile away where all of the cars turn onto 580. The climb up Altamont is more gradual and nowhere is as steep as Patterson. Everybody spread out and was rolling at their own pace. The last run-up to Altamont, where you pass over 580, is the only really steep section, about 12% for a half-mile. Alan was waiting for us about midway. Why not the top? “It just looked like a good place to rest!” After we regrouped we took the rest of the climb at a more sociable speed. Once you pop the top the descent to Livermore is sweet: no traffic, only moderately steep so you don’t have to ride the brakes, decent sightlines. Back on the flats it was a pleasant victory stroll back to the library.

I think next time I’m going to do this route in reverse so I can grab that fried chicken later in ride for a real “smack” down!

I spent a little time on the mountain
I spent a little time on the hill
I saw things getting out of hand
I guess they always will.
-Robert Hunter & Jerry Garcia

After a drenching December we unexpectedly got a dry January—somebody turned off the spigot! The club has taken full advantage of our unfortunate dry spell however. We had seven rides this month with six of them on the weekends. That’s pretty good for a month that is usually cold and wet. It may not have been wet but it certainly has been chilly yet that hasn’t deterred Spokers from clogging up the local roads with turnouts we usually see only in the height of summer and early fall: a dozen or so per ride! David Goldsmith’s dream has been to have “mo’ rides, mo’ rides, mo’ rides” and he may be getting his wish. Four years ago he said he wanted a hundred rides per year or about two per week. Call him ambitious (or Ahab). Maybe we’ll get there this year?

Keeping with tradition (a nice way of saying ‘lack of inspiration’) we started the month with the Resolution Ride: up Diablo with a bullet! Ten butch boys checked that one off. The following week’s Jersey Ride had thirteen riders. The Davids had planned a short outing across the Bay Bridge from Oakland the week after but the Tongan tsunami put paid to that escapade. David Goldsmith immediately replaced it with a short jaunt to Nicasio on MLK day that managed to roust five Spokers to join despite it being a ‘flash’ ride. The Davids then led the second in their training series the following Saturday, Jan. 22, around the Three Bears in Orinda. Was it boredom in San Francisco or did somebody not explain that this wasn’t Folsom Street—we had sixteen riders! The next day Roger and I led the first Forty & Fab (maybe that should be “Fab despite Forty” or better yet “Fab because Forty”!) ride around Portola loop that attracted thirteen riders. The one and only Early Bird ride this month garnered four participants before closing out the month with this past weekend’s training series ride around Stage Road and Highway One near Pescadero with nine of us. That’s a total of 70 riders out of club of 112 members!

Will we be so fortunate in February? I hope not—I mean, for the sake of our water supply!