This year’s Apple Blossom ride took place a little late. The best time to see the Gravenstein apple blossoms is about mid-April although it depends on the weather. Cold, wet winters delay the bloom even if climate change is accelerating their display. We couldn’t make time to head up to Sonoma county until now and unfortunately it’s becoming a bad habit of ours to list our rides with short notice. But we currently are not in a position to plan far in advance and just have to make hay when the sun is out. I was determined to get up to western Sonoma county this year as we hadn’t done an Apple Blossom ride since 2022. That’s too long a hiatus!

Being the sole Spoker who still remembers the old days of the club albeit feebly, I am the one left to champion some of the rides we used to do. It’s partly because they are great rides even if out of fashion today and it’s partly because these rides bring back cherished memories of riding with club members who are long gone. I call them my “ghost” rides.

Speaking of “ghosts”, the originator of the Apple Blossom is Michael John (“MJ”), the club’s second president and ChainLetter editor. He was also one of the two Spokers instrumental in the club organizing the first AIDS Bike-A-Thon in 1985 along with the SF AIDS Foundation. For that very reason I’ve been in touch with Michael, who now lives back East, and you shall soon hear his story of how the first AIDS Bike-A-Thon came to be. (The other key person was Bob Humason, the club’s third president, who died of AIDS in 1989.) He first led the Apple Blossom in April 1984 and it has various incarnations all of which involve going from Sebastopol out to Occidental and back. MJ told me that he loved to ride in Sonoma and he wanted to get the club out of Marin where apparently we rode much of the time. MJ later bought a house and moved to Petaluma. He also originated the Guerneville Weekend as well as designed the 1985 Bike-A-Thon route.

Sebastopol is about an hour north. We headed over the Richmond-San Rafael bridge. There wasn’t a single cyclist or pedestrian on the entire span for a sunny Sunday morning, just a couple of fisherman. To argue that the bike path should remain is a hard sell when drivers see no one using the path and are seething at the backup. Make America Drive Again! From there it’s a pleasant roll north to 116, which will take you straight to Sebastopol.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, riding in west Sonoma county is a mixed bag. It’s beautiful, a combination of rolling forested hills and rural ag land mixing fruit trees, vineyards, and cattle. But many of the roads are poorly maintained making for boneshaking adventures. It’s completely schizophrenic: one road is smooth asphalt and the next one is so degenerate that the patches are on top of patches that are on top of other patches. Although car traffic is light most of the time, there are roads that see a lot more cars because they actually go somewhere that people want to go, e.g. the coast. That combined with inconsequential road shoulders almost 100% of the time means that you can’t completely goon out on the scenery and have to keep an eye for fast cars and crater-like potholes.

You also have to like steep hills. The climbs here are not long but they go straight up. Gradients above 10% are not uncommon. But that’s part of the fun—they’re a rollercoaster of slow ups and very fast downs!

We were very much looking forward to this ride. Despite the quality of asphalt the rural ambiance more than makes up for it and is a great solace in these times. If there is development happening out there it is very slow. The impediment is likely the lack of water. With no urban sewage and water system, homes are dependent on septic systems (= needs plenty of land) and wells. Sebastopol is the “big city” in west Sonoma of about 8,000 and even it uses wells for its water supply.

Whatever the water situation in town the hills were still completely green even though almost everything in the East Bay where we live is now a dusky brown.

We always start our rides at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts for the mundane reason that it has plenty of car parking nearby and the adjacent park has a restroom. Heading west on Bodega Ave we turned south on Pleasant Hill Road and become reacquainted with gruesome asphalt; the tire tracks in the lane are decrepit and we have to hug the right edge to escape the bumpiness as cars pass us repeatedly. We’re both on pretty big tires, Roger on 32 mm and I on 42 mm. They make a huge difference on Sonoma asphalt; if you’re riding 28 mm tires, that will do but you’re better off putting on something bigger to cushion all the jarring. A southwest wind is hectoring us. Once we turn onto Bloomfield Road it becomes well paved as we pass by open farm fields with grazing cows. After we turn southwest onto Roblar we get the double-whammy: a challenging headwind and pleasure-seeking drivers zooming to Bodega Bay. Fortunately the sight lines are good for them even if there is no shoulder for us.

Here and there we’re spotting blooming apple trees. The bloom is almost entirely over. But a few trees are behind schedule—late bloomers. It took them a bit longer to ‘come out’. Mostly what we’re seeing is old orchards that are either abandoned or have been replaced mainly by grapes with a few remnant trees as a historical reminder. Gravensteins are hard to get these days. But I remember getting them at the old CO-OP markets—remember them? Probably not because the last one closed in 1988. Probably the only place to get them these days is specialty produce markets like Berkeley Bowl. Gravensteins were once king in the Bay Area; now they are almost completely gone.

It’s just a short hop on Valley Ford, which has even faster traffic but it has a great shoulder. Turning north onto Bloomfield Road the wind suddenly vanishes and we have zero traffic! Whatever Bloomfield was in the past, it’s now a mere dot on the map with a liquor store, what looks to be a closed Masonic Hall, and a volunteer fire department. Now instead of constantly rolling hills we get a real climb. It’s only been about 13 miles but my legs have been sapped by the wind and rollers. I slow to a crawl while Roger rides away from me on Burnside, which is a long, steep grind. We come upon a flock of turkeys in the road, an increasingly common occurrence. Those turkeys can run faster than I can climb! For whatever reason they run up the road rather than off to the side. So I get to see them caper in front me for an entire mile.

Roger is waiting for me at the top. Except that it’s not the top; it’s just one of the “tops” as we roll along a ridge line in the hills. We cross the Bodega Highway, which is a continuation of Bodega Avenue and continue north. Part of me wanted to turn onto Bodega because Wild Flour Bakery is literally just down the road in Freestone. But we continue north on Jonive, which has a short but nasty 13% grade, which is obscured on Google Maps.

At Occidental Road we turn west to get our lunch in town. There’s a climb to a summit and then a big drop into Occidental, which we would have to climb back over after porking out at lunch. By the route we took it was 23 miles to lunch and it would be only 9 to get back to Sebastopol. Needless to say we took the long way to lunch.

We usually stop at the Union Hotel Restaurant but not always. Back in the 1980s when ‘loudmouth’ Mike Reedy got into this ride, he decided to lead it himself and he always stopped at the Union Hotel. Being Italian-American he liked the menu. It was pretty good too so I started going there for lunch when I led it. It has an outdoor courtyard for dining and had a nice selection of pastas, salads, pizzas and main courses. I say “had” because we found out when we arrived that for some reason the menu has been drastically pared down to just a couple of salads, pizzas, and grilled chicken. These are hard times for restaurants especially those in the boonies and not on Restaurant Row. So whatever!

It had been sunny all day but not hot. Sitting in the Union Hotel courtyard was perfect and you could pick your spot either in the sun or in the shade. With our bikes locked up at the gate and in sight, we were set for a pleasant lunch and needed break from all those hills. Although only half-full when we arrived, the courtyard soon filled up. It was Mother’s Day after all and there were several tables of mothers being treated to Sunday brunch. I overheard one table lamenting that Howard’s Station—another Occidental hot spot—the wait for a table was an hour and a half long. They bailed and came to the Union Hotel.

We ended up with pizza and a salad. They had only one size, ostensibly a 12-inch, that measured out larger than that and would have been plenty of food for four. Being just two and not intent upon gorging with a hill after lunch, we left a lot of pizza on the table! Besides being physically large (and delicious), it was verging on Chicago-style with how deeply the cheese had been piled. The generous mushrooms and sausage floating on the sea of melted cheese were extra good. But it’s the wrong time of year to be putting on ‘winter’ fat, alas.

Back on our bikes it was hard slog up the hill with a carb-and-fat bomb in our stomachs. But once at the top it was essentially one long downhill back to Sebastopol. Now with a tailwind we returned to Sebastopol in what seemed like a flash. Back at the car we were still too stuffed to go to Screaming Mimi’s, the traditional post-ride refreshment, for ice cream. If not for the coffee at lunch I would have been in a fat coma.

Marvelous day, a good workout—I was tired!—and a delicious lunch. All told it was just 32 miles but despite what RWGPS said—about 2,400 ft. of elevation gain—we both ended up with over 3,000 ft. on our Garmins. Maybe that will balance out the lunch.

If you’re interested in doing this ride, keep in mind that Caltrans is still working on the Highway Expansion That Will Never End: a long section of 101 by Petaluma is just two lanes each direction and traffic snarls up as the day goes on. If you head up to Sebastopol to ride in west Sonoma keep that in mind. Another option is to take the SMART train from San Rafael to Cotati and simply head west to access the Apple Blossom by getting on Roblar Road. The beautiful countryside awaits.

Ginny reports: “Alas I don’t have any photos! Everyone was accounted for on the Short & Sassy including Peter, whom we met at Woodlands Market with his new bike. [Ed. New bike day = better than any birthday!] Janet met us at the bottom of Camino Alto and we sang “Happy Birthday” to her. Tomorrow is her birthday. There were ten people total including the Jersey Ride. We weren’t together long because unfortunately we had a flat tire. But we were able to fix it and get back out there. So the group split up and half left Woodlands earlier than the others. Also unfortunately, later Scott fell and broke his wrist while getting off the bike. He was in Sausalito planning to take the ferry back. Luckily Nancy was with him and went to ER and drove him home.”

Stephen reports: “The Jersey Ride started out from Peet’s on Market a little after nine on an exquisite spring day that eventually got quite hot over in Marin. There were six of us, including two non-members, Alex and Yoko, who found us through the listing on the SF Bicycle Coalition website. We enjoyed the day with them, showing them their first crossing of the Golden Gate Bridge on a bike and their first experience of Paradise Loop. We met up with the three of the Short & Sassy crew at the roundabout on the Mill Valley bike path. We had lunch at Woodlands Market together before a bunch of folks headed off a little early to catch the Sausalito ferry at 1:30 PM leaving five of us to complete the full route. The Bridge on the way back was blasted by a heavy, brutal, cold wind but we made it back safely. Alas, those at the ferry had a disaster: Scott fell boarding the ferry and broke his wrist. Nancy made sure he got to the hospital and he is now at home recovering, likely in a cast for three months.”

Ed. Nancy sent in this recap of her and Cathy’s ride last Saturday.

“Our ride went well. We had a chilly start but the sun eventually poked through. We did a slight variation in the official RWGPS route. It was a silky smooth ride down Cañada Road through Woodside and up Alpine Road. On the way we stopped at a lovely park for bathrooms and water at the Portola Town Center. We climbed along Corte Madera Creek, which was still running. After reaching the top, we headed to Roberts Market in Portola Valley. It’s just as nice as the one in Woodside and has a few outdoor tables, which is nicer than sitting on the wall or sidewalk in Woodside. But note – there are no public bathrooms at this Robert’s either. The rest of the ride was more trafficky especially turning left onto Sand Hill and avoiding the freeway on- and off-ramps. This isn’t my favorite part of the route but I’m not sure if there’s an alternative to getting back to Whiskey Hill other than doing an out-and-back to the top of Alpine Hill. I’d consider that although it would cut about five miles off the route. However I’m open to suggestions. All in all a lovely ride. I will list it again if folks are interested.”

Interested in doing this ride? Let Nancy know and maybe she’ll lead it again! Here’s the route more or less that she and Cathy did: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/43746247

This is a loop that is definitely not in the canon of ancient Different Spokes rides. Redwood Road appears a few times in club rides but they are likely all of recent origin; I don’t recall any club rides going on Norris Canyon except the old Hekaton Century, which several of us Spokers did fairly regularly back in the day. Norris Canyon in particular is literally an outlier because it’s pretty out-of-the-way for a rural road that’s smackdab in the Bay Area. That you need to ride on Crow Canyon Road in order to get to it is probably one of the reasons we avoided it because Crow Canyon is a cut-through arterial for traffic from the San Ramon Valley—Danville, Dublin, San Ramon, etc.—to get over to I-580/238 without having to endure the terrible intersection with I-680. I recall making the mistake exactly twice of riding on Crow Canyon during the week. The road has sections with no shoulder, the traffic is hella fast (when it isn’t backed up), and drivers careen with abandon when they can. Weekends are less deadly but it’s so wide open that the speed limit is merely a recommendation to be ignored completely. But if you endure Crow Canyon you get to ride on Norris, which is very empty, in fact the epitome of a country road yet it’s surrounded by development.

The last time we did Redwood-Norris was in 2022, a club ride that everyone seemed to enjoy thoroughly. Then January 1, 2023 Redwood Road collapsed and remained closed until earlier this year. That put an end to Redwood-Norris for two years. Actually on that date Roger and I were going to do that ride. We came upon the road collapse and walked around it. But after tippytoeing across, we got to Norris and encountered a river of mud: the same storm had inundated Norris with a couple of feet of mud. To get home we had no choice but to chance Crow Canyon, which we barely got through. So it’s been three years since we’ve ridden on Norris.

Despite the diminution of rain this winter—about 15% less than normal—the hills here have managed to stay pretty green. Early May is often when the hills are noticeably brown. But this year not yet! So I was hoping Norris would still be verdant and it was.

No one signed up for our ride. That we posted it somewhat late might be part of the reason. Back in the day Spokers had to get their ride listings in early because they were available only through the printed ChainLetter—remember that club monthly newsletter we used to have?—but now we can announce rides as late as we want because Internet. I used to (mentally) chastise ride leaders who posted their rides late—what were they thinking? How could people make plans to join your ride if you don’t announce it well in advance? Now I’ve become one of ‘them’!

When I checked the ride registration in the morning and still no one had signed up, I thought, “Oh goodie, we don’t have to rush to meet anybody.” I closed registration so that no one would show up at the super, very late last-minute. So we ignored the official start time and had a leisurely Sunday morning before heading out.

Today was also the Grizzly Peak Century so I was expecting to see more riders since it uses Redwood Road as well. We saw the century markers on the pavement but actually didn’t see many riders perhaps because the southern loop of the GPC comes later in the ride.

It’s delightful to ride Redwood Road again. The whole thing is surrounded by open space so it feels very much like being in the country. Roads like Redwood and Norris Canyon are rarities in the Bay Area, Development continues to scoop up private land here in Contra Costa. In theory the way housing development is supposed to happen is by infilling in order to preserve open space. Although Redwood is buttressed by regional park land and EBMUD controlled land, Norris is not—it’s private ranches. How much longer will it last? You only have to look down below Norris to see what’s in store: the remnant ranch land adjacent to I-680—and there isn’t much now—consists of just one large parcel. Next to it is a large housing development that just went up leaving that ranch an island in a sea of ugly multi-million dollar boxes. Along Bollinger Canyon the city of San Ramon has allowed another gigantic housing development to take over ranch land there. That’s the first inroad into Bollinger Canyon, which is another pleasant, dead-end country road. Well, enjoy it while you can. It will all be gone in less than a generation.

Today Redwood was strangely quiet despite the Grizzly Peak Century. There was a paucity of cars, motorcycles, and cyclists for a beautiful, sunny Sunday. Roger and I were chilling up the climb, just enjoying it. At the top we dropped down past the now repaired road collapse and stopped at the Redwood Canyon Golf Course, the traditional pit stop. On weekends it’s quite busy as duffers work to improve their game and their tan. The place has toilets, water, a diner, and a welcoming attitude for cyclists. Perfect. I noticed mountain bikers heading out behind the building towards Brandon Trail. That was closed last winter too due to storm damage but is now open.

This was our first venture past the golf course since Redwood was shut down. You have to wend through Castro Valley to get to Crow Canyon and then the fun begins: dancing with cars!

Crow Canyon is a gentle ascent. That’s probably why it’s a popular road as it was probably the lowest pass over the hills long ago. It parallels Crow Creek, which was probably quite beautiful ages ago but now has more the appearance of a big roadside gutter. The turn to Norris Canyon is just a couple of miles up Crow Canyon. Upon turning we were surprised: Norris had been completely repaved with new centerline, shoulder markings, and Botts dots. Marvelous! To my recollection this is the first repaving of Norris in my 40-some years of riding it. Norris climbs gently at first and it’s well shaded making it a respite during hot summer days. It’s just about two miles to the top and the gradient gradually gets uglier and uglier, hitting 10+%. Nearing the top you begin to see the ranches that were hidden behind the roadside trees. The hills were still quite green despite the lack of any recent rain; our cool spring seems to have preserved the grasses. Horses and cows ambled on both sides.

At the top you cross into Contra Costa county and the new pavement ended. Instead we’re greeted by “One lane ahead” signs. In seconds we see why: half the road has collapsed and is now controlled by a one-way stoplight. Completing the descent we’re in San Ramon and hyper-suburbanity. We take Danville Blvd. to Danville for a lunch stop. We usually stop at Sultan’s Kebab because it’s veg/vegan friendly and has a great falafel plate. But for a change we go to Domenico’s. Domenico’s used to be a great sandwich place. The food is still very good but the service is slow even on a Sunday. It has a large group in the deli making lunches but it’s for the massive number of online orders they get. Just two are working the long line snaking out the door. Obviously they want you to use online ordering and if you are a walk-in, you are simply inconveniencing them and you should GTFO. Next time it’s back to Sultan’s Kebab (or to Los Panchos for some extra delicious Mex gut bombs).

Over lunch I check email. There’s an urgent email earlier this morning from Brian saying he wants to join the ride and he’s on the way! Oops. Turns out Brian did come over and do the ride on his own. I’m sure he was going a lot faster than we, probably trying to catch us. Except that we were behind him, not ahead of him! Next time I’ll show Brian Brandon Trail as penitence.

After lunch it’s a gentle amble north to Walnut Creek and then to Lafayette and Orinda. Oh, and why did it seem so enjoyable to ride today? Because apparently we had a northerly tailwind all day and only when we turned north did we realize that.

Awesome day: hard but not stupid hard climbs, little traffic, green hills, good lunch. It was totally chill. You should be so lucky!

Do you know the way to San Jose?
I’ve been away so long
I may go wrong and lose my way
–Burt Bacharach/Hal David

Whew, what a day! This past Sunday David, Alan, Nancy, and I did the dirty and rode all the way to San Jose. When all is said and done our foursome survived a 76-mile day, some with more grace than others.

SF to SJ is a concoction of David Goldsmith whose eyes light up whenever he opines about this ride. He just loves this ride and has led it many times for the club. That he worked at various locations on the Midpeninsula over the years means he has ridden his bike from SF down the Midpeninsula and taken Caltrain back a zillion times. But instead of getting tired of it, his commutes have only made his affection for the ride grow. When no one stepped up to lead this ride for the Winter/Spring series, David stepped forward even though he’s been back on the bike for less than two months. And he finished the ride with aplomb!

The ride name ‘SF to SJ’ describes the ride succinctly. However there are a myriad of possibilities cycling to San Jose and all of them involve getting through a bottleneck of sorts around Daly City and South San Francisco. There just are not good ways for road cyclists that don’t involve lots of traffic. This version of SF to SJ uses Skyline Boulevard. Two other main ways are the Bay Trail and El Camino. Although the Bay Trail might involve fewer dangerous interactions with cars, it’s also less direct and slower; even worse you’re stuck on busy suburban streets for almost the entire route. Another option is El Camino, which is fine if you don’t mind riding on a busy arterial amidst a lot of cars, a lot of stop lights, and you like dodging car doors being flung open willynilly. David’s route settles on Skyline even though the section just south of SF is a high speed getaway route for cars. Eventually you are able to get off Skyline and travel adjacent to or on SF Water property, and the “rural” suburbs of Woodside, Stanford, and Los Altos are snug up against the hills and open space and feel less urbanized. David forgoes a direct route to the San Jose Caltrain station, which would put you in some serious car hell in Cupertino and Santa Clara, by deviating into the hills above Stevens Creek Reservoir and Mt. Eden before descending back to the flats. After some suburban crawling in Saratoga and Los Gatos he cleverly avoids more suburbia by taking the multi-use path paralleling Los Gatos Creek all the way from Los Gatos to San Jose. All told the route has about 4,000 feet of climbing but it’s almost entirely short rollers over almost 80 miles, so this is my no means a ‘climby’ route.

Once in San Jose you can head to Ron Diridon Station to catch Caltrain back to San Francisco or a little bit further north to the Berryessa BART station if you need to get to the East Bay.

I’m wondering if SF to SJ has had its heyday. There was a time when it attracted more participants probably because of the novelty and the sense of accomplishment of doing such a long ride in the middle of the central Bay Area. Like the Death Ride, SF to SJ was a ‘feat’ but now it’s just part of the background noise. But it’s an interesting—I hesitate to use the word ‘nice’—break from riding in Marin and if you get into trouble, you’re never far from a bike shop, a Starbucks, or any other amenity that will either save you or make your plight more enjoyable.

Alan, Nancy and I joined David. Alan is getting ready for ALC so another long ride under his belt was just more grist for the mill. Nancy, presumably like me, is trying to recover some shape, although she is still eyeing the Chico Wildflower as her next stunt. Why did I do this ride? Under other circumstances I would not have considerered it but it was well-timed. I had been planning to redo the 1985 AIDS Bike-A-Thon route on my own since this its 40th anniversary would be on April 6. But I haven’t been able to get ready for it the way I would like. Plus, I’m much older now and I haven’t done a true one-hundred mile route in probably 15 or 20 years. So that has been tabled for now. Since I had done a couple of 60-milers and a 70-miler this spring, I was ready to step up, so SF to SJ fit the bill since it would be 80ish miles from my home.

If you live in SF the overall day is simple: do the ride, catch Caltrain back home. But I had to get from the East Bay to SF and back. I had to cycle to BART, take BART to the City, ride to the start, then do the ride. After the ride it was Caltrain to Millbrae, transfer to BART, return to the East Bay, and then ride home. It ended up being a 13-hour day for me and I arrived home after dark.

I had done this ride only once before, in 2014. That was a misadventure: I was unfamiliar with the route, my Garmin died midway, and I cramped badly after it died and the group took off without me. I had to struggle to keep someone in sight praying I wouldn’t get lost. It was a hot summer day to boot. By Los Gatos I was toast from cramps, heat, and dehydration and only my reptilian brain was still functioning enough to get me to Caltrain.

That experience plus struggling all spring to get back into shape left me very wary of doing this ride. At least now I have a better Garmin with a longer battery life. I also set my goal to go very conservatively even if people took off without me. I now drink electrolyte fluid instead of plain water and am more conscientious about drinking. I also planned to drink pickle juice prophylactically to stave off cramps.

I had to leave the house at 6:50 AM to make it to Peet’s for the 8 AM departure. BART is pretty empty on an early Saturday morning. That gave me plenty of time to brood over what sorry fate would befall me this time. This year David wanted to head out Golden Gate Park and check out the new Sunset Dunes Park. That was going to be a lot nicer than in 2014 when we cycled through the Mission and and Outer Mission to catch Skyline.

We weren’t sure if Sunset Dunes would even be open to cyclists given that it is still a work-in-progress. Also the City’s sand erosion project had just started up at Ocean Beach and sections of the Great Highway are supposedly closed. But it was open and there were a lot of people enjoying the cool beach breeze and morning overcast. What will this park look like in a year? Right now it’s pretty urban and scruffy; and there really isn’t a need for two two-lane roads through the park! We rode up the Great Highway Extension even though technically it’s closed, skidding over numerous small piles of sand. I was thankful for having wider tires!

Even when I lived in SF I rarely rode Skyline out of the city. In the ‘80s it was a hell pit of fast cars and innumerable random piles of broken beer and wine bottles. Dodging broken glass while trying to avoid getting sideswiped by high speed cars always made for a tense ride. In the late ‘90s on one ill-fated club ride taking Skyline I flatted no less than seven times. After the third flat I turned around and sustained four more before I got home! Had it changed much? Yes and no. Cars still speed with abandon. However in the intervening period car drivers’ indifference or animus towards cyclists perhaps has diminished. Even though they’re not going any slower, they no longer hug the shoulder line and will actually give you space. The immense amount of broken glass seems to have been replaced with copious gravel and dirt instead. What will it take for Caltrans to actually maintain the entire road? For us cyclists it’s still Jim Crow: second-rate infra for cyclists.

Skyline is a bit hilly. Alan being in the best shape of all of us was motoring up the rollers easily while the three of us took our time. We stopped at the Lunardi’s Market at the 15-mile point for a quick refueling and bathroom break. I never eat breakfast, even before a ride. Although not famished I was now ready to eat. I settled on sushi. A bento of California roll was perfect: rice for carbs, a few veggies, and soy sauce for salt! Alan got some as well only the bigger bento; David got a small pecan tart. I like Lunardi’s. It’s a very small market chain and seems to have taken on the mantle from Andronico’s after it went bankrupt of being the customer service driven market with a lot of niche products and fantastic produce and a real meat market. As I waited in line to check out, I noticed the clerk chatting familiarly with the two customers in front of me as well as the one behind me. He knew their names and asked about their family and what they were doing for Easter. Obviously this Lunardi’s was the neighborhood market. When was the last time employees at the supermarket spoke to you as if you were a neighbor?

After Lunardi’s we escaped streets for quite a distance by taking the San Andreas Trail and then the Sawyer Camp Trail. This is really the beginning of the nicest part of this route, from Lunardi’s all the way down to Stanford. Back in the day we avoided the Sawyer Camp Trail because complaints about cyclists forced the park to establish and enforce a speed limit for cyclists. It was something ludicrously low, like 8 miles an hour. Essentially they were telling cyclists not to use the trail. I recall rangers using radar guns to ticket cyclists. Instead we used the streets parallel to I-280 and even at one point used I-280, entering on one ramp and immediately exiting at the next. This was illegal at the time but the only other option was a really arduous diversion. Eventually it was made legal for cyclists to use that section of highway because there was no comparable substitute byway. Now the speed limit is up to 15 MPH–pretty standard for MUPs and we’re back to riding on it.

As convenient as these trails are—they are ‘trails’ only in name since they are fully paved–they are really just multi-use paths and are well used by walkers and many other cyclists making for ‘interesting’ encounters. Although 8 miles an hour may seem very slow there are numerous tight bends with awful sightlines where it actually makes sense to cool your jets. This day it was very busy with day hikers and families out enjoying the fine, sunny weather. I didn’t mind going slowly since that was my theme for the day and it was great for the trails to finally be open again. After the storms of 2023 both trails were severely damaged and only up until a month or so ago for them to reopened after all the repairs, fire mitigation, and utility restoration.

From the Crystal Springs Dam it was a hop, skip, and jump down Cañada Road to Roberts for lunch. Nancy was telling me she’d like to come down here more often to ride. It’s not that hard actually: just take BART to Millbrae and ride up (well, really up!) to the Sawyer Camp Trail and skip all the traffic. Or, skip the short yet horrendous climb from Millbrae up to the trail by taking Caltrain further down and taking one of the more gentle climbs up to Crystal Springs.

Whether it was due to anxiety, copious rehydrating, the lack of heat, or age, my bladder was having a field day and I was having to stop to pee whenever the opportunity arose and even a few times when there was no ‘opportunity’. I peed no less than 11 times on the ride. Unlike in 2014 my ride mates were regrouping often so I was always able to catch up.

Rolling down Cañada Road is always a delight. It’s long, rolling, and has no development to ruin the attractive views of the reservoir and the surrounding hills. Although the Filoli estate fronts on the road, all the buildings are set so far back that you’re in no danger of suffering a Dynasty flashback. The end point is central Woodside and the lunch stop at Robert’s. As usual for a weekend the intersection was a mishmosh of every kind of vehicle trying to horn its way through the four-way stop. Horns ablazing. It’s also like some faux bro version of an Amsterdam intersection with hordes of cyclists in MAAP, Pas Normal, and Rapha kit on their Cervelos, Pinas, and Tarmacs parading and preening on their way to the next Strava segment. We parked in the shade to woof down some grub. Deterred by the long deli line, I made the mistake of grabbing a “chicken teriyaki” bowl. Protein, rice, veggies—what could be wrong? Plenty it turns out: the brown rice wasn’t completely cooked, the chicken was dry, the veggies were raw, and the teriyaki sauce dauntingly cloying. Ah, fuel for the body but not the soul.

By now it was bright sunshine although not overly warm at all. I was still in my windbreaker but it was soon to come off. Once over Sand Hill we dropped to Foothill Expressway for the long leg down to Los Altos. Despite being a major thoroughfare in the middle of the Midpeninsula, Foothill never feels like you’re just a mote in Cartown USA. The shoulder is wide, the traffic usually fast but not scary fast, and not very busy at all. You can get rolling very fast on Foothill—it almost encourages you to pedal faster. But not today—I was still in survival mode and riding well within my limits. David and Alan were pushing faster but I didn’t want to risk cramps. On one of the rollers David slowed down and I could see he was flagging. Considering how little he has ridden it’s praiseworthy that he made it this far and as fast as he did. I paced him for a while but then he surged ahead.

We headed up to Stevens Canyon Reservoir and we were out of the suburbs temporarily and into the foothills, strangely quiet given how close we were to the center of Silicon Valley. Even the car traffic dwindled. After a pit stop at the reservoir Nancy waved me ahead and that was the last I saw of her. A few minutes later I looked back and didn’t see her at all. Hmm, she must really be slowing down, I thought. Ahead was the last hill, Mt. Eden. It’s by Midpeninsula standards just a moderate climb, maybe a mile or two long and no more than 6-7% at times. At the top the view of the Santa Clara Valley was a nice reward. We waited for Nancy. And waited and waited. Flagging down cyclists coming up the hill we asked if they had seen her. Nope. Hmm, could she have taken a wrong turn? After a long wait, repeated phone calls and texts and no reply we were getting concerned. But being pretty tired we were no mood to launch a search party and backtrack. Go up Mt. Eden a second time? Nope! It was starting to get late anyway so we hoped Nancy would figure it all out and make it to Caltrain somehow.

The descent down Mt. Eden I’ve done only a few times, all of them a long time ago. It’s curvy and a bit bumpy with enough gradient to make it dangerous (or at least dangerous for an old fart like me). I took it easy. Alan and David dropped me immediately. Well, my Garmin was holding up much better than the POS I had 11 years ago with battery still at 87%. So I’d make it to the Los Gatos Coffee Roastery by GPS if necessary.

It was back to suburbia. David and Alan were waiting for me at the bottom. This section was actually mega-ugly but maybe I felt that way only because I was tired and wanted refreshment (= caffeine) immediately. Downtown Los Gatos was another moshpit of cars, day trippers, and bikes all slowing to a literal crawl. Now, why do I live in the Bay Area?? Sitting down for some java and potato chips was just the break I needed. Taking stock we were overall in good shape. Alan of course was fine; David and I despite our trepidations and physical issues were not suffering at all. The legs were a little tired but our spirits were still up.

The last segment of SF to SJ is a flat ride of about six or seven miles from Los Gatos to Caltrain most of it along Los Gatos Creek. The good news is that the multi-use path gets you away from the interminable cars, stop lights, and busy traffic. The bad news is that the path is well used on weekends by every form of alien life—kids on e-motos, clueless peds, Lime scooters—you name it. The path is also quite curvy and spine-tinglingly narrow at times especially when it dips below the many overpasses. During winter storms I’m sure the path is flooded and unusable as we were almost down to creek level at times. David and Alan rushed ahead and I did my best not to collide with the ‘wildlife’ peppering the path.

We exited the trail in the Willow Glen neighborhood. The tradition is to stop for frozen yogurt but it all depends on the timing of the next Caltrain departure. It was 5 o’clock and the next train was at 5:26, so we forwent the treat and headed to Ron Diridon. We made it with a few minutes to spare. By now we were about an hour behind my planned schedule of about a ten mile per hour average for the day. But overall it had been a chill day, so no worries or complaints.

David was delighted he had done the whole route on such little training; I was relieved I didn’t have a crisis; and Alan looked fresh as a daisy. In fact, the next day he was set to do a 90-mile ride in preparation for ALC. Talk about hardcore!

This was my first experience on the new electrified Caltrain. The bike cars are also improved. In contrast to BART the ride is smooth and quiet rather than rickety and ear-splitting. (Ear plugs are de rigueur on BART!) The calm was deeply appreciated. While heading back to SF we finally got word from Nancy. She indeed had taken a wrong turn and ended going up Redwood Gulch before giving up and backtracking. If you’re not familiar with Redwood Gulch, it’s a beautiful climb up to Highway 9. But it also hits 15% or more, i.e. it’s hella steep. She got bonus climbing points as then she had to go up Mt. Eden. I was relieved she was okay as the worst fantasies of her lying in a ditch somewhere had popped into my head during her long radio silence.

I deboarded at Millbrae to transfer to BART to get home. After two prolonged transfer stops, Balboa Park and 19th Street, I finally made it to Orinda at 7:50 PM. A two-and-a-half hour commute home. The fact that I was able to do this ride multimodally and not use a car was the plus; the lengthy commutes were the minus. It had been a 13-hour day on the road. But to my relief and self-confidence I did the whole thing rather painlessly by sticking to my game plan and came out the other end none the worse for wear. Next stop: one hundred miles.

Postscript: I live in fear of painful nocturnal leg cramps after a hard ride. But this time other than some minor foot cramps I had no sequelae. David, on the other hand, related to me the next day that he woke up screaming in the night with leg cramps. Ah, no pain, no gain. We’re pedaling off into our old age creaking, complaining, and gnashing our teeth. But we are still pedaling!

Postscript 2: I spoke with Nancy after posting this account and got more details on what happened to her. She went pretty far up Redwood Gulch to the point where she had to walk her bike, where she then gave up and turned around. I know exactly where that is: there is a point where the gradient on Redwood gets stupidly steep, at least 17%. And it feels like it! Although turning around was a right thing to do, if she had continued it would have flattened some and Redwood Gulch then intersects Highway 9. From there it would have been a descent to Saratoga and she would then have been back on route. However when she turned around and got to the “bottom”, she turned left to continue up Stevens Creek, which was the wrong way. Stevens Creek eventually dead-ends at a dirt trail. At that point she was at a loss what to do. Luckily she ran into another cyclist who was able to take her back to the Mt. Eden Rd. intersection where she continued on route. Those two wrong turns were not only debilitating but long. She made it to Caltrain and just missed the train. Rather than wait she rode to BART and took it to SF. She got home after 10 PM! So Nancy takes the award for Most Miserably Long Multimodal Mishegas. Oh, and she didn’t get dinner until she got home.

The monthly JR and the Short & Sassy Tib loop took place without any drama. At the last minute Roger and I decided to do an East Bay Tiburon Loop and meet everyone at Woodlands Market. From what we could tell it looked like the entire central Bay Area had clear, beautiful blue skies and bright sunshine. It was slightly cool but it warmed up nicely by the time we were eating lunch at Woodlands. The JR consisted of David Go.; Chris, the ride leader, leading his very first Different Spokes ride; and Roger S. The Short & Sassy were Ginny, Nancy, Cathy, and newer member Michelle.

According to Chris their groups had an uneventful ride to Tiburon with David Go. and Nancy deciding to lead the pack into town. David had abandoned the JR years ago as he too had had his fill of the lemming race across the Golden Gate Bridge and instead has been doing the S&S. Now he’s back to doing the JR presumably because he’s interested in longer rides even if they are filled with more drama and near-death experiences. Our ride across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge was in contrast practically like crossing the desert with the almost complete lack of two-wheeled traffic. As usual we were accompanied by the deafening cacaphony from the cars hurtling westward making for a Jekyl-Hyde experience, the peaceful Bay along with the 65+ MPH urban misery in the lane to our left.

For some reason traffic heading into San Rafael was very heavy and slow. No one was turning into San Quentin so it must not have been visitation causing the crowding. Thankfully we left the other ‘prisoners’ ‘in their metal buckets to their plight when we turned south to head to the loop.

What can one say? Paradise Drive is aptly named. How fortunate to have a home in such a peaceful setting even if it does mean you can’t just walk to the corner for a take-out dinner. The cyclists were out in force and we were passed by many in both directions. Dropping into Tiburon is always welcoming: the ferry pier, beautiful lawn by the Bay, and plenty of daytrippers out enjoying the sunshine and water.

We got to Woodlands about five minutes before the others rolled in with big smiles on their faces. We were shoehorned into a table on the far side of Woodlands because the usual tables had other diners. We crowded around our table while Nancy and Michelle were relegated to the adjacent tiny kids’ table. I got a chance to chat with Ginny about her recent Spanish language immersion trip to Mexico City and how it compared to one in Spain. (It’s better to go to Mexico because they’re more patient with tongue-tied Americans than the Spanish, who immediately switch to English.) There was a long discussion of the preferred way to get out of Tiburon, either detour through Strawberry Cove or take the direct route on Tiburon Blvd. The group decided to go back on Tib Blvd.

The fair spring weather obviously brought out hordes of folks as the foot-, pedal-, and automobile traffic in Tiburon was borderline ghastly. Predictably everything jammed up at the 101 intersection and that’s where Roger took the lead to head up Horse Hill rather than go up Camino Alto for our return. The others were ahead so we bid them a telepathic adieu.

Horse Hill has been the ‘easy’ way to get to Larkspur ever since I moved to SF. It has less vertical than Camino Alto and absolutely no traffic. The devil’s bargain though is that there is short but steep 12% section. On just about any other day it wouldn’t have bothered me. But this day I was flagging and I had to put the bike in my lowest gear just to stagger up the incline. That abomination done it was literallly all downhill to Corte Madera and a nice flat ride to Larkspur.

Traffic hadn’t abated since morning so we had plenty of company on Sir Francis Drake. There are two ways to get to the bridge sidewalk, one of which involves a risky move. The designated route is to continue onto the 580, as bikes are allowed on the shoulder, and then hastily leave at the next exit. For most cyclists that’s a no-go move even if legal and recommended. The other option is to cross Sir Francis Drake to catch the bidirectional bike lane on the other side of the road. That path has a reassuringly robust and tall concrete barrier between you and the metal death buckets. But to get to it you have to cross the road at the top of the hill where there is no good sightline and cars are either accelerating to enter 580 or just exiting 580 at highway speed. Today being a heavy traffic day, we did the former. It’s merely a question of time before a cyclist is killed crossing over to catch that bike lane.

On the bridge it was the usual crawl up the long uphill. The headwind out of the Golden Gate wasn’t as strong as in past days but it was giving me a whipping regardless. Roger kindly led the way and I got a little draft.

Chris mentioned that the return trip for the rest was also uneventful and they were back in the Castro by 2 PM.

The club has had at least two rides on April Fools Day, one in 1984 and another in 2012 and coincidentally they were the “same” ride–the Apple Blossom. Former club president and ChainLetter editor, Michael John, was the creator of the Sonoma Blossom ride, which then became known as the Apple Blossom and he led the first edition on this day in 1984. For the club’s 30th anniversary Roger and I led a later iteration of the Apple Blossom. That it also took place on April 1 is mere coincidence; at least I didn’t notice it until now!

The early days of the club had a prolific number of rides around the Bay Area. It was probably partly due to the club’s orientation towards biketouring that had members very willing to go beyond the San Francisco enclave and Marin. Whatever the reason it didn’t take much for a group of Spokers to get interested in a ride that involved a car drive even for what would be considered a short–20 to 30 miles–ride by today’s standards. (There are members who scoff at the idea of going to a ride that involves driving more miles than the ride has.) I think also Michael John just happened to have a rather broad knowledge of riding around the Bay Area and knew where the good and interesting stuff was. It probably all seemed like “new territory” to many members while to us it’s merely old hat.

The 1984 ride had nine participants. That’s Bob Krumm on the left, one of the founders and our first president; next to him is his boyfriend, Luis Dufau; then Scott O’Hara, then our resident porn star; Tom Crites; Jerry Basso, who died of AIDS about two years later, Jamie Moran; Richard Palmer; and finally Derek Liecty. (Michael John is not pictured because he’s taking the photo.) Luis and Jerry were unusual at the time because they were among the few who rode racing bikes and wore racing kit. As you can see most of the rest–and this was typical of rides back then–wore street clothes–gym shorts, Bermuda shorts, white athletic socks, sneakers, and in Tom Crites’s case, Levis! Luis convinced Bob to start wearing “real” cycling kit, which in those days meant wool jerseys and shorts! In the top picture you can see the kind of bikes a lot of members rode back then; they had ‘cheater’ brakes, kickstands, Pletscher racks, reflectors, and not a bit of Campy gear in sight. I do recall Jerry Basso, being Italian-American, had a celeste Bianchi road bike, which was quite unusual at the time. Also notice that no one is wearing a helmet except Richard Palmer. Helmets weren’t required on club rides until the early ’90s.

Fast forward to April 1, 2012: things have changed a bit–everyone is now wearing cycling kit and those bikes aren’t your $150 basic college bike! And everyone has a helmet.

The 2012 Apple Blossom had a good turnout as well. That’s Karry in the very front, a very early member who lapsed after getting “married”, moved to the suburbs, and had kids. He suddenly returned to do the Apple Blossom, a ride he used to lead! You can make out me, Roger S, David Go. and Roger among the rest. This ride also went to Occidental for lunch at the Union Hotel where we encountered the Occidental April Fools Day parade.

They say hippies never die–they just move to Occidental!

We’ve been trying to take advantage of good weather to get out into the East Bay hills before they start to dry up and turn brown. We have not been having a wet winter despite what you may think—our rain gauge tells us we are unlikely to reach season normal this year unless we get a couple more atmospheric rivers. That’s unlikely. Despite the overall lack of rain we have been getting enough to keep the grass hills green; in dry years they would already be turning a dun color. But the signs are there that the green hills are not going to continue much longer as we discovered yesterday in our jaunt up Patterson and Altamont Passes. Those hills are still quite green despite cattle grazing them down to near nubs. But ominous brown patches are showing up indicating that certain areas are losing what precious moisture the topsoil has.

Nonetheless we had a great time. Whatever Spokers were doing yesterday it wasn’t riding with the club—Jeff’s ride to Gazos Creek had no sign-ups and just David Go. came on our ride. David is continuing his return from a year-long injury and doing rides much harder than I would venture after such a prolonged layoff. Yesterday’s ride was 37 miles and about 2,700 feet of elevation gain. However the ascent up Patterson has several stretches well above 10% making you reach for your bigger cogs. He may not have rocketed up the passes but he rode smart—spinning low gears and going steady—and did the whole thing without complaint nor feeling gassed. After coming back from Japan last November I came down with some RSV-like cough that just wouldn’t end that kept me off the bike for about six weeks. When I started to ride in January a 25-mile, flat ride just about killed me and here was David slogging up passes I wouldn’t have gone near two months ago.

Originally we were going to do this ride on Sunday but the weather forecast had turned bad, making Saturday the only chance for a weekend ride. We ended up with a mostly sunny day with just a light westerly wind in the afternoon after a cold start in Livermore.

Speaking of Livermore, doing rides from the Livermore Valley is a trend of recent origin. Back in the day most members were in or near San Francisco. However we had one active member, Kevin Anderson aka “Rex Flash, mountain biker” aka “Flo Velcro, advice columnist”, who lived out in Pleasanton and he liked to show timid Spokers from SF what life was like in east Contra Costa! He had a popular ride out to the Shadow Cliffs Regional Recreation Area just west of Livermore to enjoy the water slide. Given the ride started in Livermore, it was, uh, more an excuse to enjoy the sights at the water park than it was a workout. The water slide was a hit as well as the manly scenery. Dad bods galore! But that was about it for rides that far east.

Although there were occasional forays up Altamont Pass, riding out that way only started to take off in the Aughts with Mines Road becoming an annual ride and occasional rides up Altamont or Patterson. To my knowledge no one was taking on Corral Hollow or Del Puerto Canyon except Will or Jerome (or me). There’s good reason to avoid riding near Livermore: summer and early fall the conditions can be atrocious due to incredible heat. Being truly rural areas there are almost no services, which meant that getting in trouble—running low on water, getting a flat or worse—was serious business and having to depend on the kindness of strangers.

But when the rains come those sere, brown hills rapidly sprout grass and become a lush green paradise by early January. So the period from the New Year’s to about mid-April is the best time to ride out there.

If you have ride exclusively in urban or suburban areas, truly rural areas can be a shock to your system but in a good way. Although you still have to contend with occasional cars, it’s not at all like riding in the suburbs—rural roads have little traffic. Yes, there isn’t much in the way of amenities and you’re left to your own devices but the absence of other humans is very calming!

A convenient place to start a ride in the Livermore Valley is the Ernie Rodrigues Softball Fields. It has a huge parking lot and a restroom. It’s also right at the southern edge of Livermore where the vineyards begin, so it’s easy to take off to Mines, Patterson, Tesla/Corral Hollow, and even Altamont. Yesterday morning it was a crisp 50F at the start and we were bundled up even though we knew that literally within four miles we’d be climbing. We could see a few of the gigantic wind turbines spinning up Altamont in the distance, so we knew there was a wind. But we really couldn’t feel it (yet). It was well before the winery traffic started up so it was quiet and only other cyclists, runners, and dog walkers were up and about. The climb to Patterson is actually two climbs, the first of which is up Cross Road and quite steady and of only moderate difficulty. After a short but fast descent you then get on Patterson Pass Road and the grade gets serious. But it’s not continuous with just two or three humps that get into the double digits. The last one is just before the top. Around the last curve is “Top of the World”, an impressive vista point of the Sacramento Valley. On a good day the snow covered Sierras are visible in the distance. Alas, we weren’t lucky this time. But the view of the Valley always impresses especially given the hills are devoid of development other than wind turbines and power lines. This was a decision point for David—turn back if tired or commit to doing the whole shebang. He was feeling pretty good despite the effort, so onward.

The descent to Tracy is serious if fun. It’s fast. The road is uncluttered and most of the time the sightlines are good. But the pavement varies from egregious heaves to typical county chipseal. You hardly have to pedal at all yet the gradient isn’t so steep that you’re made nervous—you can just let it all hang out. There is one left curve that has huge warning signs with a 20 MPH limit. I imagine that more than one car has flown off the road there forcing the county to put up the warnings. David flew off into the distance while Roger and I kept a more conservative pace descending.

Once you’re at the western edge of Tracy traffic can be pretty bad. Logistics centers for Amazon, Costco, Safeway and probably others as well as depot areas for Tesla, Toyota, and other car manufacturers mean that big trucks rule the roads. There is an oasis: a Valero gas station with a Subway, a taqueria, and of course the obligatory Grab ’n Go gas station shop to get food and drinks. There used to be a Wienerschnitzel too but it decamped for a more central Tracy location. David was already munching on his gluten-free snacks when we arrived. The taqueria was doing land office business. I wanted to check out the fried chicken in the Grab ’N Go, which by the way is stocked with a crapton of fast food—various kinds of fried chicken, taquitos, sandwiches, bagels, packaged salads—as well as the usual convenience “foods”. You are not going to starve here unless you’re a food snob. In the end I grabbed a chicken salad sandwich that I could split with Roger since he wasn’t in the mood for fried food. I so wanted to eat fried chicken! But I admit the thought of having to taste it a second time up Altamont had me choose more wisely. Another time, alas.

To escape the trucks and the boring arterials in west Tracy the solution is to use the California Aqueduct Bikeway. Hardly anyone knows that long sections of the California Aqueduct have service roads that are open to cyclists. There’s no traffic, you’re by the water, and for some reason there aren’t a zillion homeless people living on it. In fact, I haven’t ever seen any homeless camps along the Aqueduct. For a few miles you can have a pleasant roll until you get to Altamont Pass Road. The wind can be daunting at times but today it was mild.

Altamont Pass Road is scary for the first half-mile because it’s essentially a long entrance ramp for I-580. Cars and trucks out of Tracy zoom by in a hurry to get to the freeway. Once past that motor vehicle hell we were mostly by ourselves on Altamont, which climbs at a gentle rate. There isn’t anything out there except ranches, a Waste Management landfill, and the Summit Garage. How can a auto repair business survive in the middle of nowhere? It’s like something out of “Bagdad Café”. One awful change since we were here last is that the county has put in a rumble strip on the shoulder. This totally sucks for cyclists as long sections of the shoulder are now unrideable forcing you into the roadway proper. In certain sections it looks like the county has made an effort to extend the shoulder by paving more to the right, allowing cyclists some escape. But in other sections the rumble strip takes up the entirety of the shoulder. Even though it is legal for cyclists to use the lane, on Altamont Pass cars often speed by making the experience a bit nerve-racking when you know they’re approaching. We hopped over the rumble strip back-and-forth when cars came by.

To return to Livermore you can head straight down Altamont or turn and cross over I-580. We did the latter since it’s nicer plus we’d escape the rumble strip. However like Bear Creek Road or Pinehurst Road near Orinda, that section of Flynn Road has become a massive illegal dumping ground. We saw the usual household items—sofas, love chairs, TVs, refrigerators—as well as constuction and building materials such as roofing shingles in huge piles all the way to the top of Flynn. Like attracts like, so it won’t be long until it all looks like something you’d see at the nearby Waste Management dumpsite. Just lovely!

However the intensely green hills, luckily, paints over that ugliness. At the top we took a breather and enjoyed the view. We could see large patches of purple flowers up on the hillsides—lupine, or perhaps echium? There were a few poppies starting to appear but their heyday is probably a couple of weeks away.

The descent was easy and fast into Livermore and then it was just one little hill before we were back on Tesla Road. The wineries were now fully awake and traffic was heavier but by no means terrible. Back at Ernie Rodriques David was still chipper no less the wear after some serious climbing and long day in the saddle. What a fabulous day to visit the green hills!

This ride morphed overnight into a shorter, easier one after word got out that Roger and I were going to cut it short and do just 40 miles instead of the intended 50. At the last minute David Go. decided to join the ride as his first road ride in over a year due to a wrist injury and was wondering if there was a way to cut the route down even further. The route is “lollipop” shaped and by cutting off the “stick” you’re left with a very nice loop of about 40 miles. Even so David was hesitant as 40 is a lot more than 20. When David did decide to do the ride—and possibly cut it even shorter if he got knackered—Roger Sayre, the ride leader, mentioned it to others and before long there were five of the eight doing the shorter version. So Roger just made it a shorter ride, period.

The part that got lopped is a five-mile section from a residential neighborhood in Fairfield up to Lagoon Valley Regional Park. It’s nothing special: the beginning rolls by houses and strip malls and then crosses I-80 to a frontage road until you get to Lagoon Valley Park. The main benefit is a nice warm up on flats and then small rollers as well as a bathroom stop at a McDo where those who choose to can quickly snarf down an Egg McMuffin to fuel up for the ride. Unless folks had to do more miles it actually made sense to move the start to the park since it is just at the start of Pleasants Valley Road, which was the whole point of the ride and fits in perfectly with our “Eat Dessert First” philosophy.

For those not in the know, which is probably most of you since your cycling world seems to end no further away than Marin, Lagoon Valley is a well used regional park with plentiful parking, picnic areas, trails, and nice mountain biking trails worth checking out. Overall since it’s a better place to start this ride, a good question is: why was the original start in the middle of a no-name residential neighborhood in Fairfield rather than at Lagoon Valley to begin with? After all, Grizzly Peak Cyclists do this ride and they’ve always started at Lagoon Valley.

That’s a long story and highly digressive! The Pleasants Valley loop is hardly my invention—it’s been a Davis Bike Club route for ages and probably for Sacto Wheelmen and GPC too. But I got turned onto it in the ‘80s because of a book. Back then there weren’t the Internet resources we have today to find good bike routes. What did we do? We bought books. Yes, we used books to get our information about rides. As well as paper maps usually from AAA. I know, ghastly primitive, wasn’t it? Randall Braun, who I believe was a Davis BC cyclist, wrote several print books with great cycling routes, one of which was for Yolo and Solano counties. (I believe he’s hanging with the Western Wheelers these days. By the way he’s also the inventor of RouteArrows, those adhesive route arrows that many centuries use.) He wrote up a route that included Pleasants Valley Road but it looped west to the Monticello Dam and Moskowite Corner rather than east to Winters. I led that route for the club under the name “Around Mt. Vaca” since it circles Mount Vaca. (Duh!) I led it several times and never got a lot of interest from the club. But that route traversed the entire section of Pleasants Valley, which was always very pretty during the green season. Unfortunately due to my schedule and some stupidity I was usually stuck riding this route in summer when it could be very warm to face-meltingly hot. It was also prime redneck area, so punishment passes by big trucks with gunracks pulling boats and rusty Chevy Camaros or Pontiac Firebirds were a regular “thing”.

At the same time I had a friend who lived in the Capay Valley north of Winters and I would drive up to Winters and ride from there up the valley to his place to visit. That was my introduction to Winters, which back then really was a prototypical ag town rather than a trendy suburb of Davis with nice restaurants.

The original loop up Pleasants Valley to Moskowite Corner had a restaurant at Moskowite Corner. I forget the name. It always struck me that a diner could actually make a living in the middle of nowhere. But half the place focused on selling bait and fishing goods to the boaters heading up to Lake Berryessa, so maybe that helped kept the place afloat. It was a convenient place to escape the heat temporarily and get a burger or sandwich and definitely something cold to drink. The restaurant didn’t survive and the place closed for a few years. Then it suddenly changed hands and reopened. But it too eventually closed altogether leaving nothing but a deserted building with boarded up windows. When that place folded for good the loop suddenly became a lot harder—hot, no place to get water, long. (There was the Markley Cove store but it was often closed.) At that point we started riding to Winters instead of Moskowite Corners and heading over Cantelow, aka “Cardiac Hill” due to its fame on the Davis Double back to Pleasants Hill and thus the “lollipop” route came into being as a club ride. Winters had the advantage of Steady Eddy’s as a place to get food. Of course today it’s a lot trendier and you can choose from the various restaurants in the center of town.

In 2021 we led that ride as a way to prepare for the virtual Cinderella Classic and that’s how it ended up in its present form. By the way I remember that ride as being pretty tough given how flat the overall route is. I wasn’t in shape and following Will and Stephanie was, well, impossible for me at the time.

Now why did it start in a no-name neighborhood in Fairfield? The original Randall Braun route started in Mankas Corner, which is west of Fairfield in the boonies. Mankas Corner at that time had a store/restaurant and it made a great place to finish the ride and grab something to eat and drink. To get to Pleasants Valley Road he had you start out on quiet country roads—it’s less quiet these days since Fairfield has expanded westward—into Fairfield and cut through that no-name neighborhood to head north to Pleasants Valley.

When I restarted this ride in 2021, I decided that place was as good as any to begin a ride because it was a quiet residential area with plenty of free parking. Plus, the McDonalds was just up the road for a pit stop before starting the ride proper allowing for a nice warm up.

So there! That’s the genesis of this route.

Back to the ride recap: I had actually never parked at Lagoon Valley Park. But I knew from GPC-talk and researching on the Internet that it was $5 exact change to pay for parking there. The big news was that a year or so ago it no longer became possible to park on the street to avoid the fee. And reality never turns out how it’s described on the Internet: the park actually has two separate areas, Peña Adobe and Lagoon Valley proper and only the latter has a pay machine; of course we were parking at Peña Adobe! Oh, and the pay machine at the entrance gate was broken so you had to go all the way into Lagoon Valley proper to find the other machine and then return to Peña Adobe. The parking mishegas led to the latest start of any Different Spokes ride I’ve ever been on in 40 years: ride out was at 10:15 and we didn’t leave until 10:48.

This year there were eight of us—David Go. on his first ride back; Stephanie, who’ll do this route at the drop of a hat; me and Roger; Nancy, who to my surprise had never done this ride before; newbies Will and Jamie; and Roger, the ride leader. Once the ride started most of the group took off up Pleasants Valley while I was panting heavily way behind. I’m never a fast starter and as I get older it takes me longer and longer to ‘warm up’. Sometimes I just never warm up though. Sigh. Pleasants Valley is basically flat but it has a few short rolls that suddenly have you slow down. The road is an undivided two-lane and because it’s a country road there is farm traffic and day tourer traffic and those little hills are blind spots to oncoming traffic. Traffic was heavier than usual—was it because it was a Saturday or because we had started so late? At one point a rally of Corvettes came zooming up behind us just as the front of our group was climbing one of those rollers. To my utter shock the lead car actually slowed down and waited before passing! The usual behavior is to go for it and pass regardless of not being able to see ahead.

At another roller Stephanie slowed down and waited for us at the top. From then on we were more or less together enjoying the intense greenness of the valley. Just five years ago the LNU Lightning Complex Fire roared through here and burned off almost all the tops of the hills and even made its way down to the road. When we were here in 2021 it was unnerving to see the damage the fire had wrought. Now it all had disappeared under four years of growth and rain with the only silent testimony being a few huge piles of logs by the side of the road, undoubtedly the damaged trees having finally been cut down. It all looked very normal now except for the tops of the hills being denuded of trees and replaced by grassland.

Just for old time’s sake we had a white Cadillac Escalade roar past us at about 60 MPH keeping us tightly pinned to the shoulder line!

On Putah Creek Road we saw a slender, furred creature scamper across the road towards the creek. We were all puzzled—what was it? A ferret, a mink, or what? At lunch after a little Internet research we concluded it was a mink. That’s the first mink I’ve seen that wasn’t on someone’s shoulders!

Winters was humming on Saturday. The Putah Creek Cafe and Buckhorn Steakhouse both looked busy. Surprisingly Steady Eddy’s, the usual cyclist watering hole, was not. We rolled in, got a table outside, were able to order inside with no line immediately! As much as Steady Eddy’s is an okay stop, the better place to grab a meal was the El Pueblo Meat Market down the street. Their burritos were excellent. But they didn’t survive the Pandemic so it was back to Steady Eddy’s. Mealtime gab revolved around—what else? recovering from injuries: pain meds, PT, overdoing it, A-fib, knee replacements, etc. as well as…German bread or the lack thereof of any in the Bay Area. No one had heard anything good about German bread. But we knew better—it’s some of the best around. And there just aren’t any German bread bakeries, which is shocking for foodie central Bay Area. Except in Vacaville…

Post lunch the clouds were beginning to gather. The day had never been very warm; David was the only one to venture out dressed in shorts and a shortsleeve jersey. The wind from the west was picking up as headed out. Every now and then some very light drizzle was spit out. This part of the ride is actually very nice. The roads heading south out of Winters are all originally farm roads and they are very flat, flatter than Pleasants Valley by far. We were in a double paceline for quite a while, people chatting away in pairs. All the roads out there are of uneven quality, from alright to pretty broken up and choppy in areas. Years ago we would all have been on 20 or 23 mm tires but today everyone was on something 28 mm or bigger. Roger, Nancy, and Stephanie were on 32 mm tires. We are accepting the hard reality that county roads are never going to get better, only progressively worse and the best way to deal with it is to get wider tires and run them at lower pressure in order to preserve our butts, backs, and wrists.

Turning westward we got into the English Hills but instead of continuing on to Cantelow, aka ‘Cardiac’ we continued south on Gibson into Vacaville. Gibson is still a hill, just less of one than Cardiac, which hits about 10% at the top. The trade-off is that Gibson being a more direct route into Vacaville also has more car traffic. Without a decent shoulder and some blind curves this requires vigilance to stay alive. Of course not long after we were on the climb up Gibson a wave of cars came by, impatient and speedy, gunning their engines. Unlike the Corvettes the lack of a clear sightline was no deterrence to their passing. Popping the top we regathered and then bombed down hurrying into downtown Vacaville. Why the rush? To get to the Pure Grain Bakery and Café, which happens to also be a German bakery!

Although neither Roger nor I had ever been to Pure Grain—two years ago I knew it was there but I didn’t know the address—we were keen to try out their bread. They also make pastries and that got the group interested in a coffee and pastry stop and convinced them to trot along after us. It turned out to be a hit. There’s a nice open area with picnic tables just outside under the pear trees. Unfortunately Pure Grain’s more traditionally German offerings are only baked during the week; that didn’t deter me. We bought a large loaf of rye and a three-grain. With artisan bread hitting $10 a loaf (usually small) getting homemade bread for $6 was a steal! Most of the others got pastries. But after seeing the loaves we bought soon everyone was heading in to get their own loaf!

After a rather long break we noticed the clouds getting darker and a few drops were starting to appear. Fortunately the parked cars were just a couple of miles away and we made it back just before it started to rain.

Postscript: the rye bread is awesome—smooth flavored! Pure Grain is too out of the way for it to be a regular stop for us. But maybe this will be an added incentive to ride more out there! (And Fenton’s is just up the road too for a Black & Tan fix!)

While today is a Monday, in 1984 and 2007 it fell on a Saturday and both dates had club rides that we happen to have pictures of.

In 1984 John St. Denis led a club ride to Lake Chabot for a picnic lunch. Accompanying him were Dave Gilchrist, Tom Crites, Michael John, and Gene Howard—all early members of the Different Spokes. Michael John served as club president and also as newsletter editor for the early ChainLetter. He also created many of the early club trips such as the Russian River/Guerneville Weekend and the Apple Blossom, was instrumental in organizing the first AIDS Bike-A-Thon, and led a slew of self-contained bicycle trips around the US. (We will soon hear more from Michael!) Tom Crites’s home in the Castro was the location of the early club garage sales. When the club was starting up, money had to come from somewhere and just like today membership fees weren’t enough. Dave Gilchrist was also in the early cohort of bicycle tourists in the classic sense: load up your panniers and go for a trip. If you attended the 40th Anniversary Bash at il Casaro restaurant in 2022, you had a rare chance to meet Dave; being a sailor he’s often away on his boats. Gene Howard, the “old dude” with the fetching beret was a retired school teacher, and was the oldest participant at age 64 and the last person to arrive at Molly Brown’s in Guerneville for the 1985 AIDS Bike-A-Thon. That’s a picture of him above at the BAT ceremony after the ride. A really sweet guy, unfortunately he died in a house fire in 1998. I have no idea what happened to John St. Denis.

In 2004 Will Bir was deep into long distance cycling and he led a club trip to do the Del Puerto Canyon loop. Will probably got the idea from doing the Del Puerto Canyon century, which no longer is offered. It starts in Patterson and goes up Del Puerto Canyon Road—a beautiful, isolated country road—to Mines Road, down to Livermore and then back to Patterson.

Surprisingly three other members joined him for this very long ride—Jeremy Jacobs, Mark Hotsenpiller, and Jerome Thomere. Well, actually Jerome isn’t a surprise since he was often doing centuries and doubles with Will back then. Those were the days when riding centuries was still popular in the club. March was a good time to ride Del Puerto Canyon because it can be very hot in summer whereas in spring it’s not just cooler but also a lot greener and prettier. I’m not sure what happened to Mark and Jeremy. Jeremy did a lot of club rides for a few years and then vanished; ditto for Mark.

If you’re a Different Spokes member, you can see more pictures of the 2007 ride in the club photo albums on the website.