The years fly by and 2024, the club’s 42nd year of existence, is now one for the books. The club quietly does what recreational cycling clubs do: offer bicycle rides and club events for fellow LGBTQ cyclists, their family members, and allies to congregate and have fun. In the case of some challenging rides that might mean a bit of Type 2 fun though. Sometimes the club goes through periods of innovation that alter the direction of the club and sometimes those innovations become “traditions” until they become tired and dwindle away. Some of those innovations continue to today including the annual club picnic, which began shortly after the birth of the club. Mountain biking exploded and had a big club coterie in the late ‘80s and throughout the ‘90s but has since dwindled away with now just a meager presence on the ride calendar. What will 2025 bring? Surely it will be more of the same. Hopefully there will be some new events and rides that spark interest and can carry us into the future.

A “normal” winter. 2024 began with a “normal” winter after the deluge we got in 2023 when so many Bay Area roads were washed out and destroyed. Some of those roads weren’t repaired and reopened until 2024! We had the usual rain-outs of club rides but compared to 2023 it was nothing.

Will Bir. This is foremost on my mind thinking about the past year: Will Bir’s death from a heart attack while riding in the Presidio. Following David Sexton’s death in 2023, Will’s was another savage blow to the club. Will was a longtime club member whose involvement and dedication to the club was unquestioned. Will did it all and always with a smile on his face and usually while whistling. I’m going to miss him.

The return of the Ride Leader Appreciation Dinner. We hadn’t had a RLAD since January 2020. Then the Pandemic hit and we put it on hiatus for four years until this past spring at il Casaro on Church Street. It was great to gather with the club cyclorati and celebrate their club spirit. It’s the only goody the club offers to its members who volunteer to lead rides or host a club event at their house. Hopefully we’re back on our usual annual schedule and we’ll have one this spring for 2024 volunteers.

Tunnel Tops Park. The annual club picnic returned to San Francisco with some trepidation. A summer picnic is SF can either be a windblown fogfest or, if we’re lucky, a grand sunny day. We lucked out in 2024 and got the latter. Even better we held it at a new venue, Tunnel Tops picnic area in the Presidio, and it was a great choice with fantastic views, a cheery crowd, and a new, clean picnic area! A great turnout as well. It was also Will Bir’s last club event before his passing.

Pizza Night, the Marin Pizza Run. In our neverending quest to have more fun and food together we held two new events this past year. Pizza Night at Little Star Pizza on Valencia was going to be the first of several casual dinner gatherings but it turned out to be our only one last year. We had a great turnout, Little Star wasn’t crowded, and the pizza and conversation were fabulous. Hopefully we’ll have more of these in 2025! The other new event was the Marin Pizza Run held at Janet’s house in Marin. What better than a ride followed by even more tasty pizza! A fabulous jaunt out to China Camp and then camping in Janet’s beautiful backyard with slices from Cafe Verde Pizza on a gorgeous sunny day.

The Pride Ride. For many years the club was an annual presence at the SF Pride celebration with a parade contingent and a booth. But both vanished due to lack of enthusiasm—it’s a lot of work to put that together. Instead it was replaced by the Pride Ride, which has morphed into our biggest club event usually bringing out about 50-90 riders. This year was no exception with a big turnout, more donuts and coffee, and a beautiful sunny day.

Injuries. Being club president is an accursed position and maybe cursed, period! Both David Goldsmith, our past president, and current president Jeff Mishler ended up with chronic injuries in 2024—in David’s case yet again—that kept them off the bike most of the year. We hope to see them both on a ride after their eventual recoveries!

For me 2024 had three special club rides.

Old Haul Road. I finally got to ride Old Haul Road. I led it but no one other than Roger wanted to come along, which turned out to be fine. Old Haul has been on my list for a long time. I moved away from the Midpeninsula 40 years ago and it hasn’t been easy to get back to Coastside to do it. It was a complete delight: a broad, tree swaddled avenue into the redwoods on a beautiful dirt road. I’m definitely going back but next time it’ll be part of a long mixed terrain loop.

Pedaling Paths to Independence. This metric century in February has become one of my faves—it’s a small event, it’s relatively inexpensive, and it’s got beautiful terrain. But in 2024 I hadn’t been riding due to health issues and so I did this ride with almost zero miles and thus a great deal of trepidation. Fortunately David Goldsmith was also game and he hadn’t been riding much either and we sort of rode it together supporting each other. (Jeff Mishler was the other Spoker who did it. But he was killing it and we saw him only at the food stops.) Despite a slew of technological mishaps I went against my bullheaded nature and did the ride with restraint, which allowed me actually to complete the ride without dying or cramping. (I got the cramps in the car while driving home!) It was probably the slowest century I’ve ever done but it was no less enjoyable.

Pescadero loops. I did these loops three times last year. It’s another revelation thanks to David Goldsmith. Now I drive to Pescadero to skim the cream off the top instead of schlepping all the way from Palo Alto or San Francisco. It’s never not beautiful, always quiet, and I’m hooked on stopping at the Loma Mar Store for good grub! I especially like doing the loop up Haskins Hill rather than going down Highway One.

In early November Roger and I went to Japan for a cycling tour, our seventh there. After many years of making pilgrimages to the European continent for our cycling vacations, in 2016 we decided to head to Japan for a taste of something perhaps different. We’ve been hooked ever since.

Japan has a long history of cycling despite being off the radar as a cycling destination. Yet Japan has a huge cycling industry and cycling is a part of everyday life there even more than in the US. If you are old enough, you may remember when ten-speed bicycles began to gain traction in the US in the early 1970s. We were flooded by bicycle imports. Yes, we had Raleighs from England and Peugeots and Motobecanes from France. But they were quickly followed by Bridgestone, Miyata, Nishiki. Fuji, Panasonics, Sekai, and many others—all Japanese made. Plus component manufacturers Suntour and Shimano as well as a host of other producers such as Nitto, Tange tubing, MKS, and Araya started selling their wares to compete with Campagnolo, Huret, Universal, and all the other European brands.

In Japan everyday people cycle to work or to run errands as well as cycle for recreation. People of all ages ride bikes including the elderly. Bicycles are deeply integrated into everyday life in Japan. Inexpensive bikes for everyday life, “momochari” are everywhere. Cities have dedicated bike parking near train and transit stations. At the other extreme keirin racing is very popular and high-end bicycles are still made by Miyata, Bridgestone, Fuji, and several others although they tend to outsource the actual manufacturing these days to China or southeast Asia.

What is largely unknown outside of Japan is the incredible countryside full of back roads and narrow lanes that are wonderful for cycling and make Japan worth a visit. This isn’t to say that everything cycling is hunkydory in the land of the Rising Sun. Arterials near big cities can be congested hellholes for bicyclists and most roads have no shoulders. But the liberal use of multiuse paths and sidewalks by cyclists is mitigating. In most other respects road infrastructure is much friendlier to cyclists than even the Bay Area’s. Speed limits are low compared to the US often no higher than 40 KPH on main roads and 25 KPH on residential streets. In addition to being driven more slowly cars as well as trucks are smaller and narrower making the inevitable pass less anxiety producing and safer. More importantly driver attitude is much more tolerant of cyclists and sharing the road, and drivers are very familiar with how to handle encounters with cyclists. In general Japanese culture values patience and politeness and it shows on the road. Tolerance for drunk driving is very low; the blood alcohol level for getting jailed is only 0.05% compared to 0.08% here. And taxis are everywhere if you need a lift home after a night of carousing.

We cycled from Nagasaki to Hiroshima over eleven days. It’s the second time we’ve done this trip. Two years ago immediately after Japan reopened to foreign tourism we rode this route. We felt like we had Japan all to ourselves and the absence of foreigners was immediately apparent. It was uncrowded and quiet. Autumn is also a great time to cycle in Japan. The oppressive summer heat and humidity are gone and if you time it right, the fall colors are exploding. We decided to go back not only because we enjoyed this part of Japan so much but because Roger fell ill with the flu shortly after we arrived and missed about half the tour. Thanks to the fantastically capable Japanese medical staff, who diagnosed Roger’s ailment and gave him a startlingly effective antiviral, his symptoms resolved one day later (!) and after recovering his strength he was able to complete the second half. We went back so that Roger could properly enjoy the entire route.

Our trip was a supported tour by Cycling Japan whom we’ve used every time so far. Although cycling on one’s own is possible, having guides to help us navigate not just the roads but also the language and culture have been essential since neither of us speaks nor reads Japanese. That said using Google Translate on phones it’s possible to get a lot of basic communication done albeit awkwardly. Unlike in many European countries the use of English has not made significant inroads into Japanese tourism infrastructure except in the biggest cities such as Tokyo and Osaka and even there it can be sketchy. Much of Japan’s tourism especially out of the big cities is internal tourism so hotel and ryokan staff expect Japanese. At the more isolated country towns it’s solely Japanese.

The Japanese guides not only assist with interpreting and translating but also convey cultural information that we tend to overlook or are completely ignorant of. Here’s an example: traditional Japanese inns—ryokans—have Japanese rooms, i.e. futons not beds, low tables and no chairs, and tatami mats covering the floor. One should never wear shoes in the ryokan let alone the rooms and one shouldn’t roll one’s suitcases on tatami. Tatami mats are expensive despite appearing to be spartan to Westerners. Wearing shoes or otherwise abusing them makes them look ugly and harder to keep clean. Another example is proper behavior in the onsens. Onsens are hot spring baths that are commonly found throughout Japan. There is a specific protocol in using the onsen that all Japanese know but is opaque to foreigners.

Our trip was jokingly called the “atomic bomb tour”. For most Americans Nagasaki and Hiroshima are one of the familiar city names other than Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka due to the US atomic bombings of those two cities that directly ended the Second World War. Of course other than historical remnants that have been preserved there is no sign of the bombings almost 80 years ago. Nagasaki is set on a beautiful inlet surrounded by tall hills. Part of the city goes steeply up the hillside and provides scenic views of the bay. Does that sound familiar? The population is only 400,000; it’s a big city but it doesn’t feel like it. Hiroshima on the other hand is huge with about 1.2 million residents. It too is a port town but set on the Seto Inland Sea, which is replete with hundreds of small to medium sized islands. Hiroshima feels big, more like NYC than SF and has a distinctly fashionable and urban feel. Nagasaki is on the western side of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, and Hiroshima is on the western side of Honshu, the main island. To get from one to the other we rode 500 miles taking in a lot of rural areas and coastal roads, took a tiny ferry to get across a bay, and walked under the ocean to get from Kyushu to Honshu. Japan is not flat by any means; it’s mountainous and cutting across the center of its islands always involves going over passes. We did something like 45,000 feet of climbing on our tour with most of those climbs being reasonable, i.e. less than 8%. But there were quite a few spikey, short climbs especially on rolling coastal roads hitting 15% or more. Low gears are essential! The climbing would have been even more challenging except of Japan’s propensity to carve tunnels through mountains rather than turn ancient goat trails into ridiculously steep roads. Every day involved going through tunnels. That’s both a blessing and a bane—the tunnels make it easier to get over the mountain but some of them are long, dark and poorly illuminated. Oh yeah, and the trucks go through the tunnels too. In the US this would be a recipe for disaster and either bikes would be forbidden to ride in a tunnel or we’d have to use a separated walkway. But in Japan drivers are more patient and not speeding. So after having gone through many tunnels in our travels there we have more confidence that we’re going to make it out alive at the other end.

Our trip would take us through Nagasaki, Saga, and Fukuoka prefectures on Kyushu and then through Yamaguchi, Shimane, and Hiroshima prefectures on Honshu. But before I go into any trip details, there are some things about Japan that make it different from North America or Europe.

Next: What is it like on a cycling tour in Japan?

Recently I capitulated to nostalgia and rode on some old wheels shod with 23 mm tires again. (I did it before.) These tires are actually narrower—22.4 mm when pumped to 90 PSI, which today seems like an absurdly high pressure. I used to think that 23 mm tires were too heavy and slow and I preferred 19 or 20 mm tires, which you can’t even get anymore. Do you remember when road bikes all came with 23 mm tires? Do you even pay attention to the width of your tires? If you’re new to road cycling, you’ve probably never even seen 23 mm tires. Tire width is esoterica only wheel nerds obsess about and you likely don’t give it a second thought. Odds are you’re riding 28 mm tires or wider since that’s the trend these days in road bikes. (You can look carefuly on the sidewall of your tires for something like “622-28”, the “28” indicating the nominal width of the tire when inflated.) Not that many years ago a 28 mm tire would have been considered enormous and many road racing bikes of the 1990s and early Aughts couldn’t fit anything bigger than a 25 mm tire, which was the widest size tire racers would use. The “standard” size was 23 mm.

In the past five years I have rarely ridden anything less than a 27 mm tire. This trend started when I got some Hed Belgium rims in 2012. These were heretically wide road rims for that era—21 mm internal width when the going trend was 17 or even just 14 or 15 mm. (Today we’re edging up to 23 and even 25 mm internal width!) I put nominal 25 mm tires on them and the extra width of the rims caused the tires to balloon out to 30 mm measured width. They were and continue to be the most comfortable road wheels I own. (Gravel and mountain bike wheels are another matter.) These are supremely plush yet fast wheels. Mind blown. Until then I ate only at the table of “skinny, pumped rock hard, light” so those Hed wheels were a revelation. Putting those HED wheels on any bike would improve the ride as long as the frame could accept that big and wide of a tire. Now I’ve become so used to wider tires that when I look at those wheels with 23 mm tires, they look scary thin; even 28 mm tires are starting to look “narrow” to me! Thanks to Jan Heine and Grant Peterson for debunking the old malarkey that skinnier meant better because faster. It turns out comfort can make you faster too.

I then began to experiment with different kinds and sizes of wheels and tires. I’ve tried 32 mm, 35 mm, and 42 mm tires as well as 650b rims. Each width is more comfortable than the other if a tad bit heavier. 650B wheels are heavier but they provide a Cadillac ride that puts a smile on my face most of the time. I haven’t looked back. The only “downgrade” I’ve played around with is 26 mm Rene Herse tires, which I’ve mentioned in the past. (These tires expand to about 27 or 28 mm in actual width.)

Going back to 23 mm tires for a week was a regression. But I couldn’t help it: the old bike that has these tires won’t take anything bigger than a 25 mm tire. So it’s stuck with skinny tires. Anyway my recollection was that the bike was fast and comfortable and I fondly remember many a ride zipping down roads at high speed. In particular I remember one fast ascent up Mt. Diablo, a club ride where I got schooled by Erik Leung. So I had to take a trip down memory lane hoping to relive those fond, or perhaps imagined, sensations of thin, light tires.

What was it like to ride an old bike with 23 mm tires now? To be honest it was a bit of a letdown. The wheels still felt sprightly and wickedly nimble—that much had not changed. They are fast. But the ride quality was comparatively awful: near constant vibration, juddering, and bouncing around whenever the asphalt was heaved or cracked. Perhaps roads are worse today than they were 25 years ago. Scratch that: roads ARE worse today. Counties cannot keep up with road maintenance because asphalt prices are much higher today, road budgets are cut, and road maintenance is partially funded by gasoline taxes, which are diminished by the explosion of electric car use. Torrential winter rains that wash out roads and increase pavement failures don’t help. The bike frame itself is quite compliant and not at all stiff and rigid like a carbon frame. But so much of the ride quality is due to the narrow tires. I used to think those sensations meant “excellent road feel” (= good!) when it’s really just being bounced up and down over every little bump in the pavement and feeling every little divot and crack. Those skinny tires pumped up to 95 pounds pressure were like riding on rigid Conestoga wagon wheels. My hands were aching so much that I thought I didn’t have gel gloves. But I did. The ride quality is not very forgiving. But that was what we were told back in the day how fast wheels were supposed to feel and we sure drank the Kool-Aid.

You’re not losing much by moving on to fatter tires. There is no doubt that they are heavier: there is more rubber and more casing. They do not spin up as quickly and that sublime feeling of “instant” acceleration that a light rim and tire give is muted by the extra mass. In exchange fatter tires make up for that minor buzzkill by providing a much more comfortable ride. It’s not exactly smooth but the jarring, shocking hits are replaced by subdued bumps. And the reduced bouncing actually makes for a faster ride. With 23 mm tires there is a constant benumbing vibration from every type of pavement save the smoothest of asphalt.

Yet skinny, narrow tires like 23 mm still have their allure. On smooth pavement they are addictive—they hum and flow and feel great. And if they’re 23 mm tubular tires (with silk casings), then they are like crack cocaine. Because they’re lighter they are absolutely amazing to spin up. And climbing on them is the cat’s meow because they accelerate easily with every pedal stroke. If I lived in a place with good roads like Switzerland, I’d ride 23 mm tires all the time. I don’t foresee local roads getting better with time, only progressively more awful. So 23 mm tires and their ilk have become for me a special use case. Or just a nostalgic visit to a previous era. With a harsh reality check.

For everyday riding here in the Bay Area a 28 mm tire is more comfortable and more functional. Those big volume tires allow lower inflation pressure and give a “magic carpet” ride while still being moderately light enough to feel a bit nimble. Plus, they’re less likely to incur a pinch flat when you hit that occasional monster pothole you didn’t see.

I don’t see myself going back to 23 mm tires as my regular ride; if anything I’m heading in the other direction and eyeing 32 mm tires for everyday use. The tires are indeed heavier due to more casing material and rubber. But that can be mitigated by using TPU tubes. And they are just excellently comfortable. Oh, and the other tire in the pic above is 42 mm wide. It’s like riding on a magic carpet compared to the 23.

But for the occasional ride—especially if I know the roads are of good quality—I’ll rock 23 mm tires for a trip down memory lane.

Do you ever pay attention to the club ride code? No, it’s not some code of conduct á la Velominati (“HTFU”) and no, it’s not like the (Boy) Scouting Code of Conduct where, for example, you promise not to possess any booze, fireworks, or porn. Every Different Spokes ride listing has what amounts to sage advice to the ridelorn, a pocket summary of how difficult or easy a club ride is as rated by the ride leader. A ride listed as 70-4-D is very different than a 25-1-A!

Go The Distance
Each ride has a Distance-Terrain-Pace rating so that you know what you’re getting into, you know, kinda like that hankie thing (“Let’s see, he’s got a blue hankie in his left pocket—ah, he’s into randonneuring!”). In our previous website when you listed a ride you were prompted to enter something for distance, terrain, and pace. Jerome’s template actually didn’t prevent you from entering text such as “sorta short” or “hella long” for Distance. But I don’t ever recall anyone ever doing so—we all thought you had to enter a number. Putting in text would have defeated the purpose of the ride code, which is to transform something subjective into something “objective”—your “short” may be someone else’s “way too long” but everyone understands miles (and maybe even kilometers too). But our current website is more open-ended: we no longer have specific fields for distance, terrain, and pace—you have to remember to include the information when you create a ride listing. In that respect it’s less user friendly even if you can now enter any text you want for Distance. But a number is the most helpful. (But see below.)

Hard Numbers
While the Distance part of the ride code might seem like a fact, it too is sometimes just an estimate (or worse, wild speculation). Prior to the Internet we would use road maps—AAA was a godsend—to estimate the mileage. Do any of you remember map wheels? These were like mini-mechanical cyclometers. (How many of you even remember the first mechanical cyclometers?) A map wheel is a ‘ruler in a wheel’: you rolled the small wheel on the tip of the tool along the route on your map and it measured the distance in inches, which you converted to miles according to the map legend. Sometimes we drove the route to get the mileage or consulted books like Grant Peterson’s Roads to Ride. Estimates on mileage could be anywhere from spot-on to being off by several miles. Ride leaders were encouraged to err on the high side since almost no one liked to do more miles than advertised. The Internet has made estimating route distances a lot easier with tools such as Google Maps, MapMyRide, and RideWithGPS. Using these tools you can hit the mileage spot-on almost all the time.

The ride code presumes a ride has a defined route and a definite distance. But what if you like to do open-ended rides, riding as long as you want (or get forced by circumstance to endure)? You may start a ride with no definite route: you’ll just ride where you feel or as long as you feel. Ride leaders may prefer to talk to whomever shows up on their ride and work out a consensus on the route. Our previous website presumed your ride had a defined length (more accurately, it presumed the ride leader would give it a definite length). The current website is less constraining and you can clearly put down a number or leave it as a text description, eg. “Probably about 60-70 miles depending on how I feel” or “We might go to X, Y, or Z and we’ll decide at the start”, because we no longer have a numeric field for distance; it’s just text embedded in the description of the ride. If you’re the kind of ride leader who likes to meander rather than “follow the dotted line” or your style is more spur-of-the-moment, now you can with a clear conscience post this kind of ride on our website.

Terrain Terror
Things are less clear when it comes to Terrain and Pace. Terrain is rated from one to five, with one being “mostly flat, easy grades, suitable for beginners” and five “many steep hills and climbs, for strong riders”. Including a terrain ranking intuitively makes sense: a ride’s difficulty or ease is correlated not just with length but with how hilly it is. But hilliness has at least three components: the total elevation gain, the steepness or grade of an elevation gain, and where the elevation gains takes place during the ride. Two rides with the same elevation gain can feel quite different if the overall steepness of the climbs is not the same; a steady 5% grade even if longer may feel a lot less stressful than a shorter one with a 13% ramp. Yet If you’ve ridden up Mt. Hamilton, you would likely agree that its relatively tame 5% grade gets wearisome after eighteen miles.

Making matters even more complicated is the nature of the climbs: for example, a ride that has all the elevation gain in one climb often feels less hard than a ride with the same gain split between two climbs. There is just something psychologically challenging about having to do that second climb even though it’s physically no harder than doing it all at once. Going over La Honda to San Gregorio and back is about 1,700 feet each way and it always feels more draining to me than just going up Mt. Diablo, which is quite a bit more. Is it losing your “climbing rhythm” or your body having to get revved up to climb again after the descent? It’s the same amount of calories burned regardless of whether it’s one 3,400-foot climb or two 1,700-foot climbs. Where the vertical gain happens also seems to affect how difficult it feels. A ride with a big climb towards the beginning and a long flat section afterwards feels easier than a ride with the reverse order. That shouldn’t be too surprising since we are often fresher at the beginning than at the end of a ride. In addition the most recent part of an experience tends to color our recollection, so a final climb may make the ride seem harder than it really is.

Even the road quality has a significant impact on the difficulty of a ride. Climbs on dirt or just an uneven surface literally are harder than the exact same grade with smooth pavement. But our ride code doesn’t include that except to indicate whether the ride is road, dirt, or mixed. Yet all of this is folded into just one number for Terrain. The point of the terrain rating is to provide guidance on the level of climbing difficulty for a ride. But a single number has to encompass several variables and so it will never be able to do it justice. Ride leaders may need to explain in detail what riders will confront such as the number and type of steep climbs and where they will occur.

Although there isn’t a requirement to include total elevation gain for a ride listing, tools such as MapMyRide and RideWithGPS routing can generate a close approximation for a known route. Of course if you’ve ridden the route in advance with a cycling computer such as a Garmin, then you already have that number. The total elevation gain in combination with the Terrain rating can provide a good estimate of the overall level of difficulty for a ride.

Pace Posers
If the Terrain rating is vague, consider Pace. Just about every cycling club in theory and practice ends up using a subjective pace rating. For example, what exactly is “moderate” or “touring” pace? It’s really based on one’s perceived exertion. As your conditioning increases what was moderate before feels easy now. (One hopes.) Then try to interpret that across a wide range of cycling ability in a club and you have a virtually meaningless rating. Your “moderate” might be another member’s “easy” or “strenuous”. In an attempt to make the Pace rating more interpretable a Spoker in the distant past thought there should be average speeds for each rating. You probably had no idea there actually were “objective” speeds for each Pace rating, did you? In the previous website it was hidden away; if you just looked at the Ride Calendar you had the Terrain and Pace ratings at the bottom, and for Pace it was just Leisurely-Moderate-Brisk-Strenuous. If perchance you looked at the “About Our Rides” section you would see a hyperlink to Pace and Terrain that took you to the detailed ride key. There you would see, for example, that Leisurely mean an average speed of 5-7 mph and a moving average of 8-10 mph. As helpful as this is to provide objective speeds for different paces, most cyclists have no idea of their typical riding speed, which one presumes is their most comfortable pace. It also presupposes that you have some objective means of measuring your speed, i.e. a cyclometer, and that you pay attention to it.

Grizzly Peak Cyclists has an interesting take on pace. In order to find rides with a pace you can keep, riders are asked to “calibrate” their pace by doing the Three Bears loop at your regular riding pace and then compare your time against a table. For example, if you can do the loop in 1 hr 40 min this is what GPC calls “Touring” pace. Presumably this is also how ride leaders advertise their ride pace, ie. they do the Three Bears to learn their “normal” speed and then use that in their ride listings. I like their attempt to ground the pace ratings in something objective that any rider can then use. But I wonder how many GPC members or ride leaders actually go through the motions to calibrate their pace. My suspicion is that they just show up on a club ride and see how fast the ride is under that specific ride leader and make note; if a ride leader usually lists rides as “moderate” and you can’t keep up, then you know that you shouldn’t attend that ride leader’s rides because they’re too fast for you. So it is with Different Spokes: if you aren’t familiar with a particular ride leader—not that we have so many—you check them out to see if you can keep up or if they lead rides too slow for your taste. Of course, ride leaders also improve or lose their conditioning just as you do. So next month’s “moderate” may feel like “strenuous” or “leisurely” to you. Even with calibration pace rating is still relative and ever changing!

A mitigating factor in pace is group size. A larger group is going to have more variation in ability to keep the pace. So slower/faster riders are likely to have others to ride with and not get left alone regardless of the posted pace. So even if a rider strictly speaking isn’t holding the listed pace, the ride will still be social. The Pace rating is supposed to be the pace that the ride leader(s) plan to follow, not what other riders may choose to do.

And there is nothing to prevent ride leaders from adjusting the pace to match the participants’ wishes. I’ve certainly led B-paced rides where all the participants were capable and preferred a faster pace and we ended up going faster.

Promises, Promises
For ride leaders listing a pace and keeping to it are two different things. Just because a ride leader advertises a “B” pace doesn’t mean it actually turns out that way. In the early days of the club there were frequent admonitions to ride leaders and riders to keep to the advertised pace: ride leaders should lead a ride at the pace they announced and participants should take note of the pace and either adjust to the listed pace or if too strenuous then give that ride a pass. “A” pace riders who showed up at “C” pace rides risked slowing the group either by bringing the average pace down or by inordinate waits at regrouping points. Slower riders typically didn’t have the greatest time because they felt pressured to keep up and may have ridden harder than they liked; the faster riders may have been irked because the ride was supposed to be a “C” ride but ended up being something slower.

A few years ago Roger and I led Social A rides. They weren’t the same as Aaron’s Relaxing Rides but they had the same goal: to offer a club riding opportunity for slower or casual cyclists that also took in a serious dose of yakking. While “animals” may like to ride in a breathless state, this is not conducive to easy conversation. And while you may want to get in your HIIT workout on a club ride, the point of the Social A and the Relaxing Rides was to get some cycling in and enjoy human company rather than get in an anaerobic workout. The Social A rides differed from the Relaxing rides in being “avid cyclist” length rides, about 25-45 miles typically, rather than short city jaunts. What I learned from leading these rides is that it is oh-so-easy to intend to do an A pace and another thing to do it in actuality. Yes, the pace was “slow” and many of the attendees could go faster, and we definitely had riders who took off. I had to actively monitor my cyclometer and force myself to slow down in order to keep to the A. I’m sure it’s the same with B and even C leaders: just because a certain pace is perhaps your most comfortable one that doesn’t mean you can’t go quite a bit faster when you are motivated. Keeping to the advertised pace is sometimes not so easy!

Asking ride hosts to “keep to the listed pace” can be a discouragement. Ride leaders aren’t employees required to do their “job” according to work rules. They’re getting in their weekend fun time too and they want to ride however they ride. If they want to go fast or slow at any moment, why should it be of concern? Well, it does have an impact on the participants, specifically whether they feel welcomed or not and a part of the party. Being dropped and riding alone is probably not what they thought they were getting into.

I must admit that my thinking has evolved over the years. I used to be pretty libertarian: if you came on one of my C or D rides, then I presumed you did a self-evaluation as to whether you could keep up or not. That was your responsibility and not mine. I wasn’t merciless but I also wasn’t concerned if you got discouraged (because I was going either too fast or too slow for you). That was your problem, not mine. I now think about the impact this has on the club as a whole. Riding with others is, whether we realize it or not, a shared task that everyone on the ride engages in. We do have a responsibility to know our abilities but once we’re on the same ride then we’re in it together. For me leading a ride is not about me riding indifferently to those around me—it’s the one time I down-prioritize how I want to ride and put the group first. That’s easy for me to do because I have the luxury of being able to do lots of rides during the week in whatever way I like. So occasionally leading a Different Spokes ride at a preset pace that I don’t feel like doing at that moment is not a big deal.

Crashing The Party
In the early days of the club fast riders frequently showed up on slower rides and slower riders showed up on brisker rides (maybe unwittingly). Part of it was the newness of the club as well as not knowing how to interpret the ride code since it was so vague. Also faster riders would think it wasn’t a problem to show up on a slower ride. That would be true if they indeed kept to the advertised pace. But a couple of things tended to happen. If enough fast riders attended, they were in essence hijacking the ride: seeing them bolt down the road affected the behavior and expectations of the other riders especially if the ride leader tried to keep up with the fast riders—sometimes unconsciously—and the ride ended up being faster. I and a few others would crash slower rides thinking we’d just do the same ride faster and start with the group and maybe have lunch with the group too (if we didn’t get tired of waiting). I don’t think we ever thought how our actions affected everyone else. I don’t ever recall a ride leader reprimanding me for this behavior but they probably should have.

Secondly some people soon got the impression that this was the normal situation, i.e. all our rides were “fast” and all the club members were “fast”! Over the years I’ve heard over and over, “Oh, Different Spokes is for fast riders” when really it was only a small part of the club, the so-called “animals”, who were blazing off the front. In the Bike-A-Thon era this unfair reputation probably did not affect membership because so many in the community wanted to support the club. (We had hundreds of members who never showed up on a ride and just wanted to support the club.) But I wonder if part of the decline in the club post-BAT was partly due to our unfortunate reputation.

Mind The Gap
It also works the other way: slower riders can hijack a ride. It takes a pretty callous ride leader to ignore a group of slower riders who aren’t in a position to say, “Go on, we’ll be fine!”. Perhaps they don’t know the route or it’s their first Different Spokes ride. Our ride leaders are put in a difficult situation when the ride really needs to split into two groups. If the leader stays back, then those who came expecting a certain speed might get turned off. If the leader follows the advertised pace, then the risk is discouraging the slower riders and of them not getting the camaraderie they clearly want. Even if ride leaders discussed this at the beginning, e.g. “Hey everyone, this is a B-pace ride so you should be able to keep a moving average of 10-12 mph”, the reality is that hardly anyone would know what that means. Most of the time you only find out after you’ve started the ride and someone starts to lag behind. Furthermore lots of riders can keep a “C” pace on the flats but then slow down considerably when it’s hilly. Even when they pay attention to the objective pace listing, how are they to figure out how fast they’ll actually be able to ride if they don’t know the terrain? Having led Social A rides, I’ve heard enough stories from A-pace cyclists about attending a Jersey Ride or another club ride and having to race to keep up, usually failing to do so. I suppose if they didn’t understand the ride code one could say it was their own fault. But you can’t really fault them because the ride code is so imprecise, vague, and ignored in practice, and they’re looking for companionship on rides too. It’s just unfortunate we usually don’t have more rides to offer to casual, novice, or slower cyclists.

Even longtime members who should “know better” attend club rides regardless of the listed pace and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just human nature. Most cyclists ride alone most of the time and we LGBT cyclists get to socialize with our own ilk infrequently. So naturally we’re drawn to any club ride no matter the advertised pace. When the club was bigger we had 130-150 rides per year. But now that we’re quite a bit smaller we have maybe two-thirds as many rides. Although riding together is perhaps the best way to be welcoming, there are other ways to welcome and include all riders when they can’t keep up such as more frequent regrouping, checking in with slower riders, or advising them about other ride possibilities such as the Short & Sassy rides. And perhaps that is what ride leaders need to think about when some riders need to keep to a different pace: the attitude we display rather than the pace itself.

Hostesses With The Mostestest
Despite ride leaders being called “leaders” they actually don’t need to be at the front. Even before cycling computers, RideWithGPS, Komoot, etc. the club encouraged ride leaders to provide paper maps and/or cue sheets. Anyone who could read a map could go as fast or as slow as they preferred and still stay on route. Ride leaders didn’t actually need to “lead” or be at the front at all.

More properly ride leaders should be called ride hosts. David Gaus is a perfect example because he almost always is either in the middle or even at the back rather than the front. As a host he posts the ride, shows up to ride it at the advertised pace, and gives direction when necessary. If there are faster riders he’ll make sure they know where to regroup to wait for the rest. He’ll even ask for a volunteer to lead one of the two groups and he often leads a ride by being the sweep—yes, you can do that! If a ride has more than one leader, then as long as they don’t mind riding at different paces they can accommodate riders who are slower or faster than the listed pace.

Size Matters
When a cycling club is large enough to support enough rides at different paces, riders will usually self-segregate. But when the club is small—as we are—then the sole club ride on a weekend is the only opportunity for Spokers to ride together, so they may come out regardless of the listed pace. Clubs like Western Wheelers or ACTC, which have over a thousand members, have the luxury of offering several rides at different paces, lengths, and terrain types on a typical weekend. In the early days of the club it seemed like there was such hunger for socializing among LGBT cyclists that mixed groups were more the norm. Of course that led to some conflicts. Rides would split up sometimes with unhappy consequences and that led to a steady mantra for ride leaders and riders to “keep to the ride code!” in order to avoid disappointment. The idea was truth in advertising: no one likes to be sold a false bill of goods. Every time a ride deviated from the listing increased skepticism of the ride code.

The smallness of our club combined with trying to reach out to as many riders as possible led to another tendency: rides got listed as B pace no matter how fast they actually were. Why did ride leaders pick B? Besides the vagueness of the ride code I think it was partly modesty, partly wanting to get a good turnout, and perhaps a good dose of social pressure. Lots of people think their normal riding pace is “moderate”. Interestingly without anyone saying anything it became a common understanding that listing B rides was the “Goldilocks” choice: there were usually better attended and the ride wasn’t slow and it wasn’t fast—it was just “right”! Except they often weren’t. They were sometimes C or D pace. I think it was the Den Daddy way back in the day who coined the term “the animals” for the Spokers who liked to ride fast. So if you didn’t ride like a slowpoke and didn’t ride as fast as “the animals”, then you must be in the middle and hence a “B” rider. If you led a B ride and you got a good turnout, guess what pace you’re likely to list your next ride? I recall a club ride listed as a “B” where we were pacelining uphill on Foothill Boulevard in Palo Alto at over 20 miles an hour. That was an eye opener for me.

Swept Away
Although it’s not a formal part of the Ride Code, indicating whether or not you have a sweep or how you’ll manage to keep the group together can make a ride listing more informative and allay concerns in advance. If you don’t have a sweep or your ride is not a no-drop ride, then instead explain generally how you will handle regrouping and waiting for slower riders. At the beginning of the ride the ride leaders can go into detail on where and how often they intend to regroup.

What it ultimately boils down to is that the ride code is merely proffered guidance and there is no hard guarantee that the ride will turn out exactly as the ride host intended (if their intention is even clear). Hopefully no one goes away terribly upset or disillusioned. After a while ride hosts become known quantities and those that continue to attend rides learn with whom they can or prefer to ride. In other words if you know the ride leader, you’ll know how they ride and if you don’t, then you take your chances. Although it certainly helps to provide the most accurate guidance, ride hosts need to remember that it’s ultimately about having a good time, which depends not just on the ride itself but also on the quality of human interaction during the ride. And don’t forget: if you want clarification you can always contact the ride leader! The ride listing is a short summary of their intention and you can always ask them to elaborate.

Those of you who’ve been under a rock recently may not be aware that longtime club member Will Bir passed away on Saturday August 3 while riding his bike. According to his longtime boyfriend Orlando he was found unconscious on the ground in the Presidio. Someone called 911 and the EMTs were not able to revive him. Apparently he died of a heart attack. He was only 59 years old.

Will’s sudden and unexpected passing shocked us all and has left a deep emotional hole in the club. Will has a long history with the club starting sometime in the early to mid-90s. Perhaps others have had more in depth conversations with Will and know more about his history. But from comments he’s made in passing over the years I’ve had the impression that he may have had two stints with us. He moved to the Bay Area to earn an MBA from UC Berkeley in the early 1990s and may well have joined the club at that time. I am under the impression that he moved away—or perhaps was just busy with work—and then returned later on.

Although I too have had a long history with the club, I had a hiatus from mid-1992 to about 1998 and probably only met Will when I started to cycle again; I have no recollection of him before 1992.

It’s funny what you recall about those who’ve passed away. I’ve known Will for maybe 25 years and in looking back he always appeared the same. I think he even rode the same bike, a titanium Serotta with a triple crank all this time. But the bike changed slowly and so did Will. He used to ride all the time with a Camelbak but in more recent years he ditched that for a more traditional setup. Maybe it was the mountain bike influence because I have a (faulty?) recollection that he did a stint (or maybe grew up) in Colorado. He certainly knew about Rocky Mountain Bicycle Boys. He had a preference for wearing jerseys from rides or events he had done and never succumbed to the hipster Rapha/Maap/Pas Normal plague that has afflicted so many cyclists. Unlike so many of us who go through bikes, bike fads, and equipment like junkies looking for a fix, Will was not at all about the bike and entirely about the riding.

I’ve ridden with Will too many times to remember them all. That he was a longtime regular on so many club rides is evident from the extraordinary number of photographs of him on club rides; you can see for yourself in the club’s Photo Albums area. Will liked to ride long, hard, and fast. Which was pretty amazing for someone with his build—more linebacker than gaunt, skinny cyclist. One time we were riding up Morgan Territory on a club ride. It’s a tough ride with a dauntingly steep climb. As the climb worsened below the summit, Will and I were still riding together. Usually guys as heavy as Will would not be able to climb very well. But Will was almost as fast as I and yet he outweighed me by 60 or 70 pounds! That isn’t to say he wasn’t suffering but he seemed to know his limits very well, hence the triple crank with low gears. Will was quite capable of suffering on the bike. He never seemed to go slow and never seemed to need a warm-up period. On that same ride we got down to Tassajara where it’s flat and he zoomed by me like a motorcycle. I barely was able to grab his wheel and it was all I could do not to get dropped; he had a BIG motor! It was rare that Will was behind. Always at the front. He certainly made me suffer more than once!

At some time in the early Aughts Will got the century bug, nay the double century bug, and he and Jerome ended up doing some pretty long rides. He’s got a Triple Crown jersey to prove he’d done three double centuries in one year; he also has a Triple Bypass jersey and I believe he’d done all the passes on the Death Ride. Truly a beast on the bike. He’s one of the few Spokers I know that has done the Canyon Classic up Del Puerto Canyon, a relatively obscure climb. He’s also one of the few Spokers to have gone to Mammoth for their Epic ride. The list of centuries he’s done is very long.

A couple of years ago I led a ride up Patterson Pass. Will joined and at the start we found out he was just getting over Covid and was coughing his brains out. Yet we could still ride strongly. This ride goes over Patterson Pass to Tracy and takes a little known trail along the California Aqueduct before heading back over Altamont Pass. Will knew about the aqueduct trail because he had ridden it years ago while training for a double century! He was always surprising me by his willingness to take on a challenging ride as if it were a walk in the park.

Will was impressive in other ways. I never saw Will get upset or angry. He was preternaturally calm; in fact he was almost always matter of fact. Nothing seemed to perturb him or make him histrionic. And I don’t ever recall him swearing or bemoaning his fate. There was never any drama around him. But he could get quite animated when talking about something he really enjoyed…like traveling with Orlando to Europe for metal concerts!

Will was also a regular to the Orinda Pool Party. He always brought a six-pack because he loved to drink beer as much as he liked to cycle. He knew we were a dry household; whatever remaining beers would still be there for next year’s party! But of course he would bring more. For a while there he was showing up at the OPP with a different boyfriend almost every year!

He was also a very loyal Golden Bears fan and was a regular at Cal football games.

In the Aughts Will took on being the events coordinator for the club. More than once he hosted the Holiday Party as his place in San Francisco. He also came up, planned, and led the Amador County Weekend, a three-day getaway to Plymouth CA to ride the Gold Country roads.

In recent years Will cut back on cycling and instead was spending time hiking with Orlando. A few years ago Will was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor, which he had surgically removed. I like to think that that scary event got him thinking about what was important in his life and that spending time with Orlando was more rewarding than an entire day on a long ride.

Well, you dropped me again–happy trails, Will.

A couple of years ago I wrote about my initial experience with Tubolito tubes, very light TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane) inner tubes. You can read it here. Overall I was a bit disappointed because although being extremely light they didn’t feel supple. Consequently their ride quality was only so-so. I also didn’t appreciate the added difficulty in repairing a puncture as you cannot use regular inner tube repair patches and glue.

However I have continued to pound this wheelset and have to say that their lightness–due in part to the Tubolito tubes–is endearing. The wheels accelerate noticeably faster than my other wheels even if they are slightly more abusive on choppy pavement. On smooth pavement they are the cat’s meow. I still haven’t tried them with my preferred tires, Michelin Pro4’s, which as I mentioned seem to have the best ride quality. But that day is coming in the not too distant future as the Rene Herse Cayuse Pass tires wear out.

I have a few more comments to add about the Tubolitos. First, Tubolito has changed the puncture repair process since two years. Previously their repair kits consisted of alcohol wipes and special adhesive patches; you wiped down the puncture site with alcohol, let it dry, and then pressed the patch on and held it for 30 minutes. Yes, that’s not a typo: three-zero, 30 minutes. Clearly this is not something you do in the immediate aftermath of a puncture on the road. And after having patched Tubolito tubes several times I can say unequivocably that you’re much better off doing this at home because any pressure you apply with your fingers is just not going to cut it; you need to use a C-clamp or gerryrig something else that applies constant, consistent pressure to the patch. (I use a C-clamp.) Simply applying finger pressure will result in the patch not adhering adequately even if you’re patient and do it for the full 30 minutes.

Tubolito repair kits now include reworked patches and a small tube of Camplast glue. From what I can tell the patches now seem to be just cut out pieces of the same TPU they use to make their inner tubes. The glue is made by Rema Tiptop, the same company that makes excellent patches and glue for regular butyl and latex inner tubes. This is a special glue that works on thermoplastic urethane, ie. TPU. Now the procedure is shorter: wipe with alcohol, let dry, apply glue, wait one minute and then slap on the patch, and press for one minute. That’s much better.

And as fate would have it I got a puncture and could test this all out. Actually, I got the puncture months ago but didn’t realize it until today. Huh?

That brings me to my second point. A frustrating experience with the Tubolitos is that the tube I patched two years ago eventually developed a phantom leak. It would hold pressure perfectly—TPU tubes lose almost no air at all, even less than thick butyl tubes—and then suddenly one day the tire would be completely flat. It clearly wasn’t behaving like a slow leak. And when it would flat was unpredictable; I could go two weeks when everything was fine and the next day it was flat. Or in three days it would be flat. Of course I pulled the tube out (more than once) and searched for a leak by the usual methods and I never found one. Mystery. Also unsettling. Eventually I replaced that tube with another Tubolito tube I had.

Then I read that Rene Herse was coming out with its own line of TPU tubes and patches. Jan Heine, the head of Rene Herse, has until recently preferred light butyl tubes. He prefers them over latex tubes despite the latter’s performance benefits because he’s a randonneur and butyl tubes just hold air better over very long rides. Okay, fair enough. But why TPU now? He wanted to improve what he saw on the market; he noticed that some unexplicable failures were due to leakage at the valve. The presta valve is metal but its extension tube is TPU. A regular presta valve and extension tube are both metal. That difference in material might eventually result in a leak. So Rene Herse TPU tubes have metal extensions and valves just like on a regular inner tube. Aha. Maybe this was the source of my mystery leak! So if you’re experiencing mystery flats with Tubolito (and all the other TPU brands as well) tubes, it may be due to a simple design error. So of course I immediately ordered a set.

The tube in my rear wheel developed a slow leak a couple of months ago. I now suspected it was due to the valve/extension mismatch per Rene Herse. But the leak was pretty slow—it was faster than a latex tube would deflate naturally but slower than the slowest slow leak I’ve ever had before. I just lived with it since inflating the tire before a ride is something I’ve done for decades.

Today I decided finally to swap the tube to a new Rene Herse TPU tube. I removed the leaky tube suspecting I would find no leak. I was wrong: it had a pinhole, a real puncture, and it wasn’t the valve at all. I used the new Tubolito patch kit and it didn’t go smoothly. I followed the directions meticulously and left it alone to cure. I came back to the shop about a half-hour later to find the patch not even sticking to the tube! I thought I was in for another Tubolito “adventure”. However I repeated the process and this time it seemed to work: the patch actually stuck. So the Tubolito is back in the tire and I’m holding off on installing the Rene Herse tubes.

I’m not entirely sure why the first patch job didn’t work. But I have a suspicion. With regular patches the first step is to roughen the tube surface with sand paper before you apply the glue. The presumption is that this aids in vulcanization by having “fresh” butyl or latex rubber exposed to the glue. TPU tubes have an analogous step: wipe with an isopropyl alcohol. I presume this is to clean the TPU surface of any dirt or oily substance what would impede the action of the Camplast glue, which has to work differently than regular patch glue because this is not vulcanization at all. But that alcohol wipe is 70% alcohol and 30% water. The alcohol evaporates faster than the water, and if there is any moisture on the TPU surface the glue might fail. This is speculation. But I did do one thing differently the second time that leads me to believe moisture was the culprit. The second time I wiped the puncture site dry after using the alcohol wipe instead of waiting for it to dry. the instructions say to wait a short time—I wiped it with a clean towel to make sure it was dry before applying the glue. The other possible explanation is that the first layer of glue dried and acted as a better base for the second layer of glue. I actually don’t know which one is the real explanation.

In any case the tube seemed to be patched—we’ll see if it deflates overnight!—even if it was frustrating. After about six hours it’s still holding air fine. UPDATE: Yep, after several days I can say that it’s still leaking but even more slowly, more the way a latex tube leaks slowly.

This brings me to the final point: is this worth the hassle? Well, there’s no one answer to that question. If you’re a weight weenie absolutist, then of course the answer is yes (assuming you can’t stand tubular tires). TPU tubes are the lightest option out there except for tubbies. And like with tubular tires you’re willing to live with the inconveniences imposed by this technology. If you’re a regular cyclist, the answer is clearly ‘no way!’ The seductive allure of a whippet-like wheelset is dulled by the time suck and complicated maintenance routine. In fact it’s hard to argue against regular butyl tubes and Jan Heine may be right. Even light butyl tubes are inexpensive compared to TPU tubes and latex tubes and the repair process is simpler and no special glue or patches are required. It seems like a win-win. If you’re a princess-and-the-pea type, then TPU tubes are going to be a second choice because the hands-down winner is a latex tube with its velvet ride quality and relatively lighter weight compared to butyl. To be honest the wheelset with latex tubes and Michelin tires is slightly heavier. But god, the ride quality is the closest I’ve experienced to a high quality sewup wheelset. I can ride all day on those wheels even if they don’t zing quite as loudly. Finally, what about tubeless? As I’ve concluded before, road tubeless is a world unto its own. It has its own complicated care procedures and maintenance. If you detest dealing with flats, then this is your only choice at least in the short run. You do get fewer flats. But when you do get one it may be such a hassle to deal with that you’ll be revisiting this question and perhaps end up with a different answer. But aren’t tubeless tires lighter? That’s an open question. The tubeless ready tires are heavier because most of them have an added butyl rubber layer lining the inside plus you have to add at least an ounce (= 28 grams) of sealant, usually more.

But what about me: what do I prefer, you ask? I’m old school and I’m also old, which means I’ve patched so many inner tubes that in general dealing with flats is a minor inconvenience despite my propensity to flat often. I have my routine down for dealing with flats: practice makes perfect. Still I don’t like dealing with a flat tire when it’s raining or it’s very muddy. I like the temporary convenience of tubeless road tires. But it’s not a game changer for me. I don’t find tubeless road tires confer any advantage in ride quality compared to a light, supple tire with a latex inner tube. But I’m also a cheapskate so frittering money on $32 TPU tubes or even $18 latex tubes seems foolish. It’s not that I can’t afford them; it’s that they seem…unnecessary. I guess I’m just plebeian by disposition. You could take me to the French Laundry for an exceptional dinner and I’d appreciate it. But I am quite happy to eat at Panera too. So there you go.

Note: To my surprise the patch kits for Rene Herse TPU tubes include just alcohol wipes and the patches. No Camplast glue. Their instructions say to wipe with the alcohol wipe, let dry, then stick on the patch and press hard. That’s all. I’ll eventually end up using it and we’ll see if it works. Perhaps the adhesive they use on their patches is a better formulation than Tubolito’s.

How soon we forget. I certainly forgot about it when the anniversary arrived. But I attended a barbecue today that included many Spokers and David’s name came up. Then I remembered: A year ago on July 1 David Sexton was hit and killed by a car driver while cycling in Richmond across the Bay. No one has been apprehended and the police have been completely quiet. It’s as if his murder didn’t happen. Yet it did.

The world rolls on even if you don’t. His name is another one added to another long list. It doesn’t matter what list it is. Maybe it’s those who’ve died of HIV/AIDS, those killed in Vietnam, those who died from Covid, those killed by car drivers. Does it really matter? There is rarely a chance to grieve collectively and now a year has passed and he’s become just another ex-member. And we’ve moved on.

A loss it has been for his friends and family over the past year. It was also a big loss to his coworkers at Kaiser and his patients. We wish them all as good of a healing as is possible for such a traumatic event.

On Fathers Day, Roger and I rode on Point San Pedro Road through China Camp State Park. We were scouting a route and dining possibilities as a prelude to leading a club ride. The result unfortunately is that I was not impressed by the route; in fact it was like the scales fell off my eyes and I saw these roads for what they are and not what I had remembered or imagined.

Since most Spokers live in the City, getting to China Camp involves trekking across the Golden Gate Bridge and making one’s way north through San Rafael to the State Park. But we were planning to start in the East Bay in Point Richmond and traversing the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge in order to avoid the mishegoss on the GGB on weekend afternoons. The general route was to take the RSR, get through San Rafael somehow, go around China Camp, and then get to downtown San Rafael for midday refreshment. There were several possibilities for a return depending on the length.

The Richmond-San Rafael Bridge (RSR)
It’s been an unexpected gift to be able to cycle across the RSR to Marin. The novelty of it hadn’t worn off. Until now. The RSR path opened on November 16, 2019—just four and a half years ago. In that time we’ve probably used it about a dozen times and always on weekends. It’s marvelous to be able to get to Marin just by bike and I was tickled pink at the prospect of being able to cycle over and catch the SMART train to get to Santa Rosa to do some of the roads on the Wine Country Century and then return without using a car.

As you know there is controversy about the bridge with car drivers and their lobbying groups wanting to eliminate the multi-use path and have it revert to (just another) car lane. I won’t bore you with the arguments pro and con. (As if you cared anyway.) But I will say this: the experience of crossing the RSR is generally an experiential bummer. The MUP is a converted car lane and if you use it when there is substantial traffic, ie. daytime, you are exposed to a deafening amount of car noise. It’s louder because vehicles are passing at freeway speeds, 60-80 MPH, rather than normal street speed. Yes, it’s no different in kind from any of the other bridges. But the proximity and being on road level seems to make the noise even louder. The only thing that would help—besides less traffic—would be a delightful traffic jam that forced everyone to slow down. Of course then you’d get to relish the extra vehicle emissions. Sunday the traffic was forceful and unremitting when we started at 9:30 AM. Our return in the afternoon was only slightly less wearing simply because by then the toll plaza on the eastern side was jammed and backed up, which seemed to reduce the traffic somewhat. Whatever past bliss I experienced by skimming along the surface of Richardson Bay in the early morning was completely obliterated by wrenching car noise.

I can’t think of a single time that our return eastward on the RSR has not had a grinding headwind and today was no different. How can that be? Well, on a typical day the prevailing wind is westerly and comes through the Golden Gate and turns north to go up the Delta into the Valley. So on the RSR the wind is primarily a crosswind, which as you know feels like a headwind when you’re cycling. On top of that, the grade on the bridge is a grind. Oh, and the bridge is hella long. So, headwind plus uphill grade plus mega length—you do the math. By the time we were heading home I was already a bit tired and having to slog uphill into that wind had me reaching for a lower gear, hunkering down, and gritting my teeth. Like a castaway sailor I was ever so glad to reach solid land!

All of this had me thinking—heresy!—that if the Bay Conservation and Development Commission eventually decides to end the MUP experiment on the RSR, I’m going to be disappointed but I won’t be shedding copious tears. In other words I like the idea a whole lot but the reality is not so great. Still if you haven’t ridden across the RSR I strongly recommend that you do it if only to have the experience once before it is taken away from you.

One more thing: on Fathers Day the toll plaza was absolutely jammed to the gills in the afternoon. I don’t know how long the backup was but it was not a short one. If you think for a moment that a possible RSR multi-use path compromise might involve removing it only during the work week, you have your head in the sand. The jams are there on weekends too and car drivers are going to lobby for the MUP to be removed completely regardless of whether the MUP is actually the cause of the jams or not.

Getting Through San Rafael
Highway 101 transects San Rafael and whether that was the case before 101 was expanded or not, de facto the eastern side of 101 has a lot of light industry and low income development while the western side is the “suburban” side. Heavy truck traffic and speeding rule the roadway on the eastern side. And that’s the side you have to get through to get to China Camp. The fact that the area is littered with ejecta from trucks and cars as well as general neglect makes this section of the route feel you’re going to the dump to get rid of your garbage.

The problem is that there’s no short way to get across San Rafael Creek to get to China Camp except by going all the way west to 101. But your Calvary isn’t over yet. After you cross Point San Pedro Road, which follows the north shore of San Rafael Creek, is a four-lane boulevard with cars zooming by at 40+ MPH. Literally the saving grace is a bike lane, which is where several drivers delightfully parked their cars in order to go about their Sunday business forcing us to repeatedly hop into the vehicle lane and pray we weren’t smashed.

Back in the day I rode to China Camp, or at least I think I did. I have two recollections. In preparation for an AIDS Bike-A-Thon I did a club ride from SF to go around China Camp; this was probably 1990. I’m pretty sure this is a memory of a real event–I’m not always sure these days!–because I have the recollection of riding with Jamie Henderson, an old club member, and probably his now-husband Ray O’Loughlin and my partner at the time, Tom Walther. I recall us getting lost in San Rafael trying to figure out how to get to China Camp. But as we rode on San Pedro Point Road, which is the only way to get to China Camp, I had absolutely no recollection of any of the scenery. Was it possible that 30+ years had erased everything recognizable? What I do recall is that the road was semi-industrial (which it is at the beginning) and had car traffic (which it still does). But it seemed all different now.

China Camp State Park
My memory continued to be faulty as we rode towards China Camp. None of it was recognizable, which is probably a combination of change over 30 years plus my increasingly creaky memory. Until we hit the first real hill with ugly bumps on the downhill side. Then it came back to me: I was here before. That was immediately eclipsed at seeing picturesque Bayside Park, which is a long, narrow esplanade by the shore. Something so captivating and it was like I had never seen it before. (Maybe I hadn’t!) This continued all the way around the Park. I was drawing a complete blank. Nothing looked familar.

My second recollection is that I rode on the dirt trails in China Camp with someone in the club many years ago. Most likely we had driven up to China Camp rather than riding on our mountain bikes. Yet seeing China Camp did not provoke a memory even when we went by the Visitors Center. Where exactly did we ride our dirt bikes, I wondered. At some point in the 1990s the club decided to move the annual picnic to China Camp State Park probably because everyone was tired of the fog and chill in Golden Gate Park. It was there for quite a few years yet I never attended one of them. Consequently I never rode or drove up at any other time and thus have no other recollections.

Sunday the traffic was very light through the park. Point San Pedro Road is in pretty good condition. But what struck me was the multitude of mountain bikers at China Camp. The trails are easy to get to and considered good for beginners who are trying their hand at singletrack riding. The one time I rode there I had a blast. Of course it’s all different now: there were no full suspension bikes back then and today that was practically all we saw being unloaded from cars. And there were lots of them!

Eventually we made your way out of China Camp to the Marin Civic Center and then somehow we had to get over the hill to San Rafael. Back in the day the main way was an odd path that was immediately next to 101. If you’ve ever wanted to avoid taking Camino Alto over to Corte Madera there is a similar bike path next to 101 that dumps you on Meadowsweet Drive. This one was like that. But now it had changed apparently due to the construction of the SMART train whose right-of-way sits adjacent to the path. It certainly is much more developed because of it and is in great condition. This trail takes you right into downtown San Rafael where we were going to get lunch.

San Rafael
I’ve never, ever spent appreciable time in downtown San Rafael. It’s always been a dot I’ve gone through trying to get out of or back to the City. But today we were looking for a lunch stop for a club ride and it had to have an outdoor patio. Fourth Street seems to be the main drag and has a lot of places to eat. There’s a Crepevine on 4th with a small patio in front. Even though we were arriving well before lunch time, the warm, sunny weather and Fathers Day meant it was full. Just around the corner was a Mexican joint, Taqueria Bahia. It had an outdoor dining area and it was completely empty. So we ended up stopping there and despite my trepidation at its run-of-the-mill demeanor the food turned out to be quite good. The plus was the portions were large; the minus was the portions were large.

This part of San Rafael had a little bit of everything. By that I mean a crazy dude screaming profanities, cool millenials looking for a bite, some tie-dye (hey, it’s Marin!), Central Americans hanging out everywhere, and plenty of Marinites doing what they do best, ie. shopping or dining while trying to ignore the crazy dude screaming profanities. At least the area is fairly well-kept and didn’t reek of urine. Or feces. And I didn’t see any tents on the sidewalks. Like some other city we know.

Lovely Wolfe Grade
By now it was getting hot—not atypical for San Rafael at this time of the year—so we skedaddled. I had in mind three different possible returns. The shortest was just to head east and make our way under 101 until we got to Francisco Street, which is the frontage road to 580, and take it to the bridge. But coming over in the morning we saw that a big portion of it was currently under reconstruction, all for the better since there seems to be an extra-wide sidewalk/MUP being put in. Francisco gets a lot of truck traffic, so having a MUP really makes sense. We decided to skip it and take a longer route going over Wolfe Grade, avoiding Francisco entirely. I hadn’t been over Wolfe since the early 1990s. This is a straight up and down road to get over a hill; it’s ridiculously steep but short. It’s not particularly pleasant and has no redeeming feature other than being direct. The shoulder varies between tolerable to nonexistent and it is moderately trafficked. (Which is why I’ve ridden it maybe less than two or three times altogether!) Coming after a big lunch Wolfe was a regrettable decision. It is short but if you’re lacking the horsepower it’s just a grueling ordeal. I wasn’t so quick anymore with a burrito bomb in my stomach. But we got over it and then it was simply making our way back to the RSR by the pleasant Corte Madera Creek MUP and then go past San Quentin. This section we’ve done many times and it’s pleasant and strangely bucolic for something in the middle of the suburbs.

Who’s Zoomin’ Who?
Once past San Quentin you climb a small hill and take the entrance ramp to I-580. A lot of cyclists ignore the signage and don’t realize that the entrance ramp is the bike path and instead they attempt to cross over SIr Francis Drake at Andersen Drive to catch the separated bikeway coming from the bridge. Besides being unnecessary it’s a dangerous maneuver because there is no stop sign for oncoming traffic just exiting the freeway at high speed. Some cyclist is going to get killed there one day if not already. In any case we merged onto the freeway and it’s a hoot. It’s one of the few places in California that legally allow cyclists to ride on the freeway. The bike lane is marked and part of it has plastic bollards. But there is no physical separation between cyclists and car traffic. So maybe one day some cyclist is going to get killed on the freeway.

The RSR, Part 2
By now I’m tired and it’s headwind city. It’s a steady climb for about two miles with no relief until you get to the top of the span. There is no protection from the wind. The only thing worse would be if the winds were unpredictably gusty. (That happens too!) The RSR MUP is a bidirectional path with just a painted dashed line separating eastbound and westbound cyclists. It’s not very wide. Westbound cyclists get a crazy fast descent, almost like a bobsled chute. Which means eastbound cyclists get to contemplate a moment of doubt each time they espy a downhill cyclist: is that cyclist really in control, are they going to bean me, and how fast are they going anyway?? The positive is that unlike the Golden Gate Bridge, which is a heady stew of hordes of cyclists blasting past each other in tight quarters with nary a care for safety, the RSR has so little bike traffic even on a weekend that the risk pales. I sure hope there isn’t a Strava segment on the RSR! There are occasional walkers; the other obstacle is people fishing off the bridge (!). Some people think the RSR MUP is a pier and they might as well go out on a sunny Sunday, park their butts on some crates along with their coolers and gear, and spend a nice morning trying to hook some mercury-laden bay fish for dinner whilst humming along to the freeway music in the background. I suppose they’re no worse to crash into than the copious furniture on the GG bridge and certainly a bit softer. Today there was just one group of people fishing on the bridge and the total number of cyclists coming at us could have been counted on one hand.

They weren’t there today but at other times we have also seen the Couple Taking Photos As If No One Else Was Around Them. You know them, right? They’re the ones abruptly stepping backwards into the middle of the narrow MUP too preoccupied with their phone to realize that they are about to be beaned by a cyclist. Fortunately the walk across the RSR is very long so pedestrians are a rarity. However we did encounter the Cyclists Taking A Selfie…and they were doing it on the south side of the bridge! Think about that: the south side has the scenic view of SF, the GG Bridge, Alcatraz, etc. And it also has no sidewalk. To get there they had to run across all the lanes of cars travelling at freeway speed to stand on a narrow ledge to take their selfie. And then somehow get back to the MUP. We saw them sprint across the lanes and leap over the barrier just in time not to get killed and high-fiving themselves smugly. I bet the drivers’ adrenaline also went up.

Grumpy
As with any ordeal it’s merely a matter of time before it eventually ends. We were back in Point Richmond and at the car. Why was I so disappointed with the planned route? I think part of it is a change that’s been happening slowly to what I expect out of a ride. These days I’m more interested in riding rural (or “semi-rural”) environments and away from cars. Much of this ride is quite urban—the RSR and the east side of San Rafael. I also realized that the reason why I’ve hardly ever ridden to China Camp State Park is because getting there isn’t as pleasant as going to other parts of Marin, even other suburban parts. Will I go back to China Camp by bike? I’ll have to let time kill more memory cells…