David Gaus had such a good idea to ride Morgan Territory. The backside of Mt. Diablo can be a bitch during the summer when it’s insufferably hot, spring and fall being the best times to have a fun romp on the Rump. A wet winter made the grasslands lush and verdant but time was running out before they would all turn dun-colored. But we hit it when it was still crisply green, with the wind at Morgan Territory Preserve whipping the tall grass like something out of a Terrence Malick film. And, the weather was also picture perfect: sunshine with moderate temps to keep the climbing very pleasant and just a taste of headwind in the afternoon.

David had about 11 or 12 show including several faces I hadn’t seen before. If I remember correctly who was there: Will Bir, Doug O’Neill, Roger Sayre, Jeff Anhalt, Omar Manuar, Roger Hoyer, Jonathan, two more Jeffs, and a woman who showed up late and who didn’t connect with the main group until lunch. True to the ride listing David led it at a B-pace but overall the group must have been frisky because once on Morgan Territory most of the group rolled up the road. We regrouped at Morgan Territory Preserve, shot the bull, inhaled industrial “sports” food, and enjoyed the surreal view with high clouds rolling over the green hills.

The descent to Highland Road was most excellent and I believe Doug said he hit 50. Isn’t that kind of “death wish” territory, Doug? Luckily for me Doug was waiting at Highland because I love to sit on his wheel when he’s fighting the at-times enervating headwind on the way to Danville. Domenico’s was jam-packed leading to a prolonged lunch. Roger and I always eat from the deli side but the line was out the door so we relented and tried the panini/pizza side. Despite not having a wood-fired oven their pizza was a close facsimile of what you might get in Italy (I said close, mind you, not the same as); in other words, it was surprisingly good. Omar ordered a pizza just for himself but then realized if he ate the whole thing he wouldn’t have room for dessert, so he graciously farmed out some of it so he could go back and get some cookies.

After lunch we rolled up Danville Blvd. I committed a bit of a faux pas by leading this section a bit fast and it was more like a D-pace. Mea culpa. But nobody seemed fazed by the rapidity with which we returned to Concord BART. Thanks David!

Almost all of our Social Rides taking place in the immediate Bay Area originate at BART stations in order to make it easy and convenient for you all to get to the start without having to jump into a car—if you even own a car. Last Saturday’s ride started at Union City BART but only Roy came by train; everyone else drove! Perhaps BART’s many recent “challenges” swayed people into driving rather than risk another long delay in the system. As if on cue the elevator at Union City BART was out of order. So despite our generally effete efforts at living a quasi-green lifestyle Roger and I drove too because hauling his e-bike, which weighs like a kazillion pounds, up and down the stairs from the platform wasn’t an alluring prospect. Maybe next time we’ll just skip the pretense and start nowhere near BART!

Donald, Roy, Lamberto and Joe joined Roger and me for a longish Social Ride across the Dunbarton Bridge to the Arastradero Preserve above Palo Alto and then lunch at the heavenly Prolific Oven. Our rides, unlike almost all the club’s other rides, are oriented toward flatter and shorter routes in order to provide an opportunity for non-animals to ride together without fear that the group will vanish off into the distance. Last month’s ride up the Cummings Skyway had perhaps a challenging amount of vertical but reasonable distance whereas this month’s ride at 46 miles was on the long side yet the total vertical ascent was under 1,000 ft—unusual for a Bay Area ride!

We lucked out with the weather: it was sunny and not-too-hot, not-too-cool, with a light breeze almost the entire day. Starting at UC BART means riding through icky traffic but we managed to escape temporarily by cutting through Ardenwood Historic Farm, which just happened to have a Scottish Festival taking place. Ardenwood is right next to Highway 84 on the way to the Dunbarton toll plaza. I’ve probably passed it a thousand times in a car but until yesterday I had never set foot there. What a mistake! It’s a pleasant rural oasis in the middle of burgeoning Fremont: it’s like being in the countryside. And, unlike the farmland in Contra Costa County it’s in no danger of being turned into a housing tract or a business park because it’s owned by the East Bay Regional Park District. After a pit stop at the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge we literally bounced along the decrepit Marshlands Road up to the bridge. The pavement is deteriorating, and with no reason to be maintained—it’s only used by cyclists heading to the bridge and by a few fisherman heading to a pier—it’s only going to get worse. We were hunting for the few smooth sections of the road, which mostly happened to be a thin, white strip no more than six inches wide—good practice at riding a straight line.

Once over the bridge we rolled through Belle Haven, which was the low income area on the other side of 101 from tonier Menlo Park. Perhaps it’s still “low income” if by the term you mean modest-houses-starting-at-merely-a-million-dollars. A quick hop over a pedestrian/bike overpass to 101 and we were in the “where the 1% live” zone. Eventually we made our way through the Midpeninsula suburbs to the outer reaches of Palo Alto and the Arastradero Preserve, another important piece of open space. Housing and business were starting to nibble at the edges of Arastradero Road until the Preserve put an end to such nonsense a few decades ago. While taking a break at the Preserve we ran into a unicyclist heading up the trail, quite a sight to see him ascend! We also ran into a women on a brand new e-bike with the Shimano E-Steps system. When asked what she thought of it she said she loves it! Shimano is the first big bicycle equipment manufacturer to get into the e-bike motor business and they are just going to clean up; the motor looks to be a bit lighter than Roger’s Bosch system and the batteries are comparable in size and power.

Eventually we rolled back down to Palo Alto to the Prolific Oven. Downtown PA was bustling with traffic but for some strange reason the Prolific Oven, which has been a local mainstay since 1981, was practically empty. That made it all the easier for six hungry cyclists to get their orders. The true hedonists were immediately evident because they ordered and got their pastries before their sandwiches. Donald shared his cherry strudel with the table—I mean, with those of us who didn’t immediately get a pastry. Roger then went to the counter to get his own but Joe and Domingo had apparently already snatched the last slice, so he came back with a fruit tart. Not having sampled the fare to their satisfaction Joe and Domingo then went back and returned with a chocolate covered cream puff. Oh yeah, and we had sandwiches of various sorts. How can a deli sandwich stand out? Use homemade bread, and the Prolific Oven’s is first caliber. Needless to say it was a long lunch, fitting for a long ride. Eventually we rolled out the door and saddled up for the tailwind-fueled ride back across the Dunbarton.

The next Social Ride will probably be at the end of the month during Memorial Day weekend. Stay tuned to the DSSF Ride Calendar for more details soon!

The March Social Ride was supposed to take place last weekend, but the forecast for light showers led us to postpone it. Good thing too because even though Roger and I had cancelled the ride we ended up going out and riding a different route anyway and got rained on. And apparently it was worse in the Martinez area. Yesterday was a completely different story: sunny, warm, a light breeze—in other words a perfect spring day. Lamberto and Joe joined us to make it a quartet. We had hardly gone a few miles before we passed Back Forty BBQ, which led to an elongated discussion of barbecue joints in the East Bay, lunch, eating good meals on rides, lunch, the virtues of unhealthy food, and did I mention lunch? After passing through suburban Pleasant Hill we headed up Franklin Canyon, which has the virtues and vices of “rural” Contra Costa County. On the one hand it it semi-rural with small farms, real open space made beauteous by brilliant green spring grass. But on the other hand it’s a fav place for miscreants to illegally dump their house refuse—sofas, old tvs, garbage bags full of who-knows-what, broken down chairs. All we need is a meth lab and some Superfund sites! We had a headwind but it was actually cool and refreshing and we were taking it easy anyway. After reaching the top of the Cummings Skyway—don’t you like that name?—we blasted down to Crockett and rather easily went along the Carquinez Scenic Drive. Strangely there were hardly any other people on the trail despite the spectacular weather we were having. The four of us reminisced about the old Scenic Drive before it was improved and turned into the George Miller Trail. Again it was a mixed bag: it was funky, decrepit, isolated, a site for illegal drug dealing, but it was incredibly atmospheric à la Planet of the Apes near Pacifica. Now it’s a smooth, paved multi-use path—much more pleasant to ride on—but it’s lost its isolation and has a completely different character, more tamed and safe.

Creek Monkey Tap House was crowded but, thankfully, for some odd reason most people were crammed into the inside bar rather than enjoying the weather in the outdoor courtyard. One reason I like Creek Monkey, besides the delicious grilled chicken sandwich and their beer battered onion rings I always get, is that you can bring your bike into the courtyard to keep an eye on it. Joe was the only one of us to enjoy a pilsner with his lunch but we ended up spending almost an hour and a half over lunch just chatting and chilling. By the end we were all thinking a nap would have made a nice coda to the afternoon but we still had about 15 miles more to go. So off we went through the side roads of Martinez and back to Pleasant Hill BART by the Contra Costa Canal Trail. Our average moving speed was 11.4 mph–right on the B-pace.

Next week: we’re going to the Prolific Oven in Palo Alto!

Some brilliant soul way in the past decided to combine fried chicken with waffles and to her/him I offer my heartfelt thanks. When I saw it on Assemble’s brunch menu, I knew immediately what to order among their uniformly delicious choices. The rest of our Social Ride group had other ideas: Ray and David wanted Assemble’s grilled cheese sandwich, and Derek and Roger went for the “Assemble Breakfast”, a house-made sausage patty, eggs your way with house-made bread turned into toast and home fries. And that grilled cheese sandwich was no Velveeta monstrosity; it was gruyere and cheddar—lots of both—along with poblano chilis to give it some spice, and of course French fries (or ‘chips’ as they’re called in the rest of the English speaking world). Anyway, back to my fried chicken and waffles: I must confess that the waffles were only so-so but the fried chicken—really large chunks of breast meat—was near perfect: moist inside, not overcooked, and deliciously crispy. Going to Assemble is always a treat, not just for the food but because it sits along the Bay Trail in Richmond it’s easily accessible by bike.

Before we had our meal the five of us—I, Roger, Derek, David, and Roy—rolled down the 40^th Street bikeway to Ikea and took the Alex Zuckerman Path up the eastern span of the new Bay Bridge. Despite a cold start the day was sunny, providing brilliant views of the entire Bay from the new span. The old bridge is steadily retreating piece by piece; enough has disappeared that a new vista has emerged: an unobstructed view of the South Bay! After oohs and aahs and obligatory snapshots—although none of us had selfie sticks—we descended back to Oakland and rolled up the Bay Trail to our fabulous brunch. Derek continues to amaze me with his riding. Here he is well into his eighties and he’s zooming along like a teenager. He complains about how he can’t climb hills anymore, fills me in on his latest e-bike research and then he blasts up the short hill at Golden Gate Fields like it’s a race, with David hot on his heels. Age has not diminished his competitive spirit.

Next month the Social Ride is heading to the Creek Monkey Tap House in Martinez for another tasty lunch. It will be a little more challenging with the climb up to Cummings Skyway but in return we get a blast of a descent into Crockett and then a great ride on Carquinez Scenic Drive. Check the Ride Calendar for details. See you March 20!