San Ramon to Monterey an Adventure to Remember

     Four of the Old Spokes set out July 29 for a multiday adventure ride to Monterey,  California.  Our ride began in San Ramon, California at 8am with a warm up leg over the hills to Castro Valley and a coffee stop. Our second leg took us through Hayward and skirted the outside parts of the hood.  The navigator knows this area well and kept us on a safe path into Union City where we made our second stop at Ihop for breakfast.  Our third leg took us across the San Francisco Bay on the Dumbarton Bridge and into East Palo Alto another notorious crime ridden area. We stayed on the main road through town without incident.  Crossing the freeway we entered another social economic world of Palo Alto home to Stanford University. The contrast of the two cities are vast, and situated within a mile of each other. The disparity in wealth of these two cities as seen from the seat of a slow moving bicycle makes you think and wonder how this can be in such a great place of the Bay Area.
     Palo Alto, California is where the adventure really began with a mechanical problem on a wheel hub with one of the bikes. We stopped at two different bike shops to assess the problem and ended up replacing the entire wheel to continue on the trip. This took two hours out of the day, but we had to press onto our first nights destination of Santa Cruz.  What lies between Palo Alto and Highway One on the California coast is a mountain, although some would call it a hill. At 4pm we arrived at Alice's Restaurant at the top of the mountain near La Honda where we ate a very late lunch.  The road out of La Honda is a nice decent down to sea level, but we were battered by a headwind on the latter part which stayed with us for the next 48 miles.                
     We turned south on Highway One towards Santa Cruz at 6pm with 38 miles to go and two hours of daylight left. The four of us had to work as a team drafting each other to keep any speed going in the wind. Our bodies were stressed, working hard and twenty miles out of Santa Cruz we needed a snack break to energize ourselves for the last big push with daylight fading.  We made sure our lights were on flashing mode and by staying together for safety we looked like emergency vehicles moving down the road extremely visible in the low level light. As Highway One ends we enter the city limits to find our hotel  on our left  arriving at our days destination at 9pm, 103 miles and 7hrs. 50 min. in the saddle later.
     Day two was a more relaxed day starting with breakfast in downtown Santa Cruz, then moving on into the strawberry fields and Moss Landing for lunch where we met up with our sag support and dropped  our heavy bike trailers in the van. Moss Landing is a fun fishing village with a great seafood restaurant (Phils) just off Highway One between Santa Cruz and Monterey. We finished our day with a ride through some more farm country and onto the bike path which took us into Seaside where we found our not so luxurious accommodations, but the price was right and our evening dinner at the Fish Wife's was outstanding.
   Day three was a slow paced ramble to breakfast in Pacific Grove and a ride through 17 mile drive on the Pacific Coast a neighborhood of multi million dollar homes with a short stop at Pebble Beach Golf Resort before ending our adventure in downtown Carmel by the Sea.
  Our totals for the adventure ride was 167 miles, 14hrs in the saddle covering three days.

San Ramon to Livermore Mines Road to Junction Cafe

Friday June 3rd three of the Old Spokes set out from San Ramon, CA at 6am to embark on a ride 47 miles into the wilderness.  The ride took us to Livermore, CA and then out into the middle of nowhere (or at least is seemed) to a wide spot in the road called Junction Cafe.  The ride starts and finishes as an urban ride traversing through three cities out and back. The middle part of the ride is in rural Alameda and Santa Clara counties, where the grass covered hills give way to a wooded landscape giving the feel of a mountainous area.  Mines road is a winding but steady 3% to 3.5% grade with some areas greater than 5% all the way to Junction, passing through meadows, and alongside streams which this time of year have water in them feeding the lush green vegetation in their path.  This is such a remote area that the metal road signs have bullet holes in them as the locals use them for target practice.

The ride to Junction Cafe is not a particularly difficult one, but it is a long four hours in the saddle with a steady grade, and by the time we reached the Junction  it was 11:30am.  Junction Cafe has a reputation amongst cyclist that I have talked to as being a dive, and maybe the bottled water would be okay to drink.  We pleasantly found the Junction Cafe to be rustic yet very friendly catering to the local ranch crowd as well as the motorcycle enthusiast, and the occasional cyclist.  The hamburger and french fries we ordered were very adequate, and a good balance of nutrition for the ride, and the cooler was stocked with ice cold drinks for our ride back down the mountain. 

Leaving Junction Cafe for the return trip to Livermore we climbed a couple of hills before hitting the decent all the way back with speeds of 15 to 30 mph. The return trip to Livermore was just under two hours and a good time for a stop at Peet's Coffee before returning to San Ramon. 

This was a pleasant surprise for us having known about this ride for years, yet with the legend of how difficult a ride this was and how unpleasant Junction Cafe was we never put this on the list until now.  The Old Spokes Cycling and Touring Club will now use this as a main stay training ride and include it in our library with the following notes: 1) This ride is a spring, winter, and fall month ride due to the oppressive heat in the summer months  2) Take plenty of water and food for the entire round trip just in case of emergencies. 3) Never ride this one alone as it is a lonely road with only a few ranch houses along the way especially closer to Junction, and no cell service in the area. 4) This is a favorite ride for fast moving motorcycle's and sports cars along the winding 40mph Mines Road so a weekday cycling ride is preferable.

Stats: 88 miles round trip from San Ramon, CA, 7 hours and 07minutes in the saddle, 3500 feet of elevation gain.

Bicycle Safety Education is Key for Safe Cycling in Suburbia

Bicycles are an efficient, economical, and prudent means of transportation if used in a safe manner.  We live in an area highly populated by automobiles and cyclist along with motorist need to be aware that the roads are to be shared by both.  Driver education in California is a bit relaxed when it comes to teaching  how to be safe when approaching and passing a cyclist on the roadways.  Some states are adopting the "Three Foot Passing  Rule" which states that motorist must stay three feet away from a cyclist when passing.  In all 50 states bicycles are considered vehicles, and fall under the same laws and rules of the road as automobiles. Bicycles must obey all traffic lights, stop signs, and signals. Crosswalks are meant for pedestrians and not cyclist riding their bicycles, sidewalks are only for pedestrians unless signed as a bike route to avoid a dangerous roadway. Bicycles must ride in the same direction as traffic and to the right side of the road. It's advisable for cyclist to wear high visibility clothing while riding and leave the fashion statements for elsewhere, and to wear a white high visibility bicycle helmet approved by the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission).  I also recommend using daytime running lights on bicycles both front and back.  The more visible that cyclist are to motorist the less likelihood of a automobile vs bicycle accident.
Bicycle safety education is needed as more cyclist are taking to the roads, and driver education needs to be expanded to include what to do when approaching a slow cyclist and there is no room to pass or there are blind curves ahead. The League of American Bicyclist is a good place to start for bicycle education classes in your area. http://www.bikeleague.org/

The following link is an interesting article by Bay Citizen on cycling in the Bay Area.
http://www.baycitizen.org/bike-accident-tracker/story/contra-costa-county-more-dangerous/

Pending Storm Cancels Monterey CA Ride

Rain, wind, and cold in California? In June? What is happening to sunny warm NorCal?  I'm not sure, but I'm 100% sure our San Ramon to Monterey ride has been postponed until sometime in July.  This weekends weather forecast does not look good for a fun adventure ride, and it would be a miserable cold wet ride on the coast.  We have saved Friday's ride thanks to the weather gods looking favorably upon us and we will take a 90 mile out and back ride to Junction on Mines Road in Livermore.
Ride details: www.theoldspokes.com

The Old Spokes Are Topping Off Their Tanks

Three of the Old Spokes members are in the final ride preperations for their multiday adventure ride from San Ramon, CA to Monterey, CA June 3,4,5. This will be a semi SAG supported ride meanng that the first day is totally self supported with the second and third day supported by SAG vehicle.  I the "Navigator" will be pulling my BOB trailer with the first day & nights gear. The first day will be 100+ miles to Santa Cruz via Palo Alto and over the coastal mountains to Highway One.  The second day will be 80+- miles to Carmel, CA through some of Californias best strawberry fields, and Moss Landing.  Sunday will be a relaxed ride around Carmel and 17 mile drive. 
Our training rides are open to all riders and can be seen at http://www.theoldspokes.com/

Welcome to The Old Spokes Cycling and Touring Club

The Old Spokes Cycling and Touring Club was established to bring together cyclist from all walks of life who enjoy the outdoors, cycling, and the adventure of the open road as seen from the seat of a bike.  Our club is made up of people primarily in the 40+ age group, and our rides range from short 7 mile rides to long 100+ mile rides.  We welcome begginers, experienced, and advanced riders who are open to learning about safe cycling, navigating  routes, and having a good time while enjoying the outdoors.  I like to stress that we are not a race team, and we do like taking breaks during our rides. 
Our rides are geared for training rides in preperation for our longer rides which are either longer miles or multiday adventure rides to far off destinations.  You can see us on the web at http://www.theoldspokes.com/, and check our blog from time to time for interesting cycling adventures.