I am honored to be the new Chairperson for the 2008 WCC. I first rode in the WCC in 1988, so this will be a twenty year anniversary for me and I get to be the Chair. In 1988 I thought it was a great event and I still believe that it is one of the best centuries in California. I would like to thank the response of many club members who have already said they are ready to work. We would like to hear from all of you; please don’t delay: sign up now. I will have lists up in January for those who want to share in the fun.
My goals for the WCC are to have 100 new volunteers and increase the size of the workers’ ride. I thought the workers’ ride last was better than the real ride, thanks to Doug Simon and his smoothies. Remember, you have to volunteer to qualify for the workers’ ride.
There was a pre-meeting on November 6 with many of the ’08 chairpersons and the SRCC Board members. Although there was a lot of discussion, the consensus was to “keep the ride the same.” There will again be 2,500 riders, and it was generally agreed that we need to encourage rider courtesy. Riders must share the road also. The answer is education and to support good behavior. We will still use wrist bands to identify riders.
One of the changes for 2008 will be a registration fee increase. There are several items that have caused costs to rise. Two of them are all the truck rentals and the Willie Bird catered dinner. We also now have a new warehouse that will simplify many tasks. There will be significant time savings for volunteers in pre- and post-event logistics, but it will cost us more money every year.
Bill Oetinger and Charles Beck have collaborated on a handsome new design for the 2008 t-shirts (left), and Bill has come up with a design for a new WCC jersey (based on the old, popular grapes-and-vines design). Every member will be excited to wear the new volunteer t-shirt. Thanks to Charles and Bill. I would like to thank Doug Simon for all his help so far and for his continuing to mentor me through this year. It will make my job so much easier.
I hope to see all of the SRCC members volunteering on May 3, 2008 and then to see you all again at the workers’ ride on May 10. Come join the fun, make new friends and help make this a very successful 2008 WCC. Volunteer early to reserve your favorite job. E-mail me at comotandem@hotmail.com. Thanks for your support.
The Santa Rosa Cycling Club has taken a two-year lease on a small barn/warehouse in north Santa Rosa that will serve as both a storage facility for club supplies and as a staging area for logistics attendant on the Wine Country Century, Terrible Two, club tours, and other events. This facility will take the place of the multiple storage lockers the club has been renting in the Roseland neighborhood.
If you have had anything to do with the club’s inventory of ice chests, canopies, stoves, signs, bike racks, and hundreds of other neccesary items used in our events, you will appreciate that we have needed more storage space for quite some time. Even with the most meticulous care taken in organizing the lockers, the vast accumulation of materiel was packed in tighter than sardines in a tin. Often, to get at a given item, half the stuff in the locker would have to be removed. Of equal importance has been the matter of needing space for cleaning equipment before and after events, and for spreading out for the distribution and handling of supplies during big events. As things have stood up to now, we have had no access to water at the storage lockers and no place to wash things if we did have water, and also very cramped conditions for moving trucks in and out during transport and distribution. The resulting inconvenience has translated into a great deal of time spent on repetetitive and inefficient tasks by overworked volunteers.
After considerable discussion at Board meetings and a great deal of planning and research on the part of Doug Simon and the Board, it was agreed that a larger, more full-service site was warranted, and a search was begun for a likely property. That search turned up a nearly perfect site for our needs...better than we ever expected to find.
The warehouse is on a private drive off the northernmost, dead-end section of Coffey Lane, past Hopper, backing up against vineyards. It is a newer structure with 1200 square feet of space and with the landlord’s home nearby. (The landlord is a cyclist and understands our needs, and should provide a level of on-site security we might not enjoy at a more anonymous, industrial site.) There is a bathroom with shower and large hot water heater; plenty of power; two large barn doors for truck access and a regular door as well. There is plumbing available for the addition of a large sink. Outside is a large concrete pad suitable for washing equipment, plus a large, gravel parking lot ideal for laying out the truck transport set-up we need for the WCC, TT, etc. We could also store members’ cars here during club tours. Plans are in the works to modify our existing shelving systems and to add new ones once we move in.
Rent for this facility will be more than the total of the rents the club has been paying for all of its assorted storage lockers (which we will be giving up), but the net increase in costs is not too substantial, and the resulting improvement in all aspects of our materials handling and storage will make it money well spent.
To give club members an opportunity to inspect our new “home,” we are going to have an open house and party at the site as our New Years Day get-together. A set of ABC rides will stage out of nearby Coffey Park, and after the rides, we will cruise north to the barn to check things out and chow down on a spread of pot-luck munchies provided by the members. We will have someone with a car standing by at the start to collect pot-luck items. We plan to have the club’s big barbecue smokin’ as well. While the parking lot at the warehouse is big, it may not be big enough to handle all the cars generated by a big turn-out for the New Years ride, so we expect folks to park near the park/ride start and commute to the warehouse by bike. In the event that the rides are rained out, the open house will still be happening, and we hope most folks will find a way to keep the total volume of cars down in the warehouse lot. Carpooling would help.
The address is 4023 Coffey Lane, 1/4-mile past Dennis Lane on the left. Look for more information on the rides in the Ride List. This open house is an RSVP event, and we are making use of another of our new innovations to handle those reservations. See the item on page 7 about the experiment in on-line membership services we are working on: RSVP’s for this open house are being handled through that site. Make your reservations while browsing the site.
— Mike McGuire —
415 miles isn’t bad! 754 would have been better, but you take what you get and don’t feel bad about the outcome. My first try at Paris-Brest-Paris was a terrific partial success. I learned a lot, had a great time, and saw countryside and train stations I would not have seen if I had stayed home.
Being rather a novice at long-distance riding, and relatively new to cycling (coming over from running), I learned as much as I could in a short year before PBP, and then went forth! My rides around the North Bay, brevets here and there, and gathering what advice I could from riders and magazines gave me some confidence that the event was doable for a 62-year old rookie. It almost worked out.
As Donn King has said, it did rain a bit and wind did blow and the miles were long, but with an event that comes once in four years, you take what you get. As our 10:15 PM start time neared, the sky darkened and the feel of impending rain was strong in the air. Within minutes of rolling out, it started. I went to my bag for my rain pants. They proved to be cumbersome, a bit noisy, and probably unnecessary.
Somewhere along the way the rain stopped, off came the pants and on we went to the first controle, about 100 miles from the start, Mortagne Au Perche. Card stamped, food, adjustments, and back on the road. Controle time management was on my mind, but, still, 30 minutes got gobbled up. Thirty minutes here and there along the way, of course, adds up to time irretrievably lost. That was not to be my downfall, though.
Every ride has its quirks. My front derailleur would not keep the chain on the big ring. (Learn to make the adjustment. I had the bike worked on by a controle mechanic. 30 minutes.) The plastic cleats on my shoes would not clip into the pedal. (Check wear before departing home. I stopped at an excellent bike shop outside of Brest which had the same pedal setup and got a replacement. 30 minutes.) The sun came out. (Could not find my sun cream. Stopped at a pharmacy and bought some exotic cream. 20 minutes.) Rotten stomach. (Maybe a food and drink combination at the end of 600 km. Could not find Tums in my pack and could not burp up, throw up, or otherwise get rid of the bowling ball in my gut. Various stops probably totaling an hour.) And the clock keeps ticking.
I brought four complete sets of clothing. One to start. One in my bike bag. Two in a drop bag. Changing from wet clothes to dry clothes at a controle when it was still raining proved silly. I now had a soon-to-be-wet outfit and a heavy already-wet set to stuff into the bike bag.
I had other wet weather ideas. Wear plastic bags between my shoes and socks. Great idea if one’s feet don’t perspire. At a controle I poured out half cup of warm sweat water from each plastic bag, the socks were, of course, drenched. Another good idea (on a warm sunny day) is to wear loose fitting rubber gloves over my bicycle gloves to keep my hands warm and somewhat drier. Again, perspiration played a trick. The finger tips of the gloves filled with sweat and, while my fingers stayed warm enough, they nearly drowned. (The idea might work if the tips of the gloves were cut off to allow drainage.)
Don’t let these “learning opportunities” give an impression that I did not enjoy the ride. I certainly did. Just as Edison found 500 ideas that didn’t work before his light bulb became a success, I learned many things that will benefit me in 2011.
I finally sagged out about 50 km outside Brest on the return. The rain had stopped some time before. There was a bit of wind and lots of overcast. I found “a high windy moor,” put on some nice wool clothing, took out my Space Blanket, wrapped up and had a pretty good night’s sleep. (I called my wife to say “Good Night.” The phone reception was excellent.) At 7:30 I stretched, looked around, and was amazed to see a PBP rider passing my location. (I immediately felt terrible: here was a rider who struggled on through the night in true randonneur fashion, well past the close of the next controle, and I had wimped out by going to sleep.) The rider turned out to be from my hotel near Paris. She had slept in a ditch about 100 yards below my resting spot! We rode and took trains together for the next two days to get back to the start and our hotel. Our trip, after we had abandoned, was an adventure on its own. No one enters PBP to ride the train, but, one finds adventure where ever there is opportunity!
The distance from Santa Rosa, the expense, wet clothes, stomach ache, and back ache were an easy-to-bear cost to be part of such an experience as PBP. Only 46 month until 2011. I’ll probably learn some things between now and then.
—Greg Durbin
On Sunday, October 28, I took part in a fundraising ride for Team Swift. I went as a part of the club’s support of the organization. I arrived way too early and, as is all too common, Doug Simon was there, setting up tables and unloading edibles, and Lars and Danielle Norlund were registering riders.
The ride was a wonderful mix of Team Swift kids, I am guessing from 12-year olds on up, along with some of their parents and supporters. There was also a large number of members from Santa Rosa’s BMC professional team, including Gavin Chilcot and our own Wes Hoffschildt, who worked as a team wrench earlier this year. Steven Cozza, 22, of Slipstream/Chipotle, fresh off his first pro stage win at Vuelta a Chihuahua Internacional a couple of weeks ago, was a special guest pro, having started with Team Swift when he was 15. This may be old hat to many of you, but for me, was a first interactive exposure to pro racers, other than at the Tour of California.
The ride started at about 9:45 at a very slow place as we headed west past the airport, but gradually the pace picked up as we approached Eastside Road. I stayed at the back of the pack and after an unplanned pit stop, I caught up to Cozza and a group of eight or so just after the MacMurray Ranch. After awhile, he mentioned that we needed to catch up with the rest of the group and picked up the pace. Several of us followed, including Jim Keene. The pace kept getting turned up a notch and we would lose a rider every so often, as we rode along the rollers at speeds of between 25 and 30. My heart rate kept rising, too. We pace-lined along and I even pulled for a very short spell. While I was feeling pretty good, especially for the pace, I knew it wouldn’t be long before I’d be dropped.
Near Armida Winery I got split from the group by some vehicles but managed to catch back up to Steven and Jim and one other rider. My pulse was now between 182 and 186 (my max is 190.) The pace kept climbing and soon it was just Jim and me with Steven. As we approached West Dry Creek, Jim fell back and I was struggling mightily to hang on to Steven. I couldn’t quite close the gap to less than a bike length or two when we arrived at Madrona Manor, where we were regrouped with the pack that we had just worked so hard to catch. Steven was very gracious and said “Well, that was hard work!” (I doubt it was that hard for him) and “that was how it felt closing gaps in the European races.” It was only a couple of miles at most, but it was fun, if at times painful. It was as close as this 50-year old body will ever get to pro racing, without a doubt.
All along the course Veronkia Lenzi was in an SUV taking hundreds of pictures, which added to the pro feeling. Laura Charameda showed her skills as a coach and leader of all ages as she navigated the group through the course even if she wasn’t always at the front.
After the regroup, the riders took off at a brisk pace up west Dry Creek, not exactly in a formation that Martin would approve of, and I saw Wes was strategically up towards the front of the pack. The group split up after turning south on Dry Creek. My efforts earlier in the ride had taken their toll and I was back in the middle of the pack until another quick regroup at the Dry Creek Store. Another fast ride to the rest stop at Seghesio Winery followed, where we were greeted by Doug and a fully stocked rest stop, assisted by SRCCers Vicki Duggan and Tom Bahning. There were team photos after the food and drink, and then more testosterone-filled fun through Healdsburg, along Eastside Road and back to the start.
It was amazing to see how well some of the young teenagers rode, and how well coached they were, not only in cycling matters, but in gratitude, respect, teamwork, and following orders. All in all it was a blast to experience the joys of cycling with youth and pros while helping support Team Swift. Thanks to the SRCCers out there supporting the event. Congrats to Laura for such a nice event. She and the Team are a real asset and have a bright future.
We begin this month’s column as we so often do, with a correction of an item from a prior column, and as is so often the case, this is about someone left off a list of great deeds done. And we’ve overlooked him before. The list in question is club members who did Paris-Brest-Paris, and the person left off the list is Mark Gunther. Mark has been a member for years and years, but we tend to forget about him because he lives in San Francisco and we don’t see him too often. He didn’t bring this to our attention, by the way. Someone else did. But now that we know, we’re setting the record straight.
First up on our regular ride-go-round this month is Ken Russeff’s Pedaling to Cloverdale from October 20. Ken sent us a note about the day: “The AB ride from Healdsburg had a nice turnout of 27 riders. Starting with a little fog and more than a little wind, we ended up with a nice autumn day. At least two of us at the back of the pack had the pleasure of being passed by about 25-30 Porsches, obviously on a club run, on Dutcher Creek Road, turning off mid-way to what, I assume, was somebody’s home with a very big driveway/parking lot. The two known flats were the least of the day’s problems as the rest room facilities at Grapes and Grounds were out of commission. We were directed to Papa’s Pizza Café, a block away, and what gracious people. A huge thank you to Papa’s for saving the day; well, at least our bladders. Our perfect ending was a tailwind home.”
The next day Janice Oakley listed the obligatory Ida Clayton in the Fall ride, with a BC tempo. I did this one and it was a nearly perfect day. I joined the ride en route—on Franz Valley—where the group was already strung out from the early climbs, so I never got a solid count on how many people were there. Janice had thrown a nice little wrinkle in the route by turning right on Franz Valley School and heading over to Calistoga. Most in the group did this, but a handful chose to stay on Franz Valley and proceed directly to Ida Clayton, lopping off quite a few miles. This further splintered the group, as these folks had been up to the top of Ida and were heading back down while the rest of us were still toiling up the hill. Then too some only went to the first flat after the main climb, while most carried on to the summit. One way or another, I would guess we had at least 30 riders out there enjoying the lovely fall colors, and at least half of them were still together for a nice pace line through Knights Valley after the ups and downs of Ida Clayton. By the way, I recently learned who Ida Clayton was, thanks to a book of local history loaned to me by Randall Ray. She was the first school teacher in Alexander Valley.
One week later, Cynthia Spigarelli listed a classic Chileno Valley loop out of Petaluma. There was a very good crowd for this ride gathered together at Walnut Park, trying to get warm on a crisp autumn morning. A few C riders were mixed in with the A’s and B’s, but all who showed up were prepared to ride at a tempo appropriate for the AB listing. No wild and crazy behavior...just a delightful cruise out through that pastoral valley, with a break at the Tomales Bakery (as usual, filled to capacity with riders from all over the region). We worked back to the Chicken City by way of Fallon-Two Rock and Spring Hill Roads...more lumpy little rollers through cow country, with the meadows sporting their first fuzz of winter green.
The next day and far away, Wayne Kellam was offering folks a crack at Pope Valley. (Isn’t this a great area? Chileno Valley on Saturday and Pope Valley on Sunday...an embarrassment of riches.) Wayne sent in a report on the ride: “My October 28th Pope Valley loop was a great ride. We had a cool and sunny day. The group mostly hung together until a flat on the wonderful Howell Mountain descent pulled us apart. We got free PBJ sandwiches from a group of “Lunatics” who were supporting their breast cancer ride at a spot 50 yards from the Pope Valley store. The store has changed. The unfriendly man who owned it died recently. The woman running the store was friendly. But...the rest room was worse than it ever was before. The men’s was blocked by a new refrigerration unit and the women’s toilet was full, but not working. I just peeked in, and decided I could hold it. After the ride, we had lunch at Taylor’s Refresher, the best hamburger stand I’ve ever been to, at the south end of St Helena. Have you ever heard of a hamburger stand with a beer and wine bar?”
The next weekend (the first weekend in November), Randall Ray listed one of his Dry Creek Valley time trials. He reports: “We had 16 riders out for the time trial, and Kimberly ran the clock while I spotted. (I ran the course afterwards.) About half of us were clubbers and the other half were time trial regulars. (We’ve been running the unofficial, unsanctioned event since May. It was every Friday night at 6:00 PM until we ran out of light. The fall/winter format is the first and third Saturday each month, consisting of a conversational 10.9 mile course preview ride at 9:00 AM, followed by the TT at 10.) The weather was just about perfect; nice and sunny with a slight breeze. Releasing the riders slowest to fastest, one minute apart, they usually come in pretty bunched up. Today was more of a steady stream of riders fairly evenly staggered. The finishing times support this impression, as almost everyone came in with very similar elapsed times. One great thing with this format of riding is you always have a rider up the road and down the road to pace you. It’s really quite different from riding alone or in a pack. After the event, a small bunch of riders put in some more miles, some heading back to SR and others riding the first part of a loop along with them. Thanks to all for coming out! Hope to see you again.”
Not missing a beat, Wayne Kellam was back in the saddle one week after his Pope Valley ride. On Sunday, November 4, he and I—Mr Bill—were co-leading our annual pilgrimage to the top of Mama Tam, down in Marin. Wayne reports: “The Mount Tam ride was perfect. I can’t remember ever being rained out even though we do it in early November. The climbs strung the ride out, but I think everybody had someone to ride with. I was really tired at the end from all the climbing. I felt like I had really done something challenging. I met some new riders, too.” Last year, I was amazed to see something like 75-80 riders at the start of this ride. This year was back to more what we expect: about 20 each on Wayne’s B ride and my C ride. The difference between the two routes is that the B group goes to the summit, then retraces the route to Fairfax, while the C group heads over the other side of the mountain, down to Mill Valley, and back to Fairfax by a circuitous route that visits several different towns and a lot of semi-empty back country. But you know what? Although the C route is almost twice as long, I think the B route has more climbing. Think about all those rockin’ descents in the middle of the run up to the mountain. There are at least three of them and they’re substantial. Those all turn into climbs on the weary way back. Wayne had cause to be tired. The balance of the C route, with all its meandering miles, hardly does any climbing at all. Just a few little bumps here and there. Whichever way you slice it, this is always a fabulous ride, and Wayne is right: we’ve never been rained on, even though we always do this in November. If you’ve never ridden from Fairfax to the summit of Tam...up past the dam and along Ridgecrest, etc...and if you think you can handle the climbing, then you really owe it to yourself to do this ride. I call it a pilgrimage and I mean that quite literally. It is a visit to a holy place...a very special, wonderful world.
On the same day, Ken Russeff had another ride listed, a bit closer to home. The was his November Noodling ride out of the Finley Center. “Our A ride had 17 cyclists with mostly B riders (always welcome) on our route to Café Noto in Windsor. Everything was routine. Great weather for 37 miles of beautiful Sonoma County. And, the restroom was in perfect operating condition.”
That brings us back around to the Second Saturday rides. This month, there isn’t much to report about the rides. They were rained out. It wasn’t pouring, but a fine, persistent drizzle had the world all wet right from the top of the morning on...no question it was a rain-check. The various SS rides included among them our designated century of the month, so with that washed out, no one got a shot at an official “green” century for November.
Those rained-out rides were the only ones scheduled on this weekend, as Sunday was dedicated to our semi-annual litter pick-up project, this time focused on the ten miles of Chalk Hill Road. We like to see about 40 bodies out there for this task, but this time around only 30 showed up, so everybody had a little bit longer stretch of road to buff up. I normally show up for these efforts, but I was one of those who was not there this time around. On the one hand, I feel a little guilty about that, but on the other hand, with over 600 club members, it shouldn’t always be the same 30 or 40 die-hard volunteers who show up every time. All of us should be able to skip one of these days now and then, knowing that others will fill in. Let’s make that big, gaudy number—600 members—really mean something; let’s see all the members doing a little bit each so that a few members don’t end up doing it all. Anyway...coordinator Richard Stone reports that the job got done and that a huge amount of trash was hauled off to the dump, and furthermore that several residents along the road let him know how much they appreaciated the efforts. Those worthies who did show up for the project were rewarded for their good deed with a nice lunch at Johnny Garlics afterward, compliments of the club.
We can just squeeze in a few words about riding on the weekend of November 17-18, specifically about Sue Bennett’s ride. Sue reports: “Although the day started out a bit foggy, 16 riders (three new) came out for the Twin Hills Holiday ride. About a mile into the ride Rose had a flat from a nail in her tire. With that jinx fulfilled, the rest of the day was great. Arriving at the Twin Hills Apple Ranch, we discovered that although they were open, their holiday celebration (coffee, cider, fresh pie, etc) does not begin until after Thanksgiving. Oh well. After a quick descent along Elphick, about half the group decided to stop at Coffee Catz as the return route was on the Joe Rodota Trail. Everyone had a fun ride and many looked forward to Rose’s ride the next day.”
But a report on Rose’s ride on Sunday and also on Steve Drucker’s Two Rocks ride on Saturday will have to wait for next month, as we have run out of space. We only have enough lines left here to extend to each and every one of you the very best holiday salutations: may you personally have a happy holiday and may your new year be filled with good health and good fortune, and may the world’s new year be a bit more peaceful and prosperous for all.
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