NorCal: Traversed
310 views
Skip to first unread message
Charlie Martin
May 26, 2022, 4:15:15 PM5/26/22
to SF Randonneurs, Achilli, Andrea - (achilli), Sourav Das, Florian Schneider
A week ago I set off to Arcata with Sourav Das and Florian Schneider to take a stab at one of the few remaining uncompleted SR600 routes in the US: the NorCal Traverse. Below you'll find my ride report, which is nearly a direct copy/paste from my Strava activity. I've linked additional media, including contributions from Sourav and Florian. We met a contributing editor for the Sacramento Valley Mirror halfway through the ride, and I understand something may appear in their paper before long. I also took lots of video clips that I have the option of spending a bunch of time editing into something neat, but likely won't.
You can learn about the history of the route and the original attempt on this old SFR thread, and I'd encourage you to do so: https://groups.google.com/g/sfrandon/c/4Cb_yZXDE6g
I should emphasize that the original route was substantially harder than the one we rode, plus the time limit was a mere 51 hours compared to our 60. Seriously, go read Max's brief report in that thread! 7 bottles for less than 50 miles? Yeah you bet I was plenty nervous heading into this ride! Kudos and thanks again to Andrea, Mark, and Max.
Control photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/zGmicGdrEkZYtc1U8
All ride photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/UjQRjg2Gouhc7jFB9
Sourav: http://www.strava.com/activities/7192835723
Florian day 1: https://www.strava.com/activities/7187313680
Florian day 2: https://www.strava.com/activities/7187302811
Florian day 3: https://www.strava.com/activities/7187287131
Charlie: https://www.strava.com/activities/7201803707
Enjoy!
Charlie
------------------------
Epic mixed terrain SR600 route created by Andrea Achilli and refined by fire by Andrea, Max Poletto, and someone who goes by "Mark". Rode with Florian Schneider and Sourav Das. This ride was a long, long time coming, on my radar since late 2019. There's a narrow window of opportunity to ride this, balanced between snow on Mendocino Pass and overwhelming heat in Central Valley. The remoteness and point-to-point logistics create extra challenges. It was extremely helpful to have riding companions to assist with the logistics, and a team of riders back in 2016 to provide some invaluable reconnaissance.
*** Table of contents ***
* Protagonists *
* History of the NorCal Traverse *
* Start/end logistics *
* Ride report *
- Day 1
- Day 2
- Day 3, part 1
- Day 3, part 2
*** Protagonists ***
Protagonists:
Sourav Das: Gunnar Crosshairs Cyclocross. Front 32mm Panaracer Pasela, rear 32mm Continental Gatorskin.
Charlie Martin: Black Mountain Cycles Road V3. 32mm Panaracer GravelKing slicks.
Florian Schneider: Ritchey Breakaway Road. 27mm Ritchey WCS Tom Slicks.
Doug Ross (deuteragonist): Some sort of beach cruiser?
Each protagonist used a steel bike, rim brakes, and tubes.
*** History of the NorCal Traverse ***
There has only been one other attempt of this SR600 permanent, and it was a grim but epic story. It's linked in the intro and you should read it before proceeding!
This ride has been on my radar since late 2019. I initially had plans to bike to the start from Sunnyvale, do the ride, and then bike back to Sunnyvale from Truckee. However I was completely inexperienced with gravel riding, and once I learned there was 70 miles worth of unpaved roads, I decided I needed better preparation.
I had steeled myself to do the ride by mid-2020, but then the Covid pandemic shut everything down and RUSA itself had shut down indefinitely. Rampant wildfires in California suggested it'd be a bad idea regardless.
I tried again in 2021, and had registered for the ride with Florian and another friend. Unfortunately a record heat wave swept through Central Valley on the scheduled ride dates and made this an awful and dangerous idea. With too much other riding going on, I didn't have the bandwidth to reschedule this, and for all practical purposes it was too late in the year anyway.
The next scheduled ride date was May 13, 2022. Unfortunately a storm blew through leading up to the ride and dumped over 20 inches of snow over Mendocino Pass, making it impassable. Lesson learned: when you're hoping to luck out on the weather, don't schedule your ride for Friday the 13th! Temperatures rose considerably over the following week, and we were confident that the snow would melt away in time for an updated ride date of May 20. At long last, we found the narrow window when we could attempt this epic course!
*** Start/end logistics ***
Point-to-point rides are difficult, because even if you drive to the start you still need to find your way back after the finish. Whatever you take with you, the expectation is you'll be carrying it in your belly or on your bike the entire trip (though that turned out not to be the case for my long-fingered gloves). We had hoped to use Amtrak to get to/from the ride, but we were disappointed by the options available. On both the way to Arcata and the way back from Truckee, there would be connecting buses required, and it was unclear that bikes could be safely transported, if at all. Better options existed if you booked way in advance, but the conditions are too finicky on this route for that. Eventually we decided to book a one-way Hertz rental to Eureka and bike the remaining distance to the Arcata start. On the way back from Truckee we would stay at a friend's cabin in Tahoe and get another one-way Budget rental from South Lake Tahoe back to San Jose.
On Thursday 5/19 (the eve of the ride) we arrived in Eureka in our rental vehicle, set up our bikes, and set off for a 13-mile commute to our staging hotel in Arcata. I got the first mechanical problem, a mere negative 8 miles into the SR600. A thick wire on a debris-filled bridge pierced my rear tire. Sourav eventually noticed my absence and circled back to speed up my fix. This set me back to only 5 spare tubes (I was worried about pinch flats), but at least this tube should be patchable if necessary.
Florian got the next mechanical issue, and his was more severe in nature. A spoke broke on his rear wheel, and he needed to open up his rear brakes in order to compensate. That just wouldn't do for the ride we had planned, so he searched around for a bike shop and found one that closed at 6pm. It was already past 5pm, but he made it to the shop and had his spoke fixed 5 minutes before the shop closed. Whew! Fortunately that was his only spoke failure, and his wheel would hold true for the remainder of the ride.
*** Ride report ***
* Day 1 *
It was difficult to nail down a starting time because we never came up with a solid game plan for day 2's overnight logistics and time estimates for where/when we'd be throughout the route. I wanted to descend Mendocino Pass / Alder Springs during daylight but also get ahead of as much Central Valley heat as possible. I also didn't want to burn a bunch of time at the first overnight, because I have a lot of respect for this course and wanted to retain as much time buffer as possible. Eventually we started at 05:13 in honor of the originally scheduled ride date. There was no monument at the center of Arcata Plaza to take a picture of, so we crossed our fingers and hoped that Andrea wouldn't disqualify us outright.
Some brief commuting brought us to the first major road of the ride: Kneeland Rd. It's a very respectable sustained climb with smooth pavement and some steep pitches thrown in. In the freezing temperatures (Sourav recorded 29°F) it was quite pleasant to be climbing a hill. Shortly into the climb I had warmed up enough to warrant removing my long-fingered gloves, however due to all the food I was carrying I didn't have a proper place to stash them. I set them on my handlebars while I worked on transferring bananas from my vest pocket into my belly to make space. Somewhere along the way I forgot about my gloves entirely, and it wasn't until a good deal up the climb that I realized I no longer had them. Drat! In another setting I might descend however far I needed in order to find them, but who knows when I'd catch back up to the group. As long as the temperatures didn't dip too far below freezing I figured it'd be fine. Plus this freed up some packing space, which certainly came at a premium! Oh well, goodbye, gloves.
After some cathartic climbing we reached the Kneeland School control, where a cue indicated we could also find water. Instead we found a locked gate. Since services at Kettenpom were a good deal away, Florian wanted to top off his bottle. A vehicle pulled up while he contemplated climbing the fence, and a school official unlocked the gate and directed Florian toward their one public faucet. There's absolutely no way we would have found it on our own. (For future folks, you travel up a grassy hill from the gate and then find the faucet on the east side of another fence that runs between the school building and a field.)
We began the Kneeland descent, and Florian promptly lost a banana Mario-Kart-style, which I expertly avoided. Collectively we were now down 2 gloves and 1 banana, for those keeping score. The remainder of Kneeland Rd included 20 miles of unpaved riding. I'm a gravel noob, and after years of preparation and hand-wringing I was rewarded with the most pleasant and scenic dirt riding I could imagine. If this was what the rest of the ride would be like, then heck, sign me up for more! We stopped midway through the gravel section to change layers and apply sunscreen. Sourav shared some chocolate he'd brought, I assume as a sort of positive reinforcement for my gravel experience.
Bridgeville greeted us at the end of Kneeland, and true to its name, 2 bridges awaited us when we arrived. We took the one marked on our cues, but not before checking out the other one that a couple motorcyclists were also enjoying. Bridgeville had captured my curiosity ever since I'd learned about it from a road sign not very long ago, and I had conjured up all sorts of images of a magical side-scrolling Mario world with bridges going every which way. It was sort of like that, just with 2 bridges and in 3 dimensions.
From Bridgeville we started up the Alderpoint Rd climb, where shortly in we stopped for some gourmet food preparation. Sourav had been carrying around a package of bagels and a container of cream cheese, and he was eager to be rid of it. I don't blame him! The sun beat down on us as we continued up some steep and exposed sections of Alderpoint Rd. Eventually I wanted to stop for another layer change and sunscreen application, and we found a nice intersection to do so. We had cell reception in this area, and at 1:46pm Sourav was the first to discover some extremely unsettling news. "Metin Uz died." What? Those words do not go together. We were dumbfounded by the surreal news and sat on the ground to process it in silence. I had a flood of text messages and emails, but no mental or keyboard bandwidth to do anything useful. I responded to some of the more urgent messages and then put my phone back into airplane mode. There was just no way to process that news, and after some time we decided we needed to keep moving. Pedaling proved the most effective way to reflect and process the information, but Metin's loss would continue to sting for the remainder of the ride and the subsequent trip home. Rest in peace, Metin.
Alderpoint Rd took us to Zenia Bluff Rd, and that took us to the Kettenpom Store control. This provided the only substantial food/water services for day 1. After we stopped here we knew we were golden until Covelo. I drank a liter of orange juice, half a liter of Coke, and refilled 1.5 liters of water. Some domesticated animals lounged around or eyed us curiously. The locals took keen interest in our ride, and we took keen interest in the gas prices that had mysteriously dropped around 25¢ from where we had dropped off the car rental in Eureka.
The remainder of the day's route promised us another 20-mile unpaved section on Mina Rd that would take us into the Covelo overnight. I got my hopes up for something akin to the unpaved Kneeland Rd section, but alas. Where the road was paved it was riddled with potholes, and where we finally got gravel it was comparatively steep, loose, and mildly technical. It was hard to argue with the views though! The sun set as we crested the final gravel climb. I wasn't wild about descending any amount of gravel in the dark, but fine, apparently that's what we're doing. We all made it down safely and in good spirits even without another positive reinforcement chocolate stop. We grabbed dinner and breakfast at Keith's Market IGA in Covelo before heading to Golden Oaks Motel for our overnight. We agreed to wake up at 3am for a 4am rollout.
* Day 2 *
My backup alarm went off at 3:30am, as did Florian's. Apparently after agreeing on 3am we had both set backup alarms, assuming someone else would set the main alarm. Whoops. Oh well, it's not like we had put much thought into a 4am rollout anyway. We took our time getting ready and rolled out at 4:48am. The temperature was in the upper-30's°F and continued to drop. Some long-fingered gloves sure would be nice, but at least we had a ton of climbing to start out the day and keep us warm until the sun came out to play. While regrouping on part of the prelude climb, I tripped over my bike and snapped a headlight mount. It wouldn't really affect the ride since I had 2 backup headlights, but I did rather like that light.
We took our control photo at Eel River Station, marking the beginning of the Mendocino Pass / Alder Springs climb. Ahead of us rose a 17-mile, 5,000' gravel climb followed by a 13-mile gravel descent and then some remaining paved descent into Central Valley. In a course with several noteworthy sections, this is the highlight. At this point Sourav continued on at a wise 200-climby-miles-to-go pace, while Florian and I prepared for a YOLO KOM effort. It had to be done. Strava noted only 12 total attempts by 10 people, and the top time was 2 hours 45 minutes at 6.1 MPH. Seemingly nobody had ever put in a threshold effort on this hill. Unless the gravel was surprisingly technical, muddy from snow melt, or just plain covered with snow, an efficient effort to the top should suffice.
Florian and I set off for the top, targeting a fixed 7 MPH as our lower bound. It felt easy, but that's exactly how it should feel at the start of a multi-hour climb. Florian also used a 120-130 BPM heart rate heuristic, which meant with my inferior fitness I should expect to increasingly suffer throughout the climb. That's fine. I was prepared for any sub-threshold effort, whatever the cost may be to the rest of the ride. For the most part, the road was very wide and the gravel fairly mild. We had the road practically to ourselves, seeing a total of 3 vehicles during that 17-mile stretch. I made regular check-ins about Florian's heart rate, and Florian was diligent about picking up the pace whenever the gradient dropped. The intensity was reasonable overall, and it allowed us to enjoy the scenic climb while carrying out a reasonably unlabored conversation. I admit I still suffered toward the top! I was excited to see snow as we neared the top of the pass. There had been over 20 inches last week, and I thought perhaps all of it would be gone by now. There was enough to create muddy streams across the road here and there, but not enough to prevent passage or even make things particularly difficult.
Florian and I had shaved about half an hour off the KOM, and we estimated we had about an hour to recover before we'd see Sourav. I wanted to have a snowman ready to greet Sourav, and Florian had the idea of decorating it with a couple bananas he had brought up with him. Unfortunately this snow had hardened too much and I couldn't even reasonably carve out blocks of it with the flimsy twigs that littered the side of the road. Well if I can't build a snowman, the next most useful thing to do is to catch up on sleep! I put on all my layers and took a nice nap in the sun until Sourav arrived. Meanwhile the sun continued to rise and warm up the pass.
Sourav arrived, and the 3 of us prepared for the long bumpy descent ahead. Before we got to it, we had to contend with a few walls of snow blocking our path. We were able to ride around most of them, but one of them required walking our bikes through the middle of it. Now this was officially a proper adventure! Most of the descent was agreeable, but there were frequent washboard sections that I didn't particularly appreciate. I had made a custom cue for the end of the gravel section and was counting down the tenths of miles. Finally we reached pavement, and I was ecstatic to have survived all the unpaved sections of the route, which to me was by far the largest and most nebulous hurdle of the ride. The remaining descent down Alder Springs Rd was smooth and sweeping, and eventually the surrounding trees opened up to a gorgeous view of Central Valley. The road continued at 162 E, but before that I had the group stop to take a photo at km #296 of the ride, which marked my K-Hound for this year. I hadn't planned this spot at all (remember I wanted to do this ride last week!) and the scenery was perfect for it.
We continued on 162 E, which would take us to Willows. Apart from a small climb, nothing remained by a very gradual descent down into Central Valley. I logged a temperature of 97°F on that one climb, and temperatures in the low-mid 90's°F were typical for the remainder of the afternoon. Sourav and I rode together at a slow survival pace and arrived at the Willows ARCO control around 2pm, ready for some recovery.
While hanging out at the control, a man with a beach cruiser walked up and greeted us: "Mind if I join you?" He introduced himself as Doug Ross, and he worked with the Sacramento Valley Mirror. I could guess exactly what he must be thinking: "Three cyclists are riding through Willows, CA. There's a story here, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it!" Yes, there certainly was something strange going on, for those perceptive enough to take notice. And if there's anyone who's up to the task of uncovering the whole scoop here, it's Doug. Following in the footsteps of Tim Crews, Doug is the type who will leave no stone unturned, even if he's dealing with 70 miles of gravel. He collected a photo of us, and we offered up anecdotes and photos from earlier in the ride. I collected his contact info so I could provide auxiliary information about randonneuring, RUSA, SR600's, and the NorCal Traverse route. He would surely discover all this on his own, but I may as well save him some time. There are other important things to investigate after all, albeit not as important as this. As thanks, Doug produced a recent copy of the Sacramento Valley Mirror and personally autographed it for me. Cool! I preserved it as carefully as I could for the remainder of the ride, which meant folding it up and stuffing it into my touring saddle bag. Doug eventually set off East from the ARCO, perhaps already en route to verify some facts (e.g. was there really a town called "Gridley" in that direction?). The rest of us finished loading up on food and cold beverages before continuing our own journey east across California.
Next we had to find our way to Gridley. Possibly like Doug, we had only heard of its existence, but we had not seen it with our own eyes and felt the heat with our own skin. Aside from all the gravel, this was the stretch of the route that I had the most respect for. The climbing was nonexistent, but the Central Valley heat could easily end any of our rides if it so desired. If we could just get through this portion, the rest of the ride was a solved problem in my estimation. A collection of side roads diverted us from the busy 162 E, and Sourav and I continued together at a conservative survival pace. Along the way, we regrouped with Florian and did some planning that had been a long time coming. Where should our overnight be? One option would be to stop in Gridley where there were services and lodging options, and which would allow us to recover from the heat and start leg 3 of the ride on a full tank. The other options were to continue to Camptonville, Fiddle Creek Campground, or Downieville, which would give us a more manageable leg 3 at the cost of uncertain services and lodging options. We navigated our differing goals and preferences, and agreed that we'd buffer a bunch of food at Gridley and then see how we were doing once we got to Camptonville.
The side roads to Gridley weren't in the best condition, but there was no traffic and we had plenty of room to maneuver. If Doug had gone this way, I don't imagine he'd have had much difficulty on his cruiser. We arrived in Gridley around 6pm and found a Safeway where we could restock and eat dinner. I got a quart of chocolate milk, a 2-liter of Coke (which I didn't touch), and a couple packets of gummy bears. It was difficult to find a shaded spot to sit, so the sun continued punishing me during my otherwise restful time off the bike. Fortunately it was nearly bedtime for the sun, and by the time it'd wake we'd be well into the Sierra Nevada mountains where it should be nice and cool.
The sun dropped and the temperature cooled as we headed toward the mountains through another grab bag of roads. The terrain started to become rolling, and eventually we got to Marysville Rd where we'd make a definitive ascent out of the valley. Hooray! Or maybe not. Though the sun had gone to bed by now, lots of drivers had not, and several of them were quite rude on this stretch. Despite our best efforts to ride safely and stay out of the way (there was a rumble strip in place of whatever shoulder we could have enjoyed), several drivers helpfully kibitzed that we should not be on the road. I hope Doug didn't experience these drivers, though most likely he puts up with far worse in his daily quest to uncover truth, however unpleasant it may be. The traffic died down around 10pm, which I suspect was a combination of people going to bed, but also most people having reached their residence by the time they had gotten to such a remote distance along the road. Marysville became a peaceful ride on pleasant pavement, illuminated by a waning gibbous moon in a clear, starry sky.
We regrouped for photos at the Bullards Bar Reservoir control before finishing out the last of Marysville Rd. From there we continued on 49 N, which was one of the few remaining navigational cues for the whole ride. We arrived at Camptonville around 12:20am and found the USPS where we suspected we might be able to hang out for a few hours of rest. It looked fairly closed, but in fact the front door was unlocked and led us to a large heated lobby where people could access their PO boxes. It had sufficient room for 3 bikes and their riders, sealing this as the clear cut winner for choice of overnight. It even had vacant electrical outlets, a trash can, and a small community library! We agreed to wake up at 3am, and this time I set my alarm for 3am. I figured Doug was probably wondering how we were doing, so I sent him a quick update before putting away my phone and leaning my head back against my cushy saddle bag.
* Day 3, part 1 *
I got restless after a few hours, with the room not feeling nearly as warm as when we had entered (it was though). I was half-awake when my 3am alarm went off, and plenty eager to get moving. We rolled out at 3:30am, making this a very efficient overnight. I was happy to have the buffer, and now I was confident we'd make the 60-hour time cutoff without any anxiety. Yep, no anxiety at all…
When we rolled past Fiddle Creek Campground I was glad we had not used it as our overnight spot. It was below 40°F, and I was once again quite aware of the absence of my long-fingered gloves. We reached Downieville before 6am, and as expected, no services were open. However Florian found a 24-hour laundromat with a sink! We hadn't had a water opportunity since Gridley, and this final water refill had been the last remaining logistical question of the ride. We made extensive use of this laundromat sink. I washed my hands, topped off my bottles, and brushed my teeth. While waiting to regroup, I figured I may as well clean my frame and brake pads while I was at it. I considered giving my drivetrain a proper cleaning while I was at it, but with only 100K remaining, surely I needn't bother with any drivetrain concerns until the end of the ride. Yep, no drivetrain concerns at all…
Florian and I went ahead of Sourav to Bassetts, where we expected we might find services. We arrived at the Bassetts Station cafe and store before its official opening time of 8am, but when I pulled my bike up to the door someone unlocked it for me. With sufficient time on the clock and nothing that would go wrong with so little remaining in the ride, I settled in for a leisurely breakfast. Somehow every item on the menu was my favorite. I ordered an omelet for myself and requested another entree for Sourav, to be ready in another 15 minutes. Florian and I enjoyed endless cups of coffee while we waited. Sourav received his meal as soon as he arrived, and he downed several cups of coffee himself.
After a whopping 1 hour and 45 minutes off the bike, we continued on toward Yuba Pass, our penultimate control for the route. At roughly the same elevation as Mendocino Pass, we saw plenty of snow as we approached the top of the pass. With 31.5 miles and a bunch of descent ahead of us, was there anything to do besides stroll into the finish? Yes.
* Day 3, part 2 *
The descent from Yuba Pass was beautiful and had lots of fun twisty sections. It flattened out at the bottom, and the trees cleared away to reveal a huge expanse with mountains in the distance. I stopped for one final application of sunscreen and sent Florian and Sourav ahead. Sierraville marked the end of our stay on Highway 49, and from here Highway 89 would take us nearly the whole way to the finish.
21.5 miles and 1,981' of elevation gain before the end of the ride, my chain suddenly started squirming laterally and my rear derailleur refused to shift up. A brief inspection revealed the chain had come off the tension pulley. After reseating it, the chain would come off again after just a bit of pedaling. I considered a pattern of pedaling a bit and reseating the chain, but unfortunately the shoulder on 89 was nonexistent and there was heavy traffic that made it impractical to continually leave and re-enter the road to muck with the drivetrain. I tried swapping my front and rear derailleur batteries and lubing the chain just in case, but those didn't help either.
I got off the bike and pushed it uphill while I brainstormed solutions. I had a little upwards of 5 hours to complete the ride, and a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggested that a combination of walking uphill and coasting downhill might get me in before the 60-hour SR600 time limit. My feet don't like being detached from pedals though, and before long my calves were aching. Plus it was slow and awkward pushing my bike up the sandy shoulder.
Eventually I made the connection that if I shifted to a smaller cog, I would be able to make substantially more progress on the bike for the same distance of chain travel along the tension pulley. Shifting into the large chainring was a no-go, because it looked like it would seize and rip the rear derailleur off when it failed. The smaller-cog strategy was a definite improvement, but frequent stops to adjust the chain were just too impractical. I also noticed however, that my chain was now only partly off the tension pulley rather than completely off. If I pedaled smoothly and didn't shift, I could still make uphill progress at the cost of extra power and sad noises coming from my drivetrain.
Finally I crested a climb and found Florian and Sourav waiting for me at the top. I explained the situation, and initially declined the suggestion of a single-speed conversion (which would definitely work!) until we had exhausted other avenues. This was a brand-new chain before the ride and I intended to use it for upcoming rides if at all possible. We removed my tension pulley to take a closer look, and discovered that it was actively coming apart. Some of the steel balls in the bearing were missing, and one of the balls was wedged between the bearing and the outer plate. Um, not good. But it was somewhat reassuring to know where the problem was! We pushed the one ball back into place and reinstalled the pulley to see how that went.
I informed Sourav and Florian that I would go on ahead and wait for them at the finish if I got there at all. If my drivetrain catastrophically failed, I wanted as large a time buffer as possible to be able to walk the remaining distance. Unfortunately the half-bearing reverted back to its broken state, so I continued my strategy of single-speeding in a small cog. The rolling terrain was helpful, allowing me to shave off easy miles by coasting on the downhills. About a mile from the end, I experienced the catastrophic drivetrain failure I had been dreading. Each pedal stroke resulted in violently propelling the chain laterally, including into my spokes. The outer ring of the tension pulley's bearing cage had shredded and was protruding from an outer plate in a way that now actively interfered with my chain. Pedaling was no longer an option. I coasted what I could, and I walked the remaining quarter-mile to the finish control just in time for Florian and Sourav to roll in with me. We arrived at the Truckee Station finish control at 1:53pm, for a Charly Miller elapsed time of 56:40.
You can learn about the history of the route and the original attempt on this old SFR thread, and I'd encourage you to do so: https://groups.google.com/g/sfrandon/c/4Cb_yZXDE6g
I should emphasize that the original route was substantially harder than the one we rode, plus the time limit was a mere 51 hours compared to our 60. Seriously, go read Max's brief report in that thread! 7 bottles for less than 50 miles? Yeah you bet I was plenty nervous heading into this ride! Kudos and thanks again to Andrea, Mark, and Max.
Control photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/zGmicGdrEkZYtc1U8
All ride photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/UjQRjg2Gouhc7jFB9
Sourav: http://www.strava.com/activities/7192835723
Florian day 1: https://www.strava.com/activities/7187313680
Florian day 2: https://www.strava.com/activities/7187302811
Florian day 3: https://www.strava.com/activities/7187287131
Charlie: https://www.strava.com/activities/7201803707
Enjoy!
Charlie
------------------------
Epic mixed terrain SR600 route created by Andrea Achilli and refined by fire by Andrea, Max Poletto, and someone who goes by "Mark". Rode with Florian Schneider and Sourav Das. This ride was a long, long time coming, on my radar since late 2019. There's a narrow window of opportunity to ride this, balanced between snow on Mendocino Pass and overwhelming heat in Central Valley. The remoteness and point-to-point logistics create extra challenges. It was extremely helpful to have riding companions to assist with the logistics, and a team of riders back in 2016 to provide some invaluable reconnaissance.
*** Table of contents ***
* Protagonists *
* History of the NorCal Traverse *
* Start/end logistics *
* Ride report *
- Day 1
- Day 2
- Day 3, part 1
- Day 3, part 2
*** Protagonists ***
Protagonists:
Sourav Das: Gunnar Crosshairs Cyclocross. Front 32mm Panaracer Pasela, rear 32mm Continental Gatorskin.
Charlie Martin: Black Mountain Cycles Road V3. 32mm Panaracer GravelKing slicks.
Florian Schneider: Ritchey Breakaway Road. 27mm Ritchey WCS Tom Slicks.
Doug Ross (deuteragonist): Some sort of beach cruiser?
Each protagonist used a steel bike, rim brakes, and tubes.
*** History of the NorCal Traverse ***
There has only been one other attempt of this SR600 permanent, and it was a grim but epic story. It's linked in the intro and you should read it before proceeding!
This ride has been on my radar since late 2019. I initially had plans to bike to the start from Sunnyvale, do the ride, and then bike back to Sunnyvale from Truckee. However I was completely inexperienced with gravel riding, and once I learned there was 70 miles worth of unpaved roads, I decided I needed better preparation.
I had steeled myself to do the ride by mid-2020, but then the Covid pandemic shut everything down and RUSA itself had shut down indefinitely. Rampant wildfires in California suggested it'd be a bad idea regardless.
I tried again in 2021, and had registered for the ride with Florian and another friend. Unfortunately a record heat wave swept through Central Valley on the scheduled ride dates and made this an awful and dangerous idea. With too much other riding going on, I didn't have the bandwidth to reschedule this, and for all practical purposes it was too late in the year anyway.
The next scheduled ride date was May 13, 2022. Unfortunately a storm blew through leading up to the ride and dumped over 20 inches of snow over Mendocino Pass, making it impassable. Lesson learned: when you're hoping to luck out on the weather, don't schedule your ride for Friday the 13th! Temperatures rose considerably over the following week, and we were confident that the snow would melt away in time for an updated ride date of May 20. At long last, we found the narrow window when we could attempt this epic course!
*** Start/end logistics ***
Point-to-point rides are difficult, because even if you drive to the start you still need to find your way back after the finish. Whatever you take with you, the expectation is you'll be carrying it in your belly or on your bike the entire trip (though that turned out not to be the case for my long-fingered gloves). We had hoped to use Amtrak to get to/from the ride, but we were disappointed by the options available. On both the way to Arcata and the way back from Truckee, there would be connecting buses required, and it was unclear that bikes could be safely transported, if at all. Better options existed if you booked way in advance, but the conditions are too finicky on this route for that. Eventually we decided to book a one-way Hertz rental to Eureka and bike the remaining distance to the Arcata start. On the way back from Truckee we would stay at a friend's cabin in Tahoe and get another one-way Budget rental from South Lake Tahoe back to San Jose.
On Thursday 5/19 (the eve of the ride) we arrived in Eureka in our rental vehicle, set up our bikes, and set off for a 13-mile commute to our staging hotel in Arcata. I got the first mechanical problem, a mere negative 8 miles into the SR600. A thick wire on a debris-filled bridge pierced my rear tire. Sourav eventually noticed my absence and circled back to speed up my fix. This set me back to only 5 spare tubes (I was worried about pinch flats), but at least this tube should be patchable if necessary.
Florian got the next mechanical issue, and his was more severe in nature. A spoke broke on his rear wheel, and he needed to open up his rear brakes in order to compensate. That just wouldn't do for the ride we had planned, so he searched around for a bike shop and found one that closed at 6pm. It was already past 5pm, but he made it to the shop and had his spoke fixed 5 minutes before the shop closed. Whew! Fortunately that was his only spoke failure, and his wheel would hold true for the remainder of the ride.
*** Ride report ***
* Day 1 *
It was difficult to nail down a starting time because we never came up with a solid game plan for day 2's overnight logistics and time estimates for where/when we'd be throughout the route. I wanted to descend Mendocino Pass / Alder Springs during daylight but also get ahead of as much Central Valley heat as possible. I also didn't want to burn a bunch of time at the first overnight, because I have a lot of respect for this course and wanted to retain as much time buffer as possible. Eventually we started at 05:13 in honor of the originally scheduled ride date. There was no monument at the center of Arcata Plaza to take a picture of, so we crossed our fingers and hoped that Andrea wouldn't disqualify us outright.
Some brief commuting brought us to the first major road of the ride: Kneeland Rd. It's a very respectable sustained climb with smooth pavement and some steep pitches thrown in. In the freezing temperatures (Sourav recorded 29°F) it was quite pleasant to be climbing a hill. Shortly into the climb I had warmed up enough to warrant removing my long-fingered gloves, however due to all the food I was carrying I didn't have a proper place to stash them. I set them on my handlebars while I worked on transferring bananas from my vest pocket into my belly to make space. Somewhere along the way I forgot about my gloves entirely, and it wasn't until a good deal up the climb that I realized I no longer had them. Drat! In another setting I might descend however far I needed in order to find them, but who knows when I'd catch back up to the group. As long as the temperatures didn't dip too far below freezing I figured it'd be fine. Plus this freed up some packing space, which certainly came at a premium! Oh well, goodbye, gloves.
After some cathartic climbing we reached the Kneeland School control, where a cue indicated we could also find water. Instead we found a locked gate. Since services at Kettenpom were a good deal away, Florian wanted to top off his bottle. A vehicle pulled up while he contemplated climbing the fence, and a school official unlocked the gate and directed Florian toward their one public faucet. There's absolutely no way we would have found it on our own. (For future folks, you travel up a grassy hill from the gate and then find the faucet on the east side of another fence that runs between the school building and a field.)
We began the Kneeland descent, and Florian promptly lost a banana Mario-Kart-style, which I expertly avoided. Collectively we were now down 2 gloves and 1 banana, for those keeping score. The remainder of Kneeland Rd included 20 miles of unpaved riding. I'm a gravel noob, and after years of preparation and hand-wringing I was rewarded with the most pleasant and scenic dirt riding I could imagine. If this was what the rest of the ride would be like, then heck, sign me up for more! We stopped midway through the gravel section to change layers and apply sunscreen. Sourav shared some chocolate he'd brought, I assume as a sort of positive reinforcement for my gravel experience.
Bridgeville greeted us at the end of Kneeland, and true to its name, 2 bridges awaited us when we arrived. We took the one marked on our cues, but not before checking out the other one that a couple motorcyclists were also enjoying. Bridgeville had captured my curiosity ever since I'd learned about it from a road sign not very long ago, and I had conjured up all sorts of images of a magical side-scrolling Mario world with bridges going every which way. It was sort of like that, just with 2 bridges and in 3 dimensions.
From Bridgeville we started up the Alderpoint Rd climb, where shortly in we stopped for some gourmet food preparation. Sourav had been carrying around a package of bagels and a container of cream cheese, and he was eager to be rid of it. I don't blame him! The sun beat down on us as we continued up some steep and exposed sections of Alderpoint Rd. Eventually I wanted to stop for another layer change and sunscreen application, and we found a nice intersection to do so. We had cell reception in this area, and at 1:46pm Sourav was the first to discover some extremely unsettling news. "Metin Uz died." What? Those words do not go together. We were dumbfounded by the surreal news and sat on the ground to process it in silence. I had a flood of text messages and emails, but no mental or keyboard bandwidth to do anything useful. I responded to some of the more urgent messages and then put my phone back into airplane mode. There was just no way to process that news, and after some time we decided we needed to keep moving. Pedaling proved the most effective way to reflect and process the information, but Metin's loss would continue to sting for the remainder of the ride and the subsequent trip home. Rest in peace, Metin.
Alderpoint Rd took us to Zenia Bluff Rd, and that took us to the Kettenpom Store control. This provided the only substantial food/water services for day 1. After we stopped here we knew we were golden until Covelo. I drank a liter of orange juice, half a liter of Coke, and refilled 1.5 liters of water. Some domesticated animals lounged around or eyed us curiously. The locals took keen interest in our ride, and we took keen interest in the gas prices that had mysteriously dropped around 25¢ from where we had dropped off the car rental in Eureka.
The remainder of the day's route promised us another 20-mile unpaved section on Mina Rd that would take us into the Covelo overnight. I got my hopes up for something akin to the unpaved Kneeland Rd section, but alas. Where the road was paved it was riddled with potholes, and where we finally got gravel it was comparatively steep, loose, and mildly technical. It was hard to argue with the views though! The sun set as we crested the final gravel climb. I wasn't wild about descending any amount of gravel in the dark, but fine, apparently that's what we're doing. We all made it down safely and in good spirits even without another positive reinforcement chocolate stop. We grabbed dinner and breakfast at Keith's Market IGA in Covelo before heading to Golden Oaks Motel for our overnight. We agreed to wake up at 3am for a 4am rollout.
* Day 2 *
My backup alarm went off at 3:30am, as did Florian's. Apparently after agreeing on 3am we had both set backup alarms, assuming someone else would set the main alarm. Whoops. Oh well, it's not like we had put much thought into a 4am rollout anyway. We took our time getting ready and rolled out at 4:48am. The temperature was in the upper-30's°F and continued to drop. Some long-fingered gloves sure would be nice, but at least we had a ton of climbing to start out the day and keep us warm until the sun came out to play. While regrouping on part of the prelude climb, I tripped over my bike and snapped a headlight mount. It wouldn't really affect the ride since I had 2 backup headlights, but I did rather like that light.
We took our control photo at Eel River Station, marking the beginning of the Mendocino Pass / Alder Springs climb. Ahead of us rose a 17-mile, 5,000' gravel climb followed by a 13-mile gravel descent and then some remaining paved descent into Central Valley. In a course with several noteworthy sections, this is the highlight. At this point Sourav continued on at a wise 200-climby-miles-to-go pace, while Florian and I prepared for a YOLO KOM effort. It had to be done. Strava noted only 12 total attempts by 10 people, and the top time was 2 hours 45 minutes at 6.1 MPH. Seemingly nobody had ever put in a threshold effort on this hill. Unless the gravel was surprisingly technical, muddy from snow melt, or just plain covered with snow, an efficient effort to the top should suffice.
Florian and I set off for the top, targeting a fixed 7 MPH as our lower bound. It felt easy, but that's exactly how it should feel at the start of a multi-hour climb. Florian also used a 120-130 BPM heart rate heuristic, which meant with my inferior fitness I should expect to increasingly suffer throughout the climb. That's fine. I was prepared for any sub-threshold effort, whatever the cost may be to the rest of the ride. For the most part, the road was very wide and the gravel fairly mild. We had the road practically to ourselves, seeing a total of 3 vehicles during that 17-mile stretch. I made regular check-ins about Florian's heart rate, and Florian was diligent about picking up the pace whenever the gradient dropped. The intensity was reasonable overall, and it allowed us to enjoy the scenic climb while carrying out a reasonably unlabored conversation. I admit I still suffered toward the top! I was excited to see snow as we neared the top of the pass. There had been over 20 inches last week, and I thought perhaps all of it would be gone by now. There was enough to create muddy streams across the road here and there, but not enough to prevent passage or even make things particularly difficult.
Florian and I had shaved about half an hour off the KOM, and we estimated we had about an hour to recover before we'd see Sourav. I wanted to have a snowman ready to greet Sourav, and Florian had the idea of decorating it with a couple bananas he had brought up with him. Unfortunately this snow had hardened too much and I couldn't even reasonably carve out blocks of it with the flimsy twigs that littered the side of the road. Well if I can't build a snowman, the next most useful thing to do is to catch up on sleep! I put on all my layers and took a nice nap in the sun until Sourav arrived. Meanwhile the sun continued to rise and warm up the pass.
Sourav arrived, and the 3 of us prepared for the long bumpy descent ahead. Before we got to it, we had to contend with a few walls of snow blocking our path. We were able to ride around most of them, but one of them required walking our bikes through the middle of it. Now this was officially a proper adventure! Most of the descent was agreeable, but there were frequent washboard sections that I didn't particularly appreciate. I had made a custom cue for the end of the gravel section and was counting down the tenths of miles. Finally we reached pavement, and I was ecstatic to have survived all the unpaved sections of the route, which to me was by far the largest and most nebulous hurdle of the ride. The remaining descent down Alder Springs Rd was smooth and sweeping, and eventually the surrounding trees opened up to a gorgeous view of Central Valley. The road continued at 162 E, but before that I had the group stop to take a photo at km #296 of the ride, which marked my K-Hound for this year. I hadn't planned this spot at all (remember I wanted to do this ride last week!) and the scenery was perfect for it.
We continued on 162 E, which would take us to Willows. Apart from a small climb, nothing remained by a very gradual descent down into Central Valley. I logged a temperature of 97°F on that one climb, and temperatures in the low-mid 90's°F were typical for the remainder of the afternoon. Sourav and I rode together at a slow survival pace and arrived at the Willows ARCO control around 2pm, ready for some recovery.
While hanging out at the control, a man with a beach cruiser walked up and greeted us: "Mind if I join you?" He introduced himself as Doug Ross, and he worked with the Sacramento Valley Mirror. I could guess exactly what he must be thinking: "Three cyclists are riding through Willows, CA. There's a story here, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it!" Yes, there certainly was something strange going on, for those perceptive enough to take notice. And if there's anyone who's up to the task of uncovering the whole scoop here, it's Doug. Following in the footsteps of Tim Crews, Doug is the type who will leave no stone unturned, even if he's dealing with 70 miles of gravel. He collected a photo of us, and we offered up anecdotes and photos from earlier in the ride. I collected his contact info so I could provide auxiliary information about randonneuring, RUSA, SR600's, and the NorCal Traverse route. He would surely discover all this on his own, but I may as well save him some time. There are other important things to investigate after all, albeit not as important as this. As thanks, Doug produced a recent copy of the Sacramento Valley Mirror and personally autographed it for me. Cool! I preserved it as carefully as I could for the remainder of the ride, which meant folding it up and stuffing it into my touring saddle bag. Doug eventually set off East from the ARCO, perhaps already en route to verify some facts (e.g. was there really a town called "Gridley" in that direction?). The rest of us finished loading up on food and cold beverages before continuing our own journey east across California.
Next we had to find our way to Gridley. Possibly like Doug, we had only heard of its existence, but we had not seen it with our own eyes and felt the heat with our own skin. Aside from all the gravel, this was the stretch of the route that I had the most respect for. The climbing was nonexistent, but the Central Valley heat could easily end any of our rides if it so desired. If we could just get through this portion, the rest of the ride was a solved problem in my estimation. A collection of side roads diverted us from the busy 162 E, and Sourav and I continued together at a conservative survival pace. Along the way, we regrouped with Florian and did some planning that had been a long time coming. Where should our overnight be? One option would be to stop in Gridley where there were services and lodging options, and which would allow us to recover from the heat and start leg 3 of the ride on a full tank. The other options were to continue to Camptonville, Fiddle Creek Campground, or Downieville, which would give us a more manageable leg 3 at the cost of uncertain services and lodging options. We navigated our differing goals and preferences, and agreed that we'd buffer a bunch of food at Gridley and then see how we were doing once we got to Camptonville.
The side roads to Gridley weren't in the best condition, but there was no traffic and we had plenty of room to maneuver. If Doug had gone this way, I don't imagine he'd have had much difficulty on his cruiser. We arrived in Gridley around 6pm and found a Safeway where we could restock and eat dinner. I got a quart of chocolate milk, a 2-liter of Coke (which I didn't touch), and a couple packets of gummy bears. It was difficult to find a shaded spot to sit, so the sun continued punishing me during my otherwise restful time off the bike. Fortunately it was nearly bedtime for the sun, and by the time it'd wake we'd be well into the Sierra Nevada mountains where it should be nice and cool.
The sun dropped and the temperature cooled as we headed toward the mountains through another grab bag of roads. The terrain started to become rolling, and eventually we got to Marysville Rd where we'd make a definitive ascent out of the valley. Hooray! Or maybe not. Though the sun had gone to bed by now, lots of drivers had not, and several of them were quite rude on this stretch. Despite our best efforts to ride safely and stay out of the way (there was a rumble strip in place of whatever shoulder we could have enjoyed), several drivers helpfully kibitzed that we should not be on the road. I hope Doug didn't experience these drivers, though most likely he puts up with far worse in his daily quest to uncover truth, however unpleasant it may be. The traffic died down around 10pm, which I suspect was a combination of people going to bed, but also most people having reached their residence by the time they had gotten to such a remote distance along the road. Marysville became a peaceful ride on pleasant pavement, illuminated by a waning gibbous moon in a clear, starry sky.
We regrouped for photos at the Bullards Bar Reservoir control before finishing out the last of Marysville Rd. From there we continued on 49 N, which was one of the few remaining navigational cues for the whole ride. We arrived at Camptonville around 12:20am and found the USPS where we suspected we might be able to hang out for a few hours of rest. It looked fairly closed, but in fact the front door was unlocked and led us to a large heated lobby where people could access their PO boxes. It had sufficient room for 3 bikes and their riders, sealing this as the clear cut winner for choice of overnight. It even had vacant electrical outlets, a trash can, and a small community library! We agreed to wake up at 3am, and this time I set my alarm for 3am. I figured Doug was probably wondering how we were doing, so I sent him a quick update before putting away my phone and leaning my head back against my cushy saddle bag.
* Day 3, part 1 *
I got restless after a few hours, with the room not feeling nearly as warm as when we had entered (it was though). I was half-awake when my 3am alarm went off, and plenty eager to get moving. We rolled out at 3:30am, making this a very efficient overnight. I was happy to have the buffer, and now I was confident we'd make the 60-hour time cutoff without any anxiety. Yep, no anxiety at all…
When we rolled past Fiddle Creek Campground I was glad we had not used it as our overnight spot. It was below 40°F, and I was once again quite aware of the absence of my long-fingered gloves. We reached Downieville before 6am, and as expected, no services were open. However Florian found a 24-hour laundromat with a sink! We hadn't had a water opportunity since Gridley, and this final water refill had been the last remaining logistical question of the ride. We made extensive use of this laundromat sink. I washed my hands, topped off my bottles, and brushed my teeth. While waiting to regroup, I figured I may as well clean my frame and brake pads while I was at it. I considered giving my drivetrain a proper cleaning while I was at it, but with only 100K remaining, surely I needn't bother with any drivetrain concerns until the end of the ride. Yep, no drivetrain concerns at all…
Florian and I went ahead of Sourav to Bassetts, where we expected we might find services. We arrived at the Bassetts Station cafe and store before its official opening time of 8am, but when I pulled my bike up to the door someone unlocked it for me. With sufficient time on the clock and nothing that would go wrong with so little remaining in the ride, I settled in for a leisurely breakfast. Somehow every item on the menu was my favorite. I ordered an omelet for myself and requested another entree for Sourav, to be ready in another 15 minutes. Florian and I enjoyed endless cups of coffee while we waited. Sourav received his meal as soon as he arrived, and he downed several cups of coffee himself.
After a whopping 1 hour and 45 minutes off the bike, we continued on toward Yuba Pass, our penultimate control for the route. At roughly the same elevation as Mendocino Pass, we saw plenty of snow as we approached the top of the pass. With 31.5 miles and a bunch of descent ahead of us, was there anything to do besides stroll into the finish? Yes.
* Day 3, part 2 *
The descent from Yuba Pass was beautiful and had lots of fun twisty sections. It flattened out at the bottom, and the trees cleared away to reveal a huge expanse with mountains in the distance. I stopped for one final application of sunscreen and sent Florian and Sourav ahead. Sierraville marked the end of our stay on Highway 49, and from here Highway 89 would take us nearly the whole way to the finish.
21.5 miles and 1,981' of elevation gain before the end of the ride, my chain suddenly started squirming laterally and my rear derailleur refused to shift up. A brief inspection revealed the chain had come off the tension pulley. After reseating it, the chain would come off again after just a bit of pedaling. I considered a pattern of pedaling a bit and reseating the chain, but unfortunately the shoulder on 89 was nonexistent and there was heavy traffic that made it impractical to continually leave and re-enter the road to muck with the drivetrain. I tried swapping my front and rear derailleur batteries and lubing the chain just in case, but those didn't help either.
I got off the bike and pushed it uphill while I brainstormed solutions. I had a little upwards of 5 hours to complete the ride, and a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggested that a combination of walking uphill and coasting downhill might get me in before the 60-hour SR600 time limit. My feet don't like being detached from pedals though, and before long my calves were aching. Plus it was slow and awkward pushing my bike up the sandy shoulder.
Eventually I made the connection that if I shifted to a smaller cog, I would be able to make substantially more progress on the bike for the same distance of chain travel along the tension pulley. Shifting into the large chainring was a no-go, because it looked like it would seize and rip the rear derailleur off when it failed. The smaller-cog strategy was a definite improvement, but frequent stops to adjust the chain were just too impractical. I also noticed however, that my chain was now only partly off the tension pulley rather than completely off. If I pedaled smoothly and didn't shift, I could still make uphill progress at the cost of extra power and sad noises coming from my drivetrain.
Finally I crested a climb and found Florian and Sourav waiting for me at the top. I explained the situation, and initially declined the suggestion of a single-speed conversion (which would definitely work!) until we had exhausted other avenues. This was a brand-new chain before the ride and I intended to use it for upcoming rides if at all possible. We removed my tension pulley to take a closer look, and discovered that it was actively coming apart. Some of the steel balls in the bearing were missing, and one of the balls was wedged between the bearing and the outer plate. Um, not good. But it was somewhat reassuring to know where the problem was! We pushed the one ball back into place and reinstalled the pulley to see how that went.
I informed Sourav and Florian that I would go on ahead and wait for them at the finish if I got there at all. If my drivetrain catastrophically failed, I wanted as large a time buffer as possible to be able to walk the remaining distance. Unfortunately the half-bearing reverted back to its broken state, so I continued my strategy of single-speeding in a small cog. The rolling terrain was helpful, allowing me to shave off easy miles by coasting on the downhills. About a mile from the end, I experienced the catastrophic drivetrain failure I had been dreading. Each pedal stroke resulted in violently propelling the chain laterally, including into my spokes. The outer ring of the tension pulley's bearing cage had shredded and was protruding from an outer plate in a way that now actively interfered with my chain. Pedaling was no longer an option. I coasted what I could, and I walked the remaining quarter-mile to the finish control just in time for Florian and Sourav to roll in with me. We arrived at the Truckee Station finish control at 1:53pm, for a Charly Miller elapsed time of 56:40.
Massimiliano Poletto
May 26, 2022, 4:36:16 PM5/26/22
to charlie....@gmail.com, SF Randonneurs, Achilli, Andrea - (achilli), Sourav Das, Florian Schneider
Congratulations on a superb accomplishment in the face of some pretty challenging situations. Andrea had already shared the photos with me, and they looked suitably epic!
Chapeau!
max
--
--
This message is from the San Francisco Randonneurs list at sfra...@googlegroups.com
Search the archives at http://groups.google.com/group/sfrandon
For SFR's schedule and general information, visit http://sfrandonneurs.org/
To unsubscribe, email sfrandon+u...@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "San Francisco Randonneurs" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sfrandon+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sfrandon/CAERWSq5QVV6huKOXYEN1XFLDbXqE3-mkv%2B3UCYa1iJ5R7F9TMg%40mail.gmail.com.
Greg Merritt
May 27, 2022, 12:14:40 PM5/27/22
to San Francisco Randonneurs
The furniture photos are great.
-Greg
Drew Carlson
May 27, 2022, 1:10:06 PM5/27/22
to greg.m...@gmail.com, San Francisco Randonneurs
That was a great ride report, Charlie, and company. Congratulations on your achievement! It's been on my bucket list for a while, as I've ridden much of the route (but not in one go), and I find much of it quite beautiful.
On Fri, May 27, 2022 at 9:14 AM Greg Merritt <greg.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
The furniture photos are great.-Greg
--
--
This message is from the San Francisco Randonneurs list at sfra...@googlegroups.com
Search the archives at http://groups.google.com/group/sfrandon
For SFR's schedule and general information, visit http://sfrandonneurs.org/
To unsubscribe, email sfrandon+u...@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "San Francisco Randonneurs" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sfrandon+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sfrandon/50973947-63c5-4c7b-8e76-a871b99fe8d1n%40googlegroups.com.
Drew
Sourav Das
Jun 4, 2022, 9:20:47 PM6/4/22
to San Francisco Randonneurs
This is a truly spectacular ride. As Charlie pointed out, logistics are a significant challenge. There is nothing in terms of services between Arcata and Covelo other than the Kettenpom Store. That makes for a hard first leg (130 mi, 18k ft elev). But it is also very scenic and diverse in terms of landscape with the Coastal Ranges leading to the Mendocino National Forest.
I am yet to hear if anything was actually posted in the Sacramento Valley Mirror. It has no online presence other than your favorite social media network. Make what you will of that. It also has an illustrious history of investigative journalism ("... he has moles virtually everywhere, and the plots themselves invariably end up in print.") No idea what kind of views their readership subscribes to, and I see that Doug Ross has joined the Google photo album. I just hope the the headline doesn't read, "Breaking News: SVM's Investigative Team tracks two Bay Area Hippies and Undocumented Migrant on the run from ICE who spent the night in the Camptonville Post Office." I seem to recall him taking photos of us from the front and sides.
Here are some pointers for future planning. I would be interested to know if better alternatives exist.
Travel to Arcata/Eureka:
- Amtrak does not have a train that goes there. You could try taking the train to Redding and riding over but that adds more days and miles to an already long trip.
- The cost of a one-way car rental is reasonable when split between multiple parties. The only option afaik is Hertz which has a drop off location in Eureka. I rented a 7-passenger SUV (rental category L4, Nissan Pathfinder or similar) from SJC Airport. Don't recall what car they actually gave me. This was barely enough for three bikes + bodies. FYI the base rental price was ~$100 more compared to Aug last year along with higher gas prices. Enterprise has presence in Eureka too but they don't offer point-to-point rentals.
Travel back from Truckee/Tahoe:
- Amtrak's California Zephyr makes a stop in Truckee, but unlike the Capital Corridor you can't just carry your bike in. It has to be loaded in the luggage van by Amtrak staff. Truckee is NOT a staffed station.
- For Amtrak, your options then are to either get to Reno which is a staffed stop, or take the Capital Corridor from Sacramento.
- Note that Colfax, Auburn, etc, listed on the Capital Corridor schedule are not train stops but bus connections which won't take bikes.
- Car rentals from Truckee are a No Go. Hertz used to be an option, but it got closed during the pandemic. Enterprise doesn't do point-to-point rentals.
- We ended up renting a SUV from Budget in Stateline, NV to SJC airport. Axis is also an option.
- Note that Stateline is the other end of Lake Tahoe and not an easy cruise at all. Also, hotels in Truckee are pretty expensive. It might be better to finish the ride in Stateline, which is easier said than done.
- Luckily we could stay in someone;s cabin in Homewood. Florian cooked us dinner as there are no food options there. Might be worthwhile to check for AirBnB options.
Second overnight:
There is not much in terms of services between Gridley and Downieville. The latter will likely be sold out as mtb season picks up. We left this leg open so we could be flexible with plans based on our pace and time.
- Option 1: Sleep in Gridley for a short second leg and a long, hard third leg.
- Option 2: Post Office in Camptonville. We got there at 12.30 pm and this worked out well for us. The next day after I narrated our adventure, a co-worker called it NBnB (No bed, no breakfast).
- Option 3: Campgrounds along 49 between Camptonville and Downieville
- No running water, but they have toilets and are right next to the Yuba River so you can take a dip. Located in a valley which gets very cold at night. Not recommended without at least a sleeping bag.
- Option 4: Post Office at Goodyears Bar or Downieville
- Makes for a long second leg with some climbing at the end, and a short third leg
Sourav
William Monsen
Jun 4, 2022, 10:36:51 PM6/4/22
to sour...@gmail.com, San Francisco Randonneurs
What a great adventure!
Regarding transport, the Amtrak Bus is a good option. When going down to SLO, the Coast Starlight was sold out. I had to take the San Joaquin train from Richmond to Hanford and then take the Amtrak Bus from Hanford to SLO. I was skeptical about this (suspecting that the bus driver would throw the bike in the bottom of the luggage compartment and then heave baggage on top of it.) Wrong! The driver was very helpful and put my bike (wheels on, only my bags taken off) in a separate luggage compartment under the bus. (I did take the Coast Starlight back from SLO, which was a great trip).
Elaine Astrue and I also took the Amtrak bus from Truckee to the Sacramento Amtrak station a long time ago after riding from Alturas to Truckee after working at the GRR. The bus was perfectly fine, the bikes made it unscathed, and we were able to catch the Capitol Corridor to the Bay Area.
Congratulations on finishing this epic ride!
Bill
William A. Monsen
22 Waterline Place
22 Waterline Place
--
--
This message is from the San Francisco Randonneurs list at sfra...@googlegroups.com
Search the archives at http://groups.google.com/group/sfrandon
For SFR's schedule and general information, visit http://sfrandonneurs.org/
To unsubscribe, email sfrandon+u...@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "San Francisco Randonneurs" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sfrandon+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sfrandon/CANhMs7gKB7H1W4GgyiqwR1%3D7kC7B8XckLoUsSP63bN-5zinMaQ%40mail.gmail.com.
Sourav Das
Jun 5, 2022, 12:16:31 AM6/5/22
to San Francisco Randonneurs
Bill,
Good to know that bikes can be accommodated on the buses, presumably on a discretionary basis. There is no bus from Truckee to Sacramento. Maybe there used to be one. I had a chat with an Amtrak agent and she confirmed that our only options were Reno or Sacramento.
Colfax is ~100 km from Truckee with ~3k ft elev gain, albeit a net downhill, and the bus leaves at 5 or 6 am. We had enough time to make that but we'd have to ride almost immediately after the official finish, making it a 700 km ride. It also entails riding 16 km on I-80 (legal). Also, Colfax has only one hotel (Best Western).
This just sounds like a bit much after such a hard ride. But good to know that options exist.
Sourav
Br!an V
Jun 8, 2022, 1:40:57 PM6/8/22
to San Francisco Randonneurs
The "Tahoe Pyramid Trail" can get you from the Truckee to Reno Amtrak in ~35 miles (20 paved, 15'ish gravel):
Perhaps a slog after the Traverse, but a little more adventure'ish than riding around the lake to Stateline.
-Brian V
Greg Merritt
Jun 8, 2022, 2:00:46 PM6/8/22
to San Francisco Randonneurs
Regarding train vs. bus options east of Sacramento, the way I read the schedule is that there is one Capitol Corridor Auburn -> San Jose train every morning and one San Jose -> Auburn train every afternoon. (Times are different on weekdays vs. weekends.)
Colfax appears to never be served by Capitol Corridor, and all other runs (besides those described above) have that bus between Sacramento and Cofax -- see they grey-background times on the schedule.
-Greg
Elaine Astrue
Jul 9, 2022, 3:37:44 PM7/9/22
to San Francisco Randonneurs
Love the ride report. A few mods on the transport comments.
Regarding bus service between Truckee and Sacto -
See the heading "Reno/Colfax/Roseville to Sacramento". Because of the pandemic this service may have been suspended when the ride actually happened. But it's definitely running now.
AFAIK - and I've been testing this service since ~2004 - all Amtrak Thruway buses take bikes unboxed and fully assembled, in the hold under the bus. It' a good idea to bring at least one bungee cord in case of space constraints. You can stand the bike up and lash it to the aluminum supports if needed. (Yes I've done this recently.)
Also I've tested the Arcata/Eureka service (Route 7 bus, Amtrak San Joaquins) frequently and recently. Happy to report that not only are the buses running and taking unboxed bikes as usual, but as of this January you do not need to book a train ticket to ride the bus. For example, I've traveled this spring from Arcata to Cloverdale without even pretending to want to go to Martinez (and Richmond). This service is not available for all the stop pairs yet, for reasons that are too complicated to go into here. PM me for more details.
Finally, there is an airport here with United (cough) serving SFO and LAX and DEN. YMMV but when I've looked the price of a one-way flight has been similar to half of a RT. The code is ACV and it's located north of Arcata. (It also has at least one rental car outlet as well.)
Elaine
On Saturday, June 4, 2022 at 9:16:31 PM UTC-7 sour...@gmail.com wrote:
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages