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Club Member Spotlight Patterson Overnighter The Patterson Overnighter was the November ride for Dale & Ken’s Excellent Adventures. Both Ken and I had ridden out to Patterson in conjunction with different ACTC rides. Ken had also heard of a route back that followed one of the aqueducts and he got a routesheet from an ACTC rider. Winnie and I drove out and scouted the route back and decided it was definitely worth doing. Unfortunately, by the time the Adventure ride actually came around, Ken wasn't able to participate because of Iris's crash. Day 1: Twelve of us got on our way from downtown Niles a little after 9:00 on Saturday. After a coffee/food/potty stop at Lucky's in Livermore, we headed out toward Mines Road. Once we got out on Mines Road, the hills scattered us out a bit and before long I was riding at the back with Winnie, Marcella, and Heather. You should know that one of the hazards of having me along on a ride is that I like to stop and look at things. Our first "thing" on this ride was a tarantula. I knew that Winnie had never seen one and thought she might find it interesting. From the size of her eyes as she watched me coax it into climbing up on my hand, I knew I was right. Her eyes got even bigger when both Marcella and Heather willingly let the tarantula crawl on their arms. Marcella and Heather both have boys in scouting and no doubt have had to learn to overcome their natural disinclination for such activities.
Our second "thing" on Day 1 was the large number of vintage sports cars that were at The Junction Cafe when we arrived. There was a car rally going on and they had all gathered there for lunch. That meant it was almost impossible for us to get served by the completely overwhelmed (and unwarned) Junction Cafe staff. The cars were great to look at though. Day 2: On Day 1, about ten miles out of Patterson, one of our riders crashed and banged her head on the pavement. When she opted to go home, two other riders decided the same thing. However, on Sunday morning three new riders joined us and our contingent was back up to twelve.
For the most part the ride home was uneventful with one striking exception: Winnie's rattlesnake. Actually, it might be more accurate to call it Cindy Fracisco's rattlesnake because it took a swipe at her as she went by. It missed, but still gave her a very nice adrenaline rush. Tina Boomershine, who was riding beside Cindy, turned and called back to us, "Rattlesnake." I knew Winnie had never seen a rattlesnake and suggested we stop to look at it. Besides, it was right on the edge of the roadway and needed to be driven off so it wouldn't get run over by a car.
Winnie wondered if the snake could be persuaded to leave if she spoke to it in a soothing voice and nudged it with her front tire. (I hadn't told her that rattlesnakes can't hear very well and her soothing voice would be completely lost on it.) Unfortunately, the snake completely misunderstood Winnie's intentions and struck viciously at her front wheel. It caught a fang on one of her spokes, which seemed to irritate it even more, and it took a second strike at her wheel. I'm not exactly sure what happened next, but I remember hearing several high-pitched "Ay, ay, ays" and suddenly Winnie's bike was going one way and she was going another. The snake remained coiled resolutely in the road, unwilling to give an inch. Winnie seemed a bit miffed that the snake had reacted so badly to her trying to save its life. Eventually, using a dried up mustard plant shaped into as much of a stick as I could make it, I was able to drive the snake to the other side and off the road. By the time I finished, traffic was backed up in both directions and we were fifteen minutes behind the rest of the group. I would like to point out that most of our Adventure rides do not include this much drama. For the most part they are just bike rides on somewhat unfamiliar roads with just enough hills to make them interesting. However, as I do like to stop and look at things, it is possible we could someday have another real adventure. Written by Dale Blanchard A Bit about Dale & Ken's Excellent Adventures For those of you who have never had to endure sitting with Ken or me at coffee, these rides arose out of our observation that interest in club rides, especially among moderate riders, was beginning to wane. Ken was the one who came up with the real vision for the rides and his idea was that there should be four criteria for the rides:
For the most part we have been able to satisfy those criteria. Perhaps on a couple of occasions we have pushed some riders a bit beyond their comfort level, but that's still within criteria number 3. If you go out to http://lasthill.net and click on Master Ride Map, you will find that under Dale & Ken's Excellent Adventures we have eleven rides listed. In 2010 we did eight of those rides with one more scheduled for December (Redwood City Cross). We had Del Puerto Canyon scheduled but got rained out. In 2011 we will repeat most of the rides, hope to do the ones we didn't get to in 2010, and we have a couple of new ones we're working on. |
