Recumbent Riders
News and Ride Schedule
[Last Updated December 17th]
Ride Schedule:
SPECIAL NOTICE: The social situation in which we find ourselves may seem more appropriate for a midwestern city like Chicago than Ventura County, but – SADLY – the bottom line for VCRR Group Rides for the near term future can be summed up by paraphrasing the lyrics of a once popular oldie:
May have to wait till June or July...
Newsom's orders set odd borders
That leave most of us wonderin' why.
Dining outside? NO-NO! Bike ride?
Not even if you're ped'lin' solo.
Tho' no statistic is fatalistic,
Gavin's made goin' out a NO-GO!
Slow movin' trikeys who fly the colors of the day
May now be waitin' for vaccinatin
Till Newsom tells us it's okay.
Until then, children, we have to shut down...
SI-I-IGH.. Oh no, no...
We've all been told, "Put rides on hold;
Don't even venture out of your door."
Even sunny days? "No, no, always;
You just can't go ridin' no more!"
Cyclists ridin', almost touchin',
Risk incarceration
Or stiff fines for us all.
Tho' you miss it, please dismiss it,
Just forget it if you can;
We may be waitin' quite a long time –
Maybe May? Oh no, no...
This is a brief listing of preliminary plans for upcoming rides:
- Saturday, December 19th: Third Saturday VCRR Group Ride – CANCELLED!
- ALL GROUP RIDES CANCELLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
PLEASE NOTE: This governmentally imposed overreaction prohibiting cycling, group or solo, will (hopefully) be lifted sometime (maybe early?) next year. In the meantime if and when any of you rebellious scofflaws have an irresistible urge for company, remember that you can arrange that surreptitiously by phone or email. If you need any contact info – phone or email – for another VCRRian, please ping me using the data below. As always – PLEASE! – if you have any suggestions for the resumption of our rides, share it. We're still especially eager to hear from anyone who's been aching to plan, coordinate and/or lead the gang on his, her or their favorite venue.
Recent History:
On the last Saturday of the month only five of us met at Seabridge for a short – but pretty nice – ride around the Marinas and brunch at the Golden Egg. Our 'formal' group rides for September, November and December were more or less cancelled, either from concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic or loss of enthusiasm...
August 2020: On the First Saturday, about 10 of us met at Seabridge Marina and rode up Harbor Boulevard and the Arundell Barranca bikepath to have lunch on the newly covered parking lot at Main Street Restaurant. After lunch we zoomed down Seaward, and recovered from a bit of separation at the turn onto Harbor. Passing the Ventura Marina I noticed a goathead protruding from the shoulder of my right front tire but it didn't seem to have penetrated. However, just past Gonzales, I had to repair the slow leaking flat. The group got back together before we reached the parking lot, and there were smiles all around, as we wound up another nice ride in our great coastal weather.
For our Third Saturday ride our starting venue was once again the Seabridge Marina. But this weekend we looped around the Seabridge MUPs for a start; with all the local public restrooms closed, some of the group took advantage of Keith's offer to use his residence to achieve proper fluid balance. From there we split into two subgroups and rode down to the Port Hueneme pier. Gerry's rear shift cable broke as we passed the navy base, but he managed the rest of the ride with only three gears. We regrouped at the lighthouse for our return up the Bubbling Springs bikepath, and most of us indulged in a lunch stop on Pizza Man Dan's before riding back to the parking lot. This ride was about 20 miles, mostly flat, with fairly mild weather that close to the coast.
On the unusual Fifth Saturday of the month, about a dozen folks in our group met at the Mission parking lot in downtown Ventura to ride our familiar up-the-coast-and-back cruise up the coast to the Seacliff fire station, with a few folks heading on up to Rincon Hill. On the way back most of us met for lunch at Hobson Beach. We had more than our fair share of chaos this weekend. Gerry was delayed and didn't catch up to us until lunch. Alan had a trike crash on the way, damaging his derailleur and rear wheel. I drove him home and then up the beach to meet the gang as they were on their way. Deena had breathing difficulties and missed the turn into Hobson, and then took advantage of Ann and Alan's offer for a lift back to the mission in their SUV. Kay and I ended our ride where I'd parked our van near Faria Beach. Still, a few riders managed to cover the full suggested route of 20 to 30 miles in sunny weather more like late Spring that mid-Summer.
There's a new ditty posted on the Poetry on Wheels section of our 32go.us website which was instigated by a thread in the Trikes section of BentRiderOnLine's forum, and includes a narrative of the last ride of this month.
7/18/2020: The group met at the Mission parking lot in downtown Ventura and rode up the coast and back to the fire station at Seacliff. A few more ambitious riders cruised on up to the base of Rincon Hill, but I don't think anyone grunted up to the top. On the way back, most of the group stopped for lunch at Hobson Beach. Ride distances ranged from about 20 to 30 miles, with only a few short climbs. The day started out with an overcast but turned sunny by afternoon; temps maxed out in the 70s, but with a bit more humidity than ideal. The tailwind on our return was a nice bonus.
6/20/2020:The group met at Vineyard Park in Oxnard where the bathrooms were closed. With slight condensation forming as the ride began, Wayne started with a Rating of not more than 5 of 10. We cruised around the Riverpark area, and his rating picked up a tad as we checked out the newly opened Class I trails around the large pits in the Santa Clara River basin. However, it dropped a bit as we rode on soggy pavement along the levee and he left Kay leading the group to race back and retrieve lost sunglasses and mirror. He recovered a bit when we found open bathrooms at Barranca Vista Park, but took a sharp dive when he led the group in a pointless search for an exit to Ventura Community Park after meeting Charlie. Finding closed potties at Thille Park and two wrong turns as we bumbled along to top the hill above the river crossing were almost offset by the super-speedy ZOOM-ZOOM downhill from Montalvo Hill Park to Bristol, but one last bobble in the bird tracts doomed the ride leader to a favorability rating of between 2 and 3 this week. Most folks stopped for lunch on Panera's patio at the Collection. The base ride was about 20 miles, with a few extended shallow climbs and that one memorable downhill rush.
6/6/2020: We were a little surprised to see 15 folks in our group emerging from relative isolation to meet at the Mission parking lot in downtown Ventura. A few of us indulged in coffee and/or morning munchies before we embarked on an up-the-coast-and-back cruise. We weren't expecting to see that the RVs had returned in full force to the parking spaces between the old highway and the beach. Most of us turned around at the Seacliff fire station, and on the way back, some of us hooked up for lunch at the Hobson Beach Grill. We had a nice tailwind for the return, capping a great day to ride along the beach.
Other News:
RIDE VIDEOS AND OTHER PIX: Rolly has posted videos from several recent VCRR Group Rides for public viewing on YouTube at this link. We are expecting to post more videos over the next few months, and, of course, your feedback is eagerly solicited. There is also a series of older video clips posted on YouTube, on 'TheVCRR' channel, at this URL. There is a VCRR photo archive on Flickr; to view it, start at this URL. Vincent has posted some of our ride pix to the Recumbent Trikes Group on Facebook (one of several).
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DON'T FORGET!: COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS ARE EAGERLY[!] SOLICITED FOR OUR REGULAR GROUP RIDES IN 2021, AS WELL AS FEEDBACK FOR THIS WEBSITE, RIDE NOTICES, PHOTOS, RIDE VIDEOS, ROUTE SHEETS, MAPS, CUSTOM VCRR SAFETY FLAGS AND/OR VIDEO FLYOVERS. We are seriously looking for suggestions for VCRR Group Rides for this Summer, either in person, by phone or email. We expect to continue sending email notices a few days before each upcoming ride, at least for the next couple of months. Please let me know if you want to make any changes to our email list.
If you newbies or folks who haven't ridden with the group for a while need help or more information for getting to any of our rides, please email or phone me. Our home phone number – usually the best way to talk to us – is 805-981-0339. If we're not home you can also try my NEW CELL PHONE: 805-612-7662. Text messages will not work on our home phone, and are slightly discouraged for the cell phone. Don't even think about Facebook or Twitter! For convenience my email link is: