Recumbent Riders
News and Ride Schedule
[Last Updated January 17th]
Ride Schedule:
After yet another rain cancellation of the postponed VCRR Group Ride last weekend, we're a lot more confident of staging a successful ride for this Saturday, January 19th. We'll meet at 9AM at Pitts Ranch Park in Camarillo. We'll plan to cruise up and down Calleguas Creek, which should give us an interesting show, with fast water flowing over its usually dry sand. At some point we'll leave the creek and ride over for a late brunch, most likely at the unofficial extended food court on Daily Drive between Carmen and Arneill. The base ride will probably be about 20 miles, with a few short climbs at most. Kay and I expect to be there with morning munchies and hot coffee; the weather should be about 70 degrees with winds less than 10 MPH.
This is a brief listing of preliminary plans for upcoming rides:
- Saturday, January 19th: Third Saturday VCRR Group Ride - Pitts Ranch Park, Camarillo
- Saturday, February 2nd: First Saturday VCRR Group Ride - VENTURA TO OJAI? SUGGESTIONS?
PLEASE[!]: If you have any suggestions for group rides for first few months of 2019, please share. We're always especially eager to hear from anyone who's been aching to plan, execute and lead the gang on his, her or their favorite venue.
Recent History:
12/15/2018: Instead of a typical Third Saturday VCRR Group Ride, Deena (aka Dr. Devious) opted to commemorate a milestone moment for her husband. She successfully, surreptitiously engineered a SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTY, with about 40 of his friends at Marie Callender's in Camarillo, even though most cardiologists do not recommend staging shocks for persons of his age. It was a great party, a very nice brunch as always, and a good visit with VCRR friends and more rarely seen folks. It was really fun to see Stephen caught so completely by surprise.
12/1/2018: About a dozen of us met at Marina Park in Ventura, to ride down the coast to Oxnard. The group split in two, with four of our Fast Folks zooming down to Oxnard State Beach before returning to Ventura. The Pokey Patrol, which oddly included five motorized trikes to put a little pressure on Deena, Kay and me, turned onto Gonzales and rode up the Johnson Barranca to a pit stop at Barranca Vista Park. The two groups met for our lunch stop at Main Street Restaurant, where we also encountered Dawn and Stephen. We were expecting slightly chilly temps, but once we were out on the road, it seemed a bit warmer than predicted. This ride venue is about 20 to 30 fairly flat miles, with the fast downhill swoosh on Seaward as a very FUN finale.
Sunday, 10/21/2018: Only nine cyclists of our group met at Vineyard Park in the RiverPark development near The Collection in northeast Oxnard. After a bit of prep, some low-cal munchies and coffee, we pedaled away, riding around the RiverPark housing complex. We were hoping the new bike paths beside the river would have been opened by now, but the gates were still locked. We rode across the Santa Clara River and up the Johnson Barranca bikepath to our first pit stop at Barranca Vista Park. From there we cruised through the Ventura Community Park and then zoomed down Montgomery Street. Some less than gracious members in our group failed miserably to hide their smirks as we easily outpaced a couple of roadies on that long downhill. After a fun slalom along the Riverview Linear Park we grunted back uphill to another short pitstop at Chumash Park, and then rode the trail beside the Santa Paula Freeway (CA-126) to our lunch stop at Sharkey's in Gateway Plaza. After lunch a short jaunt via Ralston Street rewarded the group with another long fast downhill on Johnson Drive. The almost perfect weather conditions for this easy 25-mile ride definitely justified its postponement from Saturday's hot winds. It ended with us window shopping through The Collection on our way back to Vineyard Park. Pix are from Vince, but Rolly has posted a really nice video for the ride at the link below.
10/6/2018: About a dozen riders of the group met at Mission Park in Ventura and rode up to Ojai. Photo by Vince
9/15/2018: For our Third Saturday VCRR Group Ride of September, most of our sixteen riders met at the small public parking lot located in the Seabridge Marina. Vince, Barb and Bob rode up the coast to turn around at Faria Beach, while the rest of the group rode around the marina MUPs, then over and under the Channel Islands bridge to the mouth of the Channel Islands. From there we headed up the coast to a pit stop at Oxnard State Beach, where Deena left us, riding on a tread-bare tire and accompanied by Bonnie. The rest of the group continued on up Harbor Boulevard. Max had a flat tire there, and the group was separated a bit. We followed the Arundell Barranca bikepath, and amazingly, everybody – including Bob, Barb, Vince and Dawn – got together to to have lunch at the Main Street Restaurant. After lunch we rode over to take the plunge down Seaward Avenue, and then back down the coast to our autos. This was a great day, with virtually perfect weather for the 25 to 35 mile cruise.
9/1/2018: About 16 of us met at Pitts Ranch Park; there were no real newbies, but we haven't seen George's nephews very often. After the usual socialization and munchies we started up the Calleguas Creek MUP. At its northern end we split into two groups with most folks opting for the climb into Mission Heights while the rest of us returned south and made a loop along the creek. We got back together again for a pit stop at the Village Sports Complesx. From there George took his nephews back through town, Vince led a group down Las Posas to the freeway, and the rest of us rode past CSUCI before returning to Cawelti and across to Las Posas. This wasn't a good day for powered trikes; Ann and Alan missed the ride because of problems with his Scorpion, then Vince's electrics took an inconvenient break as he rode back up Las Posas. We all met for lunch at Souplantation, and then looped up to Ponderosa for the return to Pitts Ranch Park. But once again, gremlins attacked Stephen's RideKick and almost caused him to drop out, before it magically recovered. I was (very atypically, I'd like to think) a bit careless and let the group separate on the return, but with the aid of cell phones and GPS, I managed to meet up and ride with the Lost Patrol back to our vehicles. This route varied from about 25 to 35 miles, with a nice grunt climb for the folks who tackled Upland Road. Pix are from Vince and me; deja vu...
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 2019, 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 the Summer, either in person, by phone or email. We will 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 cell phone: 805-201-5107. Text messages will not work on our home phone, and are seriously discouraged for the cell phone. Don't even think about Facebook or Twitter! For convenience my email link is: