Our First Saturday VCRR Group Ride this month, this weekend (4/6) will be a cruise up the coast from Ventura to Rincon Beach Park. We expect to have a sorta staggered start, with some folks riding a bit farther by starting from the Pierpont area. Pokey Patrol people who favor a shorter ride will launch about 2 miles up the old coast highway from Emma Wood Beach where the cormorants roost on the utility cable across the highway, with a projected ride-away time of about 10 AM. Turnaround points may range from the Seacliff Fire Station to the top of Rincon Hill. Our lunch spot(s) will be chosen by the folks who show up for the ride.
REMINDER: A small number of us have been meeting fairly regularly to ride together on 'off weekends' and during the week. We're always thrilled to have others join us for these almost impromptu excursions, and if you're interested, please ping me or one of the other regular attendees to coordinate times and venues. But please remember: you will need to initiate contact if you want to meet the rest of the group, either by email, phone or texting, each time you want to ride. I'm happy to notify 'serious' potential participants by request, but I'm not the least bit enthusiastic (or tolerant, maybe?) about contacts which are repeatedly a waste of time.
PLEASE NOTE: We're hoping that everyone who can will join us on one of our VCRR Group Rides this year. Please ping me if you need more info or would like contact info to coordinate a ride with anyone else that you'd like to invite.
This is a brief listing of preliminary plans for upcoming rides:
March 2024: For our First Saturday VCRR Group Ride, the weather weenies apparently decided that we should settle for yet another meeting of the Bad Weather Brunch Bunch. The biggest news for this month was a blast from the past. Nine of us (and two dogs) participated in Ventura's fun and famous St. Patrick's Day Parade. We indulged in our trademark swooping and swirling along Main Street in Ventura to amuse 5000 spectators. We almost surely had more FUN than those spectators or other entrants. Although we had planned a ride for the unusual Fifth Saturday this month, once again our rare rainy weather changed those plans to another Bad Weather Brunch at Marie Callender's in Camarillo.
January/February 2024: This has been an unusual and difficult time for our group, with way too many of us trying to recover from accidents, illness, mechanical problems and family death, as well as the more common hindrances of the Winter holidays. I received a small compensation for our first sort-of-official VCRR Group Ride of the year, when three women showed up to ride with me around the Oxnard marinas and down to the Port Hueneme lighthouse. Stephen and Deena also met us for lunch at Pho Saigon to cap a great day for a trike ride. Our Third Saturday ride was rained out, but about 10 of us indulged in a Bad Weather Brunch at Main Street Restaurant. Kay and I have still been riding two or three times a week this Winter, but we haven't had many ride partners lately, including for our 'official' First Saturday ride in February. Despite feeling a little lonely and neglected we still managed to make the most of a great day to ride from Thille Park to Brown Barranca and Telegraph Road. Fortunately, we had some company for the last ride of February, as seven of us rode from Marina Park in Ventura up the coast to Emma Wood Beach, and then up the Arundell Barranca. The day started out chilly, overcast and a little damp, but we were surprised as the sun burned off the low cloud cover and warmed up enough so that folks were shedding layers of clothing.
November/December 2023: Our First Saturday ride last month started from Pitts Ranch Park. We separated into two small groups, one tackling the steep climbs and zooming downhills of the Mission Hills area before regrouping at the Village Sports Park and continuing on to the CSUCI campus. We had a great brunch at the Islands Cafe, then wrapped up the day with a quick return to the park in great Autumn weather. On the rain-dampened Third Saturday we met for another (in?)famous Bad Weather Brunch at Main Street Restaurant. Although no one has had a non-trivial accident on our group rides for years, our last ride in November ended with an injury crash at a dangerous dead end of the levee trail in Fillmore. Sadly, that was also the second serious accident for the group that week as one of the riders collided with a car on his way to a ride start. Several of us have continued to get together for two or three rides each week, taking full advantage of our near-ideal Autumn weather to enjoy cycling with a variety of venues and velocities. Our Third Saturday VCRR Group Ride of December started in the Pierpont area near the Ventura Marina; five of us rode tadpole trikes up the coast to the Seacliff Fire Station on another almost ideal day for an Autumn trike ride.
August to October 2023: August sort of marked a transition in the operation of our VCRR Group Ride series. Over the Summer there continued to be fewer folks showing up, for a multitude of reasons. As a result a much smaller core group of us have been meeting for rides much more frequently, often on Tuesday and Thursday as well as most Saturdays. To take advantage of the cooler temps and morning overcast, we almost always stayed close to the coast, scheduling most of our rides between Seacliff and Port Hueneme. Of course, almost all of those rides included an option for our Pokey Patrol people, but there's been ample opportunities for other riders who opt to go faster and farther. The two 'officially' scheduled VCRRGroup Rides in August were typical, the first starting from the north end of the Bubbling Springs bike path and the second from Blanche Reynolds Park in Ventura. A few flat tires and one dead battery were corrected, and no other problems interfered with our fun. The First Saturday ride in September was a bit of a misfire, with most folks opting for a Bad Weather Brunch rather than challenge the damp but drying roadways. Only Gerry and Q relocated to Camarillo to log some miles. We indulged in some other rides, with small groups in various venues, most notably on the second Saturday along the coast from Ventura to Rincon Hill. There have been some minor disasters, including unusually frequent flat tires and one dead motor, and some fun moments like the brave lady who risked a ride on a retro-reptile. The next two group rides were returns to ride from the Pierpont area of Ventura up to Seacliff, usually finishing with a group lunch at Main street.The last ride of this series was a bit of a surprise in that only Barb and Bob showed up to ride with Kay and me from Ventura to Saticoy.
May/June/July 2023: Actually, there isn't much to report for the few months' group rides that will be of much interest to the folks who weren't there. The photo of Kay wearing camouflage may be about as fun as it gets. Kay and I missed a ride in mid-June as we were stricken by a wayward norovirus (aka 'cruise ship crud', but we didn't even get to go to sea). Several of the trikeys in our group have been getting together for impromptu short rides on weekdays, including one return to Santa Paula to check out the bike routes in the new housing tract northeast of town, with a patio lunch at La Cabaña. Jumbo margaritas were half price... Our Third Saturday ride in July finished with an impromptu birthday celebration for Kay and me, with a huge, delicious carrot cake; THANKS AGAIN, EVERYONE! We also discovered that the gravel pits bordering RiverPark in Oxnard have been partially filled with water; no one seems to know the ultimate plan for this recent development.4/15/2023: This ride started from Marina Park in Ventura and we rode up the coast and back. The Pokey Patrol, just Kay and I that weekend, flipped at the fire station near Seacliff for about 25 miles. The turnaround point for the larger subgroup was the top of Rincon Hill (about 35 miles). We had a bit of unscheduled drama at the park when I discovered that I had lost the key to our van, and the backup key was locked up at home 10 miles away. House keys were locked in our van. While the rest of our group indulged in lunch at Pizza Man Dan's, Kay and I rode back to Surfer's Point, vainly hoping to spot the wayward car fob. Finally Gerry rescued us, giving Kay a ride home in his truck whle I racked up a bit more than 40 miles for the day. Our neighbor Pete had a backup house key, which we had all forgotten, and we retrieved our van and trikes. On Monday Kay and I retraced our Class II route, and the guys at the Fire Station handed us our lost key, which some other rider had apparently found and left in their public access bathroom.
4/1/2023: This weekend our ride started from the Seabridge Marina, on a fairly direct loop down to the Channel Islands Marina harbor entrance, then up the coast past Oxnard State Beach, continuing up Harbor Boulevard to the Arundell Barranca on our way to lunch at Main Street Restaurant in Ventura. The weather was great and even though only a few folks opted to join us, we had a nice ride with no serious issues, and a fun chatty lunch.
We are semi-desperately looking for suggestions for new, different or retro/classic VCRR Group Rides for this year, either in person, by phone or email. We're also very eager to expand the number of cyclists to participate in any of the rides we're planning over the next year. 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: 805-612-7662. 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: