Recumbent Riders
News and Ride Schedule
[Last Updated September 10th]
Ride Schedule:
The Air Quality Index for Ventura County, even down to the coast, is forecast to be at the border between green and yellow this Saturday, September 12th. However, since Carpinteria is supposed to be pretty clean, Kay and I plan to ride from El Carro Park, probably up to Summerland, starting between about 9 and 9:30 AM, and stopping for lunch on the return, maybe at Pizza Man Dan's or Carl's. I'm not sending out email notices for this 'unscheduled' ride, so... if you're thinking of joining us, please phone or email me either tonight or tomorrow. As always, I get a sufficient amount of rejection in my life; if you're not planning to attend, please don't be eager to exploit this opportunity to snub me by notifying us if you're NOT coming. Next weekend? Have I mentioned that suggestions for a starting and route venue are eagerly solicited?
This is a brief listing of preliminary plans for upcoming rides:
- Saturday, September 12th: Second Saturday VCRR Group Ride – El Carro Park, Carpinteria to Summerland
- Saturday, September 19th: Third Saturday VCRR Group Ride – SUGGESTIONS?
PLEASE[!]: If you have any suggestions for group rides for the next few months, 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:
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.
May 2020:A few brave VCRRians indulged in a couple of quasi-official group rides this month. The first was a prototype of our first official post-pandemic ride planned for June. That ride was posted as this thread at BROL's Trikes forum. Another six-pack met on the last weekend of the month at the Channel Islands Marina in southwest Oxnard and rode up to Gonzales. We indulged in a group lunch on the patio at The Golden Egg in the Seabridge Marina before popping over the Channel Islands bridge and returning to our parking spaces. Both of these rides went very well, with no serious problems for parking, open bathrooms or dining choices.
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 2020, 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: