Recent History:

Ventura County
Recumbent Riders

News and Ride Schedule
 [Last Updated August 3rd]

Ride Schedule:

PLEASE NOTE: I changed our email setup pretty radically last month, and I can't be sure of the impact on our VCRR email list. If you expect to receive ride notices but haven't gotten one by this weekend, please let me know.

Real Summer has arrived in SoCal, even on our coast, and we'll plan to stay near the beach for our next few group rides. Our First Saturday VCRR Group Ride this month (8/6) will be another sorta DYOT (do your own thing) ride along the beach between Ventura and Carpinteria, with each participant choosing his own starting spot, turnaround, lunch stop and pace on this stone simple well-known route. As usual for us, Kay and I will start from Emma Wood Beach near the southeastern end of the Old Coast Highway, just past the northwestern end of the Omer Rains bike path and the railroad overpass. We expect to arrive there at about 9AM, with coffee and morning munchies for anyone who makes it to that point before 9:30 AM, when we're hoping to ride away to our turnaround at Rincon Beach Park. This is a recommended starting point for any other Pokey Patrol people, or Faster Folks who may want to start with a quick down-and-back loop to the Main Street end of the bike path, reuniting with the PPP at the Seacliff Fire Station.

Other VCRRians may start riding from somewhere near the western end of Main Street, or even come down from Santa Barbara County. The shortest round trip distance would be about 20 miles without any steep climbs. We'll try to coordinate our lunch stop(s), possibly in Carpinteria, Hobson Beach Park, or a post-ride remeet at Main Street Restaurant, as we have after other recent rides. The longer routes could be about 35 to 50 miles round trip, with some more serious short climbs. The current weather forecast for Saturday is for temps in the high 70s with a mild afternoon tail wind; there may be some light early morning overcast.

Although the risks of semi-serious COVID infection seem to have become somewhat minimized in our area now, it will be up to each person who visits this site to choose whether to join the group for this ride, with your own (hopefully appropriately updated) individual preferences for masking and social distancing, meet the group for lunch, drive by and wave 'Hi', or meticulously avoid the venues. If any of this confuses or doesn't work for you or if you need any more info please contact me by phone or email.

This is a brief listing of preliminary plans for upcoming rides:

  • Saturday, August 6th: First Saturday VCRR Group Ride – Ventura to Carpinteria
  • Saturday, August 20th: Third Saturday VCRR Group Ride – SUGGESTIONS, PLEASE!
As always – PLEASE! – if you have any suggestions for an upcoming ride date, 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.

Emma Wood Beach July 2022: Since July had five Saturdays, the first of which is on a holiday weekend, we bumped our VCRR Group Ride schedule to the second and fourth Saturdays. Kay and I took turns with a respiratory infection early in the month and opted to skip both rides. On July 9th, a small group started from Crescent Park in Oxnard's Riverpark complex, and rode around the big gravel pits on the fairly new Class I bikepath before crossing the river on the freeway bridge, then riding up the Johnson Barranca bikepath. They rode along the CA-126 bikepaths, before having lunch and returning to Riverpark.

For the fourth Saturday ride, the group started at Ann and Alan's house, rode down to the beach and up the promenade before cruising back to have lunch at Main Street Restaurant.

Emma Wood BeachClick for More Pix 6/18/2022: Our Third Saturday VCRR Group Ride this month was another sorta DYOT (do your own thing) ride, with each participant choosing his own starting spot, turnaround, lunch stop and pace on the stone simple well-known route along the beach between Ventura and Carpinteria. A bit atypically lately, this weekend's group numbered in double digits. Most of us started from Emma Wood Beach, meeting other riders from Ventura and Michael who rode his velomobile down from Carpinteria. Almost everyone met again for a pit stop at the Seacliff Fire Station and then cruised up to Rincon Beach Park. The Faster Folks climbed up to the top of the hill and zoomed back down Bates (Rincon Hill) Road, but the Pokey Patrol turned around and headed back to our lunch stop at Hobson Beach Grill. We still had fairly cool temps with a light tailwind for the return to Emma Wood. The photo gallery for this ride is a first for 2022, despite the high contrast and dark faces that are hard to avoid when shooting in bright sunlight. [What happened to June Gloom?] I accept no responsibility for the subjects' open mouths or closed eyes.

Emma Wood Beach 6/4/2022: The group's First Saturday ride in June started from Ann and Alan's home near Camino Real Park. After meeting and greeting, with the possibility that some folks indulged in pre-ride donuts [but you didn't hear that from me!], the mostly motorized trikeys set off down the Arundell Barranca trail to the Ventura Marina. The route turned up the coast to a fairly early turnaround, then pretty much retracing their route before making a slight detour to meet Kay and me for lunch at Main Street Restaurant. With full tummies, rested and properly rehydrated, the trikeys made their way eastward along Telegraph Road to return to the starting area. As expected this was a great late Spring day for an easy cruise along the Ventura County coast.

5/7/2022: We started this VCRR Group Ride from West Channel park at the Channel Islands Marina. After a bit of coffee and morning munchies, and an unsuccessful wrestling match with one of Deena's front tires, we set off on a cruise down to the harbor entrance, then back up the coast. We made a quick pit stop at Oxnard State Beach, before looping around the Seabridge Marina MUPs. Exiting onto Victoria, we pedaled up to have lunch on the patio at Pizza Man Dan's. After lunch we took a rarely used route back down Harbor Boulevard to where we'd parked at the marina. The weather was almost perfect, probably even better than it would have been on a more inland route.

4/23/2022: For this weekend a (very) few of us met at Oxnard College Park. We started the ride by cruising around the park and down through the college campus. From there we rode west on Bard, then down the Bubbling Springs MUP to the Port Hueneme pier. After a quick pit stop, we raced (well, relatively speaking) on the smooth, tempting access road to the lighthouse, which sadly seems to be still closed from the COVID pandemic. We returned along pretty much the same path, with everyone agreeing to keep this ride fairly short. Morning weather was almost ideal, in the high 60s with light winds, but the weather wizards were warning that we'd have more serious winds by early to mid-afternoon. We loaded up our trikes and drove to Pho Oxnard for a nice lunch, finishing just as the trees and bushes began bouncing around.

4/9/2022: This Saturday was very nice, twenty degrees cooler than the previous days, with hazy sunshine and gentle breezes. We started from Crescent Park in the Oxnard's RiverPark complex, riding around the big gravel pits on that fairly new Class I bikepath. We left RiverPark on Ventura Road, crossed the river on the freeway bridge, which has really gone to pot (to some extent quite literally), then discovered that the southern end of the Johnson Barranca bikepath was closed. We detoured up Johnson Drive before rejoining the bikepath, and continued upward (again pretty literallly) to a pit stop at Barranca Vista Park. We headed eastward toward Chumash Park, but a few of us added the excitement of a straight line high speed zoom down Montgomery and swooshing upriver (but oddly slightly downhill) on the Riverview Linear Park. We climbed back up Petit to regroup at Chumash, then rode the bikepath beside CA-126, including its recently opened western end, to meet a trio of other VCRRians for lunch stop at Gateway Plaza. The group split up again after lunch, as the trikeys returned to our start area.

Emma Wood Beach3/19/2022: As advertised, our Third Saturday VCRR Group Ride this month was a sort of DYOT (do your own thing) ride, with folks starting from various places along the beach between Ventura and Carpinteria, riding at different speeds with alternate turnarounds. Kay and I rode from Emma Wood Beach to Rincon Beach Park, encountering all the other folks in our group at various times and places, while others rode a much longer route including Rincon Hill. About half the riders opted to meet Ann and Alan for lunch after the ride at Main Street Restaurant. Fortunately, we were pleased to note that the tire troubles and rainy drizzle of our previous group ride were at least temporarily postponed, and everyone had a good ride in absolutely great weather.

San Francisquito Creek3/5/2022: Cue BJ Thomas: "Raindrops keep fallin' on my head..." Yes, a little bit of precipitation played a part in this unusual Group Ride – a long overdue return road trip to Santa Clarita. Once again, I got a little carried away with the write-up for this weekend, so it became this separate webpage, maybe most appropriate for compulsive readers. Folks who are even more deviant may also enjoy the info webpage we published before this ride.

Other News:

RIDE VIDEOS AND OTHER PIX: Rolly has posted videos from older VCRR Group Rides for public viewing on YouTube at this link. 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). We are always eager and hoping for more, newer videos, and, of course, your feedback is eagerly solicited.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DON'T FORGET!: COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS ARE EAGERLY[!] SOLICITED FOR OUR GROUP RIDES THIS SUMMER, 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 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 are seriously considering, contingent upon feedback, discontinuing sending email notices before each upcoming ride, but for now at least, 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: