This post describes the second leg of our ride from Cloverdale to Marinwood.
We hung out a while at our turn-around point in Cloverdale. Our contol point was a grocery store. Paul bought a pack of Klondike Health bars which really hit the spot. After a long-ish break, we headed south.
The next part of the trip, from Cloverdale to Gurneyville, was a real treat. We rolled mile after mile through Sonoma wine country along West Dry Creek Road. Gentle rollers and a nice tailwind moved us along. It really felt like the scenery on the ride was getting more and more spectacular as the day wet on.
We hit River Road and turned west toward Gurneyville in the late afternoon, and stopped in town at Main Street Station for dinner. A swing band was setting up and, as it turned out, Paul knew the fiddler. So we had a long pizza dinner, listened to the music for a while, and along about dark, started to get ready to roll again. The band was on break, so they came out to see us off.
Rolling along River Road out to Jenner we had our only mechanical issue: Karen got a flat tire. Everyone helped out and it didn’t take long to change. Or wouldn’t have, but just as Paul was topping the tire off with Glenn’s Road Morph bike pump, the new tube exploded. Glenn and Paul then had a disagreement over the cause: Glenn thought Paul over-inflated the tire, which Paul thought was impossible. We rechecked the tire, loaded a new tube, pumped it up (with Glenn warning Paul he was putting too much air in again, and Paul dismissing the idea, when BAM! the second tube popped. A little heated discussion about tire pressure ensued, as did a more thorough check of the tire. Sure enough, there was a split in the sidewall. We were going to use a boot, when Glenn produced a spare tire. Then we had to have a discussion about which to use: a booted blown out tire, or a brand new tire. Seems like a no-brainer but for one issue: the new tire had red sidewalls. Karen’s bike is a beautifully painted purple Steve Rex. Her fingernails are purple, as are her socks, etc. Bottom line was that she was not going to be seen on a purple bike with red tires.
About this time, we’d been on the side of the road for about 45 minutes. We were getting cold. Tempers weren’t running high, but patience was wearing thin. I recalled that to finish the Fléche, we only needed three of our five team members to finish. Paul mentioned something about Karen walking back to town. In the end, we more or less bullied poor Karen into taking the red tire, assuring her we could change it back again in the morning.
We got underway again. The further west we went, the fewer cars we saw. Finally, we turned south to cross the Russian River and head toward Bodega Bay. After climbing out of the river valley, the wind was on our backs again, and we made great time down Highway 1. It was completely dark now. We could hear the ocean, even if we couldn’t see it. The moon had not yet risen, so the sky was filled with stars.
We reached Bodega Bay around 10, and the town was pretty much closed up for the night. We found a gas station attendant who was just closing down, but agreed to open the convenience store for us so long as we hurried. Then we started on the long ride to Valley Ford and over to Petaluma. Not much to report on this stretch. It’s a nice, wide road so it felt relatively safe. We enjoyed that tailwind the entire way, which helped. In the wetlands around Bodega Bay we listened to frogs while we rode. As we got closer to Petaluma, there were fewer frogs and more cattle. Or so the smells suggested anyway. We reached the outskirts of Petaluma around midnight. And unlike Bodega Bay, when we hit downtown Petaluma the place was jumping. Music and people and cars everywhere. It was a nice change.
From Petaluma to Novato, we rode on the shoulder of the 101. This stretch was, of course, not as spectacular as other parts of the trip so far. But it was perfectly appropriate. it was late, we needed to make miles. And with a 14 foot shoulder, it was safer than the small country roads we had ridden earlier. Sometime later, we rolled into our next control: Marinwood.