July’s plan was to take the ferry from San Francisco to Larkspur Landing, and grab the SMART train to Santa Rosa to get the ride started. That would eliminate a long stretch of not-particularly-interesting riding, and start us off in the wine country.
Neither of our days started out as expected. July’s roommate was going to drive them to the ferry, but a major freeway incident threw a wrench in that plan. Then I missed the BART train I was targeting by 30 seconds, which normally wouldn’t be a problem, but BART had halted green line service due to a fire, which meant the next train wasn’t coming for 20 minutes. I did the math and figured it would be faster for me to ride to Richmond, so I hopped out of the station and started alleycatting.
I needed to get to the San Rafael Transit Center by 8:23. I hit the Richmond Bridge at 8:00. Despite setting a PR on the westbound bridge (10:50 on Use It or Lose It!), I missed the train by three minutes. I always forget that it’s still a pretty good haul from the bridge landing to downtown San Rafael.
SMART only runs about once an hour that early in the day, so I had some time to kick around. I rolled into San Rafael for coffee and a muffin, and planned to take the next train up to Snoopy Airport, which would give me a chance to make up some time on my friends.
The train trip was pleasant and uneventful, and I hopped out at the last stop and started cranking northwards. When I got to Healdsburg I was surprised that I hadn’t yet caught up; it turned out that July and Fletcher took the wrong exit from the traffic circle in Healdsburg, so I wound up ahead of them on the road, which gave me a chance to get pictures of them rolling by.
Rolling through the wine country on quiet roads, we had good chats about bikes, non-profit organizations, community and radicalism.
We grabbed lunch together at a Thai place in Cloverdale, where they would keep heading north, aiming for Ukiah tonight. I’d roll off towards the hike-in campsite at Skunk Creek on Lake Sonoma. I gave them some tips on spectating the Kinetic race, then we parted ways in downtown Cloverdale.
The rest of my ride would be pretty short, so I had some time to kill in Cloverdale. I found a good dive bar, where I had a nice conversation about bikepacking with the sorts of folks you find in a dive bar at 2:00 PM on a Monday. I stocked up for dinner at the local grocery, remembering to always eat the ice cream.
While chowing down outside the store I met a guy with a beautiful Ritchey Break-Away titanium folding bike. He’d just gotten into town from Thailand and we talked about riding in Asia and around the world. We’d both toured in Nepal. I love random connections like that.
After packing up dinner, I headed up the hill towards Lake Sonoma. There was a good climb to get to the lake, then a dip and another ridge to get to the campground. The road was lined with pleasantly fragrant Spanish broom.
The road was steep but nice, with almost no traffic. After topping the ridge, a short downhill brought me to the end of the road at Yorty Creek. According to RideWithGPS there is a Skunk Creek short-cut trail from the end of the road, but there was no evidence I could see of it. The lake was very high, so it might have been under water, along with much of the Yorty Creek picnic area.
So, I backtracked a bit to a dirt road which RWGPS helpfully labels as “dirt road”. It was indeed a dirt road. Some of it was nice but most of it was stupid, bulldozed straight up and down the fall line at 20%+ grade.
The camp, once I slogged my way there, was mostly flooded but quite nice. No humans around for miles.
I jumped into the lake fully clothed, and started cleaning my kit from the day. One advantage of riding in hot conditions is that your washed items dry out quickly.
Having dinner by the lake (pasta salad with pesto, prosciutto-wrapped mozz, chips and beer), I saw a bald eagle, multiple osprey, western bluebirds, swallows, and a northern flicker. Really lovely spot in the late afternoon.