Weather was LOVELY today. Had to use my blanket last night, too cold. This morning, fan felt chilly. There's a nice delta breeze blowing (all the way from the SF Bay), cooling off the mountains. One of the reasons people live HERE instead of say, Cool (because that name is Sarcastic) or Chico, is we get the Delta Breeze here thanks to a quirk of the mountains. You get it, faintly, in Rocklin too, but far better in Dixon and strongly in Benecia, where its more of a Delta Gale instead of Breeze. Amazing how the place has decent weather but only villains live there. Yet more proof to my theory that only Evil people are rewarded in life, and the Afterlife/Paradise is just a con to keep the peasants from revolting.
With weather this nice, it would be a shame not to use it properly so Dad, who hurt his back yesterday, suggested I go for a bike ride. So I did.
See my Google+ shared map location. If you can see it, you've been friended. If you want to see it, ask me. With 70+ unique IP address views per day, but only 2 followers, apparently I have more shy friends than I realized.
View Grass Valley Overview in a larger map
So, the route. I went up my street, climbing all the way. Parallel to Ridge Road over to the church across from the Nevada Union High School. Union is NOT an idle name. The locals voted one side or the other during the civil war. Grass Valley, being mostly Irish and such were northerners so opted for the Union side. Nevada City, mostly being southerners from Georgia and such, voted with the South and the Confederacy. Lest you worry, there were NO BATTLES fought in the civil war here in California. There were drunken words, but it was mostly an Eastern Problem, not one for the West. Slavery was illegal here as soon as the Spanish lost in the coup d'etat of 1848 at Governor Vallejo's home up in Sonoma. Its a nice little wood house, btw. He signed the surrender and then asked: "Can I go back to bed?" I admire his candor.
Anyway, from the high school, I turned up Ridge road and went up hill till I saw a street sign for Via Colina and looped down through that over to Evergreen, then Ridge Estates loop as well. Not bad, actually. Heavily treed and shady in the long summers, probably a bitch for satellite reception and power blackouts when branches fall on the lines in storms, so own a generator if you live there, but not bad. For being 3 blocks from the biggest high school in this part of the county you could hardly tell. Rich people aren't WRONG to retire here. It really is nice. Its just not nice to try and make a living here. Rich people are stingy, and won't pay for labor at any kind of living wage. The streets there are kinda rough, which is common up here. Some of the gravel used in streets is softer so wears away fast. I see people riding bicycles with those super thin narrow tires and I have to wince. On these roads that's a lot of flat tires and bruised crotch. I love my 2.5 inch wide slicks. They're great on these roads. Grippy, roll over the bad bumps, plenty of shock absorption and no flats (yet). They even go over glass, rare as that is.
After dipping into those neighborhoods, I was back on Ridge Road headed uphill to the East, towards Nevada City. It was pretty fast to the top of the hill, then coasted down all the way to the crazy intersection near the old National Guard Armory, the school district office, and the main CDF firehouse at the bottom of that steep hill. I then turned right towards Town Talk road and proceeded to pedal up the hill once more. I'm glad I've got blinky lights. The shadows and narrow road mean lots of cars came pretty close, but after Sonoma Mountain Road near misses, everything else since then is "Meh". Only the really crazy drivers try to hit you on purpose. Most do their part to miss. Tourists are money, after all. Once I coasted through the intersection of East Main, and Banner Lava Cap at the top of the hill, sound the freeway below tires and engines whistling through, I coasted easily down into Burger Basin, as we call it, through the mess of traffic near McD's and the gas stations, then along East Main, slowing to pedal uphill past various businesses and Humpty Dumpty, a local breakfast restaurant that recently reopened after a long rebuild following a fire. I climbed East Main until I crested the hill, then down to Sierra College, a steep slow hill taking all my breath and concentration in 2nd gear low to climb. Easier than Hughes, being shorter, but still a hard climb. At the top are lots of medical offices, Briar Patch natural foods co-op, a firehouse, and the college itself, which I attended briefly. A pity it doesn't take itself seriously and only offers feeder courses that require you to commute to Roseville or Rocklin to graduate. Once you're wasting that kind of time and money on the commute, why bother building a business up here? Many graduates leave the state, things are so bad. Sigh. It doesn't matter how good the weather is if unemployment means you have to live in a tent.
Down that hill from the Roundabout at Sierra College and back home at a long lazy coast. Fun. It was about a 7 mile ride. Couldn't have asked for nicer weather to ride in. I look at the map and realize there's some interesting roads I could climb, if I were stronger. A pity I don't know anybody tough enough to want to ride with me around here, but that's people. Its not like I have any friends in this town. Many acquaintances, though. The kind that are always busy, always leaving town to be somewhere else. I guess they just don't see the beauty around them, but there's no accounting for taste, is there?
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