Mid-Week Rides: N. Bay Roads

Wednesday, Dec 1 2021

Chris writes:

The sign said “Road Closed 4.6 Miles Ahead”, but then I get ahead of myself. Six riders eventually, but five appeared at the GG Bridge view area, myself, Chris Weld, Rob Hyman, Jag Patel, Joe Steiner and John Guy. The sixth amigo Paul Hampton was awaiting our arrival at Petaluma’s Henny Penny. Breakfasts were big, albeit slow – they’re short staffed too!

The ride started with a short romp up Hwy 101 for the Redwood Highway off and a westward turn onto Mark Springs Road (which becomes River Road) and a putt into Gurneville where some gas was had, but more importantly, bladders emptied. We rode west on Hwy#116 for the Cazadero Rd and on into Cazadero, the southerly end of King Ridge. The weather, superb, everywhere one looked, lush greenery. After coffee and tire kicking it was onto the day’s main attraction, King Ridge. This is not a long road, only about twelve miles of poorly paved, narrow asphalt and ‘patch’.

At the north end of Cazadero there’s a ‘Y’, one branch, the Fort Ross Road goes west to..to..you guessed it, Ft. Ross. The other, King Ridge where that mentioned sign appeared. Our esteemed member wwwobble (AKA Bob Burns), always ‘tested’ such signs and as a ‘follower’, I too lead a ‘charge’. Yes, we found road work but it was lunch time, we got nods and waves and a very short stretch of gravel, not 50 yards worth. We motored on. We paused on a ridge top to enjoy the view (remember that coffee in Cazadero?) and take a picture or two (more like 30). King Ridge ends at a ‘T’ with Tin Barn running north to end at Skaggs Springs- Stewart’s Point, the other ‘arm’, our route, Hauser Creek. This terrain is steep, if you’re not going downhill on compression, you’re feathering the clutch in 2nd gear going uphill.

Hauser Creek morphs into Meyer’s Grade (18% in one area) and ends at Hwy #1 above (read ‘above’ both ways), the town of Jenner. Right now, at this writing, the Russian River is land-locked, there’s no ‘above sand’ egress for the river, a circumstance I’ve never seen. We left Jenner for clam chowder at The Tides in Bodeaga. The next-door fish processing operation consisted of two women cleaning crab (season hasn’t opened locally) with one fishing boat tied-up.

After chowder the companions started to split-up, four riders continued down to Marshall and the Marshall -Petaluma road working to Lucas Valley and Hwy 101 South. We all got home before sundown. Traffic was light or non-existent the whole day. It was a great ride.