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Bill  On The Road

 by: Bill Oetinger  7/1/2021

Along the Trails


“They’re the people that you meet in the neighborhood.”

—Mr Rogers

Wise old Fred Rogers had it right: we live in a neighborhood and a neighborhood is a community of many people, some more alike, some quite different, but all adding something to the whole.

In the context of my cycling life, my neighborhood includes a few local bike paths: the Joe Rodota Trail, the Santa Rosa Creek Trail, and the West County Regional Trail. Of course my bike world also includes many miles of public roads in four or five North Bay counties. But when I think about “neighborhood”—local and, in a way, almost familial—the paved trails stand somewhat apart and feel somewhat special. When we take the cars and trucks and buses out of the picture, things become more intimate. On a trail, I am not encountering an oncoming cyclist with two lanes of traffic and asphalt between us. Instead, we meet head-on, pretty much. And because of the close quarters, we see each other up close. If we’re awake and paying attention, we notice one another.

The Joe
The Joe Rodota Trail - Santa Rosa CA

I ride my local trails frequently. They’re super convenient for getting me to places I want to ride. The “Joe” connects downtown Santa Rosa and downtown Sebastopol. It’s a rails-to-trails conversion along the grade of an old trolley and freight line. The SR Creek trail also begins in downtown Santa Rosa (where it intersects the Joe) and heads due west along the levee next to the creek. The West County Trail almost connects to the Joe in Sebastopol and follows another railroad bed north to the town of Forestville.

I’m not the only cyclist (or walker or runner) who likes them. They’re all popular, rarely to the point of being overcrowded but definitely active recreational corridors. Linear parks.

On a recent ride heading east along the Joe, into Santa Rosa, and then, later, returning west along the Creek Trail, I started noticing the other people I was seeing along the way. Once I started noticing, I kind of got hooked on it and began an informal census of who was passing by…who else had chosen that sunny morning for some sort of jaunt along our nice paths.

There are plenty of pedestrians, either walkers or runners. They come in many shapes and sizes, ages and groupings. I don’t mean to give these worthy bipeds short shrift today but they are secondary to my topic. I am mostly interested in the folks who chose to use bikes for their trail excursions.

Among the bike people, there are, first of all, the most obvious (to me) trail users: the people who look essentially the way I look. We’re somewhere on a spectrum that can be termed middle-aged but still entertaining the happy fiction that we’re serious cyclists. We ride more-or-less state-of-the-art bikes and we wear cycling kit that takes its fashion cues from the pro peloton. Some of these riders are still slim and sleek and obviously quite fast. But most would not be mistaken for young racers. The years have had their way with them (with us). I won’t presume to know the personal histories or ambitions or current agendas of each of these riders. I only note they look approximately like I do and therefore maybe are on about the same page in the big book of cycling.

Then there are guys who look like they just grabbed a sturdy bike out of the garage, dusted it off, and set out to get some exercise—and have some fun—on this pleasant spring morning. No fancy bikes. No special bike attire. No helmets. Just 40ish guys in shorts and tees and baseball caps on cruiser bikes. On the day in question I saw a few fellows that fill this bill, sometimes in small groups and sometimes solo.

Among my favorite sightings were the families. One or two parents with one or two kids. The best was a mom with a younger girl and what I assume was an older brother. The girl came first…maybe eight years old, concentrating so hard on the challenge of keeping that bike moving along. The look of mingled determination and triumph—“I can DO this!”—was priceless. Her brother, with a little more of a comfort zone on his bike, had enough spare bandwidth to flash me a huge, goofy grin as he followed along behind his sister, as if to say to me, “This is so cool!” Finally, the serene and attractive mom, bringing up the rear, with panniers on her bike, no doubt carrying bottles of water or juice and snacks to keep her little team fueled up for the duration. All of them collectively looked like they rolled right out of a Norman Rockwell painting…so wholesome, so happy.

There were also parents pulling Burley-style trailers with one or two tots on board. (I’ve done that. Not with my own kids but with their kids, my grandchildren.)

Another group I’m guessing was a sort of extended family included six middle-school kids on scooters with four women at the back on basic bikes…presumably the moms riding herd on the kids. A slightly strange assembly but there you go…these are the people that you meet along the trails.

Maybe the most colorful fellow I encountered out there had a bike fully decked out in baubles and reflectors and bright, shiny objects…a pearly queen of a bike. Ahead of the handlebars was a big box, almost the size of a milk crate, and across the front of the box in big block letters—in all colors of the rainbow—was a single word: LOVE. Hard to argue with that.

I saw what I surmise were a couple of small tour groups. Matching bikes with identical handlebar bags. Four in one group and seven in another. No idea whether they were simply renting bikes and off on their own or whether they were part of a catered tour group with a guide nearby. I can’t offhand recall seeing tour groups on these trails before. We usually see them up in the “wine country” of Dry Creek and Alexander Valleys. But there they were. What their routes were for the day, I can only guess.

Often on the local trails I run into a trio of older gentlemen on recumbents. I did not see these three on this day but I did see a couple on ‘bents…the three-wheeled kind. Going at a snail’s pace but looking very comfortable while doing so.

E-bikes! This is a relatively new phenomenon in the bike world. There have been e-bikes around for at least 20 years but they have been breeding like rabbits lately. On the trails I see them coming toward me or—in my mirror—coming up behind me, and I can tell almost instantly that they have power assist. They’re going too fast relative to their pedal cadence. Some of the e-bikes are almost stealth: they look like classic road bikes with just a slightly fatter down tube stuffed with batteries or they sport some oversized rear hub or bottom bracket concealing a power unit. Then there are the big, beefy rigs with those ginormous, hunky tires. They look like they weigh at least 50 pounds. Even with a powerful motor they must still be a load to push along. I still like supplying my own power when I ride so I haven’t really studied up on e-bikes yet. I may get there someday but not this year. But boy, there sure are a lot of them on the trails these days.

And then there are the homeless folks. Bike trails passing through the ragged fringe of industrial dreck near cities seem to be the native habitat of homeless people and their cousins, the so-called street people. The miles of the Joe closest to Santa Rosa are in this category. Many of the homeless use bikes to haul around their possessions, often in overloaded trailers. I met up with a few on this day. If you read my columns with any regularity, you know I have opinions about most things and am not shy about airing them out. But when it comes to the homeless “problem,” I am going to keep my thoughts to myself. It is an incredibly difficult issue in our world right now and while I wish I had some brilliant plan that would lead to a happy solution, I don’t. I’m stumped. In my informal census of who’s out there on the trails, it would be dishonest to not acknowledge them. They may not be the stuff of happy-talk bike columns but they too are some of the people that we meet in our neighborhood. I will only say this much more: they make a miserable mess along the trails and I could wish they had some other place to live their lives. However…I also appreciate that, but for some fickle twist of fate, I could be one of them. So my discomfort is leavened with charity and forbearance.

I wasn’t keeping notes out there except in my head. My census was mostly a series of quick snapshots collected from the passing parade. Subjective and selective. I forgot more than I remember. Anyway, what’s the point of this chronicle of bike trail travelers? I guess the point I’m trying to make is that when we leave home and venture out into the wider world, we become part of something larger than just our only, lonely selves; that we become part of a large and complex community. We see the signs and hear the mantra: “Share the road!” This tells all of us, out on the roads, to be patient and friendly; to bend toward comity and civility and kindness. It’s true on the trails as well…treating one another with respect and courtesy. But sharing is not just about giving way and fending off the bad interactions. It’s also about sharing in the celebration and good cheer of being out there, each of us alone and yet all of us together..neighbors.

Bill can be reached at srccride@sonic.net



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