On Saturday, June 27th, 16 Redwood Riders on 14 bikes collected at Sheri’s in Rohnert Park for a 2-day, 1-overnight ride through the Delta and the Gold Country. A short and sweet ride awaited us.
We put kick stands up at 8:30 and motored off toward Highway 12. We rode through vineyards over to Interstate 80, which quickly dropped us into Suisun for our first break. The large Chevron station accommodated us for rest, relief, coffee, donuts and more. We continued on Highway 12 until we came to a construction detour that held a hidden reward, as it took us along the Delta which was beginning to show the happy collection of summer vacationers. Our next stop was at the intersection of Highway 12 and Interstate 5. Our ride, cool until then, began to heat up. The thermometer rose but not enough to spoil our fun. We took another break at Farmington before riding into the iconic attraction of Copperopolis for lunch. Our lunch stop was delightful, with air conditioning, large tables and terrific servers to bring us our chosen fare. After lunch, as the thermometer continued to spank us a bit, we rode into the charming, authentic mining town of Columbia. This quaint little town has been restored as a State park. Plenty of 19th century buildings and mining equipment were to be found for the historically-interested. The ice cream store, however, had picked an odd day (a Saturday with temps over 100) to close up. What were they thinking?! When the going gets tough, as the high school coach said, the tough get going – with or without ice cream. We remounted and rode on toward our overnight destination of Sutter Creek. We arrived ready for dinner in the attractive town reminiscent of the 19th Century. We broke into 2 pods for dinner, some walking into town from our Day’s Inn Hotel, while others rode in. The food was fine in both cases.
On Day 2, our ride leader, George, led us on a picturesque loop out of Sutter Creek around the village of Volcano. This provided a great start to our day before taking off to Walnut Grove, where the ice cream vendor was open for business. Day 2 provided cool temps all the way back along the Delta to Suisun with a bountiful lunch at the Black Bear Diner. After lunch we did hugs, either symbolic or physical, and said our good byes.
The ride was an excellent hybrid of day ride and tour, as the one overnight allowed us variety but remained conveniently close to home. More will be planned as our circumstances and public health edicts permit. Until then.
Tom Cooke
Ride Captains – Tom Cooke & George Homenko
Click the Google Photos Image to open the Ride Album in Google Photos