I'm part of a dumb bike club called dfL. Ducky is our current ring leader. He has instituted series of spring-time Wednesday Night Rides, (WNR) ideally monthly, usually about the middle of the month, starting circa 4 or 5. I first had the honor of hosting one in 2020. We'd planned for a March 2020 Oakland hills MTB ride of my devising that Ducky called the "GP Morgan Fletcher." GP means Gran Premio, or Grand Prix, both translating to Grand Prize, signifying that one winner would take all, for that race, or for a class in that race. In our case, the winner was Covid. That year the WNR was 2020/03/11. I remember the chief counsel for the company I worked at telling us, with some uncertainty on Friday 2020/03/13 that we should all just stay home for the near future, until we knew better. That was the beginning of the shutdown. Luckily, so far as I know, no one at dfL took the ultimate hit from Covid. That ride went off without any problems.
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| GP Morgan Fletcher, March 11, 2020 |
I think we've done it every year, since? I've tried a couple different formats; always dirt. This year I went with a mixed-terrain route that is one of my favorites, an after-work, 2-ish hour loop through Anthony Chabot Regional Park. With a 5PM start time, we'd be finishing at sunset, which works, although this group likes bigger, harder rides. I'd really like for dfL to experience a proper Thursday Night Ride, which starts at 7:30PM, but these people like an earlier finish. The challenge with a 5PM start is that transition to hiker-free trails doesn't happen until well after dark.
Ducky was coming off shoulder surgery. I think his first day on a bike was Friday, March 13. He had asked me for a route that would be kind to his shoulder, and let me know that I wouldn't be the only slow one. This route has washboard and ruts, but is otherwise not too spicy, so I thought it would work for Duck.
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| GP Morgan Fletcher, March 18, 2026, photo by Scotty Paz |
This year, eleven people showed up; Eric, Cesar, Ducky, Coach, Mark, Geoff, Scotty, Nick, Andrew, Matt and Mike, with me making twelve. We rolled a bit after 5, south on Skyline Boulevard, south on Goldenrod, then lower Goldenrod trails, down to the stone bridge and up to Marciel road on Brandon, Marciel road to the parking lot near Redwood Road, then Brandon to the cutty connector to Redwood to Soaring Hawk, Soaring Hawk north to MacDonald to the "land bridge" to Parkridge to Brookpark to Skyline Boulevard again to my house.
Soaring Hawk is one of my favorite trails. I told the story about how the park district originally gave it to the motorcycle riders, to do with as they pleased, back in the 1950s.
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| More about Soaring Hawk here |
I am slow, and despite the name, dfL is generally not slow. There's also this phenomenon on dfL rides; riders sometimes go off the front and then... go their own way. I wanted to minimize strays and mishaps, so I attempted to stay on the front. It mostly worked, except for two climbs where I knew we'd regroup at the top. Riding lead meant less socializing, and less breath for talking, but it worked out. Andrew had ridden to us, from Castro Valley, so he detached at the top of Brandon, and I got the remaining ten back to my house without trouble.
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| at the top of Brandon |
Ducky has this riding style, even when not recovering; low, flat back, elbows out, face up, a classic roadie posture. With his way of riding through recovery from shoulder surgery, and his position and demeanor on the bike, he reminded me a bit of Fiorenzo Magni, racing the 1956 Giro d'Italia with a broken collarbone.
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| "In the 1956 Giro d’Italia, stage 12, Fiorenzo Magni famously broke his left clavicle and still managed to finish second overall. At the hospital he refused a plaster cast and refused to abandon the Giro in the year of his announced retirement." - Wikipedia |
I think everyone liked the route. The weather was warm, even too warm, the sun bright, the sky clear, and no one crashed or went off course or had a mechanical. What kind of dfL ride was this?!
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