Bev (Turpin) McInnes - 1991

One of the friendliest riders out there, Bev has that uncanny knack of being nice and telling it like it is.  She has been the backbone of organizing "women's only" rides and has been a wise mentor to both sexes   She's got skills, and has been no stranger to some of the fastest rides.

Sacramento River Rides - Skills Gone Wild!

If there’s a place to learn bike handling and pack riding skills it’s on the Sacramento River Rides. 

I started doing the River Rides 22 years ago in 1991. I had a lot of fun but not without a lot of pain. I learned ALL of my bike handling skills from the best of the best on our river rides. I also learned how to deal with crashes, avoid crashes, not crash, and most importantly, ride home after crashing. We’ve certainly had our share crashes out there too. 

When I first started river riding, I was inundated with advice from everyone.. “don’t overlap wheels, if you do and you crash, it’s your fault, keep moving forward, pull through, don’t go up to the front and do nothing, if you do go up front, make sure you have a reason, when you move up, make sure you have a place to go, what are you doing, know what you’re doing, have a reason, don’t make abrupt moves from inside the pack without looking, don’t push such a big gear, keep your cadence relatively high, just pedal faster when the pack speeds up, leave yourself an out, watch the pack and don’t just stare at the wheel in front of you, pick good wheels, don’t dangle at the back - it’s harder.” I heard every bit of that advice and I absorbed it all too. 

I was pretty driven back then, showing up to every Saturday river ride if I wasn’t racing. It was a high priority item for me. I absolutely would not miss one if I could help it. 

Many memorable moments in the past river rides do include good memories. One of them was Eric Heiden stringing out the whole group of 50 to 100 riders for the first two to three miles on the Saturday River Ride. It was hilarious! There was just this looooong line of riders he was inflicting pain upon. Ouch! He’d do it first thing too when nobody was warmed up yet. He wasn’t out there very often, but you always knew when he was.. Yeah, that was a good memory alright, good AND painful. 

Then it finally happened, I witnessed my first nasty bicycle crash. It was on the Saturday river ride. Luckily, I was toward the front. Like I was safe for something…. The crash happened right in the front when everyone was going for the sprint. Talk about coming to a screeching halt with 90 riders queuing up to sprint and right behind you. The lucky ones involved were John Brady, Declan Lonergan, among others. They looked like this rolling ball of flesh and concrete. 

It was bad! 

Brady ended up with not much left of the back of his jersey or the skin on his back for that matter. He had road rash from his neck to his butt. The crash happened right at the county line so it was a long ride back for everyone involved. And all the way back I was just staring at John’s back thinking, “that’s REALLY going to hurt in the shower.”

A couple other memorable crashes were Chad Gerlach going off the levee. We see him flying down the embankment, his bike was in the air as we all rolled on by. 

Another one was when a dog went running right into our pack on a very foggy Saturday morning taking several people down which included Julie Young whose bike broke in half. If there ever was a time when the whole river ride stopped, it was that day. And I mean the whole group did. 

Those few times where we did have crashes on the Saturday River Rides, it always seemed to be Gordon Ong, Bowen Doxsee, Mike Giomi, or someone else from City Bike Works who would drive all the way out to Garden Highway and pick up the wounded who couldn’t make it back. Many years of great River Ride support from out local bike shop. 

But, the successful river rides did and still do outweigh the bad ones though. I’d say that in my 22 years of doing river rides, around 99.9% of them are successful, crash free. 

Today I don’t get out to the Saturday river ride or the Tuesday/Thursday south river rides very much anymore but that’s because there are so many other rides going on that are closer to where I live. I do still make it out to the Monday ride though. 

Love that one!! 

We are really very lucky to have all of our river rides. I’d like to give Chuck Hutcheson a huge thanks for taking the initiative to really streamline all of river rides by creating the A and B groups for them, keeping the more advanced riders separated from the rest. It really gives everyone a better opportunity to exercise their abilities within the race rides. These are training rides and are a great place to test yourselves and practice your skills. 

Though, I never became a pro because life got in the way, as it seems to do, I did get the opportunity to enjoy my many cycling successes. I owe a lot of thanks to a lot of people who really helped me along the way; Vince Gee, Robert Jiminez., Jerry Roberts, John Brady, Declan Lonergan, Stace Cooper, Troy White, Chris Bauman, Steve Ghorely, Kevin Metcaff, Bowen Doxsee, Dave C., Gordon Ong, Chris Dominguez, Wayne, and many others. 

My goal these days is now to pay forward all the skills I learned from our river rides to my Rio Strada women’s team.

Chris Husing - 1982

My relationship with cycling began in 1982. I watched a viewing of "Sunday in Hell" at a theater on J street just across from Macy's. Shortly later, I was a spectator at Nevada City and If I remember correctly Toby Powers won that day.  

I was hooked.  

I learned of the south river ride from the Bicycle Business and decided to give it a try. I had an old, way too big English Dawes that I painted Bianchi green. I remember meeting Vince Gee and Tim Imai and they would give me cycling tips. 

I was dropped often and quickly, but was determined to get the fitness and strategies to stay with the main group.  Eventually, this high school senior with a piece of junk touring bike finished with the leaders.  

One crazy memory I have back in the early 90s, we had just concluded the south river ride and were riding across the Capitol bridge. A mother duck with a bunch of ducklings was stuck in the middle of the road unable to get her offspring to safety. The peleton stopped, blocked some of the traffic, and many of us in our cycling cleats ran around helping catch and put her ducklings out of danger.

Chris Husing

David S Kause - 1986

Some guys just don't age, and Kause is a perfect example.  For over 25 years he has been doing the River Ride, and has watched riders come and go, but he is still here - sporting the latest in cool euro team fashion and occasionally sticking it to the best, while giving everyone advice.

-Tom Boonen approves this message.

I first started riding back in 1986. I had some friends that lived 4 houses down . They were Sean Co and Brian Co. Their cousins had come from LA to visit. Their names were Allen and Almarric Lim. Yes this is the famous Allen Lim from labs. Anyway they had brought these really cool bikes , I think Arraya and Nishiki back in the day. My bike was a red Torelli . So they had come for the weekend to ride.



We had heard about this river ride thing and decided to check it out. Previously I had ridden a small group ride with Jess Polakoff , Sam Giles that he hosted twice a week for people whom wanted to learn to ride in groups. We had ridden down from Carmichael and ride started at 10am sharp. I was totally stoked to ride.



We rolled in and as I pulled up there were my idols. 7 eleven team. Andreau ..McKinley, Brady, Nitz it was so cool. I was going to get to ride with the best. We rolled out slowly through downtown ,by blue diamond almonds, down 16th... to Northgate.

As soon as we passed Chevy's on the river it was on.
Pain, pain pain.

Fast, furious but it was the adrenaline that kept me going. Sprint was at county line and McKinley lit it up. Sprint on way back was at Chevy's and that was nuts.
Funny thing was, there was a Sacramento Bee photographer who got a shot of the aftermath of the crash. I'm standing in background adjusting my bike and McKinley has his arm in air smiling after not crashing.



We rolled back and Mr Nitz said, "So kid what ya think?"
I said "a few more of these and I might want to race." My first river ride experience and a real pro actually spoke to me. We got back to shop and then rolled back to home.

I was beat but at the same time so addicted to riding simply because everyone was so cool. It was like riding with a bunch of my best friends and I knew nobody. Everyone was helpful, understood I was new and showed me and told me where and what to do. That's just the way it was back then. I could learn a lot from those days, skills were taught, handling ,riding, etiquette. It was the way it should be now. That was my first river ride. Thank you to all that made that day one I will never forget.


One of my favorite memories of the Saturday Ride was when Scott McKinley had a crash prior to ride in a race. He lived on I think D and 24th. Anyway we were riding by his house and out he comes with his bars flipped up because of a back injury after the crash.


He still slaughtered the field.


That following Tuesday night river ride he was there and same situation, handle bars bull horned but one small problem. Halfway through the ride there was a crash. Two city guys bumped and went down.


I followed over the top and went down...McKinley was behind me and because of the skills he had was able to push through crash with no.problem.


Great times..great rides..


and.

A lot of talent back then.

Rod Spradlin - 1995

River Rides have changed over the years.  Most of the time, there is a temporary change because of construction - or even changes that last several years (think of the South River Finish).  Every once and a while there are whole scale changes that might involve a transition from one location to another, or a complete morph in the ride.  The Thursday River Ride was identical to the Tuesday - but it is gone.  You might ask yourself, has the quality of the racers changed with the disappearance of this ride? Whatever happened to the Thursday South River Ride?  

River rides 1995-2001 (history of the airport ride) 

I bought a used bike from City Bicycle Works from Mike Giomi in the mid 1990’s. I learned of the river rides and that’s where my riding apprenticeship started. You started on a down tube (shifting) used bike and were lucky to get a cyclometer to see how fast you were going. You just rode your bike hard and learned.  

The Tuesday and Thursday south river rides were so hard that rarely did I make the front group, much less even witness a sprint. It was an accomplishment just to make it to the end and never had a chance.  

The alternative ride was the generic ride. The Cutters ride. It was an eclectic group for sure that ride met every Tuesday and Thursday at guy west bridge during day light savings. There was an A and a B group. I do remember some racer types dropping in here and there, but they would never admit to it. 
The Cutters always regrouped.  

After the sprint on winding way, they stopped at the village park in downtown fair oaks, got water and waited for everyone - then went back to guy west via the bike trail. At some point during the year, it stayed light enough to do the airport loop.  

Dave Burke was who I remembered being the one who stated next weeks meeting times and routes.  

The Airport Loop went out El Centro through the then stop signs (at that time, the Saturday river ride sprint was on El Centro with no “S turns” on bayou). We crossed over at the airport and finished on north bayou just like today. We went across the road and into Swabbie’s bar (not sure if that was the name back then). We regrouped there, got water, used restrooms and commonly got a beer. We headed back and the second sprint was the city limit sign on garden highway. The ride often ended at the Thursday night market and regroup at the bar.  

Over the years, many people stopped doing the Thursday south river ride for various reasons until one day, no one showed up and the “Airport Ride” was the official Thursday night race ride. Now you know why it meets at the guy west bridge. 

Cheers.

Dan Glass - 1990

Of course, not all River Riders started off as juniors - though we plan on having a River Ride history of the Juniors like Justin Morgan, Troy White, Chad Gerlach, Marty Woy and Chris Baumann.  Dan Glass. as a masters rider, began doing the ride when it was probably the fastest it has ever been.  He's a little bit older now, and a regular on the "B" rides.  He is also one of our recommended attorneys for cycling related issues (see his link at the bottom right of the blog!).

I did not begin to seriously ride a bike until about 1990, at the age of 33. After a year or two of working my way up to finishing a “century”, and being a regular customer of the Bicycle Business, I found the south RR on Tuesday and Thursday nights. At 34, I was pretty much the “old guy” back then. Chuck Hutcheson was still in high school. From what I remember, the true leaders of the ride were Scott McKinley (I think John McKinley also showed up now and then), Vince Gee, Dominic Anderson, Declain Lonegan, John Brady, and of course - young Chuck, Chad Gerlach, Chirs Bauman, Alex Holt, Cory McCracken, Steve Gorley. The ave. speed of the ride was never less than 25 mph and I had times when we covered the 12.5 miles at an average speed above 29 mph. Most times, about 27 - 28. 

I was not one of the “chosen ones” and remained “pack fodder”. About 25% of the time I was lucky enough to just be in the pack for the sprint, although it was probably only 5% of the time that I was close enough to actually contest the final sprint finish. Most of the time, because I had little bike handling skills as a beginner, and a great fear of crashing, I would be dropped by the Ferrari tower and then spend the next half hour time trialing to pick off people - which is really what I did well.

One time I am trying to catch a guy in front of me - I see him, and I chase and chase, and get closer, and see HE IS ON A MOUNTAIN BIKE going 24 mph. I am pissed. No one on a mountain bike is gonna beat me!! I work harder, I get closer, and I see that the guy is on a mountain bike and his left arm is in a friggen sling. The guy is riding a mountain bike with one arm and he is kicking my ass. I catch, I ride with him for a mile, he says “lets go get that guy in front of us” and he drops me like the old man I thought I was.

I was devastated. Why ride a bike when some guy with a broken arm on a mountain bike can drop you at will??? Anyway, about two weeks later I am in the Bicycle Business telling my tale of woe when Bob Johnson tells me - oh, that was Norm Alvis. He rode for 7-11 or Motorola at the time. He crashed in Europe and broke his collarbone and was home recovering - so he just came out for fun.

Well, at least I wasn’t beat by a “wing nut” on a mountain bike - so I started racing - and did crits and road races for the next 8 years. It was great, and it all started because someone told me - you gotta try the South RR.
For those who do not know Norm, he was a fierce racer and pro for years. He held, and my still hold, the U.S. one hour record.

Mary Maroon - 2000

Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars. Hither came Mary Maroon, brown-haired, sullen-eyed, bike in hand, a hammer, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and a great sprint, to tread the jeweled races of the NCNCA under her cycling cleats. But first, hear of her exploits on the Sacramento River Ride.....

Brian Agnell, James Pedely and Chuck Hutcheson fostered me into the River Ride. It took them a little while but when I finally did my first,  I was hooked. Try to find a Sacto cyclist who doesn't share the same sentiment. My first ride however, wasn't nearly as important as every consecutive ride afterward. 

The River Ride was hard & fast. I didn't have friends in the back. So I had to work to get to the front. I don't remember how long it took but every single time I made it a little further before getting dropped. One day I would be at the front the entire ride.  I would work all the way to the sprint. I would sprint with my friends. That day would be so amazing.

Until then, I earned my spot in the draft by getting dropped every week & being pushed into the wind: sometimes on purpose, sometimes because of my lack of skill. By being told blatantly to give up or try an easy ride. By being intentionally crashed out and having to take a week off of work because I'd lost so much skin. 

But I was also encouraged and nurtured. I idolized Linda Elgart for being the only other woman I had seen on the ride. She was good at positioning and graceful. I put all my energy into marking her wheel for as long as I could and she wouldn't get annoyed with me.

I was taught to ride by Mike Sayers and Chris Horner. I focused intently on their every hip twitch and ankle stroke because they were so damn smooth. Finally another girl showed up! Flavia Olivaria moved to town and it was like I had a play mate on the road. Years later, she would turn out to be my Vanderkitten teammate. I earned the respect of the good guys because I would never give up. I eventually earned the respect of the bad guys because I could beat them. That and the good guys stuck up for me. I was treated like an equal. 

The ride has changed just a little since I used to do it all the time. The route is a little different. It seems shorter. Last week I road out with guys I hadn't seen in years. It was a nice reunion  I got third in the sprint! I've been on every single group ride from Chico to Fresno and firmly maintain the the River Ride is the best one of all. The sheer number of riders, the scenery, the quality of riders, the drama, the terrain and weather & how a rider can develop with the ride;

The River Ride is hands down the best group ride in Northern California. 

Clint Williams - 2012

With all of this "History", people may wonder - "does the River Ride still exist?" or "are people still getting their teeth kicked in?" and "is there really a Snata Clause?" Well, we can answer you. Yes Virginia, people are still getting their teeth kicked in.

I was lucky enough to have worked with a guy who introduced me to the river rides and who just so happened to know how to pedal a bike around pretty well: Kenny Kwong. Kenny was infamous in our building for winning the May is Bike Month award on several occasions so I was a little intimidated when he invited me to come check out a river ride.

When I came out to my first river ride, I immediately sought out Kenny as he was the only familiar face at the time. I chatted with him briefly and found out that there was an A and B group and he was the ride leader for the latter. As soon as his cycling computer rolled over to 5:30, he began the chain reaction of clipping in throughout the parking lot; the sound of a cyclist's journey beginning and the beginning of my very first river ride.

The rather large group of riders made their way out to Garden Highway at a leisurely pace, until we got down past Sand Cove and passed under the freeway. Suddenly, the blurred line between the A and B group became clear as riders moved up to the front of the group and quickly put distance on the group I was in. As I watched the group move away, a feeling came over me that I wanted to one day be an A group rider.

I had ridden in small pace lines before, and large packs in races, but the river ride dynamic was different- there was an efficiency to it and purpose: changing direction with the winds and riders jumping back in the line to keep the rotation going and maintain the pace. I survived my first river ride, even taking some pulls, but was not in contention for the sprints- for I still had a lot to learn.

When I got into work the next morning, I was shocked to see an email from Kenny! He had kind words to say to me and we made it somewhat of a weekly update where we would go over how the ride went and I was always eager to learn how to improve.

It was in these B group rides that I cut my teeth on real group riding skills like echeloning, positioning for sprints, moving up without extending too much energy and more than I had learned doing any races thus far. With each passing week I had become a stronger and smarter rider, even winning some sprints. I was always eager and willing to flog myself at the front, trying to squeeze that last bit of burn in my legs out in order to fulfill my ambitions of joining the A group.

By the end of the season with some peer pressure from other riders who I had raced and become friends with, I tried my first ride in the A group. As we passed under the freeway and I followed the wheels of the quick-moving line of A's, I almost felt as if I was leaving the nest for the first time. Time to test out these wings....

The A group was fast! I hadn't seen numbers that large on my cycling computer on flat land before. After passing by Swabbie's, Chuck had gone on the attack and a gap had formed. I decided to try to bridge and it took everything I had to catch up to Chuck. I checked under my shoulder briefly and was ecstatic that I hadn't drug the whole group along.

Then as I chewed my bars trying to hold his wheel to recover, I noticed the gear he was pushing and messed my chamois a little- simply massive! I then tried to pull through and quickly regretted my decision to try to bridge as it felt like the pedals were pushing back harder than I could! As I inevitably blew up, Chuck took off up the road and I was quickly devoured and spat out the back of a rabid chasing pack. I desperately turned my pedals over to catch back on after the brief respite after the first sprint point and I just tried to hang on for the remainder of the ride.

As much as it hurt, it just made me want to come back for more, and keep improving. That's part of what I love about river ride besides, the friends I have met, knowledge I have acquired, and fitness improved: every time I come out it makes me want to be a better rider.