I must tell you about one of the most ENJOYABLE bicycle centuries I’ve ever ridden and why it was such a marvelous experience. I can’t guarantee that it will be the same for you if you try it next year, but here is a “hidden gem” that deserves support from bicycle clubs.
It’s the Anderson River Century that starts and ends at Anderson River Park in the town of Anderson, CA, which is between Red Bluff and Redding on Interstate 5. The river in the title is the Sacramento River. There are 100-, 60-, and 25-mile options. This was the second annual occurrence of the event, which is a fund-raiser put on by the Enterprise Lions Club of Redding and the Anderson Lions Club, assisted by the Happy Valley Lions Club and Redding (Host) Lions Club.
The short description I saw in “Cycle California!” magazine, a free handout available at local bike shops, said that the century goes along the beautiful Sacramento River through rural countryside and the foothills east of Anderson and Redding. On using Google to search for more, I found the following enticing description and an overall route map at: www.snowcrest.net/sobrien/Century/ride.htm :
“Picture in your mind the beautiful, sparkling Sacramento River running through the lush green Anderson River Park, and this is the beginning of the Anderson River Park Bike Ride. Continue along the wildflower hills and meadows. There will be dazzling views of Mt. Shasta, Mt. Lassen and the plush Sacramento Valley. You will also notice endless handmade rock walls, old-time cattle ranches tucked back in the rolling hills, as well as abundant wildlife, such as birds, deer, and squirrels to name a few. There will be numerous rest stops along the way serving delicious fruits, sports drinks, cookies, and lots of cold water. The 60- and 100-milers will each have a lunch stop with all of the above, plus scrumptious sandwiches.”
I now know that the century route officially climbs 6315’ (6522’ on my altimeter), making a loop from Anderson River Park (elev. 394’) to Cottonwood, Anderson, Shingletown, Whitmore, Fern, Oak Run, Palo Cedro, Millville, and Anderson. The 60-mile route climbs 3581’ following the century route to Shingletown, then returns more directly to Anderson.
The altitude profile on the route map shows that practically all of the century’s climbing occurs between 20 and 60 miles.
What made the event so enjoyable? My personal performance; perfect cycling weather; the novelty (for me) of the area and route; beautiful scenery; climbing challenge; traffic-free on 95% of the route; good roads; intimacy in small number of participants; friendly volunteers; excellent food, a charity event, time to warm up before the climbing begins, enjoyable descents on the return.
At the risk of bragging, I proclaim that I was the first to reach the first rest stop, seventh to reach the second, and 14th to reach the fourth. How could a 71-year-old do that after driving 200 miles in three hours to get there?
Easy. Only 21 riders showed up for the century and only 17 finished. I came in 15th. I was definitely the first to register and start – at 6:25 a.m., whereas the next starter was after 7 a.m. Also, I learned several days later that a cattle drive blocked the route behind me.
My total time was over ten hours, which is customary for me; I wasn’t striving for a personal record, and it wasn’t one. For comparison, the goal of one of my fellow cyclists was to finish the century in FIVE hours. He lost a few minutes by slowing to chat with me, but it was so rare to see another cyclist, that it was an event in itself.
The weather was a big factor in making the ride enjoyable. It was perfect cycling weather – in the sixties all day, with a high of perhaps 70. Most of the day was cloudy with the threat of rain but not gloomy. It had rained heavily in the area yesterday, Friday, and the forecast was for unsettled weather on Saturday, Sunday, and even Monday. In contrast, it had been 103 degrees on the previous Wednesday, and that kind of temperature is typical for this time of year. In fact, it had been hot during last year’s event, I’m told.
Since most of the potential riders are from Redding (to the north), the forecast and the previous day’s heavy rain discouraged many who would otherwise have come. Indeed it did shower at Rest Stop #4 at Bullskin Ridge Rd in Oak Run during the event, and the volunteers got wet there, but that happened before I arrived. I experienced only a few drops of rain throughout. In hot weather, this century would obviously be more difficult. Nevertheless, one of the riders told me that because of all the shade on large sections of the route where climbing occurs, e.g., on Ponderosa Way in Shingletown and Whitmore, the temperature could be 85 there when it’s 100 in Redding.
At my home in the San Francisco East Bay, it had rained lightly on late Friday afternoon, and once that stopped, the forecast was for cloudy weather on Saturday with rain late in the day and on Sunday. Hoping that the forecast might also apply to Anderson, I made an impromptu decision at 1 a.m. Saturday to go do the century that day, not having registered previously. I left home at 2:30 a.m.
Not an inch of the 100 miles was familiar to me. So it was with keen excitement that I departed alone from Anderson River Park with a blue route sheet and a compass on my handlebars. It’s great to be an explorer when someone has planned your route and you know that there will be other cyclists and a SAG wagon behind and rest stops ahead!
The lovely scenery began immediately. I took the time to look around and savor it, cycling slowly to warm up after my long drive. Because of proximity to the river, there were lots of trees, in contrast to the naked scenery (e.g., rice fields) that I passed on I-5 in the Northern Sacramento Valley to reach Anderson. The houses near the park were upscale -- attractive and neat but not mansions; they were on large acreage. Most had animals – some of them exotic (such as alpacas). There was an assortment of horses, cows, goats, sheep, chickens ranging freely, and even ostriches.
The scenery changed on going south to Cottonwood, where I passed by the large, now-abandoned plant of the Simpson Paper factory, served by a railroad line and nearby electricity towers. (It is one of the many plants in the area to succumb to economic and environmental pressure.) Immediately downwind of that plant, the district was noticeably less affluent, even run-down. I passed through the town’s historic Main Street that was reminiscent of a Western movie scene minus the cowboys at that early hour.Then it was on to Balls Ferry Rd, back in Anderson. I imagined how the ferry must have been historically important in crossing the Sacramento River until it was bridged. It was Ash Creek Road that actually crossed the river and continued east as County Route A17. While there was only one bridge across the river, I crossed two preceding bridges over orchards that were apparently prone to flooding.
Across the river, still in Anderson, came a truly beautiful stretch of about seven miles on Ash Creek Rd, which included the first rest stop. The scenery was typical of California foothills with Valley oaks spaced apart on dried golden grass. However, the difference here was that the terrain was sprinkled throughout with large boulders and smaller rocks, all of the same reddish-brown color. I postulated that they must have come from an eruption of Mt. Lassen, a volcano a few miles away that re-erupted as recently as 1914-1915 with minor activity through 1921. On Ash Creek Rd, thousands of those boulders have been used to form a thick, handmade, four-foot-high wall on both sides of the road that is very attractive and which extends for miles. No mortar is used. The rocks and boulders are placed such that the very large ones are at the bottom and the smaller ones on top, filling in the voids to form a level top surface. I would like to know the history of those walls. Did the private-property owner(s) build them or was it a public project? From the uniformity of the walls on both sides of the road, they must have been done by the same builder.
Cows grazed in the walled-in meadows. There was no sign of housing or human activity and virtually no traffic. I saw no cyclists. The only sounds were natural, such as cows mooing, California quail giving their characteristic call that sounds like “Chi-ca-go,” and black-headed grosbeaks announcing their presence with rich warbled song.
I was amazed to be the first to arrive at the first rest stop at 15 miles at 7:42 a.m. There was a single, portable chemical toilet and about half a dozen volunteers, all very friendly, along with sweet orange wedges, sweet large strawberries, bagels, peanut butter, bananas, potatoes, Gatorade, cold water, etc. One volunteer told me that there were unusual yellow deer ahead, but I didn’t see them. No other cyclists had yet appeared when I left the rest stop. There was no traffic. In fact, an insensitivity to traffic had caused the death of an unaware turkey vulture that was busy tearing apart the belly of a snake that had been crushed while crossing the road. Apparently, the vulture had eaten whatever animal the snake had swallowed when it too was crushed by a vehicle. I saw such evidence twice. The occasional traffic is apparently so rare that the vultures don’t consider it a threat.
It was 8:40 a.m. when the first cyclist passed me. Amazingly, I had been riding for 2 hrs and 15 minutes. I told him that he was now No. 1. Frankly, I was disappointed to lose my lead, but I assumed that everyone else had to drive to reach Anderson, and that’s why they were so late in starting and catching me. A few minutes later, No. 2 appeared, then No. 3, striving hard to pass No. 2. Then came a couple together, then No. 6. A long pause followed till two young ladies passed, but they didn’t count, because they were doing their own 50-mile loop that started at Millville. So when I came to the second rest stop, I was still No. 7. Several others arrived while I was there, and I lost count of my position.
NOTE: I learned several days later that there had been a cattle drive in Cottonwood blocking the road, and I had missed it because of my early start. That would explain why the others were so late in catching me and why they were bunched together when they did catch me.
Before reaching the second rest stop, however, I left beautiful Ash Creek Rd and continued eastward by turning right onto Wildcat Rd, now within the limits of Shingletown. This is where the climbing began, but the slope wasn’t difficult. It was good to have about 20 miles in which to warm up before having to climb. The scenery was similar to that on Ash Creek Rd – still rural and beautiful -- but without the handmade rock walls. Somewhere along this stretch I got a view of Black Butte with its top in the clouds, so it didn’t look like a (flat-topped) butte, but rather that it might be Lassen Peak with its head in the clouds. A later view showed it to be a symmetrical butte, and we turned onto a road named Black Butte Rd at 27 miles and headed north toward the second rest stop. I may also have viewed Lassen Peak in this stretch, but I wasn’t sure of what I was seeing, and there was no-one to ask.
At the northern end of Black Butte Rd was Rest Stop #2 (elev. 1896’) at Highway 44. It was 9:30 a.m. when I got there, having climbed about 1500’. A friendly volunteer warned me about poison oak as I parked my bike against a post in the brush by the roadside. Again, there were the same offerings as before, as well as COLD Mt. Shasta bottled water.
On leaving, we turned right onto Hwy 44 heading east. There was only a narrow shoulder, and this was a very busy two-lane road, with one lane in each direction. We would be on it for 3.5 miles, climbing most of the time on a fairly steep slope in a residential area. This is where most of the other century riders passed me. At the time, I had no idea where this highway went, but judging from the type of traffic, e.g., campers, boats on trailers, recreational vehicles, it was a major artery to recreation. On checking a map after I got home, I saw that it travels southeast from Redding to Shingletown and then east to Lassen Volcanic National Park at the southern terminus of the Cascade Mountains, Lassen National Forest, the town of Susanville, and thence Nevada; it also connects with the beginning of Hwy 89, Lassen Peak Highway.
On reaching Ponderosa Way, we turned left and headed north again on a peaceful, shaded, narrow road in a forest of tall ponderosa pines, passing a school about a quarter of a mile away, then descending to a fork in the road. There, the 60-mile route diverged by taking Inwood Rd to return to Hwy 44. But the century route continued to climb gradually and peacefully on lovely Ponderosa Way that now became remote, with range cattle roaming freely from one side of the road to the other, their passage controlled by numerous cattle grates in the road. The first cattle grate took me by surprise because I was traveling fast on a small downhill, and there was no advance warning. The climb continued to the highest elevation so far (2800’) at 11 a.m.
This was the stretch where I had a view of the coastal range to the west. When the fast cyclist passed me (the one with the five-hour goal), he identified the closest mountain as Mt. Shasta, and the two behind it as being in the Shasta Bolly range. But I saw no other cyclists and no traffic in this lovely 11.5-mile stretch. It was here that the first SAG wagon passed me, and the gentleman in the passenger seat rolled down his window to offer encouragement by telling me that I looked good. I really appreciated that, and it was reassuring to know that I was being tracked. Much later, a second SAG wagon came by, a wide pickup truck that was taking up much of the narrow road. Luckily, it was traveling slowly when a pickup suddenly appeared around a curve in the opposite direction in an awkward moment, and a collision in front of me was narrowly averted. The second SAG wagon was nice enough to pull over and allow me to pass it on the downhill, since I wanted to go faster. While enjoying that descent, I almost missed the lunch stop at 48 miles. Fortunately, two cyclists were leaving as I approached, and they attracted my attention to the lunch spot at Whitmore.
Lunch was great! I was greeted by very friendly volunteers who told me that they had so many extra sandwiches that I could have FOUR if I desired. These were large, pre-wrapped sandwiches in a cooler, and there were three choices: turkey, roast beef, ham. My turkey sandwich with cheese, olive, and pimento on pita bread was so delicious that I went back for a second. The facility where we lunched was a Forest Service station; it had a nice indoor rest room with shower and lounge. We sat outside at a picnic table, and I socialized with five other cyclists there, as well as the volunteers. The fast cyclist who had pointed out Mt. Shasta to me was leaving when I sat down, saying he had now modified his five-hour goal to five and a half hours. Also, there was a group of three, consisting of two ladies and a man, and a separate cyclist, wearing a Shasta Wheelmen Jamboree jersey; all were from Redding. One of the volunteers warned us to watch for a “BUMP” sign, because there was a short gravel stretch after it which could be dangerous if you weren’t aware. I appreciated the warning when I came upon the hazard several miles later.
I was able to learn that the stacks of drawers that I’d seen at two places by the roadside in the pine forest were beehives. I assumed that their honey was being harvested commercially.
On leaving the lunch stop (elev. 2325’) around noon after spending about a half hour there, I turned right onto Whitmore-Tamarack Rd and turned left soon afterward onto Fern Rd, continuing north on a narrow, winding, shaded road with pines, ferns, small oaks, and occasional wildflowers. The route led successively to Oak Run to Fern Road, Phillips Rd, and Bullskin Ridge Rd, a combined stretch that was tough cycling because the altitude profile looks like a sawtooth with about nine separate climbs, each followed by a short descent. One of those peaks reached 3012’ before backing off in the next sawtooth and later descending to 2654’, only to climb again to the high point of the ride, 3056’, reached at 1:30 p.m. I think that was on Bullskin Ridge Rd and I was now heading west. By that time, I’d had enough climbing, and my altimeter was telling me that I’d ascended close to 6000’ already, so there wasn’t much left to do if the entire ride had a total of 6315’ of elevation gain. (As I indicated earlier, my final altimeter accumulation was 6552’, but I don’t assert that my altimeter is more accurate.) During this leg I was passed by three of my lunchmates (the group of two ladies and a man) but by no-one else.
Frankly, it was quite cool at 3000’ and on the steep descent through the woods to Rest Stop #4 at Oak Run, a descent that was interrupted by a short flat stretch and a small climb. It took almost a half hour to descend from the high point of 3056’ to the rest stop at 2064’.
As for the scenery in this stretch, I remember a small PG&E hydroelectric plant on a fast-flowing stream called Old Cow Creek. The plant was tastefully camouflaged and integrated into the environment. Later, having descended to Millville, I would pass over Old Cow Creek again on Old 44 Drive. Even later, Old Cow Creek would merge with Little Cow Creek to become Cow Creek in Anderson; by then, it was a small river that I passed over on a bridge on Dersh Rd. I also passed houses in a rural setting on Bullskin Ridge Rd in Oak Run where children were playing contentedly in their own large yards. There was no traffic.
Rest Stop #4 (elev. 2064’) was at the end of Bullskin Ridge Rd in Oak Run at the intersection with Oak Run Rd at 70 miles into the ride. I arrived at about 2 p.m. One of the four volunteers told me that I was No. 14. It was only then that I realized that so few riders had shown up for the century. The official limit was 150 people for the ride, and I’d heard informally that about 88 had registered for the century and 60-mile route. So there must have been a lot of no-shows because of the threatening weather. While I was enjoying the sweet oranges and strawberries, Rider No. 15 arrived, asking if the group of two ladies and a man had passed through here; they had. As I later learned, there would be only two more riders behind him. One was a lady, who was so fatigued that she almost lost her balance getting off her bike. I had had a similar experience in the Auburn Century last fall.
I was touched by the fact that the four volunteers had given a day of their time to service a total of 17 riders. And they had been rained on too. Often, it seemed that there were more volunteers than participants.
Refreshed by the snack and chatter, I continued downhill on Oak Run Rd in a southwesterly direction toward Anderson, passing by green fields and cow pastures. Despite the warning to watch out for traffic, there was very little. Rider No 15 caught up with me and we chatted only briefly but stayed together till we reached the final rest stop. I learned that his name was Dave, that he was from Redding, and that this was only his second century, the first being the Wine Country Century two weeks earlier. I assumed that he had come with the group of three from Redding that he had asked about. The sun was out now and it was becoming warmer and warmer as we descended.
The final rest stop was at Millville Cemetery (elev. 575’) on Old 44 Drive at 87 miles, reached at 3:15 p.m., and while I made a short pit stop there, Dave continued on. A baseball game was on the radio at the rest stop, and tension was high to see if Barry Bonds was going to break a record. I left before hearing the outcome.
On resuming, I continued on Old 44 Drive and crossed busy Hwy 44 to reach Millville Plains Rd, which immediately climbed a fairly steep hill in the middle of a large plain with a noticeable headwind. On the left were views of Lassen Peak, Black Butte, and a third projection to the north (Digger Butte?). I just wanted to get the ride over with now. I was having my usual problems of sore seat and toes. In about five miles, I turned right onto Dersch Rd, Anderson. In a mile, I was supposed to find Deschutes Rd and turn left. Actually, it was about a mile and a half away, causing me to worry that I’d missed the turn. When I stopped by the side of the road to fiddle with a shoe that was hurting my toes, I noticed a car full of people pull over on the shoulder ahead of me and wait till I resumed, then it resumed too. It must have been a volunteer’s car returning to Anderson River Park. I really appreciated being tracked.
In three more miles I was on Balls Ferry Rd once again, looking for Dodson Lane to return to the park. On this section, there was some traffic. My final mileage was only 98 miles, whereas the route sheet indicated 101.1.
In the entire century, I did not see a single shopping center or strip mall (except in Cottonwood, and I passed there so early that practically everything was still closed). After Cottonwood, I saw only one commercial establishment, a neighborhood grocery store in Whitmore. That’s the main reason there was so little traffic. I congratulate the event organizers on picking such a scenic and traffic-free route. Shasta County has good roads in the areas traveled. All were in excellent condition. Hardly any potholes were noticed, even after such a rainy winter. There were good-quality asphalt surfaces on most roads, making for a smooth ride and less-than-usual saddle soreness.
Anderson River Park was in heavy use when I returned by people not associated with our century. Supper was still being served, and I got a large helping of spaghetti with salad, as well as French bread with olive oil. As a way of showing my support for the Lions Clubs that had put on our event, I bought the attractive souvenir T-shirt with an artist’s sketch of a lion (the king-of-the-jungle type) riding a bicycle (get it?). As a bonus, I got five delicious oranges from a leftover box. At supper, I chatted with some of the Lions, who were all very friendly. I learned that I wasn’t the one who lived the furthest away after all. A cyclist had come from San Francisco. Mike Ferrier, the event director, came over to congratulate me on finishing the century. Before the start, he had introduced himself to me at sign-in and personally went over the route with me, when I told him that I didn’t know the area at all. He had responded promptly by e-mail the previous day to my request for directions on how to reach Anderson River Park from I-5.
This event deserves future support from cyclists, especially from the Bay Area and Sacramento! It took me no longer to get there, going straight up I-5, than it did to reach Chico for the Chico Wildflower Century. Thanks to the Lions Club volunteers!
Mike Ferrier, Event Director, sent me the following message, which said in part:
“Thank you for your glowing review and chronology of our prideful ride. We are pleased with the results of our little event and do plan to pump up the volume for future years. Your piece will be included in our website for others to read.”
Joseph C. (Joe) Shami