Stoked on Sunshine at Passion Trail Bikes

YES! Long summer nights! Here’s the latest news on the trail, for June 29, 2010.

1. Female Friday: July 2, 6:30pm
2. Wednesday Wrides: The Usual Goodness, + ICE CREAM 6:30pm
3. Closed July 4th for Independence Day Riding
4. Ecocyclist: Vines


1. Female Friday: July 2, 6:30pm
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WOOT! The time has come for our Famous Female Friday Fandango, this month on July 2nd. Shane is doing food, and he promises some succulent BBQ action along with tasty lighter fare. Charles is getting out the bartender’s handbook and checking the glassware supply. Patty is working on some fancy skills drills equipment and planning a beginner-friendly coaching ride, and we’re all recruiting able lady ride leaders, so make sure you encourage all your female friends to join the fun!

Women Wriders from last weekend’s Ales and Trails FBG Wride

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2. Wednesday Wrides: The Usual Goodness, + ICE CREAM 6:30pm
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Sunset is at 8:35PM this Wednesday 06/29/2010. Twilight ends and near-darkness falls right around 9:20pm.

This week we are back to the Usual. Wriding, hanging out, drinking, eating and generally having a great relaxing time. Oh, and ICE CREAM. Yes, we’re talking that frozen stuff you can put in root beer. Come on down and join us!

Wednesday wriders, grouping and queuing for departure

P. L. E. A. S. E. . . . P. U. T. . . . L. I. G. H. T. S. . . . O. N ! ! ! !

Please remember to put a light on your handlebar and have a blinky ready for the ride back to the shop! CA vehicle code requires it. Don’t get caught out on the streets in

the dark! Also, a reminder that we need to be super conscientious about stopping at stop signs and lights, yielding to pedestrians, and operating our bikes

predictably and responsibly while on the roads and trails. Let’s be safe and kind out there.

For all the details about what makes each group listed below unique, please refer to this webpage. If your questions aren’t answered there, you can also email us for info at info@passiontrailbikes.com.

All rides start pedaling from the shop: Passion Trail Bikes, 415 Old County Road, Belmont, CA 94002 650-620-9798.

The FRISKY rides will go out at 6:15 PM.
The REGULAR rides will go out at 6:30 PM.
The WHITE SOCKS ride will go out at 6:35 PM.
The FBG or Fat Bottomed Girl ride will go out at 6:35 PM.
The STRAGGLERS ride may form and start chasing around 6:45 PM.
For future planning, we have the upcoming start times each week for the first wave of the REGULAR ride posted on our Community Calendar

Note we may not have leaders for each ride but usually someone knows their way around. All groups will meet back here at Passion Trail Bikes right around dark for the usual story telling & beverage enjoyment. We will have stuff to eat plus chips and fatty snacks and EANABS to pair up with the Devil’s Canyon Brewery’s Full Boar Scotch Ale, Silicon Blonde Ale, and Little Devil Root Beer. We will hang out until about 10pm, so come on down, even if you can’t make the ride! Passion Parties are better with YOU in the mix!

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3. Closed July 4th for Independence Day Riding
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Yo. We are going riding on the 4th of July. Get your shopping done a day early!

Downieville has an old time 4th of July parade

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4. Ecocyclist: Vines

Vines are a common plant form in our open spaces. Vines are plants that are able to climb other plants or trees. They do this by a variety of mechanisms. Usually they have very fast stem growth, combined with some other strategy to keep the new stem from falling out of the supporting tree.

Here’s a little photo essay on vines for your enjoyment.

Poison Oak is a very common vine that tends to hang down at face level, or come down onto the trail when trees fall, and you just want to be aware that bushwhacking through or around a fallen tree may involve walking through more than just tree branches. PO is super adaptable to many different environments, and when it finds the right opportunity it will climb into trees and intermingle with the tree’s branches.

PO vine trunks can reach a diameter of six or more inches across and can be 50 years old or more. In Soquel Demonstration State Forest there are PO vines that nearly reach the tops of mature Douglas Fir trees. These vines are probably the same age as the trees that support them, having climbed into young sapling trees and then grown skyward at the same rate.

The viney stems tend to be curved in large diameter arcs, with occasional obtuse angles. They have rough pebbly grayish brown bark, which may be stained black where there bark is cracked or is wounded. Bleeding pitch from broken PO vines is extremely potent, full of urushiol oil that can cause the worst rash you can imagine. When you are underneath a PO vine, there may be no leaves in the dark shadows under the tree, and so you may not even see the triplet leaves… hence take a close look at the stems in these photos so you can avoid the misery of failing to identify PO vine trunks and branches and stems.

PO vines have rootlets on their branches that hold onto the bark of the tree. At the tips, if you look up, you can see the alternating branching pattern, and three leaves that are characteristic of Poison Oak.

Clematis is a very cool looking vine. It has the weirdest Dr. Seuss seed heads, and triplet leaves that spook you because they vaguely look like Poison Oak. The seed heads are ripening now, so look for them. A member of the Ranunculus, or Buttercup family, it has very pretty creamy white flowers with a pincushion of stamens in the center.

Clematis vines branch in a cross pattern, with two branches coming off the main stem at right angles, or even more acute than 90 degrees. These straight-arm angular junctions help anchor the vine into the shrub that is supporting it. The stems are delicate when new, but develop stiff fibers as they age. The bark is papery, with long stripy shreds that peel off. Older vines have an arthritic appearance, bulging out periodically where branching joints were. You can see clematis on Upper Creek and Rambler trails in Waterdog Park.

Honeysuckle is another pretty flowering vine. It has pink tubular flowers that provide sweet nectar to birds and insects. You can break a flower off and suck a drop of nectar out the base of the flower if you want, it’s OK to drink and how the vine got its name. In the fall, it has very vibrant red berries that provide important food for birds like wrens and robins.

Honeysuckle vines have two opposing leaves that seem to wrap around the stem. The stem curls and twists, winding its way up trees and shrubs. As the vine matures, it can strangulate the branch that it is wrapped around. Older vines have interesting kinks and distortions that remain, long after the branch that it was twisted around has died and fallen to the ground. It also has a peeling, papery bark. You can see honeysuckle vines, hanging like Tarzan highways in the oak trees on the left as you climb the Lake Fireroad in Waterdog.

Another very interesting vine is California Manroot, also known as wild cucumber. This vine is extremely fast growing and succulent, with grape-like leaves and strong, tightly coiled tendrils. Its small white star shaped flowers develop into spiny round cucumber-like fruits. This vine is deciduous, growing very fast in the spring, and then dying back in the dry summer heat.

Its fast growth is fueled by a huge underground tuber that grows larger each year, starting out like a small potato; it can get to rugby ball sized easily, and on occasion, the size of a human being! If you pay attention, you will learn the locations of these tubers because the vines sprout out of the ground in the same exact spot every year. Occasionally during trailbuilding we dig up these tubers, and always rebury them if we do.

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Read back issues of the Passion Trail Bikes Community e-Newsletter on our website.

To contact us, email us at info@passiontrailbikes.com, or call the shop at 650-620-9798.

Happy Trails, from the PTB crew
Charles, Patty, John, Bret, Sterling, Pancho, Will, Derek, Matt, Peter, and Reba