What I Did In The Woods — Rust Magazine

Screwing around on a bike-The 2026 Cruiser Classic

Words + Photos: Mike Blanchard

I was off my bike, sweating my balls off sucking air for dear life all the while getting jostled by riders passing me on the switchback heading uphill. All of whom, I am sure, I had been holding up for the last five minutes. And most of them were riding single speed bikes. I however, was on an old mountain bike, with gears, and I was still dying.

And if I am honest, loving it; dust, heat, altitude, sketchy descents and leg straining ascents, fucking uphill switch backs, all of it, loving it, mostly.

I haven’t done the Cruiser Classic in a couple years. Early in August a bunch of us did the Santa Barbara Cruiser Ride (not a walk-in-the-park strand ride BTW) and we hooked up and rode most of the weekend with with Ken Baker and Dr. Scott Whitesell. Allan Cook, along with Baker, is at the bright center of the Good Times Crew. Oh, don’t get me wrong there are a bunch of folks who work their asses off to make an event like this happen and I tip my hat to all of them.

Over the course of a great weekend riding in Santa Barbara one thing led to another, cocktails were had, fiesta was enjoyed, and here we are at the Cruiser Classic. As you will know from reading our previous coverage of the C.C., it is an event that was started years back by some cats from Chico. As the name implies, it was intended for mostly vintage single speed Cruiser or Clunker bikes and there are always a bunch of them on the trail. However it has evolved into a forum for the weirdos of the velo/mountain bike world as well as all the cats into hot-shit single speed bikes, and everything else short of road bikes.

It is also something of a costume contest. You will see hairy guys in tutus, women in tutus, a guy in a CHP uniform on a rather improbable steed, people who went to Wal-Mart the night before and bought a 20” BMX bike to ride, a fellow from Paul Components riding one of the most blinged out cruisers you will ever see, Stace Cooper on what has to be the heaviest 20-inch bike ever made, there might have been some gravel bikes, vintage mountain bikes and what have you. Mike Lee was out on a full bore E-Mountain Bike to much ribbing. You name it, it shows up. So I didn’t feel too bad riding a vintage mountain bike.

I have done the Cruiser Classic on a single speed Clunker, but truth be told I needed the gears. I ride a fair amount but it’s mostly 5-10 miles on flatfish ground back and forth to work and the occasional weekend jaunts around the lake. Some of these folks at the Classic are very serious, accomplished riders quite capable of cleaning the 12 or so miles of the ride on a single speed bike. I know my limits and I need the gears. I know, I know, ride more ya ponce, yada yada whatever. But it is kind of a trade off because ‘80s mountain bikes have some twitchy geometry so you have to keep on your toes.

This C.C. attracts all kinds of people. This year it seemed like most of the riders were from Santa Cruz and Chico with a smattering of local riders and us flatlanders from down the valley: Steve Crowley on his super cool pre-war Schwinn and his awesome stabbin cabin van, Dean and Rad Brenda, MK, Ace the dog, Bicycle Brad, Ron The Rat and the wonderful Gadvi, Klunker Ron, Conger, the amazing Stace Cooper and Roger. Pretty much the guys I ride with, or try to stay up with if I’m honest.

This year the fandango kicked off Friday night with a Pixie bike race; tiny little bikes like a three-year-old would ride tricked out with ape hangers, steering wheels, stubby drag bars (neither steering wheels or drag bars a good idea as it turns out) and other imaginative accessories. A course laid out downhill through the trees; a Le Mans style start; wrecks, pushing, jostling, screaming, cheering. No one was hurt (what went wrong there?) and Ethan Ventura was the winner. This was a harbinger of things to come. Young Ethan made his mark this year winning more than one of the events.

The opening night everyone cut loose, old friends/new friends, with movie clips and music picked out by Baker and a late night game of pixie bike Jenga, sort of a see how many bikes you can stack before the pile falls over type of thing. Oh, and tattoos, and mixed drinks and shrubbery. Danny Boy came along with a book of flash and tattooed until late into the evening. Mountain bikers are way more loose than Roadies.

Every year the ride raises money for BONK, a trail maintenance charity that maintains mountain bike trails in the area. The Cruiser Classic this year coincided with a BONK clean up. Their crew of volunteers gathered 5,000 pounds of garbage and junk left along the trails and in the area. That is impressive, and slightly depressing that people would leave that much crap lying around in the woods. The main source of fundraising at the C.C. is the raffle and the main prize, every year, is a custom bike, generously built this year by Brendan Lehman out of Santa Cruz, with parts donated by a bunch of local builders Paul Industries, Bus Farmers and others. The raffle bikes are definitely coveted.

The ride base is at Skillman Camp about 15 miles up Highway 20 from the Sierra Gold Rush town of Nevada City and drops 10 miles down the Pioneer Trail mountain bike track to Harmony Ridge Market where there is a lunch break. Along the way there are special sections or small contests: a game of Ride, the plunge down a steep ravine called the window maker, a time trial, a jump contest etc..

The trail runs through brush following the contour of the ridge south of the highway plunging into ravines deep in the woods and coming out into open spots where you can see for miles. About halfway down it crosses Highway 20 to the north side and runs next to the road going up and down between roads and driveways, with lots of root drops and rocks to avoid, eventually coming out into more open glades and faster sections, even running down an old drainage canal like a snake run in a skatepark before popping out at Harmony Ridge. Along the way a few stops for refreshments, and a bunch of zip-tie repairs on seats as it turns out. The C.C. can be hard on equipment, but that’s mountain biking in general and especially old bikes.

After lunch the ride descends down a series of fun sweepers unit descending into a series of fast semi-sketchy switch backs running back and forth across the very steep (you really do not want to come off the trail) shoulder of a ridge down to the Scott’s Flat Reservoir campground where almost everyone jumps in the lake to cool off and wash of the dust. I got a bit crossed up at the bottom of the hill and had to blunder around in the campground a bit before figuring out where everyone was. Par for the course for me but hey, I made it without eating shit (always a top three goal for me) and had a blast doing it.

The organizers had hired a huge 60 foot Blue Bird school bus from the local district to haul all the riders back to camp which turned out to be a bit of all right. Were the seats always that close together? They definitely didn’t have seat belts when I was a kid. The driver, a kid really, looked like an Amish farmer but he played along with all the ribbing and loaded back-of-the-bus shenanigans (he did say that we were more profane than the kids but otherwise pretty much the same bad behavior) and wheeled that massive yellow sucker back up to Skillman, turned it around in a small space and headed back for the stragglers. Hats off to the lad.

So, back to camp, clean up, rehydrate, shoot the shit, debrief the ride, hydrate some more. The price of admission includes dinner after the ride, cooked by Allan and the Good Times Crew. Those guys worked their asses off. The sense of community and the breadth of experience in this crowd is impressive, anyone you could choose to talk with has something interesting to say or an amazing back story. Stellar Negronis from Baker lubricated the night creating a wonderfully fuzzy comraderie.

After dinner everyone gathered for the raffle, always carried out with a bit of a twist, and some awards for the winners of the special pop-up contests along the ride. Klunker Ron handed out some awards of his own for various cool whips. All I remember is that Ethan Ventura won the time trial and maybe the jump contest as well. It was dark there were many, Negronis that is.

The bike raffle came down to a couple of guys. They picked two raffle numbers and had a game of guess-the-number-I-am-thinking-of to determine the winner. One of the two was the aforementioned Mike Lee, (Cue the ball busting. Lee won one of the raffle bikes last year or the year before) and Todd Cummings. In the end it was Cummings who took home the bike. To say he was excited to win would be an understatement. He jumped and kept saying "I knew I was going to win." The bike has clearly gone to a good home.

The evening continued with more music and tattoos and cocktails and gradually trailed off to the velvet, perfumed night of the mountains and the sleep of those who have done something physical and are tired and happy.

Like all events these tend to end with a whimper not a bang. Allan Cook working his ass off to get everything cleaned up and the awnings pulled down. Everyone packing and getting bikes loaded and heading out to the road dusty and happy, looking forward to next year.