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Subject: Black Diamond Group Ride Report Date: Sat, 03 Oct 1998 17:21:18 -0700 From: Eric Muhler

Co-leaders Danny Forer and Eric Muhler dragged their thrashed bodies out to Clayton for the start of the Black Diamond Ride at 9:15 am. Yesterday's experiment in S&M mountain biking, which consisted of UP Repack, Pine Mountain Loop backwards (UP the shaft), and an odd assortment of backwards adventures had left us both less than excited about what amounts to an up-down, up-down, up-down, up-down, up-down ride. But certain features of the ride lent it an air of historical interest.

The first surprise was that we had a crowd of bikers from all over the Bay Area representing a number of clubs, to join us. Mike DeMicco (GrizzlyPeak Cyclists), Harvey Wong (ROMP), Patrick Gorer (GPC), Randy Grant (BTCEB), and Felix Braendel (BTCMarin), all wanted to find out where the diamonds were. The ride description basically consists of the aforementioned up-down repeated endlessly. So we started with an up, and the rest is repetition. We ended with a down.

The interesting stuff started with checking out the graveyard above Somersville. The headstones gave sad testimony to infant mortality rates in the 1870's. If you did manage to make it into your maturity you usually were dead for six years when you were the average age of today's riders. Coal mining was starting to look like a bad turn on the career path. Then Bob Kanagaki, EBRPD Historian and Guide, came up and introduced himself and began a lecture on life in the mines in the late 1800's and early 1900's. He had a lot of historical photos and explained how the numerous houses and buildings had dissapeared after the mines closed down. The miners dismantled them and took them with them. Houses were too valuable to be left behind. The best Kanagaki picture was a Gustave Dore-like, Dante-esque, lithograph of a miner on his back in a three foot high mine shaft picking coal above himself until he had loosened it sufficiently. The miner had to guess when the coal was loose enough to fall on him by knocking on the vein of loosened coal and listening for little echoes and creaks indicating immanent collapse. Then he crawled on his back quickly out of the way to the main shaft (also a few feet high), waited for the coal to fall and then pulled it out to the eight year old boys who worked 14 hour shifts loading it into cars that wound through the 200 miles of caves. Life in the mines was starting to get very depressing while standing in a graveyard full of dead 2 year olds.

Leader Forer led the charge forward. Down-up,down-up, down-up, down; lunch at Contra Loma Reservoir. Here where we have heard nothing but the "war" between CCWD (Contra Costa Water District) and EBRPD over closing the reservoir to swimming, we had lunch down by the swimming section of the lake by the lifeguard's chairs. This conumdrum was explained by Mike who said that the reservoir will be closed to swimming next year. Apparently, the poisons that swimmers emit, and that must be stopped at any cost, won't kill anybody until the summer of 1999 when a computer virus will release body-contact toxins into the water by spamming everybody's Email. After tanking up on the water, which everybody seemed to survive, we rode up-down, up-down to the mine shaft cave.

Harvey donned his spelunker's headlamp and everybody pulled out their flashlights and went exploring down the shaft. Randy whacked his head a couple of times and seven mountain biker's in a five foot high, three foot wide shaft, after many climbs, create a somewhat stifling atmosphere. Some speculation resulted about what a mine full of thousands of miners must have smelled like.

Then it was up to the "Wall" (up). At the summit, Danny had a nose-bleed from his rapid rise in altitude. After checking Danny for heart attack and stroke, we went down, back to Somersville. Here we encountered the indomitable historian Kanagaki who was counting heads into the sand pit, "Greathouse" mine shaft. This well-lit, high enough to walk in, mine shaft led to a great cavern with a long information desk that Eric over--excitedly mistook for a bar. Dissapointed, he studied the information recounting the history of the silica sand mine named after its owner, R. Marvin Greathouse. Eric did a flip when he realized that he had grown up his whole life living next door to Mr. Greathouse who had sold the mine (and his enormous Atlas Glass Factory in Oakland) in 1945. Check out your old Atlas canning jars. They're Marvin's. After some speculation over what kind of name starting with "R" would be less preferable than Marvin, we rode up-down to Nortonville. On the way up, out of Nortonville, we stopped and checked out Jim's Place; a historical landmark and tourist attraction notated on the Black Diamond map and explained in the brochure in the following way: "This little underground dwelling is of unknown origin. (This was good to know because otherwise we would have thought that "Jim" had dug it out) Notice the square skylight, round stovepipe hole, and shelf opening." Illuminated by this helpful explanation we checked out the sandstone 8x8 foot, five foot high, stone cave. Then it was up-down to the start and the cars.

A solid group consensus was formed, after our history lessons, (and with Eric's knowledge of R. Marvin's affluence) that if a career in mining was something you might be interested in, the only way to go was ownership.

STATS: 23.23 miles. Many ups and downs. 4060 feet of climbing (Eric), (Danny-4500, Harvey 3930) Middle altimeter gets the elevation call. No flats. No mechanicals. No accidents. Three Gary Fisher bikes. Two Carbon Fiber. Two full suspension rigs. One Carbon Fiber. One 18 tooth granny gear on Felix's bike which was the envy of all the climbers, particularly near the end of the ride. Two mine shafts and one stone, cave "place."

Eric Muhler The Grand Vizier ericmuhler@btceastbay.org http://www.btceastbay.org