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Honey Run Road Redux
She was a vision of loveliness, rising like an athletic angel
toward Paradise. Her long, black hair trailed behind her, and her
long, tan legs extended from a lean, and very feminine torso. But
this angel needed no wings: she rode a bicycle.
However, I didn’t have much time to take in too many more
angelic details, because the young woman who was riding her bike up
steep Honey Run Road was pedaling at about twice my speed, and so she
blew by me before I had a chance to react. But react I did. A few
seconds later, I stomped on my pedals and gave chase astride my old,
beat-up bike. Like a crazed stalker, I chased the girl up the
twisting course of Honey Run Road, which rose from the mouth of Butte
Creek Canyon to reach the little town of Paradise, in the mountains
of northern California.
That lazy, warm spring afternoon had started innocently enough. My
college friends, Jim Devilliers and Steve Miller, and I had decided
to go for a bike ride. We somewhat impetuously settled on a ride up
arduous Honey Run, which takes off a few miles from where the mouth
of Butte Creek Canyon reaches the flat Central Valley. None of us
were in especially great aroebic condition, and I had definitely put
on a few pounds. We started out from the Great Central Valley town of
Chico - home of my alma mater, Chico
State - and pedaled a few miles to the Skyway, the route most
favored by those who travel up toward the pine-clad town of Paradise
in cars. The Skyway in fact follows the top of the ridge that forms
the south wall of Butte Creek Canyon.
After a short distance along the busy Skyway, we came to the start of
Honey Run Road, where we found Butte Creek Canyon shaded with liquid
amber, oaks, and digger pines. We passed a few homes and there were
areas of the creek that had been dredged during the Gold Rush. After
a few relatively flat, straight few miles, we reached the Honey Run
Road Covered Bridge.
The black cliffs above the bridge are ancient Cascade Range lava
flows, which cover the even older Sierra Nevada bedrock, exposed at
the bottom of the canyon. The bridge itself was built in 1886, at the
confluence of Big Butte and Little Butte Creeks, and is one of 12
remaining covered bridges in California. Cars are no longer allowed,
but people on foot and on bikes can still cross it. I kissed the wonderful Nancy Church under the roof of the
Covered Bridg one dark winter night.
But the sense of all that natural, local and personal history in the
canyon, even the memory of my Covered Bridge kiss, were lost to me
that day when the vision on the bike rode by. I was a male, the year
was 1972, and I felt my machismo had been shockingly insulted. The
girl on the bike may have been beautiful, but she was still just a
girl, and there was no way she was supposed to be able to outride me
up the mountain.
It took a few minutes, but I did catch the girl on the bike. I had
to know how it was possible for a girl to ride so much better than a
guy. I was able to keep up with her, barely, and while I drank in her
beauty, I managed ask a question. “How often do you ride up
here?” I gasped.
“Twice a week,” the vision answered, and I noticed she
hadn’t broken a sweat. “I'm going to see my
boyfriend,” she added.
We spoke - well, she spoke, I mostly tried to catch my breath - for a
few more moments, and then I fell back, involuntarily. I was spent. I
had lost more than my breath. I lost my belief in the innate
superiority of men over women. But I gained an ephiphany. The girl -
no, the young woman - who had bested me up Honey Run Road without
trying was in better shape than I was. Any woman, particularly one
who visited her boyfriend on her bike twice a week by riding more
than a thousand feet up into the mountains, would be in better shape
than a young man who spent too much time on his rear sitting in a
chair rather than on a bike saddle. I had time to ponder that
revelation while waiting for Jim and Steve, who found me leaning over
my bike, drenched in sweat, and as I calmed down I began to enjoy
once again the beautiful canyon and the memory of that kiss in the
bridge now far below.
For me, the return to Honey Run Road was the highlight of the ride, which had begun an hour or so earlier back in town, on a cool, spring morning. This time I was in far better shape than I’d been 30 years earlier. I even weighed a few pounds less than I did in 1971. While I still have the bike I first took up Honey Run Road, now I was on a new bike, and I was dressed in lycra shorts and the spectacular Wildflower ride jersey, instead of the cut-offs and t-shirt I'd worn on my last ride.
I had trained well for the Wildflower ride. I turned off the Skyway onto Honey Run Road, and I made my way up Butte Creek Canyon and stopped to shed my tights in the warming weather, and enjoy the rest stop at the marvelous Covered Bridge. Back on the bike, I started up the switchbacks that would take me over the top of the ancient lava flows. I kept an eye out for the beautiful young woman who rode by me so effortlessly, so long ago.
She didn't show, of course, but I certainly looked with appreciation at many of her sisters, their beauty rivaled only by the views of Butte Creek Canyon. I pedaled past many women riders of all ages that morning. And many women, of all ages, pedaled right past me. This time I didn’t mind a bit.
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