All participants must register online on the VSBC website or via the Wild Apricot app. You do not need to be a VSBC member, but we appreciate your support if you intend to ride with us regularly.

Ride Details:

We will start at the Livermore Trek store. Trek will be providing access to the store beginning at 8:30am. Water, a restroom, and perhaps a last minute pre-ride bike tweak, will be available. Start with two full bottles of water on the bike. Water will be available about Mile 22. We will stop for refreshments at Peets near the end of the ride.

Route map below.

History Nuggets:

We will be passing a number of interesting places around Livermore.

Miles ~14-17, road left. “Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, “Site 300”

The University of California was heavily engaged in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. Site 100, then a code name, now known as the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was instrumental in creating the atomic weapons that ended WWII.

At the beginning of the Cold War the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory was created by Ernest Lawrence and Edward Teller, it is now the Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab. (LLNL). It has been a key element of the nation’s nuclear deterrent ever since then. LLNL’s location was named Site 200 after Berkeley’s Site 100.

LLNL quickly required a larger scale facility. The Gallo family, of Gallo Wines, sold the Atomic Energy Commission ~11 sq. miles along Corral Hollow Road in the early 1950s; the cost was 1$! Site 300 was thus created. It remains a vital part of the nation’s research and development component of the U.S.'s nuclear deterrent.

Mile ~15, road right. The location of the former town of Tesla.

In the 1850s coal was discovered along the canyon and the mining town Tesla was formed. It once had over 200 buildings and a population of ~1,500.

The mine once produced over 80,000 tons of coal per year. During that time Tesla was the largest coal producer in California.

Nearly nothing of the town remains today.

Mile ~18, road right. The location of the former town of Carnegie.

Good quality clay was also found along Corral Hollow Road. The town of Carnegie was established to manufacture bricks and architectural terra cotta.

The town had several hundred people with the production plant operating from 1903 to 1911. Bricks with the “Carnegie” insignia are still commonly seen in the region of Livermore.

After the plant shut down the buildings were razed. The area is now part of Carnegie State Vehicular Recreation Area.

Mile ~41, road left. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), “Site 200”

Today LLNL has ~8,500 employees and is a thriving national laboratory. The Lab has done some incredible things. A lessor known tidbit is its use as a movie studio. In the 1970s Walt Disney Productions was in the doldrums. They started making a comeback with the movie Tron, which was released in 1982. Two scenes were filmed at LLNL. One was shot with the world’s heaviest two-hinged door. The nearly 100,000lb steel cased-concrete filled door was designed to stop neutrons. The second filming location was at the Nova Laser, the largest laser of the age.

In 2013 the National Ignition Facility (NIF) was used as a backdrop in the making of "Star Trek: Into Darkness”. NIF is the largest laser facility in the world. Its primary mission is nuclear fusion research.

Mile ~44, road right. The Livermore Centennial Light Bulb

Located in the East Ave Fire Station is the world’s longest lived light bulb, it has been lit nearly continuously for 121 years. It holds the Guinness world record. For all of the action see the live webcam!

http://www.opentopia.com/webcam/14324

Mile ~45. road right. Livermorium Plaza

Livermorium Plaza celebrates the chemical element 116 known as Livermorium. This synthetic element was created by the Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab. Only a few atoms were synthesized and they existed for just 10s of milliseconds before decaying into other elements.

Link to the ride ‘turn by turn’ instructions (RidewithGPS):

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/41108433

Data Subject Access Request (DSAR) webmaster@valleyspokesmen.org