On the other side of the Redwood Curtain, cycling is often associated with elitism and bicycles that cost triple what a used Honda Civic sells for and Fred-bashing Lycra enthusiasts with stringent sets of rules that define who, exactly, is a cycliste and who is a nerd with too much money. But to live in Humboldt is to do stupid things with, on, or to bicycles. Examples are abundant enough that providing them is almost pointless — take a look at the Arcata Plaza during Memorial Day weekend, or head out to the forest on a weekend and watch people throw themselves down hills and over berms and snake down evil singletrack switchbacks. Or perhaps ride in a great pack to every Murphy’s Market in the county.

It was May 25, 2025, and the weather was atypically fabulous. 15 cyclists descended on the Murphy’s Market in Sunny Brae sometime that morning, said some greetings, and started riding south. Their destination was another one of the local chain grocery stores, the Cutten location, and after that they were riding to the other Murphy’s in Arcata, then up to Trinidad, where they would make a pitstop at — shocker incoming — the one up there. Then a quick jaunt to sample what the Murphy’s in Glendale has to offer (apparently, a pretty damn good hot bar) and finally back to Arcata. All in all, the trip was about 64 miles, managed to avoid any major hills, and went smoothly. 

OK, but why?

“I mean, how could you say ‘no’ to hitting five different Murphy’s?” asked rider Claire Anderson during an interview with the Outpost. “It’s kind of the perfect way to do a long distance ride.”

And it was. Employees greeted the cyclists at every stop with snacks, sandwiches, Gatorade, encouragement, and, in Glendale, custom buttons, adorned with the outing’s official title: The Murphy’s Metric Century. 

Daisy Schadlich, an organizer of the ride, had the idea to ride to all of the Murphy’s last year. It turned out her roommate had the same idea, and they got as far as planning the route out — and then her roommate had to move. The idea was scuttled. But Daisy’s friend Claire had thought it was an excellent plan, and they had to do it before Claire and her partner moved away too, so they picked a weekend when they and their partners would be free. 

At one point Daisy considered the Sunny Brae Murphy’s her “pantry,” often stopping in multiple times a day with her roommates because it was just around the block from her place. Sometimes she had to; sometimes it was an excuse to go out for a little while. She once had the pleasure of hooking a Scottish bikepacker up with his favorite soft drink from the Old Country on a trip to the Murphy’s. It had been discontinued back home — he was ecstatic. 

Both Daisy and Claire are mainly mountain bikers, new-ish to the cult of the crankset. Claire started cycling about four years ago, Daisy about five. They met each other on a group chat made up of local women mountain bikers and became friends. 

Humboldt’s brutal climbs and primeval roads can make two-wheeled transport difficult. Innumerable potholes and washboard dirt roads trash skinny road bike tires, and roads that offer endless miles of flat, car-free cruising are rare. Cyclists here tend to be tight. 

“It’s incredible to me how the riding here is so hard,” Daisy said. “But people ride! It’s not even, like, these ‘weight weenies’ who are on these super tiny feather-light carbon bikes. You see people out there riding like whatever they have, and they’re stoked to see anyone else out there doing the same thing. And so I feel that’s kind of the mentality that we approach this. And, I mean, yeah, admittedly, I was wearing a full cycling kit, but I was also on my aluminum gravel bike, and wearing a Hawaiian shirt over the top.”

Races in Humboldt tend to emphasize the silliness of the task, of the impulse to power the machines over stupid distances and impassable obstacles, trails and avenues through beautiful scenery that rend and split metal and rubber apart piece by piece over infinite, infinitesimal repeated impacts. Bogstomp, a late-season cyclocross race in November out on a soggy chunk of land near Elk River, is an example par excellence of the ethos. There is no cell service. Competitors slip and slide all over steep, muddy hillsides while trying to complete laps. They must often get off of their bikes and walk them. 

Basically, spending a day riding 100 kilometers to a chain of grocery stores isn’t unapproachably weird to a lot of folks. When Daisy hit the group chat up to pitch the ride, she found out that more than a few people had dreamed up the same ride independently. It wasn’t hard to bring together more than a dozen people who were in. But Daisy and Claire were the first to bring the idea to Murphy’s. They reached out to Kelsie Ng, the Marketing and Human Resources specialist for Murphy’s, to see if they could set something up. 

Kelsie was enthusiastic about the idea. She thought it would be a good opportunity for friends to hang out with one another outdoors, and she liked the plan of hopping location-to-location. She sourced snacks and goody bags for the riders, and made special posters. She wanted to spectate, but was out of town that weekend and couldn’t.

While the peloton was trawling from one store to another, employees called one another to advise them of the groups ETA’s, and made a point of taking a photo of them in front of each store. When they arrived, they’d mess around a bit, eat, and take more pictures. 

Daisy, Claire, and their partners knew most of the people who joined them on the ride, but there were a few new faces. A man they knew only as “Rusty,” who claimed to be a professional mountain biker with a pilot’s license, showed up in full cycling kit on a nice bike. He led the group for most of the day (seven and a half hours from start to finish, including breaks), and despite his pedigree, was down to just hang out and chat with everyone. Everyone was alright with getting strange. People posed with onions in the Trinidad market, and one person rode a giant steel bicycle, a behemoth-like beast that clocks in at almost 30 pounds named the “Surly Ogre.”  But no one treated it like anything it wasn’t.

“We might be going a long, long way,” Claire said, “but it’s not a race.”

They plan on doing it again next year.