Replay
By the Bay 
5/26-5/29, 2000
Replay
By the Bay Well, my wife Kimberly and I just arrived home from a great weekend in the bay area courtesy of Charlie America and the rest of the MTBR Replay by the Bay gang. The 7-hour drive north from Irvine was well worth it (especially since the traffic on the grapevine was, thankfully, not as bad as we had thought it might be...) It was a bit depressing (OK, more than a bit) dropping into smoggy San Fernando after spending a glorious three days in some of the most splendid outdoor scenery NorCal has to offer, not to mention spending it with people orders of magnitude more friendly than the hundreds of travelling families clogging up every gas station on I-5. After a weekend of recreation, I should be grading the papers I'm supposed to be returning to my students tomorrow, but I figured it was way more important to do a write-up/picture posting... I hope you've all got the bandwidth for this!
This was my second MTBR gathering, Spring Fling being my first. Just like in Arizona Kimberly came along for the trip, even though she doesn't ride. This time, she was even less able to take advantage of the outdoor opportunities than last time, though, since she's filing her PhD dissertation in a few weeks and spent most of the time in the hotel room tapping away on her lap top. Nevertheless, it was nice to have her come along for the company, and at least we got to have some great Ethiopian food at the Blue Nile in Berkeley on Sunday. She didn't make it for the swag awards, but I give her the "Most supportive wife" prize.
So, as I was saying, this is my second gathering, and since I'm not the most prolific poster (I read passion daily, but I only contribute my own thoughts occasionally...) I didn't really know anyone before I got there. At Spring Fling, there were so many people, it was pretty overwhelming, and really hard to get to know anybody, since there was always another name and face to try to keep track of. This time, I did a better job of trying to remember names and faces, and since the group rides were smaller, I at least got to know the people I rode with.
Charlie America was a very gracious host, making both Kimberly and me feel
welcome right from the start. We got to Castro Valley Friday afternoon, checked
into the hotel, and headed up to Chabot for an evening ride. It was a nice,
small, friendly group (Ok, I tried to remember names and handles, but sometimes
I only got one or the other, so here goes...):
Charlie America, Dark Eyes/Adrienne, Nosegoblin/Dave, Garrett/Tron, Dave/???
(below in the red Jersey), Paul/Fourarmcrank, George/??? (from Kentucky...)
I had my new digital camera (Olympus C-3030) so I was very excited to check
it out. Kimberly wanted to play with the new toy too, so she took this shot
of me in the parking lot:
The ride at Chabot was a perfect warm-up ride. Fun and mellow with lots of
rolling hills and pretty views. The group was very friendly and I got to follow
Paul (fourarmcrank) up a short climb, which was a sign of things to come on
Sunday
Our gracious host, showing his climbing prowess
Paul goes fast on the descents, too!
Smiles all around (Adrienne/Dark Eyes, Dave/Nosegoblin, Paul/Fourarmcrank,
Dave/???)
Adrian is probably pretty happy to be on the trails after the commute from
San Diego...
Charlie is in his element...
(Note: I'm just selecting a few of the pics to accompany my write-up, but I'm posting all 175 of them on my web site, so feel free to check them out here. Some of them are pretty crappy, since I'm still getting used to the digicam- that time delay between pushing the shutter release and the actual shutter release can make things tough!)
After meeting up with another group of riders, we posed for a group shot: (a
few of those non-passionites snuck in here...)
Before heading back to camp, Paul accidentally misunderstood one of the trail
signs
After a nice, mellow ride, I met Kimberly back at the car, and we headed back
to the hotel. On our way back, we got a nice view of the lake at sunset
I didn't get much sleep that night, but nevertheless enjoyed the early morning
drive out to Skeggs Point, AKA El Corte de Madera open space. I had heard and
read great things about this area, and the views from Skyline drive did nothing
but whet my appetite. Before setting off for the ride, Charlie did the organizational
thing-
And we posed for the obligatory group shot:
Brian (Chewy) led us on a great ride at Skeggs, the scenery was amazing and
the group was a lot of fun. The trails were not very technical, but fast and
windy, and the views were outstanding.
The deep, dark coastal redwood forest was a welcome change from SoCal desert!
We did manage to find some short technical sections, especially at the very
bottom, by the creek, where we stopped for about 20 minutes to relax, take pictures,
and try our luck with the technical, windy trail that terminated in an intimidating
2-3 foot double drop off.
After a nice rest at the shady stream, we headed back up the hill. On the way
up, we stopped to watch Chewy in a quick display of his impressive trials skills.
After driving back to the hotel and cleaning up, I headed back to the campground
for the BBQ/swagfest. Charlie entertained us with his elaborate costume
and Steve cooked up some great hamburgers and chicken with his medieval-looking
spatula:
After the swag was distributed and the beer enjoyed, I headed back to the hotel to rest up for the next day's ride.
The ride out to Annadel state park in Santa Rosa was a little longer, but certainly
worth every single minute. This was definitely my favorite day of the trip.
I hooked up with Pete Fagerlin for "Hammerhead" ride, as Charlie called
it. I was already jazzed from riding around on the rocks in the parking lot
and warming up on the mini-climbing wall
Riding with Pete and company was an absolute blast. They were all great riders,
and Paul set a blistering pace. Pete's constant commentary was entertaining
and helped to keep my mind off the growing pain in my legs. Pete picked a great
set of trails to take us on. We got some more beautiful, woody singletrack (the
theme for the weekend)
some gorgeous open meadows
and some great rocky downhills (someone must have forgotten to tell Gary that
this was supposed to be a downhill)
We spent a little while at this spot so we could all try our luck on another
double drop off, complete with a baby-head filled landing. Pete showed us how
to do it with style:
And Paul showed us all how to do it really fast:
I asked Pete to take a shot of me on the drop, and he took the opportunity
to initiate me into the Passionite DigiCam club:
On the way back, we enjoyed some "Flow riding with a capital F".
Following Shabadu's lead down a rocky, tight singletrack with Pete about a 1/2
bike length's behind was pretty exciting. Shabadu was in the flow, and we all
made it down unscathed. Unfortunately, that suavity would not last long, as
Shabadu proceeded to endo over a spring-loaded log and break his seatpost binder
bolt. A little trailside ingenuity proved that duct tape really can fix anything:
After that, it was a bit more climbing, which was made all the more enjoyable by hearing the multitude of noises that Finch Platte is capable of emitting at will from various parts of his body. He was only humoring me by staying behind me for the first half of the climb, until he took off for the top, leaving me to enjoy the silence and solitude of the shadowy woods. After the last bit of climbing, we enjoyed a rip-roaring descent down perfect woodsy singletrack (no way was I going to stop for pictures of that!) Back to the cars for beer and corn dogs, and it was time to say good-bye.
Thanks so much to everyone who helped to make this such an enjoyable gathering. Special thanks to Charlie for organizing everything and for being so friendly and welcoming. Chewy and Pete were great ride leaders and all the people I rode with were friendly, not to mention inspirational.
If any of you are ever down in the OC area, please be sure to let me know, and I'd love to show you around. I certainly can't promise to even come close to the scenery up there, but we've got some fun trails nonetheless.
I had a great time and I can't wait for next time.
Scott/RockyRider: scottf2@home.com
If you want to see all of the pictures, I've downloaded them all into a thumbnailed gallery. Some of them are decent, some of them aren't (see above for one of the really indecent ones...) These are all reduced in size and quality, if you want a full-res, high quality copy (1600x1200) to print out let me know and I'll email it to you or post it so you can download it.)