Night Biking for Geoff's 30th

This was an epic weekend. I realize that the term "epic" can have a variety of different connotations, and this weekend was an epic weekend in a variety of different ways. One of my favorite uses of "epic" is to describe an adventure that has gone terribly wrong due to bad luck, and/or poor planning. Lots of climbers can tell you stories of "epic-ing" on this climb or that mountain. Stories of getting stuck on ledges overnight, dropping belay devices, getting off-route, cutting stuck ropes. Simple adventures become dangerous and uncomfortable, but then later in the retelling they become great stories. Of course an Epic adventure doesn't necessarily have to be accidental. Sometimes you can push yourself into one on purpose.

That's what we did this weekend. Friday, my "last day" at Velocity11. Geoff's 30th birthday. We needed an epic. Geoff provided the inspiration: Poach the "Something to the Beach Trail". The name of the trail has been changed to protect the guilty. The Something to the Beach Trail runs 30-35 miles from the top of Something at about 2,500' all the way down to the beach. Why poach it? Why change it's name? Why be vague? It's a hiking trail; biking it is illegal. It's in the bay area and normally crawling with rangers and snot-nosed kids. We had to legitimately worry about getting caught. Of course, we also had to worry about how to get there and back. Who would drive which vehicle, who would ride who would camp where would we camp?

Wednesday we met at my house for planning and pizza and beer. We talked and researched and Dave, playing secretary, laid out the entire plan on the pizza box lid (see first image). I then translated it into text and sent this email:

"Everyone* but Geoff and Amber meet at Velocity11 (3565 Haven Ave Menlo Park CA) I don't care when you arrive, but we're leaving promptly at 8PM. That means all the bikes are loaded and we're pulling out of the Velocity11 Parking lot at 8**. Arrive enough time before then to get your shit together and into the truck.

From V11 we'll drive Ryan's truck and my car up to [Something] where we'll meet Geoff and Amber. We'll plan to leave the parking lot just after 9PM***. My car will stay and Dave will drive Ryan's truck to Mike's parents house on the beach and set up. Meanwhile we'll ride. The trail's about 31 miles so figure like a 6 hour ride. Get's us to the end around 3AM****. From there some people pile into Amber's car and drive to Mike's, they pick up Ryan's truck and come back to get everyone else.

Then we sleep on Mike's parents beach until we wake up, then we'll drive up the road a-ways to the beach party location, set up and have fun. Rides will be leaving from the party going to various locations. There will definitely be rides back to Palo Alto after the party, but can't guarantee exactly when."

And that's pretty much how it happened. With only a few minor changes or explanations:

*"Everyone" wasn't actually everyone. It was Ryan, Dave, Mike H, Thorsten, Adam, Karla and me. At the last minute Mike N and Mike W got in on the ride and at the last possible second Forrest found a bike at 7PM Friday and made it out. All told there were 12 people on the ride. That many people riding for that long that late at night almost guarantees an epic. Something has got to go wrong.

**We actually left Velocity11 at 8:08PM. Only 8 minutes behind schedule. Not bad.

***Unfortunately we didn't leave Something till 10PM. It took Geoff and Amber almost 2 hours to drive from the end point where they'd stashed Amber's car to the starting point and that delayed our start.

****The ride actually ended up taking 7 hours even after we cut took a short-cut and substituted 4 miles of road for 5 miles of trail. We finished the ride at about 5AM but it took another hour to get all of our stuff shuttled to Mike's house. Ryan Karla Jeff and I crashed under a tree as the sky started lightening. Everyone else slept in the field right by Mike's house. We were too tired to bother moving down to the beach. We woke up at 11AM after about 4-5 hours of sleep, packed up and headed to the next beach.

Overall, the ride was amazing. I can't believe all twelve of us finished the ride. I'm not too surprised that things ran later than we'd intended. Actually, I'm pretty stoked that we estimated it as closely as we did. It seems like everyone was well prepared for the ride. Nobody ran out of battery power, nobody crashed super hard, nobody had massive mechanical problems. Everyone had a enough food and water, no one got whiny or bitchy. Everyone had a blast!

The trail itself was pretty darn fun too. Long sections of downhill, some interesting technical sections, and (unfortunately) a pretty decent amount of climbing that we weren't expecting. The trail seemed to constantly hug a steep slope or cliff on the left. If the trail was on the slope of a hill, the top of the hill was always to the right. Forever. Geoff said he'd subtitle the ride "Or, how I rode 31 miles with a cliff on my left", and at the time it was a very funny thing to say. Having the cliff constantly in your thoughts might have made the ride a little slower than it otherwise would've been, but most of the time it didn't dampen the ride, and did provide for several spectacular views of moon-soaked ridges heading to the ocean and one spectacular crash where Mike N. went tumbling down a 70 degree sandy slope for a good 30 feet. Overall a really fun trail.

This was my first time riding at night (I borrowed a light from Marc. Thanks Marc!) and it was really a blast. It's amazing how fast you can ride with a light. Especially in the beginning when the batteries are fresh and there isn't a cliff on the left. It was almost the same as riding during the day. Tons of fun. Tons of riding. I was impressed.

Flickr photos Sorry they're not so great.