O' Giant Rock of Marin

We snuck out for a little night under the stars last Friday. I almost camped here with some folks a few weeks ago, but work interrupted so I decided to make it back out and ride some new-to-me dirt on the way back in. We camped at Pantoll campground, which is a kinda lame car camping spot, but it's a nice ride out and the surrounding area is incredibly beautiful.

Mark was testing out his new front bag design.

 And his new custom sleeping bag fabric-rack. In lieu of a rack, he made a fabric carrier that straps to the seatpost and to the seat rails. It also serves as a seat bag support for his Carridice bag.

 Here's just a loaded shot. I was carrying more than I needed for a warm overnighter, but I wanted to really test the new bag support. Included is a light pitch version of my MSR Hubba Hubba(no tent, just poles, footprint, and fly), Biolite stove, 3/4 pad, sleeping bag, liner, food, and warm clothes. We didn't carry any beer, but regretted it as soon as we made it to camp.  Once we settled in we just decided it'd be fun to fly down the mountain to Stinson and grab a couple of cold ones and head back up before sunset. What an epic downhill!

 Learning new card games, testing the camera.

 New growth

 Coming down coast view trail. From the campground you can stay on dirt nearly the entire way back to the Golden Gate Bridge.

 After an expensive but relaxing breakfast at the Pelican Inn, we climbed out of Muir beach on Coastal fire trail. The trail is steep and there was definitely a bit of pushing here.

And into Tennesee valley

 No pics for the rest of the ride through the Headlands, but we were left dreaming of a dirt route back to Oakland...

Dirty old bikes

 A very professional jersey with extra ventilation

 A portal

 A couple of pics from China Camp, really fun trails.

 After an old stick-in-the-wheel-graceful-bail-out-just-before-total-wipe-out-instant-pinch-flatting, we spent the flat fixing time getting these pics of new/updated rigs. Here's Mark's modernized Ridgerunner with a new 7 speed 130 rear wheel, new Microshift rear der, new cockpit and Nitto Mark's front rack. The seat bag is a Heavy bag designed and made by Mark himself.

Heavy. We are trying to convince him to call this bag the "Dirt Owl."

 Next up is Steven's big ol' Panasonic ATB. He thought it was an '85 but I'm gonna make an educated guess that it's an '84. See here. I'm not sure if this is a 23" or a 24" model, but one of the benefits of the early production mtbs is that they made very large frame sizes, rarely seen in later years.

 

 Like may early mtbs this has the "wishbone" chainstays.

 Cast long dropouts

 wide lugged fork crown seems to be the same as used on the '84 Trek 830

 Cast dropout with double eyelet

 Lastly there's this little thing. I'm trying to learn how to braze and decided to make this little rack just to practice sticking things together, and cutting and filing. It's not a thing of beauty nor was it intended to be, just goofing around. The idea was a simple seat bag support, or really I suppose a place to stack other camping gear that would then serve as a seat bag support.

Forever 12

Announcing a new clothing store for men, Forver 12, where we don't actaually sell clothes, we just ride our bikes in the dirt and splash around in creekbeds, and act like a bunch of 12 year olds. All fart jokes will be laughed at.

Playing hooky

That's right I was playing hooky from work yesterday, but I needn't worry about getting caught by my boss, it was his bike we skipped out to work on. He recently had an unfortunate run in (literally) with a steel bollard and his '85 Stumpy. And now it's toast:

 

Maybe someday I'll learn this brazing thing and give it a go fixing this old stumpy, but for now it will just hang around my shop as a kind of cycling memento mori. Lucky for us, it didn't take long to find a suitable replacement in the form of an 1989 Mb3 comp. It's luggy steel and not too lightweight, a bonus in this case as the bike's intended use is bike camping of the dirt sort, and needs to be durable. It's got some cool details too. Check out this Spinner Sci(?) drop out plug.

 And here she is finished, a bad pic I know. My bud wanted Albatross bars so we headed out to Rivendell to pick up one of the steel versions and used a Nitto Technomic Delux I had sitting around. Often Riv's are set up with a long 13cm stem but we guessed and used a 10cm just because that's what I had, and it seems to be just the right thing at least for this occasion. Hoping to get this guy out to camp soon.

Also saw this recently, short but sweet.

Busy week ends

I had the good fortune this past week to ride and camp with Cass from While Out Riding. You get the sense reading his blog that he's a nice guy and as it turns out he is! An unexpected bonus was meeting other rad local folks who had all met up for the occasion. Everyone who came were real bike dorks and it was super fun to talk shop, try out bikes (that Krampus is insane!), and just to ride.

 Morning scene, peeking out of my bag.

This sunrise was so resplendent, I would have been stoked all day just having seen it.

 Thanks to J-rod for this pic. Regulators mount up.

 Cass ripping

 The stumpy and Collin's fatbike

I also finally received some tubing and have started practicing brass brazing. It is much more difficult than silver, but a fun challenge. I'm still roasting the tubes but it's satisfying to actually get the brass to move. Baby steps.

 Lastly there's this thing. I was wrong. No drop bars, no sir! For a relatively small frame, this has a long top tube, which makes the reach to the drops too long and awkward. Also my friend getting this bike wants to cruise, and cruise she shall.

Half Moon Bay overnighter

 We managed to make it out for an overnighter this weekend. I really enjoy these quickly planned trips, especially when you can carry almost no food and just roll into town for a burrito and beer from the campsite.

We hit up Planet of the Apes on the way out of Pacifica. It was a green tunnel most of the way. All of the spring flowers and poison oak were reaching out for some more of that tasty sunlight.

more to explore here...

 Next day we caught this trail up to Skyline on our way to Palo Alto. Super elfy redwood gnar here.

 tempted by this pool

 So weird!

 

Random recentness

 Springtime wildflowers are going nuts in Tilden.

Then there's this thing. It's my first ever brazing project and it's a whole two inches long. This was made as a kind of hack to make a Rivendell/Nitto top rack work as a front rack on a Bruce Gordon that only has the normal single hole drilled in the fork crown. I found some stainless tube at the local hardware store and some stainless washers, and a little brazing later had this. We ended up flipping it for the final installation for more clearance.

 Yup there it is. The two struts are super stubby when used up front.

 We used one through bolt for the struts.

 And the finished rack. Let the testing begin! Time will tell if my brazing will hold up....

 Then some Dirt Owls made it out for a sloppy Sunday ride.

 Here's a closer up of a bud's 83/4 stumpy sport. Pretty much breaking all the rules of taking a good bike pic here, but it seemed lame to reposition it just for a shot mid-ride. He's got the Bosco bullmoose bars on it and it feels chilaxy, but still makes it out to see the dirt. Also of note here is a Bruce Gordon rear rack.