Big Bikes

Tamarancho/Solstice Rigid Ride

It was a rainy saturday in Fairfax, I'd heard there was a road ride going off from the Golden Gate Bridge, I don't like road riding in the rain unless I'm commuting, actually I don't like that either but I have to do it, so I do. My buddy Bru called me up, said he wanted to go off road, he was willing to ride from his place in the city to the Marin side of The GG bridge, the least I could do was pick him up. By the time we were ready to ride it was almost nice out, we set out for Tamarancho, all of three blocks from the house. I was riding my friend Pete's Zion rigid single speed as a sort of experiment,
Bru was on his rigid Pink Bianchi SS, which was personally bequeathed unto him by (drunk) Sky Yeager herself.
Tamarancho is like the Middlesex Fells of Marin, if you are in the know it is beyond "played out" but like Paradise loop it works just fine for a guy from Somerville on winter vacation. We ripped through Tamarancho at a good pace then opted to head up the B-17 Extension over Sir Francis Drake to Solstice, a terrifying decent even when it's dry. out.

The hike up Gunsight was fun, I suppose you could ride it...in your 22 X 34, the SSes weren't havin' it. The rain picked up as we went, I was bordering on extreme discomfort but staying quiet about it. Solstice was INSANE in the rain, on the rigid, with nothing but road miles under my belt, there was a whole lot of hand shaking out going on. Only a bit of it was totally unrideable, the bit pictured below. I've ridden it on a dry day with suspension (135mm of it)you have to shoot it, you can't just scooch down it riding your rear brake.

By the time we hit Terra Linda for the paved spin out back to Fairfax I was pretty close to Hypothermic, but knew it would all be over soon.

A couple years ago I was in a similar position to Bru, cold and wet and far from home, but my ride buddy had to meet some folks for Sushi so he dropped me at a train station while he went home to take a hot shower...I haven't really spoken to him since. Needless to say I made Bru ride back to the city in the rain, on a single speed, it took him like three hours too. The abused becomes the abuser. I kid, he got a ride home, I got a Burrito out of it and everybody was happy and warm and dry and Bru still speaks to me.