Big Bikes

SSWC08 Part Three
Annadel Ride Santa Rosa, CA

The SSWC hosts have been doing a bang up job of providing the clueless single-speedy tourists with cool stuff to do. Today was the Annadel ride. My buddy Pete who I lived with out in Fairfax, CA a couple years ago had basically, no, scratch that, quite directly told me I was an idiot for not having ridden this place while I was out here. It’s always good to go back to a place you lived and didn’t take full advantage of and set the record straight, rewrite history.
M and I woke up in Fairfax, packed up the big, dumb SUV, and started down Sir Francis Drake with Pete’s girlfriend Mary.

8 wheels (four of them 29"), four bikes. The White Whale is good for something. Better be at $75 a tank.

We picked up buddy Bru in Larkspur at the ferry and proceeded to follow the google mapped directions to the meeting spot for the ride. Bru started getting nervous when I turned off 101 onto 37. “Dude, this is NOT the way to Annadel”. I was convinced that I had clicked “Avoid highways” on Google Maps and that we would eventually get there. We apparently missed a step on the directions and wound up going back to 101 instead of heading up 12, which we were supposed to. We were running late and the directions were making no sense. I was telling Bru that according to the directions the ride started and ended by a Park and Ride across from the Sycip factory. I don’t know Santa Rosa at all, I’ve never been to the Sycip factory, this notion was insane I guess, who knew? Everybody but me, that’s who.
Things started to break down when we pulled off for water, peeing, and sunglasses at a gas station in Santa Rosa. I asked for directions from the lady at the convenience store, she may not have known what year it was and I’m convinced she was naked from the waste down behind the counter. I opted to call Dave at Mojo and get more precise Google Map directions from the address I was actually standing at to the address of the meeting spot. We got back in the car and I started following these directions. Pretty much all Bru said after I passed the turn to the parking lot that he always meets people at was “Dude, you’re fucked!”. I went Captain Ahab on the crew, The Big, dumb SUV will from now on be referred to as “The White Whale”. It’s big, and dumb, and white so “The Pequod” wouldn’t work as well although it would make more sense. I really don’t care if things make sense.
Every mile we traveled down Highway 12 caused Bru more distress. “Dude, I’m just going to relax, this is not the way, but I’m not working today, you’re on vacation, I’m just gonna chill back here…DUDE YOU ARE FUCKED!”. This went on like broken record, whatever that is (I’m 34 years old, that’s a joke). Finally I began to surrender, saying that I would pull over to pee and then we would turn around. Then it happened, we came upon Lawndale Rd., the address I had was on Lawndale Rd.. Victory! But wait, this was a residential, Vineyardy type road, things were not looking good for the Brave Captain. After traveling several miles down this unpromising stretch I fully resigned myself to defeat. “Alright, I am going to pull over here and pee, then we’re turning around”. I was sure that we were at 1080 Lawndale Rd….but in a different town entirely.
I went to unzip my fly and realized there were men talking on the other side of the bushes. “Shit, there are Vineyard workers right there, I gotta find another spot to pee!”. They weren’t Vineyard workers, they were Single-Speeders, a whole parking lot full of them. It was over half an hour after start time and we had abandoned all hope, but we made it, and we were collectively stoked.

Vineyard Workers. They have some strange equipment.

Much like one of my race reports I have just spent all my creative energy yammering about getting to the ride and I will now gloss over the actual ride in a few words.
It was amazing. That’s it, three words. I kid, Curtis, Jeff and Jeremy lead several groups of riders through some of the craziest, awesomest, stuff I have ever ridden. Soulcraft rider Ben was a hoot to follow on the descents, boy’s got skills. The rest of the story is in the photo captions.
After the ride we went Iron Springs for burgers and IPA. As we were leaving I was admiring a totally Hooked up Fisher Rig. I hear Miriam say “Ya, that’s the bike HE rides”. Pointing to me. She was talking to the owner of the bike. I went over and talked bike dork stuff with him for a minute, he was awful friendly, getting up excitedly when he heard that I’d come all the way from Boston for SSWC. “What’s your name man? Good to meet ya”. The reason why this was kinda cool was that his name was on his bike. Why this was really cool is that his name is also on my bike.
We skipped the Pine mountain ride this AM, only wandering down to grab coffee at Java Hut and schmooze it up with the crew of riders. Photos and more verbiage in the next post for that.