Marin Museum of Bicycling & the Hall of Fame

[velotel]

At last, part three, or maybe part four, been so long I’ve forgotten, of the grand road trip with the son across the western US.

Fallon, Nevada to Fairfax, California, the last leg of the grand road trip with the son. Up until Fallon nothing but superlatives. Boulder to Crested Butte to Moab then across Utah and Nevada to Fallon, perfect weather all the way. Saw old friends and magnificent landscapes, did some excellent riding, perfect. Crossing California would be different.

Early start to Lake Tahoe, blue skies over a blue lake. Mat had never seen the lake. I only in passing. A liquid gem in a mountain setting. Only lakes bigger are the five Great Lakes, more inland seas than lakes. Tahoe is definitely a lake. So deep it never freezes. Need a boat to see it properly. Pretty well surrounded by private property blocking shore access and a thick forest of huge conifers blocking visual access. Seeing the lake is all about grabbing glimpses through gaps in the trees. A striking color, emerald or aquamarine or some shade like that. Constantly shifting with the light.

Into the Sierras, a massive bulge of beautiful granite. Small crags and domes of rock everywhere I look. Almost made me wish I was still climbing. Echo Summit, elevation 7382 ft, from there a glide almost to sea level. The lower we got, the more lanes there were, the more crowded the views. Around four, maybe five lanes each direction by the time we were closing on Sacramento. We were still on 50 but sure as heck not the 50 we followed across Utah and Nevada. I was glad Mat was driving. American interstates seem a bit chaotic with anarchy reigning supreme. I’d forgotten many people live here. Waves of houses as far as I could see. Kept wondering where in the heck cyclists ride.

Past Sacramento, into hills of golden slopes waiting for the winter rains, ranks of wind generators on the ridges. Circle north around the end of the bay to Marin County or into Richmond and catch the bridge over the bay. The bridge, definitely the bridge. Like crossing the english channel to Dover by ferry, a have-to, the classic approach, the chunnel is for people in a hurry with no sense of history. Instead of white cliffs, we had Mt Tamalpais filling the horizon. As it should be. I mean we were on our way to the Marin Museum of Bicycling for the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame induction party so having the mountain the sport was born on filling the windscreen was absolutely correct.

Years had slipped by since I was last in Marin, and even more years since I was last there with Mat. Back then I could put my hand on top of his head without lifting my hand. Now I damn near need a step ladder to do that! Invariably the first thing he’d say when we got to San Rafael back then was to take the tree tunnel, a road to my parents’ house lined by trees whose entwined branches overhead transformed the road into a tunnel. Been some 30 years since my dad died a few years after my mom. Strange to realize I’m now older than my mom was when she died! Time flies.

The bridge was superb. And thankfully we were in Mat’s truck. Damn guardrails are so high they block the vision for anyone in cars. The nanny-state strutting its worrries. San Francisco Bay was in fine fettle. Clear air, enough wind for mini-whitecaps, a few sailboats working the air. Into San Rafael, drove past the bottom of the road that climbs to my parents’ old house, a light breeze of nostalgia as I looked up the hill. We didn’t turn, more interested in getting to the museum, hooking up with Joe and Connie Breeze, getting in a ride before the evening party. Besides, my parents’ house is no longer the same. But neither am I.

Into Fairfax and there it is, the museum, right on the main street. Hard to miss with a giant mountain bike shod with tractor tires out front. I knew the museum was going to be cool but turned out to be vastly more than I expected. Contrary to what I’d assumed, it’s not a mountain biking museum. Fairfax and Marin County are all but synonymous with mountain biking so I just took it for granted that the museum is all about mountain biking, despite its name, Museum of Bicycling. Like the name says, it’s a bicycling museum with displays reaching clear back to the early 1800’s right up to the present. A stunning collection beautifully presented.

And I barely even looked at it! Seeing Joe and Connie and meeting Mark and Otis (with whom mails had been exchanged but we’d never met) was too much fun plus Mat and I were definitely in the we-gotta-get-out-and-ride mode after all that time driving. Besides, we’d be back at the museum later for the evening Hall of Fame cocktail fest.

Joe gave us a map with a couple of suggestions for loops good for the bike I was riding, a Moots Routt, a fat-tired road bike. Quick stop at the house with Connie to unload our stuff then off we went, searching for some Marin dirt. Discovered right away that Joe had kind of forgotten to mention how friggin steep the grades were, including the paved road to the start of the fire-road! Even Mat was working, which is saying something! Traction a bit of challenge with ground so dry after the long drought.

Topped out on the first hill at a 4-way junction with 3 trails heading off, one closed to bikes. Straight ahead looked good. This is where we started following our noses, or rather following Mat’s nose with me following him. First on a double-track, then a single-track. I’d forgotten how much fun the trails on Mt Tam are. Been at least 25 years since I last rode here. Such good riding. Checked the time, oops, better get back, need to be relatively on-time for the party at the museum. Easy to do, all downhill back to Joe and Connie’s.

Shower, change, jump on the bike, roll down to the museum, into a full-on party. Food (Mexican), beer (supplied by the local brewery, Iron Springs, good stuff, good people), wine (California, where else), and lots of old friends I hadn’t seen since back when the dinosaurs were carousing around on mountain bikes, the primitive sort. For me who’d been out of the scene for so many years, actually even out of the country for that matter, seeing all these talented people who created this crazy sport all together in one place and all still looking in terrific form was incredible! Almost as if the years hadn’t even passed. Yea, lots of white hair and wrinkles and maybe some extra weight here and there and all that stuff but the energy fields hadn’t changed at all. Good food, good drinks, good music, and good people practically exploding with fantastic stories and memories.

Sunday morning, the ‘Legends Ride’, this was going to be interesting. I hadn’t ridden a mountain bike in years, ever since I lost most of the vision in one eye and have one hell of a hard time negotiating shadows and sunlight and gauging depths, the stuff that goes hand in hand with riding a mountain bike on trails. There was no way I was going to miss this, gimpy vision or not! Besides, as one of the four inductees into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame, I friggin’ had to do the ride! I mean this was ultimately what the whole induction ceremony was all about, getting out with all these totally rad and marginal people and having the kind of fun that respectable people think should be illegal! I mean just how often are you going to see people like Jacqui Phelan and Missy Giove out riding together, in Marin County, on trails already! Plus Joe Breeze, Charlie Kelly, Otis Guy, Matt Hebberd, Hans Rey, Wendy Cragg, and on and on and on. Including my son, who was dying to get a photo of his dad with Missy Giove! I mean no way was I going to miss this!

Joe lent me a full-suspension prototype Breezer he had in his workshop. Perfect, riding a Breezer for the Hall of Fame Legends Ride! Which would be my first time ever on a full-suspension mountain bike! We’re talking one of those earth-shuddering moments. Well, maybe not so shuddering, but I was looking forward to it. Plus the ride I was going to do was on what they call the ‘flow trail’, or something like that. Whatever it was, I liked the sound.

And we were off, being led by Otis Guy’s son, tall and thin like his dad and totally at one with his bike and the trails he was leading us on. Not that I saw much of him. I brought up the rear. By choice. I knew there’d be places where I’d be blind and have to stop to see what was ahead. Which happened. Kind of a bummer but life is life, cafeteria shuffle, grabbing what’s served and doing it up right anyway. There was one minor irritation though. In fact I wasn’t the last. There was this kid doing sweep, 14 years old, teeth cut on mountain biking on Mt Tam, product of the school mountain bike racing program started by fellow inductee Matt Fritzinger who started the interscholastic mountain bike racing program, and this kid is tailing along behind me. Every once in awhile I’d hear this ‘well done’ or ‘good job’ when I rode through some technical section. And I’m like in my head going ‘listen kid, I was doing this before your parents were probably even adults already so stop with this cheer squad chant! I’m not that friggin old! Well, maybe I am, actually I am that old, but I don’t need to hear it!’

Even worse he made it all look so damn easy! But at least I could remember being in the same boat, way back when, flicking through stuff like it wasn’t there. Times change, so do we. Great kid anyway. Friggin good rider too, for a damned kid!

And the flow trail, or whatever they call it. Insane. They built it, they as in the Marin mountain bikers, in their spare time. A work of art. Blended into the terrain. A long series of linked swoops down the mountain through a forest of tree trunks. I’m pretty sure the tree trunks were attached to a canopy of branches overhead but I was too busy concentrating on seeing the trail in front of me to notice. What I did notice, pretty much impossible to not have noticed, were the whoops of joy coming up the slope from everyone down the trail as they flew through these crazy banked turns then flowed up into the next embankment and around into another dive. A roller coaster ride only this was way beyond anything any roller coaster in the world has ever dreamed of. Pretty nuts because obviously the trail was built but it still had this almost magical sense of being an intimate part of the terrain. It was man-made but there was nothing artificial about it. Amazing accomplishment.

And to have ridden it with all these wonderfully fun people. Major treat. Smiles all around. Marin County, where it all started, and still out there standing tall, riding the edge. Great day, and not even finished yet. Next up the evening party and Hall of Fame induction ceremony, first time ever in Marin County.

Some pics, all taken by my son, Mat

[Black Dog]

What a great event. So nice that the founders of the sport can get together. Making history while celebrating making history. Thanks for the post.

Charlie Kelly, if you are reading this, perhaps you could post your take on the event.

[Repack Rider]

Originally Posted by Black Dog

What a great event. So nice that the founders of the sport can get together. Making history while celebrating making history. Thanks for the post.

Charlie Kelly, if you are reading this, perhaps you could post your take on the event.

I'm going to let Hank write my biography for me. Say anything you want, Hank, I'll vouch for it, because I know it will be flattering.

I had the honor of nominating Hank to the MTB HoF. Somehow he had been overlooked. In on the first ballot.

45 years ago I was a member of Velo Club Tamalpais, along with Joe and Gary Fisher and Otis Guy and Marc Vendetti. There are another three or four original members of the club now associated with the museum, and I have joked that now that we are old and slow, our club finally has the clubhouse it deserves.

[bobswire]

Those were the years, I wasted my time in the Haight Ashbury (I literally lived one block up on Waller) during those years though I was riding. Thanks for the thread Hank.

[Stan Lee]

Thanks for the write up Hank, I just found this. Terrific read and photos!!

[joosttx]

Wow, great write up. To borrow a prototype Breezer from Joe's garage is so cool and so natural. Sound like an excellent time. BTW the best place to view and appreciate Lake Tahoe is to get above it.

[Frankwurst]

Great write up! Anyone who is the least bit interested in cycling history should visit this museum if you are in the area. I seriously doubt you'll be disappointed. It's fantastic! Hopefully I'm going back again this year.

[AngryScientist]

This is awesome.

Better than anything i can dream up for "positive attitude friday"! for sure.

thanks for the story and morning motivation.