a whirlwind

whew, finally back from the land of never ending sunshine and holy crap i honestly don't think it's possible to squeeze in as much fun as we did in the past five days. The 20 hr drive was a kick ass journey within itself as i was traveling over roads that i've never traveled....the desolate northern roads of Neveda luminated by a full moon and mountains of snow that seemed to glow. Lights ... what lights, it's complete darkness out there, and jesus...i thought the desert was supposed to be warm, it was friggin COLD !!!! And then as you make your way to the bustling town of Reno, which appears to be a Las Vegas in the making you slowly make your way up the pass and into the Lake Tahoe / Truckee area which was as beautiful of a stretch of road as i've ever seen. I'll be marking it down to visit here during the dry period of the year.

The sun started to slowly rise and our tireless driver, and fearless comrade Rob M. kept to the driving wheel only to give Brian his 15 minutes of fame until he was beckoning for the wheel again. You see, Mr Rob our resident and californian expert seemed to miss the pace at which the cars traveled in this foriegn land. Brian...slow, me....hell even slower so Rob drived and drove, and pushed on. What a warrior. He drove until morning and until the flap jacks were being flipped by the local Denny's just outside of Rancho Cordova, which was mostly beautiful farm country and what wasn't farm ground was manicured and taken care of with care. Trash on the sides of the road..nope, it was a nice pleasant city which also happens to be the home of Ventana , it was good to see Teresa and Sherwood again and since this was my first trip to the V factory they took me on a nice little tour of the operation, showed me the step by step of each and every frame. I was stoked and in total geek-dom of their smooth running operation. To see a manufacturer complete step A all the way to Step Z underneath ONE roof is so friggin cool. And it confirmed what i already knew....Ventana kicks soooo much booty.

After the tour Sherwood and Aaron took us to a really cool trail over at Folsom Lake. Spectacular trails that were fairly rocky mixed in with a little bit of clay.... it was a treat to follow the man down some of his back yard trails. And man, the ol' man can ride. Thanks for the good ride and pizza fellas !!


And then we were off to San Jose were Rob had some nice digs lined up, a kick ass house which was only 20 minutes from the show.


The NAHBS show was incredible.... an artisan version of interbike and also thankfully much smaller in size. There were sooooo many beautiful pieces of work and honestly i thought everyone had a bike that i would enjoy riding. Personally my favorites were..... Bilenky , anything Bruce Gordon had on display, Vanilla had a cool vibe and their booth was done up in style. Pereira Cycles had a couple one off custom cruisers that were super stylish. But my down right favorite bike was the Ahearne cyclocross bike. After 6 hours at the show we met up with the really good folks from Pacific Coast Cycles, the same shop Rob used to work for. Chuck and his wife Gretchen were a treat, this is a guy you could learn a ton from and someone that's been in the bike industry for over 30years...started his profession by hand filing lugs for the Masi folks. Andthen he opened a shop and WAS THERE before mtb's became the popular form that they are today. He dealt/s daily with the likes of Ross Schaffer from Salsa, Wess from Willits, Ritchey, Potts from WTB...you name it they sold it. I'd like to take a step 15 years back and venture into the heart of PCC and see what it was like in it's hayday. Wouldn't we all ?

But anyway.....after walking down the halls of the show and looking at a few of the bikes from the eyes of chuck we were off to a shop that we were told about.....a shop of legendary status. Supposedly the holy grail of things from a past time. As we walked down the street with little to no directions we finally stumbled across the 3 story junk yard. The 100 yr old building didn't look like it had much life left. It had a violent lean to the south that made you feel vulnerable as soon as you stepped inside....and things could get worse once you entered the doors because stuffed from wall to wall was a collection that would be tought to duplicate. Junk to most, treasures to the rest because around each and eery corner was the possibility of a gem or a new creation. Within my 1 hour tour i saw over 10 Monarch Silver Kings, an old cruiser from the 30's that easily could bring 1000 bucks on flea bay. And on and on it went. I could spend big bucks in a shop like this, but this day i left empty handed BUT ONLY because the owner discarded the only item that i held in my hand. As i made my rounds i finally located this kick ass old tool bench, so i nosily opened up each and every drawer and on the bottom drawer was this beautiful and very old wooden handled adjustable wrench that resembled a pipe wrench. Well someone masterfully brazed on the wings from an old cars front hood emblem. it was a masterpiece and I WANTED it. So i brought the tool to the front and tried my luck....i was thinking he'd probably sell it for $40, but as soon as he saw it laying in my open palms the old fucker snagged it from my grip and said "NOT FOR SALE !!" uuuugghghghhhg. I lowered my head and headed towards the door in a wimper. oh well.


Back to the show for one last drool and then we had dinner and basically i was spent for the night.


The next day, our last day in Califonia left us with options...ride Mt Tam or do an Urban ride around San Fran....we ended up doing the urban ride and oh sweet goodness was it the right call, our 5-6 hour tour took us from Downtown to the goldengate, down Lombardi street to witness all of the crazy's doing their freakish activities, and the down to Ashton Heights where it seemed to me like the greatful dead were still embraced magically. After wolfing down a couple of tofu sandwiches and a quick stop at American Cycles (a sweet vintage shop down on the Heights) we were heading back towards downton only this time we stumbled across a maze of junkyard singletrack that just happened to weave towards the correct direction. And it was good to be in the dirt.... junkyard or not. It was sweet.



After the quick tour we slowly repacked our gear, said fairwells to our californian friends and slowly made our return voyage. 20 hours and one speeding ticket later i was recieving the daddy dog pile !


good times keep rollin' and in the essense of SF ... peace out : )



i'll have a tone of pics for your viewing pleasure tomarrow.

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