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| Tyler's Surly Krampus and Phil's Budnitz No. 3, just before heading over the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin. |
Tyler and I, two of the newest members of the Cycle Monkey team, are big fans of bike camping. We often spend downtime at the office dreaming up fatbiking trips and road tours to tackle someday. But for a more immediate thrill, we headed out into the North Bay on a recent weekend for a bit of Rohloff-equipped bike camping. We were excited to get out for a full weekend before the weather got wet, and had been looking forward to the mini-tour since we had planned it just a few weeks before.
The plan was to take the BART train from the East Bay to downtown San Francisco before pedaling over the Golden Gate Bridge and north to Samuel P. Taylor State Park. The park has a popular campsite in a big redwood grove, and the ride there has some of the most beautiful and varied scenery that the Bay Area has to offer – rolling hills, dense forests, waterfront bike paths, and ritzy neighborhoods were all on the route.
Joining us was Cycle Monkey friend Bishnu, who is the roaster at our local coffee shop and quite an experienced bike tourer himself. Tobe, one of the mechanics in our Monkey Lab, was to join us later that night at the campsite. Our motley crew had quite a range of bike styles, packing lists, gear-carrying setups, and pedaling paces, but we all had the same goal: getting outside the city, packing on the miles, and simply enjoying the weekend.
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| The whole squad: (from left) Tyler, Bishnu, Tobe, and Phil. |
Tyler and I both had Rohloff SPEEDHUB and Gates Carbon Drive belt drivetrains for the trip. Tyler rode his Surly Krampus, while I took a Budnitz No. 3. The SPEEDHUB has developed a reputation among bike tourers as the ideal drivetrain because of its reliability, requiring little attention and maintenance on the road. That certainly proved to be the case on our trip: the hubs performed superbly. It was nice not to have to think about the common derailleur drivetrain concerns, such as timing our shifts, avoiding cross-chained gear combinations, or downshifting before stopping in order to be able to accelerate after. Instead, we could shift whenever, into whichever gear we wanted, and were able to focus on just taking in the views.
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We took our time getting to the campsite, enjoying riding across the bridge, along the waterfront in Sausalito, and through the picturesque, tree-lined streets of Ross. We stopped for lunch at Gestault Haus, a mountain bike themed spot in Fairfax that offers tasty sausages and hot dogs and a large selection of micro-brews.
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| An tourist-free early morning cruise across the bridge. |
We rolled into the campsite at about 2 P.M., lucky to snatch up the last available campsite by the river. After setting up camp, we headed out for a leisurely ride to explore the area. What began as a quick pedal around the campsite’s bike path turned into a ten mile side-trip to Point Reyes Station, where we stopped off at a supermarket to get some fresh food to add to our dehydrated camp gruel.
The highlight of the whole trip was the time we spent chatting around the campfire. Using tin foil and an aluminum can that we turned into a griddle, we roasted sausages, bell peppers, tomatoes, and bread we had brought. After such a long ride, the modest meal felt like a feast. Tobe showed up soon after, having taken the bus to San Rafael and riding to the site in the dark. We stayed up around the campfire taking about our bike setups before calling it a night.
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| After a long ride, this meal tasted like it came from a five star restaurant. |
The next day we had another “campfire gourmet” meal for breakfast before heading out around eight. We rode back through Marin, sped down some fun descents, and pedaled back up to the bridge. When we made it across into San Francisco, we hadn’t quite had enough, so we extended the ride by pedaling to the ocean side of the city and back through Golden Gate Park. We even found some fun singletrack in the park, and meandered east across the city while the light dwindled.
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| The view from Ocean Beach, just before turning into Golden Gate Park. |
The park soon gave way to city streets, and as we got closer to downtown the traffic got heavier with each block. It was a strange feeling to come back into the urban chaos from a weekend spent in the wilderness, but the slow easy pace we took back into downtown seemed fitting. We descended down the steps into the subway at the Civic Center BART station just as it got dark. We attracted quite a few stares on the commuter train with our fully loaded bikes, our dirty clothes, and our goofy smiles. But to us, our appearance was a badge of honor – proof of our incredible weekend.
-Phil
We'd love to hear stories and see pictures of your Rohloff and Schlumpf equipped bikes in action! Send them to adventures@cyclemonkey.com
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