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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. |
