Around 9:00 am, Fairfax Java Hut parking lot was packed and so the Post Office parking lot across the street. Lines of cars were also parked along both sides of the streets. I have never seen so many cars gathering in Fairfax for a ride. But this was not just any ride, the Turkey Ride also called Appetite Seminar Ride or Thanksgiving Ride is an annual ride going on since 1975, quite a tradition. Based on the counting some rangers were doing at the bottom of Pine Mountain loop, I think we may have reached 1,000 riders that day. (They counted 750 around 10:00 am when we rode by).
But back to the beginning of our ride, Alan and I ended up parking across the street from Fairfax theater, got ready for the ride and pedaled back to Java Hut where we agreed to meet other friends that decided to sleep a little longer that day before the ride.
Alan and I first saw Chris.
Amy showed up with Dave (from Colorado). Greg (on a single speed), Chris brought three friends: another Chris, Cameron and Justin. Lori also showed up after a whole year without riding with her! Mario from Tahoe also decided to sleep a little longer.
My friend and neighbor Jerry sent another neighbor Greg to ride with us (great to meet another neighbor that rides!).
Lina, Susan and Ernest stopped by to say hello. Lina and Susan were doing a shorter (and probably smarter) version of the Turkey ride. And Ernest was warming up to hammer the whole Pine Mountain loop. Here is a picture of fashion queens Lina and Celia:
Also Chad and Jeff joined us to ride.
Julia stopped by to say hello, she is another one of those crazy single speeders!
I think at the start our group had about 19 riders and at the end we were just 6.
After gathering everybody, we started pedaling at 9:45 am! quite late! and did our first detour of the loop. Instead of climbing Bolinas Road from Fairfax, we went up via Deer Park to do some fire road climbing to the country club. We lost our first couple of riders so the group shrinking started right away. After some hard climbing and some fun exhilarating downhill we reached the spot where Freewheelers Jim Jacobsen and Danny Forer who were giving away Clif Shots. Our group was reduced to just 8 or 9 of us.
We finally got down to six riders at Horse Shoe Junction when we headed to finish the ride via Tamarancho to ride some singletrack instead of descending via Repack. Here is a picture of the hot sexy girls that hanged on together 'til the end: Lori, Amy and Celia:
And here is a group picture of the six of us that finished together, from left to right: Mario, Celia, Amy, Dave, Lori and Alan:
What a great tradition!!! Too bad the Marin IJ was not around to have an article of the ride. About 1,000 riders! wow! They missed a great opportunity for a great article about how much popularity mountain biking is gaining in Marin.
Celia
2 comments:
It was as much fun as you can have with a thousand of your closest friends!
You took an interesting route, that's for sure, even tougher than the traditional.
yeah, the Turkey ride is an awesome soaicl ride when you get to see lots of friends!
Better climb on a dirt fire road than a paved road when mountain biking :-)
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