Dave and I had the opportunity to represent Marin Bicycles recently at a huge national press camp that was organized by Saturn Cars as they released their new Outlook SVU vehicle (yes it is an SVU, not an SUV)… not sure what it means.

It was great to escape the crisp spring weather here in BC and shred in the heat of SC.  We spent our time at a place called the Carolina Adventure World (http://www.carolinaadventureworld.com/) which is a 2600 acre parcel of land that is dedicated solely to ATV and dirt bike riding.  The owners have developed a first class park with restaurants, over 100 miles of dialed trails, two motocross tracks and a kids track as well a ½ mile zip line just for added kicks.

Dave and I arrived early to set up the Marin tents and dial in the demo bikes that the media were going to ride.  As we were there early we decided to go for a ride. We decided not to ride the parks trails that day as there were 2500 riders shredding the trails that day on their ATV’s… in the end we decided to go for a quiet spin on the road, not knowing that we were about to embark on another adventure….  Towards the end of our ride we found 4 puppies abandoned at the side of the road!  Dave and I both love animals and we realized that these pups had been dumped to die, in fact we found one poor little one already dead in the bush.  It became our unofficial mission over the next three days to get those little dogs out of there, all the while trying to run a press camp. In the end we rescued three of the dogs and we think one other may have passed away or have been rescued by someone else.  It was hard to recover the dogs as they were hiding in a thicket of thorns, but after about a hundred cuts and being hit by some explosive diarrhea from one scared little puppy we got the job done!

The press camp itself was a huge success, all of the brands were unsure of how well this cross promotion would work, but it seems to have worked really well and all of the different media had a great time shredding in the cars, the bikes and the ATV’s… the mountain bike press especially had fun shredding on the ATV’s it was funny to see the mountain bikers hitting 20 foot doubles on the hunting quads and hearing the ATV media so stoked on the photos they where getting because they “never see a hunting quad getting air!”.

All in all it was a great trip, the media was stoked to ride the new Quad XC bikes as they never new how fun mountain biking could be… we think we converted a few of the ATV guys to bikes and the ATV folks may have converted a few of the mountain bike press to ATV’s, the Outlooks were sick and we saved the puppies!  Yes…another great road trip !

Enjoy the spring riding wherever you are!

Mike

What a glorious day it was today, fog and all, for it was our third annual bike trip down the coast with my father in law, Down Town Dave, who has been pedaling the Hwy 1 from San Francisco to Santa Barbara for the past 25 years( DTD has done this trip so many times he has the itinerary down to a science, sometimes his timing of things is down to the minute! He is the consumate “plan man”, having everything mapped out from hotels and restuarants to bakeries and espresso stops).Vanessa, Haolee Tim and I met up with DTD and Jane at Duarte’s Restaurant in Pescadero Friday night, had dinner and then van poached in the driveway of their B and B (We’re too cheap to pay for a room). After an early morning drive to Santa Cruz to drop off the rental car with Jane, my mother in law and our gracious support driver, Haolee and I pedaled about 10 miles up the coast until we crossed paths with DTD and Vanessa, who had spent the misty early morning riding down from Pescadero. HT, being the Nordic crusher that he is, continued up to San Francisco, while I turned around and went south back to Santa Cruz.

Strawberry fields line Hwy 1 in uniformed, well manicured rows and stretch out to the edge of the coastal bluffs that look out onto the water and appear as if they are going to fall right into the Pacific. After a quick bakery stop on the northern edge of Santa Cruz , a town that has more Volkswagen vans than all of Germany, we negotiated the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, fixed a flat faster than a NASCAR pit, navigated Capitola, and rode through deserted Aptos side roads as we made our way to Watsonville. After about two hours of riding past patch work quilt farming fields, we arrived at our Best Western Hotel to find Jane relaxing on the porch, her sink full of cold beer and rooms ready to be checked into. After a satisfying dinner at Jaliscos and a movie, we went down for the night, knowing that our next leg would take us through Monterey on our way to Big Sur.

Easter morning dawned clear in Watsonville, patchy blue skies to the west, which was odd because the Monterey Bay coast is usually shrouded in fog while the fog dissipates inland first. After a quick breakfast at the Best Western , Vanessa, DTD and I hopped on our bikes and rolled out the back farming roads through artichoke, strawberry, romaine lettuce, and asparagus fields that had been meticulously planted in neat, tidy rows.  A pesticide helicopter buzzed the early morning air like an annoying mosquito, spraying its toxic fumes on the fruit and vegetables that would eventually go to market. We surmised that this mist had something to do with why the rows of plants were completely devoid of any other plant life. That stuff can’t be good for you.

We caught the bike path out by the eastern edge of Fort Ord and had an amazingly sunny  Spring ride into Monterey and down to Cannery Row, where we hooked up with Jane for a cup of coffee. Fully caffeinated, we remounted and ribboned along the coastal road that rolls through Pacific Grove and onto the 17 Mile Drive. It was windless and sunny, very rare for this time of year, as we navigated the Drive, jaws agape at the multi-million dollar mansions, gaudy reminders of the extreme wealth that surrounded us. Following our street side lunch in Carmel at Nielsen Bros. Market and Deli,  Vanessa abandoned  her  hopes of finishing the day’s leg for the more tantalizing prospect of shopping with her mom, while  DTD and I soldiered on down the coast towards Deetjen’s Inn.

Experiencing the road by bike can be a very fulfilling and rewarding endeavor because it shows you things, in real time, that you would have never seen whizzing by in a car. In my case it wasn’t finding a cool roadside treasure that someone had dropped or seeing some natural wonder that had gone unnoticed before, it was encountering Geoff Kabush, Team Maxxis rider and recent winner of the NMBS #1 in Fountain Hills, AZ, while he was out for a training ride on Hwy 1. I had just crested a particularly nasty climb and was waiting in the blustery pull out spot while DTD  mashed the pedals on his yellow Inglis, when all of a sudden Geoff Kabush, THE Geoff Kabush, came pedaling north. Being the uber,psycho cycling fan that I am, and that I have no shame, I yelled at the top of my lungs,”Hey, you’re Geoff Kabush!! What are you doing here?!” If I was Geoff, I would’ve continued pedaling up Hwy 1, putting as much distance as possible between me and this crazy screaming coastal fan. Thankfully he’s not and he turned around and rolled right up, and was as gracious and approachable as I had heard he was. He patiently poised for a photo and continued on his way, while we continued on to Big Sur and Deetjen’s Inn. Relaxing on the porch at Deetjen’s Inn, a cool Heineken in hand, the epic nature of our day’s ride and the awe of having encountered one of the fastest mountain bikers in the world still flowing, made me realize what a rewarding and beautiful thing that riding a bike can be.