sf flow ride report
What a ride. So cool. Who knew SF had such amazing mountain biking terrain inside the city limits?
If you get a chance, get to McLaren Park — the trails there are particularly cool.
Thanks to Soil Saloon for organizing the ride, and SF Urban Riders for passing the word on.
The start: At the celtic cross in GGP. Got there 15 minutes early and got number plate 24. Bumped into Chris Lane (proprietor of Roaring Mouse Cycles in SF who outfitted me with the Knolly) who, with his toddler, was the support crew for his wife who was riding in the race. By the start time (11) there were 200 people and they’d run out of number plates. Paul from Lombardi Sports snapped this photo of me. I was amazed at the number of cyclocross people there. From what I saw, there were no other “big bikes” present. Mostly hardtails and ‘cross bikes. A lot of twenty-niners, and a surprising number single speeds. With nearly 4K vertical feet of climbing, single speeds!? WTF!? Got off to a reasonable start, charging the water bars that the cyclocross people had to be ginger about and for about 15 feet I felt like a genius for being on my 37 pound all-mountain monster bike. Then the pavement began and I got sent to my rightful place at the back. 
All the civilians in GGP on this 80 degree Nov 16 looked baffled at (terrified by?) the mob of cyclists pillaging the road outside the De Young. It was a little hectic. - Mt Sutro: the climb from GGP up to the UCSF Medical Center, up the huge staircase, and then up the grinding steep of Medical Center Way to the trail is a kick in the pants. Once on the trail (wheezing), I got passed by a bunch of people, but passed several others too (mostly skinny tire ‘cross people being conservative about their tires). One of the people I got passed by was Amy the nice Roaring Mouse mechanic who built up my Knolly. She’s a downhiller, but was prudently on a hardtail for this ride. I struggled to stay on her back wheel up to the summit checkpoint and then lost her in the scrum. Passed a few more cross people on the switchback downhill from the summit of Mt Sutro and then got caught up in a traffic jam at the tricky franciscan chert formation on Fairy Gates Trail just before Johnstone Dr. Blasted down to Clarendon and up La Avenzada before peeling off onto an invisible section of trail. Right under Sutro Tower (cool!) before popping out into the open on Twin Peaks.
- Mt Davidson: stayed with a couple cyclocross guys down Portola and then got dropped, hard, on the way up the nearly vertical pavement up to the Mt Davidson trail. Kept in the saddle and grinded my way up to the Mt Davidson Cross. There are some sketchy sections on that trail that had lots of people walking. I stayed on for all but one really skeetch section and got some pastry at the summit checkpoint.
On the way down I cashed in a big bike chit and got to blast down a stone staircase that many others were walking. Whee! 
Glen Park Canyon: connected with some nice people from Oakland on full suspension trailbikes and rode together down into Glen Park. Another killer easter-egg of single track in the middle of the city. It was exposed, off-camber, with some wooden stairs/water bars and tricky exposed chert blocks. Washed out my front tire on one section and got a little jittery, but otherwise was reasonably solid. Coming over a tricky chert block onto a staircase with lots of death cookies, I saw an opportunistic videographer who had set up with a major camera to record the inevitable carnage. I’m sure people closer to the front of the pack had charged that section. I did not. At the bottom of the trail there was a checkpoint with a slingshot challenge (hit the stuffed animal, win a prize) and some folks dealing with various mechanicals. Thankfully, the knolly had no problems so on we wheezed, down to Alemany and the mysterious heights of San Bruno Mountain.- San Bruno Mountain: the least interesting trails (paved and gravelly fire roads), but some of the best views. also, a reminder of the enormous potential for opening up more terrain to non-motorized users.
- McLaren Park: The course took us up through the southern edge of McLaren Park. As we crested the first ridge there was a group of 5 or 6 kids on BMX bikes (and a 10 year old ripping it up on a motocross bike!) in a little homegrown jump track. it was awesome. The forest service calls these unofficial trails “use trails” — McLaren’s clearly got some good ones. Now they just need to become official. (On a related note, go check out SF Urban Riders to see how you can help.) McLaren is a huge park with lots of fun trails in it. It felt like we just scratched the surface. Can’t wait to get back there.
- Bernal Heights: By the time I topped out at the last checkpoint I was on the edge of bonkville. I had consumed almost 4 liters of water and 4 GUs during the ride and was feeling a bit like a truckdriver. I had just enough juice left in the tank to make it up the tricky chert-scree singletrack up to the very top of the hill with its awesome views, and then hooted down to ridge toward the easternmost edge of the park (some fun, very tight singletrack corners) where we reconnected with Folsom to bomb down to the finish party at Precita park. On the very last switchback before the pavement I passed a guy on a curvy, custom-looking orange singlespeed. On the way down Folsom (going like 30mph) I heard what sounded like intermittent skidding bike tires but couldn’t be sure because the wind noise was so loud. When I pulled into Precita, the orange bike dude arrived a few minutes after and there was a good bit of murmuring/hubbub about “fixie” — dude had been riding a FIXED GEAR MOUNTAIN BIKE for the whole 24 miles and 3500 feet of climbing (including super steep/sketchy descents). The skidding sounds? Him braking (i.e. locking his rear wheel) as he bombed down one of SF’s steepest fall line streets, not far behind me, a dude with a state-of-the-art all mountain downhill-oriented bike. I. Am. Not. Worthy. This is the type of person involved with Soil Saloon.
I chatted with Dayton (one of the organizers/emcees from Soil Saloon) during the post-ride party about some of the highlights, especially McLaren. It turns out he’s also active in SF Urban Riders and encouraged me to help get the word out. Amen to that.
Then I rode the 8 blocks home up Harrison, with visions of El Tonayense dancing in my head. (I had carnitas tacos, and Nick had quesadillas with guac.)
There are two other great writeups at Ihatebikes.net (fellow All Mountain riders!) and Velomuse. Here’s the video Damian shot:
