Last week, one of our favorite shops in San Francisco turned 10. Box Dog Bikes is an awesome shop run by nice people who favor things like bike camping, randonneuring, and mixed terrain riding. To celebrate a decade of open doors and good times, the folks at BDB hosted an all day brevet-style ride (dubbed #slowvet) through the South Bay followed by a piñata party at their shop. I was eager to jump on the ride and excited to shoot 27 frames of disposable goodness throughout the day on a NLLTL adventure cam. Check out the gallery above for some snapshots!
The ride departed from Box Dog Bikes’ Mission shop a bit after 9am and headed south at a chill pace. We hit our first dirt in San Mateo and climbed our first stairs of the day, ascending to Sweeney Ridge. Inconveniences such as hiking in road cleats, afternoon obligations, and severe taco hunger led a few riders to peel off at this point, but the remaining 25-or-so riders stuck together the rest of the day. We descended into Pacifica around noon, where I learned that everyone else was also experiencing taco hunger. Turns out there’s a Taco Bell right on the beach – how convenient!
After this food stop, we climbed Planet of the Apes and descended on dirt to Montara and Moss Beach. We continued flowing through onroad and offroad paths, passing legendary big-wave surf spot Maverick’s, and arrived to Half Moon Bay for lunch stop number two. Fueled up on sandwiches and the sounds of some guy’s half-decent cover songs, we chased daylight up our biggest climb of the day on damp paths through tall redwood trees. Dusk had fallen at the summit of the Purisima Creek trail, so our ripper down Kings Mountain Road was in the cold blue light. We cut through the town of Woodside in the dark and hopped on Caltrain back to SF, which was hectic with so many bikes.
All in all it was a 63 mile, 6000′ day on the bike – and it was so good! Huge thanks to Box Dog Bikes for putting on such a fun ride and party. Congratulations, and here’s to another 10 years!
