There must have been 300 bikes at Tam Junction. We chatted with folks, and kick tires for a few minutes before beginning our ascent. Riding up Mt Tam is a wonderful challenging ride in the daylight, at night it can be treacherous. The ride is tight, twisty, often covered with leaves, or dirt, and everything is damp from the famous bay area fog. So with that said it's every bit of a race to the top of the hill. The first group to leave are usually the fast guys on supermoto's that don't want to get caught in the in the main pack. Riding fast at night is a whole new test. You want to go as fast as you can to keep the guy on your tail at a distance, but you need to leave enough room for error to correct when you think the road turns right, but actually goes left. It happens it's dark.
So when the first group left I wasn't quite ready and I knew I had my work cut out to weave my way through them. It turned to be pretty easy. Once I got past that group I hooked up with rich from "The Wreckin Crew" a local club, and we quickly put some distance between us. Rich was on this ratty old BMW that he's owned for years. He really shouldn't be that fast on this beat up old bike, but the extra headlight he mounted was useful.
A short while later Allen Zino passed us riding us KTM Adventure. It made me laugh because he passed us with all this bravado like we where so slow. Let me tell you it's not easy leading in the dark. When you're following someone you have their tail light to follow, and you can use their headlight to see further. When you're in the lead there's nothing to see except what your headlight is doing, and with the dark, and fog it isn't much. so Allen blasts by us, all elbows out tough guy looking, then immediately slows down. Yup I thought so. The three of us motored away and where the first ones to the parking lot on the top. Not bad. One CCM supermoto, one KTM adventure, and haggard old BMW. That does a pretty good job of summing up the kinds of riders here in the bay area. The poser sport bike crowd won't be out of bed by the time I get done writing this.
Once at the top most people with either walk up to the look out tower, which is a treacherous hike to itself, or the end of the foot path. Either one offers stunning views of the bay area.
Like I said before I love this ride. Only the most dedicated of riders are willing to get out of bed when at 3am to ride their bikes up a twisty mountain road at night. Most of these people are skilled riders representing all walks of life, and styles of riding. It's great to see how motorcycles can bring together such a diverse group of people.
Last years ride was brutal as it was pouring rain. Still about 100 die hard folks showed up, and rode that twisty mountain road at night in the pouring rain. It was damn fun!
For more info about Mt Tamalpais check out: http://www.mttam.net/
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