Easter Morning Ride

5.30am. The Mighty Kawasaki Rickman CR and me made it up the Mount Tamalpais on Easter Sunday morning to watch the sun rise. Wade Boyd and my best friend Christine Blunck are also here. They are Subculture Racing and I used to race sidecars with them - Wade sponsored us the sidecar, and Christine was my brave monkey, I mean, side car passenger.
Hard to tell who else is here yet, too dark. Lots of Aerostich people though, check out all those reflectors!

Here is another one of Wade. And Abi! She's looking like one happy Easter bunny, with one of the donuts that the Zeitgeist girls were giving out...Jeez, it's 5 in the morning and freezing! Don't look so happy!
Wade's not so happy right now, since after racing the Isle of Man TT for 14 years, they won't let him race this year. Island politics. It's a big deal, and it really sucks, with all the effort that went into getting everything ready for it, and Urban Moto Magazine sponsoring him this year, too. The race bike was prepped, tickets bought, accommodations etc. prepared for, and now the bike had to be pulled off the container that was just about to leave to England. Terrible disappointment.

How many of these people have Long Johns on, or two Long John's, like me? Kept me pretty warm! Highly recommended.

There must've been 500 bikes there. A lot of them lined up on the way to the parking lot. Last year, when it was raining down so hard that we were soaked to the undies in 5 minutes flat (it didn't rain on the way out of San Francisco, so why bother with a pesky rain suit?), only about 50 people showed up. It was nice to see everybody this time. And a belated thanks to Joey Perrault who lit the way for me when my head light conked out on the way up last year.This time, no electrical problems, only the fender worked it's way loose from the original hose clamps over the bumpy road, and dug a groove in my front tire...nothing that couldn't be fixed on the side of the road though.

All the way to the top, 300 gruesome yards steeply uphill from the parking lot in riding boots feeling big like the Michelin Man with all the layers I had on, with little food or coffee in my belly, this was the reward: the fog was blowing hard over the top, it was freezing, and beautiful. Totally worth it.

And this is the official start of the riding season. So Happy Trails y'all, rubber side down and shiny side up, enjoy all the beautiful sun rises and sun sets you can take, and have a great season!