Mountain Bike Night Ride on Mt. Tam, 199X
Every Wednesday night, my mountain biking buddies and I rode up from Mill Valley to the top of Mt. Tamalpais to poach illegal trails. Mt. Tam is in Marin County, CA, the homeland of mountain biking, and is the “mountain” that the mountain bike is named after. In the 1990s, the “war" against mountain bikes was raging, and all singletrack trails on Mt. Tam were closed to bikes. Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD) Rangers with radar guns were set up at roadblocks on the fire roads and were issuing speeding tickets for riders exceeding a 15mph speed limit. Repeat offenders could have their bikes confiscated. For guys like me who grew up riding anywere we wanted on the mountain, this was totally unacceptable. The really remote trails were fairly safe from the law or angry Audobon society hikers, but night was the best time to enjoy the more well-used trails like “Rock Spring”, “Matt Davis”, “Alice Eastwood”, and “Troop 80”.
This particular Wednesday, we were riding up Railroad Grade using only moonlight and a couple of dim mini-maglights taped to handlebars. We saved the batteries on our Niteriders or homebrew halogen lights for the singletrack, and also because rangers might see the lights before we were safely on singletrack and riding at high speed.
As we approached West Point Inn along the fire road, someone lit us up with a flashlight and yelled “Hold it right there! You’re BUSTED! You’re all getting citations.”
We were maybe 50 feet from the guy, and one of us turned on twin PAR30 halogen lamps strapped on his helmet and revealed a young MMWD ranger squinting into the glare.
One of the riders said, “Sorry dude, you’ll have to catch us first,” and we turned our bikes toward the Matt Davis trailhead, which descends steeply to the southeast.
Ranger: “Hold it right there!!! I said stop! Stop! STOP IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!!!”
Everyone started laughing, and one guy fell off his bike.
Biker: “Dude. Did you just say ‘stop in the name of the law’?”
Ranger: “Yeah... I have a gun...”
Biker: “Dude, really?”
The ranger started laughing too, and we rode off down the trail.