Preconceived notions…

A reply from Alex to my “Labels” post prompted the recollection of an event over 20 years ago. Years ago, working at Pacific Coast Cycles, we got a call from someone from Rolling Stone magazine saying that their staff was having a west coast retreat/meeting and wanted to go on a mountain bike ride, could we help them get bikes and take them on a ride?

We didn’t rent bikes, but we did have a lot of friends who had bikes and some who had multiple bikes. So we rounded up a bunch of bikes and told the Rolling Stone folks to meet us at the end of Sorrento Valley Blvd. for a ride through Penasquitos Canyon. This was at a time when Sorrento Valley Blvd. dead ended at the head of the canyon and there were no houses gracing the mesa tops. A pretty great time.

Because we were Pacific Coast Cycles and several of us had our mountain bikes set up with drop bars and many of our customers and friends did the same, what we brought to the ride was an assortment of mountain bikes with drop bars and flat bars. We didn’t dwell on the fact that some bikes had strange motorcycle-like bars when explaining how the brakes and shifting worked.

We matched up bikes to riders and off we went. A bunch of grown-ups hootin’ and hollerin’ and having a great time riding bikes on a dirt road through a canyon in the middle of San Diego County, but a million miles away. Like Alex’s non-mountain bike riding friend, there was no talk of tire size, gearing… Nope, we just rode bikes and had a great time. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.