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The Easter Ride, 35 Years Later
By Mean Marshall
You want me to wake up at 3:00 a.m. to go for a motorcycle ride up Mount Tam at 4:00 a.m. on Easter morning? What kind of imbecile are you? Probably one of the thousands of imbeciles that have done just that every Easter Sunday since 1975. It started one evening in 1975. Start with motorcycles, add a few drinks (or a lot), toss in the available drugs and close all of the bars in the East Bay. Now where do we go? What do we do? We know we’re not ready for sleep and can’t leave one anothers’ company, yet. There’s got to be somewhere to go or something we can do to keep this going, and then I remember as a child being dragged off to the Easter Morning sunrise service. By dumb luck, an Easter morning service was being held at the open-air theater on Mount Tamalpias. We took advantage of the park gates being open, flew past the Ranger station and headed for the peak.
This has never been nor could it ever be any type of religious event. The original attendees were praising youth, motorcycles, alcohol, drugs and whatever came into their fevered brains, including a marshmallow Peep or two.
After this first year, from the many re-tellings and embellishments of the ride and tales of freedom and stupidity, we decided a second ride was in order. The group grew to 20 and was poised to become a heathen ritual. Another set of fables and sagas began. By year three, G.P. Cycle Works (owned by Rick Price, a founding rider) in Oakland and John Gallivan's T.T. Motors in Berkeley joined in the mayhem. We had grown to over 50 strong and organization had to kick in. We had fliers printed, restaurants booked, CHP and police in the various cities alerted and the Mt. Tam Rangers opening the gates for us!
If you’re old enough to remember, this was before helmet laws, insurance requirements or noise restrictions on exhausts: the good ol' days.
For the first 10 years the ride was almost exclusively British. A true rolling museum of Triumphs, BSAs, Nortons, Vincents, Velocettes, Matchlesses, Royal Enfields, Ariels, Ajays, and of course some Paladin Bitsas. Remember the six-volt headlamp? Picture climbing Mt. Tam in pitch dark at 5:30 a.m., with 100 motorcycles putting out a whopping 200 or so candle power in total! We weren’t going to blind any deer.
Of course, we had some casualties: a broken arm and a broken leg (on separate individuals), some road rash, a few motorcycles flying off the side of the mountain and some bruised egos. But never during all of the years of the ride was there ever any form of violence or even mean-spiritedness that I saw.
There were many years when there was no sunrise, with fog or clouds being the dominant ven ue. In our induced states, we were certain that we saw the sun anyway. Parties were ongoing from Saturday night until the ride began. Sleep? Don’t be silly.
Many a midnight repair session was carried out at the shop with up to 20 bikes being worked on (or patched together) as the clock was ticking; anxiety was in our heads and adrenalin was as much in our blood as the drugs were. The shop phone would be steadily ringing with the same question, if the weather seemed threatening: “Is the ride on?” By the graces of Thor, it was only totally rained out one year. This isn’t to say we didn’t get wet during other years.
By 4:00 a.m,. we were willing warriors, off to the Ashby BART station in Berkeley for our first meeting point. In the dead of night you could hear the bikes coming from all directions and the guessing game would begin about who it was, what model motorcycle, or how many were in a given group. Smiles and coffee were the most common sight, but for the under-dressed rookies, the shivering would have already begun. At the same time, another group of folks would be gathering at the Golden Gate Bridge parking lot. At 4:30, the roar would begin and off we went to the Richmond Bridge toll plaza, where the circus would cause total chaos. The one or two toll takers at this time of the morning would be in a total panic as a sea of riders began trying to give away money and move on.
By 5:00, we would hit Tam Junction with an impressive line of headlamps going back over a mile. We would hang out for 30 minutes or so telling lies, drooling over the other motorcycles or making emergency repairs: typical British riding experience.
Five-thirty a.m. and it’s time for the final and most impressive leg of our folly: climbing slowly (remember: British bikes) up the side of the mountain, gaining altitude and viewing the entire vista between switchbacks and screaming brakes, praying the entire time that you won't be the one to screw up or break down. As we near the top, all thoughts are on taking a piss, finding more tequila or coffee, or finding that gorgeous female rider we had seen at Tam Junction. You know I speak the truth!
Once we reached the top, all would dismount. Some would hike off for quiet meditation and the sunrise while others caught up on their social skills: the B.S. would fly. Each story would grow more exaggerated and profane as the ingested ingredients mixed. This would last for up to four hours as we were finally warmed by the sun and found new energy. Every year there were new surprises. Returning old friends, making of new friends and the occasional celebrity. One year we even had the Easter Bunny (actually John Bock in a bunny costume) arrive in a sidecar with treats. No, I won’t disclose what he was giving out.
Not everyone who attended the ride has been nuts. Over the years, folks came and went. Some who thought “I gotta see what this is about”, to some die-hards who abandoned family and friends to test their riding skills on Easter. We were especially humbled when Dick “Bugsy” Mann and Jack Wheeler showed up for a couple of years to teach us how to really ride a British bike.
Around 10 or 11, we would head up Route 1 for a little unofficial roadracing and then for breakfast at the Sand Dollar in Stinson Beach or the Station House or Mike's Café in Point Reyes Station. If you were one of my shop’s friends, a special invitation-only champagne breakfast was held at Jerry’s Farmhouse in Olema. The entire place was booked by the shop weeks in advance, with the shop paying for the champagne. After another hour or so of stuffing ourselves, about two-thirds of the folks would be heading home to bed while the rest of us would continue the ride up to the Russian River and then over to Calistoga before calling it a day.
In the 15th year—when the ride had reached over 400 crazies—on the advice of my attorney, my sponsorship of the ride ceased. Others have taken up the reins during the last 20 years, by continuing to organize it and by keeping up some of the saner traditions. I tip my hat to all of them.
The ride itself was always a joy, no matter the weather. Sure, we were freezing and cursing Mother Nature, but the pleasure was always worth the pain. And where else would you find the Bay Area’s most beautiful female riders? I would be remiss not to mention our friends who captured some of these memories on film: Denise Leitzel and Paul d’Orleans. Everyone who has attended the ride has their own history of the ride to tell. As it should be. Get up at 3:00 a.m. this April 4th and make some history of your own.
Mean Marshall is everywhere, in everything. He lives in a world of old parts. Contact him via CityBike: info@citybike.com.
