The word "mountain" has turned more into a regional homograph as we have learned more about living in Berkeley and so close to the Berkeley Hills and Marin County. (Homograph= two words with the same spelling but different meanings). We thought... Marin County- the home of mountain biking- it'll be great! (For those of you new to SF geography, Marin County is part of the "North Bay" region. It is the county north of the Golden Gate Bridge and across the bay from Berkeley/Richmond/Oakland/East Bay areas. I suppose in the baby days of mountain biking, the art of throwing yourself down a hill, on a bike, as if trying out for a "yahoo" drink commercial was created. Thus there has been this fear built up in loud mouth day hikers (who seek political action) of getting run down by an out of control mountain biker who neglected to call out prior to passing. And that brings us to the depressing state of our regional parks where all of the boring "road" looking trails are open to all and the more interesting single track trails are just for hiking and horses.
Now, when one enters the real mountains of our area, those of the Sierra Nevadas, a new perspective of mountain biking is formed... well at least on the Nevada side of the Tahoe Rim Trail. There mountain bikers and backpackers can co-exist. The trails are interesting and moderately challenging for a bike and you really are on a mountain! Thank goodness for Tahoe and the Sierra Nevadas. If we were stuck in CA without Lake Tahoe to go hiking around, mountains to go skiing among and the possibility of doing real mountain biking, we'd just about go crazy.
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