# Blazing Saddles, San Francisco. Do they hate their own clients?



## slow.climber (Nov 25, 2010)

WARNING, LONG RANT TO FOLLOW

This week end we were sitting on Hawk Hill enjoying the amazing weather and view and trying to figure out why we see so few rental bikes up there. We've taken lots of out-of-town visitors on rides through the headlands. They do fine. The ones who almost never ride do get a bit tired but this ride is well within the reach of most people.

As we were talking, two 20-something visitors on bikes from Blazing Saddles showed up and asked us about their riding options in the park. They told us that the people renting them the bikes tried hard to talk them out of riding in the headlands 

But at the same time, I frequently find people with Blazing Saddles bikes on the bike path between 101 and Mill Valley staring at maps and trying to figure out how to get to Muir Woods.

The climb to Panoramic is harder than the climb up Hawk Hill, and then you drop 600 feet down to Muir woods, and the climb back out is harder than the climb up from Mill Valley.

Typically it's late afternoon, these folks are tired just from riding along the bike path. No no food, no water, no lights, and no clue that they've got a dozen miles and 1400' of climbing to do. The map makes it look like it's flat until you get to PanToll,

http://www.blazingsaddles.com/assets/BlazingSaddlesSanFranciscoMAP.pdf

I wonder how many of them notice that the map is not to scale.

Every couple of months we meet some of these folks riding on Bunker looking to 'ride the trail to Mt. Tam'. Yeah, same drill, mid-afternoon, no food, no water, ...

It would be great if some one have given them the word that it's a 50 mile out-and-back on the trails with over 5000' vertical. And when I ask, they have no spare tube, not pump, no levers, nada.

I love the description of the ride to Mt. Tam. They make it sound like Muir Woods is 'on the way'. And they tell you that it takes 'about 3 hours'. It probably takes the average tourist 3 hours just to get to Mill Valley. Getting to the top of Mt. Tam is just not going to happen for 98% of them.

And my personal favorite, they send them down Alexander road rather than through Fort Baker. There's a note on the map that says to go throuht Fort Baker if it's after 3:30 or if it's the week end. So most tourists miss a great deal of what they've come to see.

I expect BS don't want them dealing with walking their bikes over to the west side (Bike Path 5), or riding under 101 and coming back south on the access road


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## ucancallmejoe (May 17, 2006)

By the looks on their faces I think only a tiny percentage of BS's clientele enjoy their ride. 

I cannot believe that BS would send tourists all the way out to Muir Woods! It is obvious that the folks at BS are in it for the money and are probably bicycle haters ripping off tourists. Too bad that Sports Basement does not get into the rental biz.


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## slow.climber (Nov 25, 2010)

ucancallmejoe said:


> ...Too bad that Sports Basement does not get into the rental biz.


Wish that they would.

I've taked with them about it several times and they always say that the overhead of maintaining the bikes kills the profit margin.

I suppose that's because they're decent folk who have much higher standards than BS.

But to be fair, the guys at the BS shop on Columbus Street are like a completely different company. They rent mid-to-high end bikes, keep them well maintained, and they RIDE. I was in their shop picking up a Kestrel that we rented for a visitor, and I could hear the guys behind the desk giving usefull advice about riding Mt. Tam to the couple (fully decked out in Spandex) picking up their Roubaixs.

Buy yeah, the other BS locations are lousy.


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## bikeblazer (Feb 8, 2011)

*We love biking*

Hi, I just wanted to reply to this posting because I actually work for Blazing Saddles. 
I really appreciate that you wish more of our bikers would take the time or be able to ride up the Headlands because it is amazing. Most of the people renting bikes from us do not want to go up many hills and often ask if its flat or not. 
I can tell you that we never send anyone to Muir Woods unless they are on the right equipment like something like a road bike or reall mountain bike. We do send them to old mill park because it is a flat ride from Sausalito to get there and then they usually continue onto Tiburon. When someone even ask to go to Muir woods we tell them that they have to go over a mountain to get there and show the way to Old Mill park instead. 
We have thousands of bikers do the ride along the water from Fisherman's Wharf to cross the bridge and then continue down into Sausalito and bring the ferry back. This is a fairly easy ride and anyone can do it. 
BS is also a family owned company and have been in business for 25 years. The owners are very much in love with biking and they have helped with the creation of many of the bike paths along the water there are now just from the many bikers they have sent along the way. I understand from your standpoint when you see someone looking at a map and asking how to get to Muir Woods would make you ponder why they would be going there and that is because they are actually talking about Old Mill Park so next time you can really help them out. 
BS has the same goal as your talking about and that is to share this beautiful place we call home to as many people we can. Our main objective is to share all the biking people can do here and have them return and say "this is the best thing I have done here" And we get this often. I hope you enjoy your next ride and know that BS is committed to helping our customers 100%. Any feed back is great and I gladly take into consideration all of your concerns. Have an amazing day.


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## slow.climber (Nov 25, 2010)

bikeblazer said:


> I understand from your standpoint when you see someone looking at a map and asking how to get to Muir Woods would make you ponder why they would be going there and that is because they are actually talking about Old Mill Park so next time you can really help them out.


Ummm, no. I specifically ask where they want to go.

Some folks just want to see some trees. So I send them to Old Mill Park, and I tell them that they can ride around the streets above the park if they want to see more trees and get a sense what it's like to live on the edge of the groves.

Some folks specifically want to go to OMP.

And some folks very specifically want to go to Muir Woods. I'll chat with them for a while and I'll explain what a ride to MW requires.

For example, two days ago I met a guy puzzling over a map, he wanted to go to MW. He was on a vacation from the UK and he was clear about wanting to go to MW.

He was in his mid-30's, told me that he was an avid cyclist, and didn't feel intimidated by the description of the ride. It was about 11:00, so I offered to ride with him up to Panoramic Hwy (I was on my way to Mt. Tam). He did fine, I dropped him at the junction after checking that he was clear on his options for the ride back.

Yes, there are tourists, dressed in street clothes, riding heavy bikes, who are really want to go to MW.



bikeblazer said:


> BS has the same goal as your talking about and that is to share this beautiful place we call home to as many people we can. Our main objective is to share all the biking people can do here and have them return and say "this is the best thing I have done here" And we get this often. I hope you enjoy your next ride and know that BS is committed to helping our customers 100%. Any feed back is great and I gladly take into consideration all of your concerns. Have an amazing day


That might come as a surprise to the two people I described meeting on Hawk Hill this week end. They told me that BS " tried very hard to talk us out of riding up Hawk Hill".

They were young, healthy looking, cheerful, outgoing people. It was perfect riding weather. It was early afternoon. In short, there was no reason to try to talk them out of riding in the Headlands.

And why default to Alexander Ave?

I frequently ask people on rental bikes if they're headed for Sausalito. If they are, I explain that they can either take the fast route down Alexander (and see next to nothing), or they can walk their bikes over to the west side and follow Bike Path 5.

I make it clear that they'll need to deal with two long flights of stairs if they follow the bike path.

Almost without exception, they opt for riding through the park. Usually, I'm about to take a loop through the headlans so I stop at Battery Spencer and watch what they do. It takes me less time to ride down Alexander, loop under 101, and climb Conzelman than it takes them to walk over to the west parking lot and ride down the hill.

Almost always they stop and take pictures at the bottom of the bridge or ride out onto the pier. So clearly they're enjoying the ride in the park.

Have you seen the little ant trails of tourists pushing their bikes up that little incline on Alexander on the way down to Sausalito?

Seriously, I see tourists rolling down Alexander at about 5 MPH and then getting off their bikes and walking on the road in order to get up that little incline. This is especially likely to happen if they have kids with them.

There's no maked bike path there.

There's hardly even a shoulder.

But pretty much ever day I see tourists, some times with little kids, pushing their bikes up that incline, with traffic rolling past them at 30-40 MPH.

Sounds like great fun to me.

And I'm not talking about just the week days.

I loop through the Headlands about 250 days out of the year. Yeah, I'm kind of in a rut but it's a pretty nice rut.

Anyway, every week end there's a crowd of people in the north west GGB parking lot on BS bikes. They're tourists so of course they're clogging up the exit of the bike path from the bridge. And way more than half of them are staring at their maps trying to figure out what to do next. 

Ride up the little incline and wait at the STOP sign on Conzelman. Many of them tell you that 'the man in the bike shop told me to go this way'.

It's the week end.

Why are they being told to go down Alexander?


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## bikeblazer (Feb 8, 2011)

*thank you*

Thanks a lot for clearing that up for me. I do appreciate any help you can give our bikers and I am sure that they appreciate it as well. Like I said I do appreciate the feedback as well and hopefully we will have many bikers be able to cruise under the bridge and around Fort Baker. Have an awesome day.


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## SilasCL (Jun 14, 2004)

Geez man, they're renting a bike, not getting a guided tour from a professional navigator. Clueless tourists were not invented by blazing saddles.


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## MikeBiker (Mar 9, 2003)

Just rent a GPS with the bike.


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## slow.climber (Nov 25, 2010)

SilasCL said:


> Geez man, they're renting a bike, not getting a guided tour from a professional navigator. Clueless tourists were not invented by blazing saddles.


Geez man, how much more 'straw man' can you get?

When you take money from some one to provide them with a service, you take on some responsibilities. They're giving you money because you're marketing to them that you know this area and you're going to provide them with a cool experience. So do it. Send them down through the park, don't send them down a busy road. 

And, if they're young, healthy, and enthusiastic, don't DISCOURAGE them from going into the cool place up the hill.

This is a discussion about the quality of the derectives that BS is ALREADY GIVING.

BS clients tell me that BS is 'worked hard to discourage them' from simply riding up Conzelman. This is from 20-somethings who appear perfectly healthy and in no way 'clueless'. How is that in any way "getting a guided tour from a professional navigator"? Yeah, it's nothing like that at all.

Conzelman is not a big scary thing. It's well within the reach of many tourists. And it's a huge disservice to many of their customers to be telling them to stay the hell out of there.

Just like it's a disservice to be sending them down Alexander. Little kids pushing their bikes along Alexander with traffic rolling by them at 40 MPH, rather than riding through a beautiful, safe, quite, park.

Are you getting the point?


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## slow.climber (Nov 25, 2010)

MikeBiker said:


> Just rent a GPS with the bike.


Which does you absolutely no good when the guy renting you the bike is telling you Jesus Oh My GOD don't ride there.

Nor does that do you any good when they're telling you to take you little kids down Alexander rather than through Fort Baker.

Great your GPS tells you that you're on the 'right path' but your kids are walking on a road with traffic whizzing past them rather than riding in the park.

It's a really simple rule, little kids and traffic don't mix.


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## txzen (Apr 6, 2005)

slow.climber said:


> Wish that they would.
> 
> I've taked with them about it several times and they always say that the overhead of maintaining the bikes kills the profit margin.
> 
> I suppose that's because they're decent folk who have much higher standards than BS.


The Presidio location of Sports Basement does have bike rental. Nice ones, too.


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## slow.climber (Nov 25, 2010)

txzen said:


> The Presidio location of Sports Basement does have bike rental. Nice ones, too.


OK, good to know. I'll keep them in mind the next time we have visitors.


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## txzen (Apr 6, 2005)

slow.climber said:


> OK, good to know. I'll keep them in mind the next time we have visitors.


It was news to me to, mostly because it's hidden behind the ski area, not in the area where the bikes are.


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