Originally Posted by
riceowls
Wow!!! that's exactly the type of advice I was looking for! We are younger but riding around Houston don't get as much climbing. But I am sure we can manage some version of that.
Glad to help. We've had great times cycling in this area. One time on Silverado Trail we stopped to watch them harvesting olives on a road between vineyards. Our favorite is probably up there north of Healdsburg, but it's all great save some busy stuff around Napa where you need to hold your nose a bit. If you feel like roughing it just a tad, consider staying in the yurts or cabins at Bothe Nape Valley State Park, just a mile or two off Silverado Trail north of St. Helena, and in cabins on Steep Ravine just south of Stinson.
The paper map I mentioned is the Krebs Cycle Products San Francisco Bay & Wine Country Bicycle Touring Map. We've used it so much I've put wide packing tape on it and just cut out the section we need for a given trip. It's an old-school bit put together by someone who clearly loves cycling.
Confession re the hills: I swapped out our 30T front chainring for a 24T granny, and switched to a 12-36 cassette. It means we can tackle about any hill on a route like this as long as we tell ourselves we're ascending at a hiking pace and in no hurry.