barkersoldbean

We want some advice for a 2 week trip in October/November of this year. Ideally the place would have several different loop rides of 90k/1,500m of climbing in beautiful scenery and quiet roads, with good food/wine 10 miles from base (i.e. only a short semi-inebriated ride back to "home" base)

Thanks (and no offence to fellow tandem riders in other US states - California is the 1st of hopefully other US state adventures).

Ritterview

I think the best way to investigate an area for a cycling base of operations is with the Strava Heat Map. Areas with high density will generally have more cycling, but if you look in LA, you'll see dense areas with no Strava cycling. That tells you something.

I see several areas of high cycling activity:

• The San Francisco Bay Area
• Sacramento-Sierra Foothills
• Paso Robles-Solvang
• West Los Angeles
• Orange County
• San Diego

The widest field of activity is in the San Francsico Bay Area. Its cycling epicenter is located about Palo Alto. Based there, you would have an an endless variety of rides, and be at the place where cycling looms largest as part of the culture.




Edit:
I was just thinking about the Bay Area recommendation, and the caveat is that the quiet scenic roads generally involve hills. Steep hills. For example, the Sequoia Century is a great route with quiet, scenic roads. But check out the grades on Redwood Gulch and Tunitas Creek. If you eschew climbing, the Bay Area would be much more limited.

mkane77g

And it's real crowded there. Sonoma County would be my choice.

72andsunny

Consider basing yourself in Napa Valley...perhaps St. Helena or Calistoga. You could ride to Healdsburg and back, and still be under 100k. A nice loop could take you to Angwin (a neat town settled by 7th Day Adventists), then up to Middleton (and the very isolated Guenoc Winery), then back to Calistoga. If you don't mind a little more traffic (but still safe on a tandem), ride through Carneros and into Sonoma. For a fourth day of riding, head down the Valley on one side (Silverado Trail) and return on the other side (Highway 29--Highway 29 is not the best place to cycle as it is a highway, but it is certainly not the worst place...and all the giant wineries owned by mega corporations are on 29).

That's kind of a wine heavy trip, but you did ask for food and wine. Also, you are only an hour drive from San Francisco and an hour from the beach.

I highly recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/books/dp/081181355X The listed rides are mostly of a shorter duration, though they can be strung together to make a day out of it.

2frmMI

Have done wine tasting, but not cycling, in the Sierra foothills North and East of Sacramento, and can recommend the area in general. When there for barrel tasting it seemed ideal for cycling but we didn't have our bike. Will go back one of these days with the tandem. I'd consider a modest motel room in or about Plymouth as a base and LOTS of options for up and down routes to great wineries. This is beautiful, challenging, rolling countryside.

B. Carfree

After twenty years in the (L)East Bay and then twenty more in Davis, I spent a lot of time riding around the Bay Area, Napa and Sonoma. You really can't go wrong in that area; there are loads of great rides.

The only specific advice I have is to try to keep the trip in October rather than November if you head to NorCal. October weather is almost always perfect, but it can start to get a bit wet in November. Besides, the sunlight lasts longer in October.

barkersoldbean

Thanks for the info - much appreciated. I have looked at your Strava info for the Sequoia century ride - the grades look ok to me - we are used to pyrenees/alps, so I am probably more worried about car driver attitudes than the climbing.

I will look into accommodation options now.

barkersoldbean

Good tip on the season - will do October.

barkersoldbean

Bought it now - thanks.

RaleighSport

>.> Why you giving away local secrets?

Team Fab

Since many people strava their commutes I would expect the heat map to be overpopulated with commuting routes not necessarily nice rides. Map My Ride may be another option to find good places to ride as you can sort by distance for a given area.

diabloridr

Late to the party on this one, but we left the Bay Area for Northern San Luis Obispo County (near Paso Robles) and have never looked back.

Great riding, dramatically less traffic, A++ restaurants, great wine, and one of the best craft brewerys in the nation.

born2pdl

We spent time (driving) north of Willits around the avenue of the giants in the redwoods. I rode my 29er along the highway for ~30 miles and it was spectacular and quiet (in May). There were some winding, hilly roads to the coast that looked entertaining. Not sure about wine. Would there be good base camp and ride choices in that region?

reburns

We live on the western edge of Silicon Valley and enjoy the riding on both sides of the Santa Cruz mountains, but have also done some tandeming in Napa, Sonoma and Marin counties. You can have a good time doing what you plan in any of those areas, but my advice would be to base yourself in Santa Rosa or some other town in Sonoma County. Link up with the local bike clubs and shops for advice on routes, etc.

Ritterview

The Central California Coast is a large area, with separate and fairly distant cycling centers in Paso Robles, San Luis Obisbo, and Solvang. Which of these towns would you recommend as the base of operations?


Okay, but what town in Sonoma County would be the base of operations? Santa Rosa? That has the imprimatur of home of the BMC Racing Team.

diabloridr

I'm least familar with Solvang, so I'll leave that location for others to promote.

SLO vs. Paso is an easy call for me:

From SLO, you can either ride up the coast, or down the coast - your actual choices in roads are rather limited unless you climb the Cuesta Grade to ride the Paso Area roads, as many SLO riders do (you can see this on the heat map). SLO and the South SLO coast are more populated and traffic is heavier (though still tame by Bay Area Standards)

Paso gives you many options in each direction, and you can still drop down to the coast on the longer loops. I ride 50+ mile loops from my home with no stop lights and very little traffic.

There are more hotel and restaurant choices in SLO than Paso, but Paso isn't too shabby, and SLO is only 20 minutes away in a car if you simply must go.

The chief minus for Paso is that it does get HOT in the summer and COLD (for California) in the winter. We roll out at 7 AM in the Summer and try to finish by 11 to avoid the heat. SLO will run 10 to 20 degrees cooler/warmer.

October/November, when the OP intends to visit, are usually quite nice.

Beautiful stoker and I went through this exact decision process when we relocated, and you see which choice we made.

chichi

All of these suggestions are excellent. I recommend flying into SFO and renting a vehicle large enough to hold your bike. 2 weeks will give you plenty of time to stay in 4 or 5 different places and do some fantastic riding around everything that has been mentioned. I have ridden in all the areas mentioned, everyone of them is fantastic. Willits and the Avenue of the giants is spectacular, just did the Wine Country Century out of Santa Rosa and was amazaed by one fantastic small road after another, Levi's Granfondo route has some great stuff if you like hills. in SF do a loop that takes you over the Golden Gate through Marin and out Paradise Drive to the Ferry and back to the City. Riding around Palo Alto is a kick great roads and cyclists everywhere. Santa Cruz county more good stuff and lots of cyclists. Drive down the Big Sur coast spend a night in Lucia do a couple of rides from there and you will avoid the traffic (there are only a couple of rides from there). Paso Robles next, followed by Santa Barbra. Check out the local bike clubs for routes or send notes out to the Tandem forum as you get closer.

Ritterview

A suggestion for the OP is to check out what the Calfee InGamba tandem tour did in 2012. This was a really expensive, deluxe tour discussed here.

mkane77g

Santa Rosa would be a wise choice. Less expensive than Healdsburg, more variety. Including restuarants, ride iptions.

PedalPink

I completely agree with Chichi. Rent a vehicle (we found by asking nicely we would get at least a HRR - we had to drive the car "tandem" style with passenger sitting in seat behind driver). We've done multiple trips and for visits longer than a week we've changed base of operations once or twice during the trip for more variety. Our favorites have been Sonoma/Napa and Paso Robles, but we've also visited Davis (LiveStrong), Big Sur, Monterey (17 mile drive has to be one of the most spectacular drives in US), San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz (200km brevet along coastline) ... we've been very happy with all of them. Great food and wine during and after beautiful rides.

barkersoldbean

Great idea - am looking at this now.

barkersoldbean

Any chance you would know anyone with garmin files for the California routes?
Would make it a cinch to follow.

Ritterview

I was looking for these on Strava, but not finding anything, not even by Joćo M. Correia, who was the putative tour organizer. There was nothing on the Calfee FB, save this Event post. I'm beginning to suspect this may have not attracted enough riders (the price was really high), and was quietly cancelled. Still, would be useful to find out what was planned.

peckma

Paso Robles would be my choice. It's the center of the Paso Robles wine country, so good food and drink is plentiful and accessible. You can ride through the wine country right from Paso - west or east. It's a 30 mile ride to the coast and then you have plenty of choices- north towards Ragged Point or south towards Morro Bay with numerous deviations. Paso is not as crowded or as pricey as Napa/Sonoma. SLO is a nice town, but getting out of town on a bicycle can be tough - more traffic. Paso is literally on the edge of the wine county - pop out 6th or 24th street to the west and there you go.

B. Carfree

There are absolutely fantastic rides out towards the coast from there, especially for someone who rides the Alps/Pyrenees (very steep hills). One can head over at Ferndale and loop out at Honeydew back to the Redwood Valley, or go up and over Wilder Ridge from Honeydew to Shelter Cove. From Shelter Cove Highway one can either head back out to the inland valley or tackle some unpaved roadway by taking Usul Rd to Hwy 1. Several challenging loops can be put together around those roadways.

However, there's not much decent food and it's a bit too far north for wine. It's all pretty sparsely populated around there, so the lodging isn't going to be quite the same as in the Bay Area.