slivka.com - Trips - California 2007

slivka.com > Trips > California 2007 > Thu Apr-26

Thu

Apr-26

Backroads Day 5: 61.2 bike miles, Occidental, Bodega Bay Inn, The Duck Club
After breakfast at the Bir 3 Diner & Market, we hit the road. This was the hilliest day, with an elevations gain of 700+ feet and several loses and gains of 400+ feet in the first 30 miles. We stopped at Matanzas Creek Winery for a quick wine tasting (and we even bought a case of wine!), then grabbed lunch to go and got back on the road. At the intersection of Sonoma Mountain Road and Pressley Road, Lisa got another flat rear tire! So we ate our lunch while we waited for our Backroads leader to drive down with another tire to swap out. Repaired, we headed on for Valley Ford, and then took the long, steep option up north and west through Occidental. Unlike the rest of the group that took the direct route to Bodega Bay, we encountered no headwinds until we got to the top of our climb up Coleman Valley Road (the Tour de California takes this same route, but starts at Highway 1, which is very steep! After cresting CCR, it was all downhill (and 10-15 degrees cooler) and we had even a slight tailwind on Highway 1 as we headed south into Bodega Bay. We rode 61.2 miles in 5.6 hours for a 10.9 mph average -- the worst speed of the trip due to lots of hills and lots of miles! We were almost the last riders in, so we had only time enough for a quick hot tub soak before dinner at the Duck Club, where we shared three wines with our table: 2002 Matanzas Creek Cabernet Sauvignon, 2004 Merry Edwards Pinot Noir Meredith Estate Sonomoa Coast, and 2004 Rosenblum Cellars Zinfandel Rockpile Road Vineyard -- all from Sonoma County!