After picking up the bikes in Los Angeles and nervously negotiating our first six-lane freeway, we were all guilty of some rather unnecessary blips of the throttle as the sense of freedom that we had been anticipating for the past five months became reality.
The itinerary was planned around reservations at The French Laundry, Thomas Keller's signature restaurant in Yountville, and Alice Waters’s famous Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley. From Los Angeles we headed north up Highway 1 via Big Sur to San Francisco, north again around Napa and Sonoma before heading south along the Sierra Nevada and west through the deserts, Death Valley and Las Vegas. The road that would bring us back towards LA was one of the remaining sections of historic Route 66.
It was all great biking country — good tarmac, little traffic other than in cities, no speed cameras and a huge variety of roads, from gently meandering wine routes to challenging hill passes and desert roads. In all we clocked up 2,100 miles. Napa and Sonoma, together with the lesser-known areas of Alexander Valley and Russian River, are easy wine regions to visit, with tastings at most vineyards. The more exclusive ones charge for the pleasure: we paid $25 each to sample half a glass of the superb 2001 Opus One at the futuristic Opus One Winery and a further $15 at Silver Oak to taste what became one of the wines of the trip, their 2001 Alexander Valley cabernet.
For me the two days of desert riding was where the sense of adventure was at its peak. Having ridden along the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and attempted to cross into Death Valley via Yosemite (impassable after rock falls), we decided to enter the desert from the south. We had made reservations at Furnace Creek Ranch, having calculated our distance that day at about 350 miles.
The itinerary was planned around reservations at The French Laundry, Thomas Keller's signature restaurant in Yountville, and Alice Waters’s famous Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley. From Los Angeles we headed north up Highway 1 via Big Sur to San Francisco, north again around Napa and Sonoma before heading south along the Sierra Nevada and west through the deserts, Death Valley and Las Vegas. The road that would bring us back towards LA was one of the remaining sections of historic Route 66.
It was all great biking country — good tarmac, little traffic other than in cities, no speed cameras and a huge variety of roads, from gently meandering wine routes to challenging hill passes and desert roads. In all we clocked up 2,100 miles. Napa and Sonoma, together with the lesser-known areas of Alexander Valley and Russian River, are easy wine regions to visit, with tastings at most vineyards. The more exclusive ones charge for the pleasure: we paid $25 each to sample half a glass of the superb 2001 Opus One at the futuristic Opus One Winery and a further $15 at Silver Oak to taste what became one of the wines of the trip, their 2001 Alexander Valley cabernet.
For me the two days of desert riding was where the sense of adventure was at its peak. Having ridden along the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and attempted to cross into Death Valley via Yosemite (impassable after rock falls), we decided to enter the desert from the south. We had made reservations at Furnace Creek Ranch, having calculated our distance that day at about 350 miles.
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