I did this ride on Sunday, March 12, 2006. The day started cold and rainy but the rain cleared off about mid-day and the temperature got up to around 50 with partly sunny to sunny skies. The route is 56 miles with about 4500 total feet of climb (click on "Ten Great Rides" at Santa Rosa Cycling Club's great site). I deviated from the official route somewhat because it was getting late, and I'll admit it, I was getting tired, but as you'll see, I'm not sure that made it easier--maybe even harder (I ended up at 58 mis.).

You start from the village of Monte Rio on the Russian River, an area where lots of people live in tiny vacation homes built decades ago (periodically the river floods them out). You head west for a couple miles and then turn north along Austin Creek, and after nine miles reach a place call Cazadero, which has a general store, a church and a few houses. I stopped there to call Laura (it turned out that there was no cell coverage in this whole ride area and I had promised to give her updates as I was riding alone). While I was there one last shower kicked up and I sat it out for about a quarter hour staring at the mountain ridge across Austin Creek.

Just north of Cazadero, King Ridge Rd begins, and continues at first to follow Austin Creek into the mountains. The first elevation chart shows that the big climb begins about five miles in, just about the time you leave the creek behind, and climbs 1100 feet in five-six miles. Somehow that doesn't quite capture it. So imagine you're going up Bean Blossom Hill and when you get to the top there's a turn and there's another Bean Blossom Hill, then another, and another... (Bean Blossom is 300-400 ft, so King Ridge is indeed about 3-4 Bean Blossoms.) They were so long in fact that a couple of times when I could hardly breathe and the end was still not in sight I stopped to catch my breath. The first time I did that I couldn't get back in my cleats to get going again, because the road was too steep (and too narrow to go sideways), so I had to walk my bike up to a spot that was "level" enough to get going again (and even walking in my cleats I slipped a couple times, to give you an idea of how steep these sections were). At first, it is densely forested but as you get higher you start to get views across a valley to the mountains on the other side (see below). The stretch at the high elevation is a ridge line going through open pastureland, with cows grazing (no fences--I must have had to cross thirty cattle guards) and the road snaking up and down into the distance. Cont'd below.

King Ridge Rd, starting at Cazadero and ending at Hauser Bridge-Tin Barn
16.14 miles (200 ft per division)
Total Climb: 2409 feet; Descents: 1425 feet
(Note that hese elevation charts are drawn to different scales.)

When you reach the end of the 16 miles on King Ridge, you turn onto Hauser Bridge Rd which takes you down to the Gualala River and then back up again (2nd elevation chart). I'm not sure which was harder, the harrowing descent of 861ft in 1 mile (grades of 20%) or the climb of 691 ft in just over a mile (grades not much different). The descent was highly technical, rough road surface, hairpin turns, shadows once I got back down into the forested area. On the way down, I was braking hard all the way, just to keep the bike under control. All these roads are very narrow, no center line, and the bridge, to give you an idea of how primitive they are, was one of the metal mesh ones. You next head south on Seaview Rd, which is on a ridge parallel with the ocean, just a few miles above it. At this point in the ride, I could see that it was taking much longer than I much too optimistically estimated (Laura was waiting for my next update and I was already later that I'd say I'd be). I saw that there was a road leading down to Hwy 1, the highway that runs along the coast, and I decided it might be easier to ride along the coast than to continue one Seaview Rd which was just at that point heading into a long climb that I couldn't see the end of. I was going to get down there eventually anyway, so I decided to try it. Continued.

Hauser Bridge Rd, starting at King Ridge Rd and ending at Seaview Rd (Gualala River)
3.7 miles (200 feet per division)
Descent 861 feet (up to 20%); Climb 691 feet

The road down to the coast was one of the best all day, fairly wide and well-paved, but with several spots with warnings of 18% grades. The coast highway is fairly primitive as highways go. In some places it has a shoulder but in others there is no room for one. There a places where there are gates to close it when there are washouts from heavy rains and there are cattle guards on it also. The road tends to run along the cliffs above the ocean (the only beaches are in small coves), but where streams and creeks run into the ocean, it descends down almost to ocean level. This means that there was still a lot of climbing, climbs much longer than anything we normally do. And the descents don't let you just run, because there are sharp bends. Typically when you descend toward a creek the road turns inland parallel with the creek and then when you get to the bottom and cross it, the road makes a hairpin turn back out toward the ocean on the other side of the creek--and then, of course, you start climbing again. The next chart shows the last section of Hwy, where I was back the original route. The descents were all more technical than anything I'm used to (much more so than those big descents we did up by Petoskey), so much so that I never got over 33mph all day. I'm not sure if the chart is quite right--there's something wrong with the mileage they give for that section--but as you can see although the climbs are only 100 -200 ft, there are a lot of them. A couple were very long and steep, sort of Dutch Settlement multiplied. Happily, once you get to Jenner (where I called Laura and told her to call off the Highway Patrol), you've got a dozen fairly flat miles along the Russian River back to Monte Rio.

Looking over the elevation charts after the ride, I realized this move down to the coast was a mistake. I thought I was heading into a whole new series of climbs, but in fact I was about half way up the last big climb of the day (450-500 ft in two miles), after which I would have had a mostly downhill route to the coast (1135 ft in 5 miles), in all likelihood much easier than climbing the headlands on the coast, although some of that I would still have done, including the section on the chart below. Continued.

Hwy 1, starting at Meyers Grade and ending at Hwy 116
6.1 miles (200 feet per division)
Climbs:1569 feet; Descents: 1544 feet

Total riding time: 4 hrs twenty-five minutes at an average of 13.1 (and that's going 18 the last dozen miles to get back before the sunset).

So that's my adventure. Some day I might try it again if anyone wants to join me. I wouldn't advise doing it alone. Before I reached the end my plans for another big climbing day were out the window, not this early in the season. Instead I took a nice leisurely ride through the vineyards of Dry Creek Valley and vicinity.