Napa Valley - Bicycling Paradise

I'm pretty recovered from my bike race injuries but continued headaches made me drop my April lineup of races - the headaches are now over and I'm looking forward to May. Something new has popped up though. My wife is the new school superintendent of the Calistoga Joint Union School District in the beautiful Napa Valley of Northern California. She officially starts July 1st but we recently spent 5 days in Calistoga, and yours truly got a chance to do a couple of rides there. So I thought I would dedicate this post as a travelogue of sorts on the two rides of hundreds that exist in this cool place. Hell, Levi Leipheimer left Montana to look for the best place to train as a pro-rider and found Santa Rosa (right next door to Calistoga)and never left. He's been there 12 years and I believe he has been quoted as saying it is one of the best places to ride in the U.S. I have to agree. In one hour you can ride through redwoods, hit the Pacific Ocean, ride great hills and valleys. So here's a couple of rides that I mapped on MapMyRide.com.

Photo Credit to: Travel4California.Com

The Silverado Trail from Calistoga to Yountville:

Around 40 miles total in this out and back route right down the center of the Napa Valley. It's a fairly flat ride through the vineyards with pretty vistas on all sides of the road. The traffic is fairly heavy but there are wide bike lanes on both sides of the Silverado Trail. I was not alone on this Sunday morning ride as many, many, other roadies were out and about. Here's the link via MayMyride:



You've got options in this ride. You can continue past Yountville and travel down to the city of Napa and come back. You can make it a loop ride by using highway 29, etc. All in all, a 5 star ride.

Photo Credit: © 2007 Solage Hotels & Resorts

Pope Valley Loop:

The 2nd ride, which I did on a Monday morning was perfect. I decided to check out the climbs and ride a big part of the 2009 Tour of California, Stage 1 route (by the way, the Silverado Trail route is also a part of the TOC.) Stage 1 brought the riders from California's Central Valley (the town of Winters) over the mountains and down into the Napa Valley. I rode it backwards, leaving Calistoga, riding up over the hills to the Pope Valley and then deviated from the TOC route because of lack of time, and made it a great loop. Check it out in MapMyRide:



This ride, another 5 star, had almost zero traffic once I cleared off of the Silverado Trail. The climb up to the town of Angwin was tough but harder yet, was the descent down to the Pope Valley. Definitely a technical descent. Later, talking to locals, I was told to use Ink Grade Road which has a better descent. It looks good on the map and I can't wait to get back to Calistoga to give it a try.

I should have a race in May, though the coming move to NorCal may make racing problamatic in the short term. I for sure will have races in late summer, as NorCal has a lot more road races than SoCal. I'm going to write off crits, as I don't want my daughters to see me lying in a hospital bed with an IV in my arm again.

When you come to the Napa Valley for the wine, make sure you look me up and I'll hook you up with all the rides the Valley has to offer!