Looking ahead— biking to Russian River Brewing Company in Santa Rosa (about 60-70 miles each way from SF, some hills) is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. And hey— they’re serving Pliny the Younger for 14 days in early February.
The plan: ride up either Saturday Feb 4th or 11th [edit: we’re doing it the 11th], early, hang out at the brewery, get a hotel/motel/airbnb for the night, and bike back the next day. With stops for lunch and so on.
I’m also open to camping, but on a weekend with that much riding and hill-climbing it would be nice to travel light.
Here’s one rough possible route (about 68 miles and 3000ft of elevation from Potrero Hill, or 59 miles from Golden Gate Bridge), which includes a scenic ride past Nicasio Reservoir and two cheese companies. I rode this way (up until Petaluma) when I biked to Sonoma a few months ago, and it was hilly in spots but mostly a nice bike route I want to share. I don’t know the route beyond Petaluma— suggestions welcome, & I’ll dig into bike maps in the next few weeks.
Or there are somewhat more direct possibilities via San Rafael/Novato and a stretch of highway 101, but I’m much less interested in that.
There are also a few potential bail-out routes to cut the distance shorter on the way back (Golden Gate Transit bus 80 runs roughly hourly (though slowly) from Santa Rosa -> Novato -> San Rafael -> SF (SoMa), and has space for two bikes, and there’s also the Larkspur-SF ferry), but I mainly mention those to try to lure people in— let’s bike the whole way.
[edit: Within a day of posting this and emailing some folks, I already have seven people who said they might be interested… so this will happen (weather permitting). I’ll send out an update in January.]