Category: Destinations

Napa & Sonoma Valleys have long been synonymous with wine growing (and tasting), but after a Bicycling Magazine article listed it among the world’s best places to ride, cyclists began visiting in numbers. The magazine wrote; “Napa and Sonoma are not merely local favorites; they’re legitimate international must-rides. The varied terrain can satisfy everyone from the flat-seeking novice to the hard-core hammerhead. The roads are lightly traveled. The cuisine maintains its gourmet appeal while ranging in price from cheap basics to outrageously expensive feasts. And there’s a wine tasting, it seems, on every mile.” Having biked from Burgundy to Bordeaux, and Piedmont to Puglia and (almost) everywhere in Europe between, I wasn’t expecting to be as impressed as I was with California’s wine country. My wife and I are somewhere between ‘flat-seeking novices and hard-core hammerheads’ and chose Randonnee Tours new 7 day trip, starting from Napa, just north of San Francisco. We arrived at the first hotel, the historic Napa River Inn, which boasts a riverside location and has lots of shops, galleries and restaurants within steps. Our first ride was a wonderful easy-going loop where we visited the former estate of Rene di Rosa, the founder of Winery Lake vineyards and an eccentric art collector with a huge collection of Northern California’s emerging artists work. We had lunch at the Boon Fly Café, a classy restaurant with a lively lunch-time crowd. There was a long loop option to Sonoma (the reward would be lunch at Sondra Bernstein’s first restaurant, the Girl and the Fig) but we decided to make it an easy first day. The ride back to Napa earned us dinner at famous international Chef Masaharu Morimoto (a k a the Iron Chef) where we dove into the omakase tasting menu that ‘wowed’ us course after course after course. Next day, riding