Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 25, 1990 TAG: 9003252185
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOROTHY REINHOLD LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
DATELINE: HEALDSBURG, CALIF. LENGTH: Long
She gazed beatifically across the restaurant dinner table, waiting expectantly for confirmation from the other six members of the bicycle touring group.
The rest were a wary lot. Legs aching from that day's 35-mile jaunt through California's wine country, mouths stuffed with seafood and pasta and salad, senses dulled by a glass of the area's fine Chardonnay, we were content and happy, but not willing to make verbal pronouncements.
Giese accepted our smiles as agreement; she settled back and tucked into her steamed clams with gusto.
It was the third day of a five-day bicycling adventure. The group now knew each other well enough to have learned that one member had been married more than once, that one member had been engaged several times, that one harbored a secret longing to make a midcareer change to counseling, that one was moving into a new house shortly and looking forward to making love with her husband in its rooftop retreat.
These were no small revelations among people who were strangers on Sunday night, and comfortable enough with each other by Wednesday to smile their non-verbal answer to an admission like Giese's.
The group companionship was one element that lifted this vacation above the ordinary; the adventure of it was another.
Group bicycle touring has zoomed in popularity in the last couple of years, providing the kind of first-class vacation the travel industry calls "soft adventure."
Everything has been planned and provided on these trips, from the detailed maps of the routes to picnic lunches along the way and dinner reservations at night. Participants have only to sign up, pay and go along for the ride.
This adventure began Sunday evening as the group - six women and one man - assembled at Vintner's Inn, just north of Santa Rosa. Four had been picked up at San Francisco Airport or in the city by a van provided by Bicycle Cruises, the tour company; the rest had driven themselves to the inn, which was the starting point.
Over local wines, cheese and fruit, the group, which was made up of a secretary, the director of a physical-therapy center, a psychiatrist, a student of psychology, a marketing consultant, a finance-company staffer and a reporter, learned a bit about each other. All were from Southern California.
They also learned the rules of the road: Always have your map with you; if you get lost, call the numbers provided for emergencies; and if you get so tired it ceases to be fun, there's no shame in hitching a ride in the tour-company van.
All but three of the group members would remember and make use of that last rule, for, although the trip was pegged for energetic beginners, parts were too tough for several of us weary, sweaty riders, and a short ride in the van sometimes was just the ticket.
Giese, 28, however, was determined not to be a wimp. She had been saving for this trip for months, and admittedly had been attacking the StairMaster machine and the Lifecycle at her health club with extra fervor to prepare her quadriceps.
No siree, there would be no riding in the van for her, and none for Lisa Williams, the director of a physical-therapy center in Oxnard, who not only exercises as part of her job but teaches aerobics in her spare time.
"Lisa is buffed," whispered one member of the group when we emerged in our cycling shorts the first morning.
Indeed, she was well-muscled, and we took advantage of her willingness to lead a brief stretching class each morning. After breakfast, we would troop outside, creaking and groaning, and then silently begin our stretching on the dewy grass. By the time we were limber, we were actually looking forward to pedaling 35 or so miles that day.
We set off the first morning on our red, 15-speed cruising bikes (less than a mountain bike but tougher than a road bike), maps folded and placed so we could see them as we glanced down at our handlebars. Most of us were wearing black Spandex bicycling shorts, although these are not required. Most of us also had a light jacket and a camera stuffed into our gear bags mounted on the front of our bikes.
We soon fell into comfortable cycling groups. Giese and Williams, of course, were far ahead of the rest of us; my husband, an experienced mountain-bike rider who longed to go on ahead, was gallantly riding with me, as was Tena Lehr, a marketing consultant from San Clemente, Calif. She and I were well-matched, pedaling at the same rate. The other two members of the group were less experienced bicyclists and took the route more slowly.
Our first rest stop was 9.5 miles into the route, at a charming store called Kozlowski Farms. We converged on the gift shop, tasting sweet and hot mustards, wild blackberry honey, apple butter, pink grapefruit marmalade and their crowning achievement - white chocolate raspberry sauce. We tasted, tasted again, ordered some to be shipped home and bought some to take in the van with us.
Our group leader, Jeff Boudin, director of the company, reminded us to drink water often along the way, and to reach for a piece of fruit every couple of hours to keep our energy up. We happily complied, scarfing up grapes, raspberries and ripe, sweet pears.
A picnic lunch awaited us a couple of hours away at Korbel Champagne Cellars, so we were motivated. We fell again into our small cycling groups, skimming along the curling ribbon of asphalt, speeding past barking dogs protecting their owners' farmhouses, dodging the . . . was that a dead opossum on the side of the road?
It was, the first of many we would see on our trip. It was a reality of the road that surprised all of us; speeding along in your car with the windows up and the air conditioning going, you are oblivious to dead animals, broken-down fences, earthquake cracks and fields scarred by burned patches.
When driving, you also don't notice farmhouses amid shimmering fields of gold straight out of an Andrew Wyeth painting, the beautiful symmetry of vineyards, the sudden glimpse of a cool river on a hot day. These are the beautiful images of a bike trip, where the emergence of the sun from behind a cloud means you peel off your windbreaker, not that you turn on your air conditioner.
The first day's route included an optional side trip that added three hilly miles to the 35-mile total. Giese and Willams set off on the option while the rest of us passed it by.
The two made it back to the inn before the rest of us, and Giese was waiting in the hot tub with a self-satisfied smile while the rest of us pedaled in, one by one.
We met each night for a wine-and-cheese reception before dinner, to rehash the day's ride, tell war stories and tease our group leader, Boudin.
"Jeff," I said, in my most whiny voice. "I thought you said the first day was easy."
"Yeah," chimed in another rider. "If that was easy then I'm not sure I want to ride tomorrow."
Boudin looked at us, unsure if we were kidding. After all, he had been in the van most of the day, "sweeping" the route to make sure no one had a flat tire or needed a ride, driving ahead to set up the picnic lunch, to meet us at rest stops and to arrange the myriad details.
We had been riding and sweating, eating and riding and sweating some more, and had developed a camaraderie as well as a sense that we were entitled to poke fun at the leader.
He finally caught on, but took pains each morning at breakfast to carefully explain the hilly portions of the route to us, always watching to see what our reactions might be. We never let him down, complaining loudly in advance of any hills, then boasting proudly (and just as loudly) after we successfully conquered them.
At breakfast the second day, Giese and Williams breezed in and loaded up their plates with fruit, cereal and rolls, chipper and lively. The rest of us were more sluglike, lurching around with the sore muscles that can mean only one thing - we don't exercise as regularly as we pretend we do.
After stretching, my husband and I followed Boudin's advice and stopped at about the nine-mile point to pick wild raspberries along the side of the road; feral cats made their home amid the sprawling brambles.
Boudin had warned us about a stretch of road right before lunch, but we were fearless. So from mile 9.5 to mile 15, we sweated, we toiled, we stood up on our pedals, we never got out of first gear, and we used words not fit for a family newspaper. We cussed Boudin, we cussed our bikes, we cussed the impossible grade of the road, which was switchbacking through a gorgeous forest. But, hey, we were busy cussing, so we didn't pay attention to the greenery.
We scarfed up lunch at the Union Hotel restaurant; we called it carbohydrate loading, a phrase that we felt allowed us to eat garlic bread, soup, salad, spaghetti and dessert without apology.
After lunch, a few of us, including Lehr and me, realizing we had met our match in these hills, opted to "cheat" by taking a short van ride that would put us at the top of a ridge to begin our descent to Jenner-by-the-Sea, our stop for the night.
My husband joined Giese and Williams to bicycle the whole afternoon on Coleman Valley Road, which Boudin had called "extremely challenging."
"We can do it," Giese had said to Williams at lunch. The rest of us had no doubt they could. The road traversed a series of steep hills through a damp, steamy forest and emerged into a grand expanse of rolling hills, dotted with cows and sheep. The ride from the top of the ridge into Jenner at day's end was nothing short of transcendent.
Meanwhile, Lehr and I - along with our other two winded companions - having ridden the van to the top of the ridge, zoomed into Jenner an hour before the others.
We had the redwood hot tub roaring by the time everyone arrived at the bed-and-breakfast inn where the group was staying, and we soaked while the fog curled by in ribbons.
Day Three promised a rest stop in tiny Duncan Mills (population 20) and a lunch stop at Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve. Several of us stopped at Davis Bynum and Hop Kiln wineries in the afternoon to taste and buy.
Riders could buy wine and ship it home or leave it at the winery and it would be picked up by group leaders sweeping by in the van. Leaders also bought wine for the group to drink at the wine-and-cheese party in charming Healdsburg, that night's stop.
We stayed two nights in Healdsburg, cycling the next day in a 34-mile loop (with an arduous 17-mile option) that returned us to the Healdsburg Inn again.
The last day of riding was a breeze - only 24 miles. We rejoiced at the cool morning, breezed across the Russian River and happily stopped at Fieldstone Winery, 9.5 miles into the trip. Most of us deemed midmorning too early to taste wine, so we strolled through the cool tasting room, buying T-shirts and wine openers.
By this time, all of us - not just Williams - had quads we could be proud of, and we arrived back at Vintner's Inn around noon, 24 miles later, for a lunch by the spa. The red van would return us to the airport and the flight home.
Was this the best vacation anyone had ever had? Giese, who three days into the trip announced it was for her, hadn't changed her mind by the end.
And, with hearty breakfasts, tasty picnic lunches, wine and cheese followed by gourmet dinners at night, accommodations in charming bed-and-breakfast inns along the way, the congenial company of fellow riders and full days of satisfying exercise that also allowed us to cruise the back roads of our state's wine country, the rest of us had to agree that, yes, it was among the best.
by CNB