Originally Posted by
nachomc
Does this go past the wineries (like Concannon) and such? Concannon is one of my favorite wines and I love the vineyard.
The route goes right past Concannon's front gate. As I was born and grew up in Livermore, this is my old stomping grounds. I can therefore add some detail to BBM's description. (And since I know the roads and will be at the back of the pack anyway, I can volunteer to ride sweep.
)
The start/finish point is about the lowest point, elevation-wise, on the ride. That's about the same as saying that the start/finish is the lowest point on a Davis-Lake Solano-Winters-Davis ride, and this ride is in the same ballpark in terms of difficulty.
Some gently rolling terrain on Vineyard Road on the way to Livermore. Mostly flat with an occasional bump through southern Livermore and out Tesla Road.
Cross Road is a climb, starting out gently and never worse than easy (for you in-shape hammerin' types) to moderate (for us Clydesdale, no-climbing-skills types). The last bit of Cross and then Patterson Pass is a fast, fun downhill rolling out into fairly flat onto Greenville Road through northeast Livermore and out onto Livermore Avenue.
Manning Road has some gentle climbing (but steep enough to saw me off the back). Collier Canyon is a gentle downhill, fast and fun all the way to I-580. Isabel Avenue is flat as a pancake, but has become a sort of expressway - traffic will not be heavy, but will be fast, and there are ample paths/shoulders. Vineyard back to Pleasanton is net downhill (but so is going to Davis from Winters) with one or two little bumps.
Assuming it isn't 110 degrees out, this'll be a fun one.