Northern California - Sacto area rides??

Some buddies and I are coming out to watch the TofCa and ride parts of the first three stages ahead of the racers. We'll be in Sacramento a couple of days early and are looking for some good rides in the local area. Any suggestions? Maybe 40 miles or so. Some climbing but nothing too brutal, we'll get plenty of that later. Thanks

Pending weather (of course), and my wife's work schedule, I'll be happy to take you out for a ride or two.

Great! When it gets a bit closer I'll shoot you a pm.

what altitude gain are you comfortable with over 40 miles? Brutal is relative. Joel knows a lot of routes.

Point well taken. That's a hard question, cause 4k feet of climbing in 40 miles could be pretty mellow or a butt-kicker depending on how it came at you. And brutal for a recreational type is of course different than brutal for the big-time racer.

Our group is a couple of guys who are strong cat3's (they're going to be doing the pulling) :) and three of us who are cat3 wannabe's. but not. A couple of us are old farts.

I guess the best way to put it would be that we want to blow the cobwebs out from traveling but still be able to ride the following days.

Point well taken. That's a hard question, cause 4k feet of climbing in 40 miles could be pretty mellow or a butt-kicker depending on how it came at you. And brutal for a recreational type is of course different than brutal for the big-time racer.

Our group is a couple of guys who are strong cat3's (they're going to be doing the pulling) :) and three of us who are cat3 wannabe's. but not. A couple of us are old farts.

I guess the best way to put it would be that we want to blow the cobwebs out from traveling but still be able to ride the following days.

We can start easy and get progressively harder. I'm sure I could come up with a 40 mile, 4000 foot route if wanted. I also know a 55 mile, 5000 foot route :rolleyes:. I've got a nice 45 mile, 2500 foot route in mind for the first day, which could be easily modified to roughly the same distance and about 3000 feet if desired (by backtracking up one of the descents and hitting the hill in the other direction).

Starting point will be at my house for the 1st ride. We'll head up to El Dorado Hills.

When a date and time are scheduled, I'll post the ride here to see if any other BF'ers want to join in.

Incidentally, I'm not interested in riding in the rain!

Excellent! Here comes a PM, if I can figure it out.

My plans for that weekend are some spectatin' and a whole lot of inspired ridin'... Let's get it on!

See this post for ride details:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=505357