Tandem Cycling - Tandem Rally in California?

The only one I can find on Google is the Rice Vally Ride out of Chico. Is that the only one?

Rice Valley is the only one I know of and truthfully it is just a one day ride. We enjoyed it and will do it again. It is an easy early season ride and is a good excuse for us to get down out of winter.
Back in the day there was a small (25 teams+/-) tandem event that a group in Orange County (OC) use to do but nothing like the major ones we see here on the forum.
While I sure would not want to do a muti-day event in LA or OC, any of the central part of Calif could be a great location with lots of wide open spaces and wide variety of terrain...places like San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Lodi, Chico quickly come to mind...plenty of inexpensive hotels, camp grounds, parks etc.
With all the riders in this part of the west coast we really need one...We wouldn't even mind one in Nevada or Arizona.

Bill J

How about combining a tandem rally with one of the existing organized rides? Typically, these rides are on Saturday. We could have a tandem ride of 50 miles or so on Friday and a "mass" tandem start as part of the organized ride the following day with teams selecting one of the Saturday options: short, 100K, 100mi, 200K... We would have to pick on of the organized ride locales in an area that offered options beyond what was already planned for Saturday. Would give local riders the option to just do the Friday ride.

There seem to be so many rides out of Solvang and the roads between there and Lompoc are spectacular riding. I'm a little paranoid about the massive rides, but riding with a group of tandems there would be a blast.

[QUOTE=jnbrown;10046037]There seem to be so many rides out of Solvang and the roads between there and Lompoc are spectacular riding. QUOTE]

'Could not agree more...Solvang..Santa Ynez Valley, Los Aamos, Santa Maria...just a great riding area. I was surprised to see the Tour of California bypass this area for 2010 as it had been a popular TT stage with the Tour.. or so I thought.

Bill J.

[QUOTE=jnbrown;10046037]There seem to be so many rides out of Solvang and the roads between there and Lompoc are spectacular riding. QUOTE]

'Could not agree more...Solvang..Santa Ynez Valley, Los Aamos, Santa Maria...just a great riding area. I was surprised to see the Tour of California bypass this area for 2010 as it had been a popular TT stage with the Tour.. or so I thought.

Bill J.

Solvang Century is March 13th , 2010. Sounds like a great ride. I usually only do the double (not on the tandem...yet). I understand the century fills up real fast.

Red Rider and I have done the Solvang Century twice on our tandem over the last few years. The route is nice but there are nicer routes. The food has progressively gotten worse. last year they had the same thing at every stop and no special lunch. The ride is very crowded and there are a lot of people that ride irresponsibly. We decided we would not ride this as a group organized ride ever again. We know the area and can put together a self supported century very easily and not have to deal with the crowds. We can also do our own stops along the way, eat better and pay less. The Marin Century is much better scenery, food, and manageable crowds. We have done this one twice. Foxy's Fall is better as well. Chico is nice but the last 40 miles is pretty flat and windy. The food is really good.

I have also stopped doing the Solvang Century the food has been consistently bad and they have run out of water more than once at the same rest stop. We did Rice Valley last year it was windy, flat and lonely ride but the food was good and the staff friendly so we will probably do it again.

The Great western Bike Rally might be a good event to build some tandem rides around.

Bill, what's the runout like for the Rice Valley Ride? It would be nice to get in a century in February and my stoker can handle loneliness as long as there is periodic food. Flat also sound pretty good, windy not so. I did notice that the ride description used the phrase "New for 1998"; makes me wonder how long ago the writeup was updated.

I would suggest that if you are wanting to do something around the central coast, the Great Western Bike Rally would be the best thing to piggy pack on. There are accommodations, camping and hotels readily available, there is a slew of events and activities to do. 20-30 rides already laid out and even a supported century. The riding is at least, if not better than the Solvang area. Devinci and Calfee have both attended in the past. There are lots of tandems there.

This has certainly been a good thread for those of us newly-returned to bicycling (and tandems). We'll try Solvang this year if the weather is close to half-decent and see how it goes. We enjoyed the Marin 100K and will probably do the century this coming year (killer peaches at this event). Foxy's was great but for the pain at the end (self-induced). The GWBR has looked interesting and I'll bring this up with management.

On looking at pics (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicalorber/sets/72157622858632700/) on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/37357372@N07/), I came across the Tandem Freeride Invitational (http://www.youreaprickjonrayner.com/), for mountain bike tandems, which occured on November 22 in Pacifica (http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=37.579794,-122.503067&spn=0.000619,0.001395&t=h&z=20). Geez, it looks like that they've got 12 tandem teams there, and this in November. I hadn't known there were that many mountain bike tandems out there.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2710/4127318868_bd30d823d6.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2695/4129123613_aa457d80cb.jpg

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/3201/tandemfreerideinvitatin.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicalorber/4127318868/in/set-72157622858632700/

Anybody know anything about this?

Homeyba sure has it right on the Great Weatern Bike Rally...
We have had the good fortune to have done that ride out of Paso Robles for the last two years on Memorial Day weekend with our tandem. We have enjoyed that weekend tremendously and highly recommend the event. We take our camper over to the event and stay right there in the fairgrounds. Huge fun, we get in and start riding Friday. There are all kinds of rides with many distance options and difficulty levels. If the opportunity ever presents itself, do it and you will not be disappointed.

Regading Rice Valley in Feb. ....most people do the Metric because many riders have been riding little for the prior couple of months and are just starting back to building mileage. The course is quite flat except for one small hill on the far south end of the Buttes. The Century course starts out running north of the start area then loops back to the start of the Metric course and follows it south around the neat little Butte Mountain Range. It is worth doing as long as the weather cooperates.

Bill J.

Great Western Bike Rally is great if you like tons and tons of people. On the other hand, those of us who live in the Central Coast like the Wine and Roses Century (here's a link to 2008 page http://www.active.com/page/Event_Details.htm?event_id=1606600&EMC-BCE&event=WineRosesBike&date=08072008) and the two rides put on by the San Luis Obispo bike club.... the Wildflower and the Lighthouse centuries http://www.slobc.org/

Have fun

The cool thing about the Great Western BR is that with the super wide choice of many different ride options, we never really felt the size of the group out on the roads except for right around the fairgrounds and maybe at the start of Saturday's Metric. Certainly nothing like the masses on the always sold out and ever spectacular Lighthouse Century. Totally agree with Pat regarding enjoyment of riding the other central coast rides like this years Wildflower Century. It was another super tandem friendly Century (except that climb up the hill to the Vandenberg AF Base Observation Station), that we would recommend in a heartbeat. For sure Calif's Central coast and Central inland areas are some of our absolute favorite riding places to travel to.
Bill J.

Red Rider and I have done the Solvang Century twice on our tandem over the last few years. The route is nice but there are nicer routes. The food has progressively gotten worse. last year they had the same thing at every stop and no special lunch. The ride is very crowded and there are a lot of people that ride irresponsibly. We decided we would not ride this as a group organized ride ever again. We know the area and can put together a self supported century very easily and not have to deal with the crowds. We can also do our own stops along the way, eat better and pay less. The Marin Century is much better scenery, food, and manageable crowds. We have done this one twice. Foxy's Fall is better as well. Chico is nice but the last 40 miles is pretty flat and windy. The food is really good.

A nice alternative to the Solvang Century is the Windmill Century. The Windmill ride is in July, and start/finish out of Los Alamos park. This ride has less than 1K riders the last time I rode it, and it’s a great tandem ride. There was a really good BBQ at the end of the ride also. The ride included a lunch stop, and several well stocked rest stops. http://www.tailwindsofsantamariabc.org/windmill.htm

The problem with "rides" like the Solvang Century, Wildflower etc is that they are one day events. Come, do a ride have a bbq and go home. They aren't really "rally's" An event like the Great Western Bike Rally is truly a multi day rally. Sure there are maybe 2000 people there but they are spread all over the place doing all sorts of activities. If you see more than 50-60 people on their bikes at one time in one spot I'd be surprised. Even on the century ride. Because there is no set time for ride starts people start whenever they want. Anyway, I'm not sure where this discussion is going? Is someone planing a tandem rally????

Anyway, I'm not sure where this discussion is going Is someone planing a tandem rally????

That is a great question to bring to the surface .....Our area ( Pacific Southwest - Ca, Nev, Az, ?) certainly could use one, and I've always been at a loss as to why none exists. Perhaps some folks have already been down that road and already have some first hand "education'' on why none exists...if so I would love to hear their story.

Short of that, while I have no experience in developing sporting events I would be very supportive of commiting some resources, with a small group of others, to explore the opportunites to develope a Tandem Rally here in the Pacific Southwest.
A couple of questions in my mind are: Is there any significant interest in having one here....and... has anyone already done one in this area that can educate us on why it did not continue?

Bill

There is a tandem weekend rally in Borrego desert early in the year. Its organised by the San Diego Tandem Club (easy to find ont he web). They have several rides over the weekend and are all based out of the same hotel.
I've not been but will try this year.

So, the Great Western Bicycle Rally (http://www.greatwesternbicyclerally.com/) is this weekend. We'll be going, any other tandem teams?

We're going for Sunday only (it's a 2 hour drive for us). Haven't decided on the 100K or the Century; may depend on temperature forecast. Plan on wheels up NLT 7 am.

I'm supposed to be out at the lake (Naciemento) over the weekend but will be around I'm sure. Ritterview, are you camping at the fairgrounds or do you have a hotel room? I'll probably be doing a century on Saturday or sunday heading from Lake Naciemento over Naciemento/Ferguson to Hwy1 and back.