Thanks for keeping this thread alive. Unfortunately, I never had the time to travel to any of the rides in California. Is Monterey the only county not to have a ride? There seem to be so many in California.
I will be doing the Surf City AIDS Ride in Santa Cruz this Sunday:
http://www.scapsite.org/ride.php
Will be doing 60 miles and I still haven't done anything close. Luckily it is relatively flat. In the past week I have done 52 miles with 8470ft of elevation climb over 4 days (getting some good Strava numbers in the process).
Originally Posted by
cali_axela
^ I did the Laguna Seca twilight ride once last year, it was super fun. And it's definitely not even close to flat. You ride it counter-clockwise just like it's raced in cars, so you go DOWN the corkscrew (I used to race touring cars and have about 100 laps that way under my belt at Laguna Seca... so it was a trip to come back and do it on a road bike). There's a long climb up to the corkscrew, and a long climb up the main straight too. Neither is super steep, but when you're pushing hard they are taxing. I got in about 10 laps on the bike pushing hard, and was done for. Would definitely do it again -- except it's about a 3 hour drive each way for me to get there.
If you want to join up with a great organized ride, check out the Konocti Challenge, coming up in a couple weekends:
http://www.konoctichallenge.com -- I'll be doing the 100km, and there's a shorter 40 mile option if you want to start of with something you know you can finish.
I realize that Laguna Seca is nice, but it doesn't nothing for my goal of doing a long ride. I bike by Laguna Seca a few times a week. I go up and down the side road. Will it entertain me for 40+ miles? No it won't. And besides, I want to go UP the corkscrew, not down. Going down is easier, climbing is not.