repechage

Good for drip, probably not good espresso maker coffee.

squirtdad

Cino is a small event, but it is more like a family event where the family is bicycles and all are welcomed, even the distant black sheep cousins.

Combine the mix of bicycles and montana location and sensibilities (I was born and raised in montana) and it is a special event, well worth traveling to. it is difficult to explain, needs to be experiences

Meeting the C&V people IRL is an added bonus.

IMHO worth the drive or effort to get there

Gary12000 

It appears to be a very find grind powder , however i have tried it in a french press and a drip and it was good for those.. but slow to drip .. cloggy

Classtime 

Very fine, but works ok in our Expobar Lever. A little too bright for my tastes but i really like the cup and saucer. Doing both the Nova and Classic, I got two

AND the Chianti was good with dinner the other night.

Gary12000 

Same same, as my wife did the classic with me we got two also... not bad for a $150 extra registration lol

Choke 

My understanding on the move is that the city of Paso Robles didn't want to provide any support for Eroica and was not even happy that the event was held there. As for Wes, I'm not sure, I've heard rumors but nothing concrete. Regarding the Italian culture, that didn't even figure in to my complaints about the event.


Regarding Cino, it's certainly open to all and you would be welcomed with open arms if you ever attend the event. The first year that I went I only knew one person who was attending (and not from personal experience but from his online presence) and I came away from the weekend with at least a half a dozen people whom I now consider friends that I get to see every time I return to Montana.


I think that Eroica is a great time, I enjoyed myself there and I have no desire to see the event go away. But some changes made me not like the last Eroica CA that I attended as much which was enough to make me reevaluate attending, and in the end I decided that the cost/benefit just wasn't there. I had a carryover registration so that meant I just basically donated that money to Eroica CA, which I'm fine with. Many of us who are complaining about the event are doing so not because we dislike the event but because we saw how good it once was and are sad to see how it has evolved into a slow slide downhill.

Manny66 

I regularly attend the Velo Retro Rose Bowl Vintage ride in Pasadena, as well as the Brian Baylis Birthday Ride in San Diego, for the most part I attend because Im a Cyclist that loves the bicycles of my youth and because I enjoy spending time with like minded people that enjoy those old bikes and nostalgia as much as I do. What have I gotten out of it,, some really great friendships.

Over the years Ive heard and read complaints about both rides concerning just about everything related to them. We live in an Era of hyper sensitivity , so No amount of excessive critism about the smallest detail shocks me anymore. I just shrugg my shoulders and blow it off, I just show up and ride.

Ive been to the Rose Bowl ride when there were only 4 of us, and even though we had all been on the ride many times none of us knew the Route by heart,,And so we got Lost,, a couple of times.(it was actually pretty funny too). I went home that evening and printed out the route sheet so I could avoid a repeat of it.
There is No perfect cycling Event,.

But what would really bug the Hell out of me is, if any of these Vintage Events disappeared . Then What ? Ride the bike trails alone? I pretty much do that everyday already.

I just finished filling out the Eroica Ride Review questionaire email. There was nowhere to write in any personal detailed information to make the Event a better one for next year.. just a bunch of boxes to check off general info. smh.

After L'Eroica , I had breakfast at Linns's and I spoke with Arron Linn that Monday morning at his restaurant. We spoke about the Ride ,the Pro's and Con's , He touched on a few things and I could sense he had concerns of his own, Since He is heavily involved in the Event Im sure there will be some Improvements coming, Keeping my fingers crossed for a better Event next year.

Classtime 

I was much too kind with my ratings. Had I known that was it, I would have skipped it.

guygadois

I’ve never done Cino but I’ve done the Eroica CA four times now and live locally so it’s easy to attend. This one was my least favorite. I liked the Paso venue a whole lot more. It was a biggest space, and felt more like a gathering than Cambria. The support on this iteration sucked. No other way to sugarcoat it. The first stop was 10 miles into the ride was way decked out but seemed more appropriate for a wedding shower. Who thought eating shrimp was a great idea at 8:15am as you start a 7 mile climb. The support went downhill after that first stop. There was nothing for the next 40 miles including water at the top of two monster climbs. Maybe I should have pocketed some shrimp for ride snacks?? We arrived to ‘lunch’ at about 12:30 which consisted of a table with bread in bags and cold cuts and cheese still in their grocery plastic. You assembled your own sandwich which was dry as a bone without any condiments/veggies. Soup wasn’t ready and wine and water was all to drink. No fruit or other beverages. Crazy bad. After that the only other support was a jug of water sitting outside a car on a downhill.

I am sad to see the quality plummet to basically an expensive unsupported ride. I hope next year is a whole lot better.

GG

Gary12000 

You post echo's my sentiments exactly..I thought it was interesting that they seemed to indicate its coming back next year in the survey...but that was likely written before the event...i did the Piedras Blacas route and the SAG/Food stop was excellent but i was one of the first there at around 9:00am it was stacked with chocolate muffins and other choices, fruit, actual hot coffee, croissants, and he had a lot of trays of it, looked like enough for a 100 or more riders..
poor guy didn't have his stamp for our little card, when asked he said " oh yeah that information was in the instructions but no one gave me the stamp" you gotta love a volunteer, i mean no pay and crusty old dudes asking questions about stuff a hundred times over.. i'm not sure id be good at it...imagine the 52nd person saying hey excuse me Sir do you have the stamp? and me" NO I DON'T HAVE THE FRICKEN STAMP DAMMIT" lol

Andy_K 

The people at Halter Ranch didn't have a stamp either. They just wrote a squiggle in the passport, and by the time I got there they had gotten pretty good at acting as if that were part of the plan.

Someone (maybe @mgopack42?) told me that in 2019 the organizers were caught off guard by the fact that a lot more people rode the Lighthouse route than had registered for it, but this year they planned for it. It's much easier to imagine doing those monster inland climbs when you register than it is to commit to it the day of the ride! I know in 2019, there wasn't nearly enough food to go around at the lighthouse. This year, it seems that the park service was the main bottleneck there. If they repeat it enough times, they ought to figure it out. Have you ever played the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy computer game from the 80's? Getting the Babel fish in your ear was a lot like this...you'd try, something would go wrong, you'd account for that, something else would go wrong, and so on. The challenge was to figure out all the things that could go wrong before the dispenser ran out of fish.

It's worth keeping in mind that this was only the second time the ride started in Cambria, and the two years of rolled over registrations can't have made things any easier.

Gary12000 

Andy,
this is pretty random, as i talked with a Co-worker a week before the ride and he mentioned he was a fan of HHGG... so i asked him, do you mean the movie? or the BBC series?, or the radio show? or the books?
That was part of my young adulthood, after i joined the Royal Air Force, i got to my first posting and the guys are like come on were off to the Rugby club for a pint, about two pints in they said alright quiet down it was pretty rowdy, were putting on the radio, and they would crank up Radio 2 or something (BBC) and it was the radio broadcast of the book with voice actors playing the different parts, i got the books, and read them all, including the restaurant at the end of the universe the 4th book in the Trilogy... lol the TV series was great also, some great one liners... "who ja think ya are ...Zaphod bebblebrox " ans "count the heads baby"...

DMNHCAGrandPrix

I went to all five of the initial editions of Eroica California, four based in Paso Robles (2015-2018), and one in Cambria (2019). I loved attending every one of them. They introduced me to many new people, were a great place to see and learn about many classic bikes and components, encouraged me to buy and fix up some cool old bikes of my own, and helped me get in shape every winter because I was preparing for the challenging miles and climbs coming in April.

I have talked up the event for multiple years, distributed posters and advertising, encouraged many others to attend, invited old friends from the midwest and east coast to come out and share the rides, and even talked my wife into tandem riding for the first time for the lighthouse ride in 2019. We were both registered again for 2020, but decided not to go in 2022 for several reasons:
1) gathering together with hundreds of other people traveling from distant locations to huff and puff up hills just did not seem very appealing as Covid infections were on the rise again this spring
2) we preferred both the location and ride structure when Eroica was based in Paso Robles.
3) Eroica organization seemed seemed to go downhill after Wes's last year as local organizer in 2018. Even food was missing at the rest stops in 2019, and spotty communication and last minute updates in 2020, 2021, and 2022 did not inspire confidence things would be better organized this year.

Nevertheless, because Eroica has had such a positive influence on my own cycling, this January I decided to start riding again AS IF I was going to Eroica this April.. I built up longer and harder miles all winter, and then on the day the actual rides were being held in Cambria, I did my own "parallel play" ride to recreate the things I used to love about the old "Coastal Route" from the years Eroica had been held in Paso Robles. On May 1st event day, I got up early and headed out from the Bay Area on a 1961 Rene Herse bike with classic "Cyclo" chainstay mounted derailleur. I took Old La Honda Road up and over the Skyline foothills, descended on 84 to San Gregorio near the coast, enjoyed the beautiful stretch on Stage Rd with rolling hills and views of ocean on way to Pescadero, had lunch outsids at Pescadero bakery in town, then rode Pescadero Creek Rd back over Haskins Hill, through the Heritage Grove giant redwoods, climbed West Alpine Rd back to Skyline, and then descended on Page Mill Rd past Montebello and back home. Together this made a beautiful 64 mile ride traveling through multiple ecosystems along creeks. ocean, and forests with a total of 6000 feet of climbing.

I really missed seeing everyone at the actual Eroica, but still feel like I was able to enjoy some of the best things that had inspired me in previous iterations. I have never been to CIno. I would like to try it sometime but the extra distance from California means a lot more time and travel logistics to attend. In the meantime, Eroica is just a 3 hour drive for me away, and I hope will survive and improve so it can continue to have the same positive effect on many other classic bike fans as it has already had on me.

gugie 

I just realized tha @mgopack42 has the answer hidden in plain site.

greatbasin

What's Cino? I looked it up but just get results for Chino, California. Is Cino in Cambria? I used to live in Cayucos, which is the next town on the coast to the south. Cambria was kind of snobby -- not untypical of those places where people with some money go and then try to keep everyone and everything else out. I wouldn't say it's as far as unfriendly though, but I think it's just gotten more uppity lately.

I kind of understand L'eroica is a race with vintage bikes. So if Cino doesn't have all the commercialization of a big festa, what's the focus on? Racing? Or is it just a low key ride?

Choke 

Cino is a 2 day ride for vintage bikes held near Kalispell, MT. It starts and finishes in Kila with an overnight stop in Hot Springs. The route is mostly on dirt and gravel and is a bit over 100 miles in total. Lunch both days and dinner on Saturday night are provided in the cost of registration.

It's an amazing ride.

https://www.cinorider.com/

gugie 

@Choke described it well. Eroica is bigger, and typically has 4 different routes (cut to 3 this past year probably due to lack of enough volunteers?) At the end of Eroica you may meet a few new friends. Cino is one course over two days, everyone on the same route. At the end of Cino you'll have met most everybody. Eroica feels commercial. Cino feels organic. Many of us know Cino's director, @mountaindave. I doubt if there's more than a couple of people that know even one or two of the Eroica management team. Cino has well placed rest stops, and volunteers riding small motorcycles and vintage pickup trucks over the course ready for assistance. Some people ride the first day and are spent, so they volunteer the second day, and like it! My first Cino there were a couple of people that were injured before the ride, but drove up to Montana to volunteer.

The focus? Veloship.

Andy_K 

The BBC TV series was my first introduction and is still my favorite of the formats. The books are great too, including Eoin Colfer's "And Another Thing..." which is a surprisingly good addition coming from a different author. I've never had the chance to hear the radio broadcasts, though I guess with the internet being what it is I could probably fix that.

Gary12000 

wait your telling me there a fifth book in the trilogy?
Book Quote----
I tell you what" when i meet myself and someday i will, i'll hit myself so hard i wont know what's hit me"..

squirtdad

this is the ride report from last year cino it will explain a lot 2021 Cino Heroica Ride Report

cino site https://cinorider.com/

greatbasin

I looked it up. It looks like the Eroica event registration is $150? For three days? I don't know what people expect for $50 a day, but a sandwich and wine sounds about right.

merziac

Well, that would be the long view, that only pays for the ride on Sunday, everything else but the official ride is free to the public.

Of course you can ride where or whatever you want on your own. The Saturday ride is another $70 so you could do the whole thing without registering at all.

But you are right, its not a bad deal until they don't have the level of support we expect from the past experience, you can't have people going 40 miles without water and food and, or getting lost from poor route marking on top of that.

obrentharris 

Not exactly.
If you want a swap space, which I did, you pay an additional fee.
If you want to enter a bike in the concourse you pay an additional fee.
If you want the Saturday night dinner you pay an additional fee.
If you want to ride in the Nova ride on Saturday you pay an additional fee.
The only free items provided by the promoters on Friday and Saturday are a small parking lot and an outdoor space for the swap and concourse. The judging for the concourse is done by volunteers. In years past there was a roller race, equipment provided by volunteers and run by volunteers; but I understand the promoters nixed that this year.
Brent

keithdunlop

I got all excited about an Eroica CA alternative, until I saw that the 2022 ride rules require a vintage steel mountain bike.

BFisher 

From the official Cino Rider page:
"This year has a theme – vintage mountain bikes! Of course traditional Cino bikes are still welcome, but so is your 1979 MountainBike!"

Hardly seems like a requirement.