Days 6 Nights 5 Start Dates May 23, 2010 June 6, 2010 June 20, 2010 July 11, 2010 July 25, 2010 August 8, 2010 September 5, 2010 September 19, 2010 October 3, 2010 October 17, 2010 Start City Petaluma Nearest Airports Santa Rosa (25 miles) San Francisco (59 miles) Activity Level 3-4 Daily Distances 40-60 miles Price per Person $1845 Single Supplement $498

Northern California Bike Tour — Undiscovered Wine Country and Pacific Coast

Ride the quieter regions of the California Wine Country and Pacific Coast by bicycle

Inspired vistas, intimate wineries, sun-kissed hills—this is California’s celebrated Wine Country cycling landscape. The routes are ideal for biking no matter how hard or easy you want to go. Join us to explore valleys of world-famous vineyards, forests of soaring redwoods, perfect pastoral landscapes and the captivating Pacific Coast.

Not Your Typical California Wine Country Bike Tour

Although there are dozens of Wine Country bike tours to choose from, to us they all seem about the same. They ride the same routes, stay in the same hotels, and visit the same wineries. But at Undiscovered Country, that's not our style. We avoid the more famous and heavily traveled portions of the Wine Country and choose instead to visit the quieter and more intimate regions. The roads we ride are less traveled, the inns we choose are smaller and less prominent. And while the standard Wine Country bike tour that have been offered for decades are long on wineries and short on cycling, our tours always emphasize the rides.

Ours is clearly not your standard Wine Country tour. First of all, we avoid the Napa Valley completely—too well loved by visitors for our tastes—and restrict ourselves to the quieter parts of Sonoma and Mendocino Counties. We spend our first two nights in the great little Wine Country town of Healdsburg, perfectly located to ride the roads through the wine growing regions of Alexander Valley, Knights Valley, Russian River Valley, and Chalk Hill. Healdsburg is ideal for spending a couple of days, with dozens of tasting rooms, interesting shops to browse, and great restaurants showing off the ultimate California Wine Country cuisine. And although Healdsburg has been discovered by some, it still retains that small town charm.

After Healdsburg, our next destination is the redwoods of the Russian River, in the bohemian enclave of Monte Rio. Life in Monte Rio is peaceful and unhurried. You won't find any boutique shops or restaurant chains, nor will you find any other bike tours. Here we stay on the river’s edge in a charming inn, surrounded by towering redwoods. We savor some wines from the Russian River Valley appellation specially chosen for our wine pairing dinner.

Something completely different awaits us the next day. We head to the wild Northern California Coast for our next stay: the Sea Ranch Lodge, on an undeveloped stretch of land overlooking the Pacific Ocean. There's nothing to see at the Sea Ranch Lodge, other than crashing waves, coastal cliffs, sea lions, and the occasional gray whale. There's nothing to do at the Sea Ranch Lodge, other than hiking the ocean's edge or watching the sun set into the ocean from your dinner table. And that's precisely the idea.

By design, this is not the typical Wine Country tour that's been around for decades. If your taste runs towards world famous hotels and restaurants, bustling tasting rooms, and the well worn roads, our tour is not for you. But if you prefer the road less traveled, the authentic communities, the landscape less touched by human hands, our Undiscovered Wine Country and Pacific Coast Tour may be just to your liking.

 

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