Biking King Ridge Road in beautiful Sonoma County

Three weeks ago I missed riding in Levi Leipheimer's Gran Fondo because I had stupid class. I mean, I like class, especially Negotiations, but it sure does get in the way of having a life.

So Mike Ferrara, a friend from work who did the Gran Fondo but didn't finish due to a broken chain, and I rode King Ridge Road.

We didn't do the 100+ mile loop from Santa Rosa, we drove out to Duncans Mills and saved ourselves 40 miles of boring flat stuff. We started early.

5000ft of elevation in 50 miles, two whopper hills and a bunch of rolly stuff. We chose the right direction to do the ride: some of the downhills were pretty close to straight down.

I tried to convince Mike that we should turn around and ride it again backwards, but he's a gigantic wuss and a bit of a realist.

Here's the loop. It was truly an amazing ride. Incredible views, no traffic (except for hwy 1 and 116), and two nice climbs. Apparently Levi himself rides this several times a week.

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Here's the elevation map from Mike's computer:

Some other stats: Exercise duration: 4:10:24.5 Exercise distance: 49.3 mi Average speed: 11.8 mph Maximum speed: 41.8 mph Minimum temperature: 48 F Average temperature: 61 F Maximum temperature: 73 F Minimum altitude: 45 ft Average altitude: 805 ft Maximum altitude: 1705 ft Ascent: 4700 ft

Descending towards Highway 1 was amazing. The coast was beautiful and unseasonably warm. You can see little pockets of salt-water mist over the rocky coves.