Sebastopol/Valley Ford ride

For today's ride I drove up to Santa Rosa for a loop through west Sonoma county and possibly parts of north Marin (have to check the map on that). For the most part I followed the route for Santa Rosa Cycling Club's "10 Great Rides".. the Sebastopol-Valley Ford ride. Naturally I customized the route slightly. To tack on a few extra miles, I started about half way between Sebastopol and Santa Rosa, at a trail head for the Joe Rodota Trail. This is a nice utilitarian multi-use trail that runs between Santa Rosa and Sebastopol, parallel to highway 12.

Once in Sebastopol, I decided to follow another multi-use trail, the West County Trail, to get up to Graton Road. I had followed this trail last year on my wine country tour, so I wanted to revisit the terrain. It's a really beautiful trail, and not very heavily used.. a good option around the Sebastopol/Healdsburg area.

After that, I followed the SRCC route slip, and it was a superb ride from start to finish. The beginning of the route takes you through loads of vineyards, up the hill on Graton (also part of SRCC's Wine Country Century route), then through densely forested areas, lots of pastures, and then marshlands as you get closer to the coast. The route also passes through lots of interesting little towns that are pretty much just a main street with a few shops. Occidental is really charming, with a bunch of restaurants and a couple of hotels lining the street, Freestone was a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of place, and Valley Ford was dominated by the barbecue being grilled up at a market and take-out stand.

Animule sightings: many cows, 3 deer (2 alive, 1 roadkill), a squirrel who almost got runover by a cyclist (me)
Distance: 48.3 miles
Time In the Saddle: 4 hours