Just back from my first tour!
Much to my amazement, I managed to muddle through a VERY challenging tour of Northern California with hubby(who did rather much better than "muddling"...). The tour began in San Francisco, over the Golden Gate Bridge, and meandered through Point Reyes, Gurneville, Napa, Calistoga and Davis before turning back through Vacaville and Benecia, and back to Sanfrancisco on the Vallejo ferry on day 7. Although I'd trained like a madwoman, the hilliness of the area came as something of a shock. I'd thought costal California would be similar in terrain to the Pacific Northwest, but I was seriously mistaken...
http://forums.teamestrogen.com/attac...1&d=1180376691
The tour literature described the trip as "mostly gently rolling terrain" with some gentle climbs here and there (which is how the terrain at home might be described). In the picture, hubby and I are pretending we didn't just walk up one of the above mentioned "gentle climbs" from Point Reyes (3300 ft elevation gain over 2-3 miles or so). At the time I resented the fact that the ride leader and her husband had understated the difficulty of the tour, but in the end, I was really glad that we had undertaken the challenge. I did find myself pulling out my entire arsenal of swear words on most of those "gentle" climbs, though. Even the rides that the ride leaders described as "flat" and "easy" tended to resemble the hardest hilly rides I'd done at home. But it was easy to put it all behind me at the end of the day after a lengthy shower in (mostly) fabulous accomodations and after sharing a fabulous meal with a very nice group of people. Most days we covered 50-60 miles and the climby parts were usually only 2-5 miles. Really not so bad in hindsight. On the last long ride, I was able to stay on the bike the whole time and didn't have to walk at all. I'm sure I will be able to blast over the hills around home now:D .
