Sunday, October 31, 2004

Graton, Forestville, Occidental 21miles (sometimes very challenging!!!)

What a great day!!! It was beautiful; autumn's in the air, it's still warm, the smell of the changing season......we are so lucky!!!
Today we rode the first leg of our ride with our friend Barbara. She just bought a new bike and is just getting "broken in". We rode from Graton to Forestville on the Joe Rodota trail........fun ride; no traffic to worry about and flat all the way (well, Barbara might not totally agree).
When we returned to Graton, Robin and I decided we'd ride down Graton Road a while. We've always been reluctant to ride Graton Road for a number of reasons; one, I worried about the drop into town on a narrow road with only a ravine as an emergency "exit" AND the climb out again! The ride was great!!! Although I worried about the steep drop into town it was the climb before the drop that got us. All said we found it relatively easy and were very proud of ourselves. We toodled around Occidental and had lunch at the Naked Lady Cafe. Lovely little cafe with an interesting menu. Many people were eating brunch type food, we both had the eggplant, mozzarella, olive tapena(??) sandwich ..yumm, yumm, yumm!!! At the cafe Robin spoke with the waitress to get her opinion on the best way to return to Graton. She was concerned about the traffic on Graton Road and suggested an alternate route. We headed north out of town, turned right on Morelli (?) road which is a very narrow road that goes STRAIGHT UP!! We did it though I must admit that we did walk our bikes for a portion of the climb............kicked our as___! We agree that it was well worth the work.........beautiful, beautiful and no cars to speak of. Little farms, vineyards(of course) redwood trees, what a wonderful little road. From Morelli we turned DOWN Harrison Grade Road..........ahhhh we were at the top of the grade and coasted down at 31MPH!! yipeeeee!!!!! From Harrison Grade Road we turned onto Green Valley Road; a few loop-d-loops and back to Graton
We both agreed that the fact that we didn't plan on riding to Occidental made it that much more fun. Great Ride!!....short but a good workout.....we'll do it again.

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