Santa Rosa Cycling Club

If you’re new to this area or just new to bikes, or if you’re a veteran pedaler tired of riding alone, an introduction to the Santa Rosa Cycling Club may be the best way for you to enhance your enjoyment of cycling in Sonoma County.

The SRCC is a social/recreational organization comprised of cycling enthusiasts with a wide range of abilities and interests. Our purpose is to promote the safe and efficient use of bicycles by staging club rides and cycling events and by maintaining an active presence in the local community through safety programs and political advocacy.

The club was founded in the late ’60’s as a racing team to replace an earlier club called the Century Cyclers. Over the years, its focus has broadened from just racing to embrace and foster many forms of cycling: weekend recreational rides; long-distance touring; commuting; randonneuring; ultra-marathons; and off-road riding.

Around the late ’80’s, as interest in cycling grew, club membership really blossomed. Now we’re the largest cycling club in the county, and perhaps in the North Bay, with somewhere over 1600 members.

Our monthly club newsletter, available to all members, is also available free in most local bike shops. Members may elect to receive the newsletter through the US Mail or pick up a pdf version from the website. It contains articles and columns of interest to the local cycling community, and features our monthly schedule of rides--the heart and soul of the club. An archive of current and back issues of the newsletters are available on the Club Newsletters page of the website.

There are a couple of informal mailing lists used by club members which you may subscribe to if you wish. These informal lists are run for the benefit of SRCC members and friends. They are not sanctioned by SRCC and in no manner represent the official policies or actions of the Santa Rosa Cycling Club, its Board or its members. The administrator of these lists is solely responsible for the list policies and actions. There lists are known as the “Chatty” list and as the “Low Flow” list. The chatty list typically generates 0-5 messages a day and the low flow list generates a couple per week. Only list members may send to these lists and all messages sent to the list go to everyone on the list. See http://lists.sonic.net/mailman/listinfo/srcc-c for details on the Chatty list and http://lists.sonic.net/mailman/listinfo/srcc-l for details on the low flow list.

Our goal is to offer a full slate of rides each weekend, with something for everyone: typically a faster ride of between 50 and 100 miles for the more ambitious riders and a slightly more relaxed ride of between 20 and 50 miles for more moderate riders. We also list mountain bike rides, time trials, multi-day tours, and introductory rides for beginners. Occasionally, as volunteer energies dictate, we offer clinics on everything from learning to change a tire to advanced paceline riding. In addition to the weekend schedule, we have a thriving calendar of regular weekday rides, some of which pull in as many participants as the marquee weekend attractions.

Our club rides take us as far afield as Mendocino and the Santa Cruz Mountains, the East Bay hills and the far reaches of Lake, Napa, and Marin Counties. But most of our rides are concentrated on the many scenic, lightly traveled backroads of Sonoma County, generally regarded as one of the finest cycling regions of the world.

Non-members are welcome on most of our rides. This is a good way to sample club activities to see if this group is a good fit for you. If you do join the club, you will find other, off-the-bike activities on offer. We hold a monthly meeting at a local restaurant, often featuring speakers or films on subjects of interest to cyclists. We organize social events through the course of the year for members--picnics and dinners--where members get together in a setting at least a little distance away from the bikes.

Many members work individually and in committees to promote cycling safety, community awareness of cyclists’ needs and rights, and the use of bikes as an alternative form of transit.

We also hope most members will volunteer a little of their time on one or both of our big events each year: the Wine Country Century and Terrible Two Double Century.

The Wine Country Century is one of the premier club-supported rides in Northern California. Held annually for over 25 years on the first Saturday in May, it attracts riders to routes of 125, 100, 65, and 35 miles through the vineyards, orchards, and forests west and north of Santa Rosa. It has a well-deserved reputation as a great ride, combining superb scenery, entertaining roads, and cheerful, efficient support from our crew of member-volunteers.

The Terrible Two has likewise earned a reputation...as one of the toughest doubles in the United States, but also one of the most beautiful and best-supported doubles (rated #1 in California by its participants). Held near Summer Solstice each year for 30 years, it challenges its riders with 200 miles through Sonoma and Napa Counties, with over 16,000’ of steep elevation gain, and--sometimes--with summertime temperatures on the high side of 100°. In spite of all that, an elite core of long-distance die-hards returns year after year to tackle the brutal but extremely scenic course. It’s a cult classic!

Sonoma County, California

The Santa Rosa Cycling Club takes its name from the City of Santa Rosa, county seat and largest city in Sonoma County, California. The City of Santa Rosa, is located about 60 miles north of San Francisco, along the same Hwy 101 corridor that links the county's other major towns: Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Windsor, Healdsburg, and Cloverdale. Other population centers not on the main freeway: Sebastopol in the west county, Sonoma in the southeast county, and the small towns of Bodega Bay and Jenner on the coast. The county is bordered by Marin County on the south, Napa and Lake Counties on the East, and Mendocino on the north.
The City of Santa Rosa, has a population of approximately 150,000, including nearby, unincorporated areas. Of the county's other towns, only Petaluma (50,000) and Rohnert Park (40,000) exceed 20,000 residents, and most are under 10,000. Outside these few population centers, the bulk of Sonoma County is essentially rural. Much of the rural area has been turned to agricultural uses: orchards in the west county, dairy cows in the south, sheep in the highlands, and world-famous premium vineyards almost everywhere. Alexander, Dry Creek, and Russian River Valleys and the Carneros region are some of the better known appellations.

The natural landscape includes redwood forests along the streams and canyons, vast, rolling meadows of native grasses and wildflowers supporting scattered stands of majestic old oaks, open, windswept hillsides trailing down to esteros and wetlands, and finally, nearly 50 miles of rocky, spectacular Pacific Ocean coastline. A steep, remote range of hills up to 2000' high rises up abruptly from the sea and separates the coast from the more settled inland valleys. The eastern border of the county is formed by the rugged Mayacamas Mountains, topped by 4344' Mt St Helena. The Russian River runs through the center of the county, flowing from the hills in the northeast to the Pacific in the West. The nearby ocean, the many steeply folded ridgelines and deep valleys all help to make Sonoma County a land of varied microclimates. Summertime highs can range from 60 degrees on the coast to over 100 degrees in a sheltered valley...on the same day, and perhaps only 30 miles apart. Generally, the climate is ideal for cycling, with the City of Santa Rosa, averaging between 70 and 90 degrees from April through October. From November through March, the mercury drops to about 60-65 degrees. Most of the year's total rainfall of about 30" occurs during these months as well. The coldest Winter winds blow in from the northwest, but the prevailing winds during most of the year-and the worst storms-originate in the southwest. It almost never snows, except on the highest peaks.

Sonoma County's hills and valleys are criss-crossed by a complex network of scenic backroads that gives the area its reputation as a cycling Eden. There are over 1200 miles of paved backroads in Sonoma County. Add in the roads in nearby adjacent counties, and you have nearly 3000 miles of quiet country roads within roughly a 30-mile radius of the City of Santa Rosa. Some of the country lanes meander in a leisurely way along the nearly level valleys, while others climb (sometimes very steeply) into the quiet, unpopulated, unspoiled hills, rewarding those who make the effort with panoramic vistas over the ocean or down into some remote, wooded canyon.