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Okay, now I'm pissed. I did your featured "Clip'n'Go" bike ride today - the "Windsor - Healdsburg Loop," listed at "approximately 40 miles" and "approximately 3.5 hours."
Again, the directions left something to be desired, omitting a critical piece of information (highway 128 makes a right 90-degree turn, while Alexander Valley Rd goes straight - if you follow 128 as described, you NEVER GET TO Lytton Station Rd, and you could go MILES before figuring out where you went wrong).
But we already know that whoever writes these instructions is an idiot, and we study and bring an additional map from (ahem!) Planet Earth. Luckily, I stopped at the "halfway point" (20 miles) and checked the map while eating my sandwich, thus noting that I had made the turn on 128 almost a mile back, and so backtracking but only adding 1.5 miles to the loop.
However, my odometer showed 40 miles while I was still on WestSide road -- and it turned out I had 13 more miles yet to go. This loop was **53 miles** (quite out of the range of "approximately 40" in most people's estimation!), and it almost killed me in combination with temperatures well in the high 90s all day.
I'm pretty good about bringing enough water - in fact I ran out at just about 40 miles, when I should've been finishing. After that, boy it was tough - and unlike most of WestSide Road, NOT shaded at ALL.
(I stopped at 40 miles, by now realizing that I had at least five more miles, maybe more, to go. Hoping against hope that I would find more water, I finished my water and ate the rest of my sandwich. My chocolate bar was liquefied - I suppose I could've drank THAT. I stopped again many times after this, wherever I could get some shade. A mexican guy on one of the ranches filled one of my water bottles from a hose - hot water, but apparently potable. I finished THAT bottle at 49 miles, while laying on the shoulder exhausted and underhydrated, still not really knowing how much farther I had to go. Ultimately, I just had to continue and hope it wasn't gonna be another ten or twenty miles. *Seven Hours* later, I made it back to my car and drank about a gallon of water at the Fulton Youth Park.)
You people REALLY need to check your data - AND you need to add a disclaimer that people who choose to try these "Clip'n'Go" rides are taking their f890ing lives in their hands!
I strongly suggest you advise anyone who wants to attempt one of these rides to study the "clip'n'go" map AND a reliable REAL map, and then drive it first and measure it, also noting the amount of climb and descent, the absence or presence of shoulders, speed limits, etc. They should also always tell someone where they are going. People die out there, and not just from cell-phoning soccer-moms in SUVs!
I thought the Clip'n'Go maps were a great idea - now I think I'll stick to my OWN bike loops.
(Be all this as it may, there were some nice aspects to this ride. Chalk Hill Road has actual chalk hills, and occasional glimpses of Mt. Saint Helena. Healdsburg provides a good place to take a break at about 30 miles. You cross the Russian River three or four times on this route - and you *could* stop and swim. The aforementioned Westside Rd is mostly in shade in the afternoon. Lots of vineyards, if you like that sort of thing [I find them pretentious and annoying]. )
