On paper this seemed like a pretty easy ride. In retrospect, I should have known that if you have to climb Willow Creek Road, Coleman Valley Road, Bay Hill Road, and JOY Road, it is not going to be easy. I had set up the course on my Garmin, and it had shown 2800 feet of climbing. It ended up being 4200 feet of climbing, and that is after the initial very flat 20 miles.
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| Willow Creek Road |
The day started off pleasantly enough with a late breakfast at Howard Station in Occidental. We left from there and dropped down Bohemian Hwy. and headed out towards Jenner. We did the first 20 miles in under an hour and that was taking it easy. That was when the real fun started. Willow Creek Road was a little wet in sections, but beautiful as ever. We cleaned the two sisters, slow but steady. Coleman Valley Road was B-E-A-utiful with awesome views of the ocean from the top. We stopped at one of these lookouts and shared Claire's leftover buttermilk biscuit with some jam on it before plummeting down to Hwy. 1. Bay Hill Road was a doozy. I won't bore you with the rest, but suffice to say that Joy Road seems to get steeper every time we do it. Luckily we got to almost coast the rest of the way back to the car after that.
