This was to be our first overnight touring trip so Jeanette and I decided to pick a relatively easy first attempt. The Napa Valley is a short distance away from our home and we'd heard good things about the bicycle friendliness of the area. We made motel reservations on the Internet for the weekend of February 9-10 and waited, hoping that the fickle weather gods would smile on us that weekend.

Day One

We drove our station wagon from Lodi to Yountville and were pleased to find the Visitor Center/Chamber office open at 10:30 on a Sunday morning. When we asked about bicycling and maps, the lady behind the counter handed us a free copy of the Napa County Bike Map. She pointed out the major routes and gave some personal insight as to traffic flow. After looking the map over, we unloaded the bikes from the rack on the rear of the wagon, bungeed on the daypacks we had our clothes in and were on the bikes and away at about 11:00 am.

Yountville is a small upscale town with tourist type shopping areas. We headed north on Yount Street for a few blocks then turned west onto the access road to Highway 29. We found that Hwy 29 had a nice wide shoulder and pointed north, straight and flat. There was almost no wind and the temperature was in the mid fifties, perfect for cycling. Since neither of us is a speed demon, we settled into a cruising speed of between 10 and 12 mph, depending on how distracted we were by the scenery around us. Wineries were all around, on both sides of the road. Some were housed in stylish houses and some were impressive major construction projects.

It was way too early to stop and sample some of the native vintages so we just cruised along, enjoying the bright sunlight after the months of dreary fog that we had endured in the central valley where we live. Our first planned stop was to be in St. Helena, about 11 miles from our starting point. We would be passing through the settlements of Oakville and Rutherford on the way. 

We passed a little grocery store but the cool weather kept us from the usual stop for a cold soft drink. Jeanette spied an olive oil store that       she just HAD to stop and look around in. We parked the bikes and spent some time sampling all of the olive oils, balsamic vinegars, chutneys, mustards and other epicurean delights, vowing to come back with the car tomorrow afternoon and pick up some of the product.

The half hour break was more than we needed. We started off at a good pace again, seeing more and more wine tasting rooms as we neared St. Helena. Sutter Home's effort on the west side of the road was really impressive and we would have stopped and looked through the garden if we hadn't just stopped at the olive oil store. We began looking for a place to stop and eat. But then we saw the Martini Wine Tasting Room and decided we might sample a little bit of the grape before lunch. The stop cost me another promise to come back when we finished the ride so we could load a case of wine into the wagon.

It took us a while to loosen up the wine salesman but when we did he told us of a spot locals go in St. Helena to pick up a sandwich or bowl of soup for lunch. He said the name was Juni's but we wouldn't recognize the store's name since it was spelled a little different than it sounded. He told us to keep going north on Hwy. 29 which turned into Main Street when it passed through St. Helena. We would find Juni's just north of the Exxon on the west side of the street.

We found the store, no problem. We decided to eat light since we still had about ten miles to go and eating too early makes us a little sluggish. We ordered a sandwich between us, two halves of a deviled egg and two soft drinks. The two tables inside the store were occupied so I asked the girl behind the counter if there was a park close by. She sent us north up the street about two blocks to a park on Main Street next to the police department.

Lunch finished, we started north on Hwy. 29 again, passing the old Christian Brother's Winery, now the Culinary Institute of America. It's a truly impressive building and I would have taken a picture but the highway was taking a small downhill and after all that flat road, I was enjoying the cheap increase in speed and didn't want to stop. The west side of the highway was now the bottom of a ridge of foothills that divide the Napa Valley from the Valley of the Moon. A road led west to the Petrified Forest and Santa Rosa, an adventure that would have to be saved for another day. As we neared Calistoga the highway changed from flat to some shallow rollers. These were fun since the uphills weren't too much work and the downhills were a blast after all the flat road already covered.

When we reached Calistoga we discovered we'd left the reservation sheet for our hotel in our car so we stopped at a gas station and looked up the motel's address in the phone book. The clerk at the counter told us the street that we were looking for, Lincoln Avenue, was right in front of us and ran through downtown Calistoga.

If we didn't know before, our ride through town provided us all the information we needed as to Calistoga's claim to fame. Numerous businesses were adorned with signs for mud baths and mineral spas. Almost as numerous were signs for what appeared to be some pretty exclusive restaurants. In checking the addresses, it became apparent that our hotel was on the east side of town. We pedaled on and soon saw the Comfort Inn sign on the north side of the road.

When we checked in, the girl behind the counter saw that we had ridden up on bikes. She volunteered that we could park our bikes in a covered, protected area or bring them into our room, whatever we preferred. In fact, she even changed the room and gave us a slightly larger room so that we could park the bikes easily. As soon as we opened the door of the room however, it was obvious that it was a smoking permitted room. We asked if there were any, "non-smoking" rooms available but she said all the rooms available on the ground floor were "smoking permitted." We opened all the windows and kept the door open while we unloaded everything. It was only four o'clock and the motel's mineral water hot tub and heated pool sounded like a great option. 

I jumped on my now unloaded bike and headed back into town for a bottle of wine and some spicy cheese. Ten minutes in the market, and I was back on the bike, the bottle of Zinfandel and block of  Gouda cheese in a paper sack bungeed to the back rack. Jeanette was already in her bathing suit when I arrived. We didn't have a cork screw so I just shoved the cork down into the bottle with a tool from my bike repair kit. Wine, cheese and two plastic cups from the bathroom in hand, we headed for the hot tub. A quick press on the air jet button and we were soon surrounded by hot bubbling mineral water while nibbling cheese and sipping the nectar of the gods.

The hour we spent circulating between the hot tub and the heated pool erased any chance of road soreness. It was time to go to dinner. I had made reservations at the Calistoga Inn, one of the town's oldest establishments. The Inn has rooms, a bar and a highly rated restaurant as well as a mini brewery. 

The menu at the Inn was short but delicious sounding. It featured lunches, appetizers and dinners and was accompanied with a wine and beer list as well as the Inn's own mini brewery drafts. We ordered some deep fried calamari, hopeful that it would match the fresh calamari we were used to in Baja California. I ordered a draft light and Jeanette ordered a draft dark, something that surprised me since she almost never drinks beer. The salmon in curry sauce appealed to Jeanette and I chose the shrimp and scallop ravioli. 

The calamari was everything we hoped for, the beer was as good as any vintage wine and our dinners were cooked to perfection. It's amazing how much better seafood tastes when the chef knows what he is doing. Usually seafood is grossly overcooked, turning squid, shrimp and scallops  to rubber. This meal was the hoped for exception. We left a good tip for our waiter and told him to give our compliments to the chef.

We mounted our headlights on our bikes, turned on the blinkie tail lights and raced each other back to the hotel with time left for some TV watching before turning off the lights.

Day's mileage - 22

Day Two

Our usual weekday wake-up time is 5:30am. The luxury of laying in bed on a weekend is wasted on us. We tossed around awake in the bed until 730 and then decided to turn on the TV. We were in no hurry to get on the road because the nighttime low had been predicted to be just a degree or two above freezing. Today's ride was to take us along the eastern edge of the valley so we needed the sun to climb a little into the sky so that we would not be riding in the shadow of the hills. 

The hotel offered a continental breakfast in the lobby. We walked the few feet and once inside found cereal, fruit, toast, juice, sweet rolls, muffins, coffee, and tea, We ate a light breakfast and read the local paper. While doing so, I overheard the hotel manager talking to someone on the phone,. He was saying that he was willing to offer rooms for $45 during the week to increase his business. Something that any interested souls out there might check into.

It was now 9:30 and still a little nippy outside. We couldn't stand waiting any more, bundled up and took off. We rode sometimes in sunlight and sometimes in shadow for the first hour. The Silverado Trail skirted the valley's eastern  edge. The way was made up of a series of rolling hills, separated by flats where the road reached down to the valley floor. None of the uphills were difficult and it seemed that the downhills went on forever.

The wineries seemed not quite as frequent and the traffic was certainly less than what we had experienced on Hwy. 29. The road had more of a foothill flavor than the valley feeling of Hwy 29 as well. 

The frequent and long lasting downhills were responsible for us covering a lot of distance quickly. It seemed just a short time and we were at the cross valley road connecting to St. Helena. Since we were making such good time we decided to cut across and look for a coffee shop. The crossing took just a few minutes. Jeanette stopped a pedestrian and asked if there were any coffee shops in town. We were referred to a shop just a block north and west of the deli we had bought lunch in the day before. We sat on the patio and enjoyed our drinks in the warming morning.

The return to the Silverado Trail was just as quick as the detour to St. Helena. We had about 12 miles to go and were still getting a boost from another downhill now and again. With so much time on our hands we decided to stop at the Mumm winery and sample some of their world renown champagnes. The winery features a gift shop, tasting room and photo art gallery all well presented. We tasted four of the champagnes and even ordered some to be shipped to our house. That was a lot easier than promising to come back in the car as we had done the day before at St. Helena Olive Oil and the Martini winery.  

The ride finished with another long downhill on the Yountville crossroad. Even with all our stops, we were back in Yountville a little after 1:00pm, ready for lunch. We rode into the Chamber parking lot, loaded the bikes, changed into our street clothes and went looking for a place to eat lunch. Our weekend adventure, with the exception of driving to pick up the promised olive oil and wine, was over. 

Day's mileage -24 Total trip mileage - 46

Comfort Inn Napa Valley North
1865 Lincoln Ave
Calistoga,   CA 94515
866-601-9330