Another location - not mentioned yet, but perhaps worth considering, is the Finger Lakes region of New York State. They have many lightly-traveled ba ck roads, plenty of hills, some dirt roads still, an established wine indus try, and an existing infrastructure that caters to tourism.
The down side, naturally, is that it is not conveniently located for many list memb ers - but that's unavoidable wherever it would be held.
Regards,
John Barry
Mechanicsburg, PA, USA
From : "thteach@sonic.net" <thteach@sonic.net> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist. org Sent: Sunday, September 17, 2006 4:16:48 PM Subject: [CR]L'Eroica U SA
Of the places I've been in my life that would have interesting and
challenging dirt roads in the spirit of the great european bike race c ourses, I nominate rural Boulder County, CO. When I lived there in the
80's they had lots of dirt roads, many roads with long grades in the 4-9
percent range, and shorter grades in the 9-15 percent range. Add to that
elevations in the 8,000 to 12,000 foot levels and you get a real challeng e!!!! Boulder remains a road bike mecca so support is there. Gotta watc h out for those afternoon thunderstorms though.
Michigan has a lot of dirt roads, too. Unfortunately they are too flat or too short.
I wo uld guess that Smokey Mountains (N. Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee) and Ap palacians(sp?) in West Virginia would have some interesting routes, too.
Do we have any members who can comment on these or maybe the Ozarks in M issouri?
The Marin Headlands on the other side of the Golden Gate from San Francisco offers lots of dirt roads (fire roads and single track) bu t they are steep. I was evaluating a 100k route there. The route we did was about 57 miles. It included about 22 miles on dirt and there was 95 00 feet of climbing
Todd Teachout Hercules, CA
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