The Santa Rosa Cycling Club, in partnership with the League of American Bicyclists, will play host in late July to riders from across the United States.

Several hundred cyclists will converge on the campus of Sonoma State to take part in a four-day weekend of riding and socializing. The main attraction will of course be the rides, which will explore every corner of Sonoma County, as well as parts of Marin County. In addition to the rides, there will be lectures and workshops every day, ranging over the whole spectrum of cycling, from advocacy to touring; from antique bikes to brand new products.

Each day of the Rally, a package of routes will head off in a new direction. On Friday, the direction is up and over Sonoma Mountain and down to Glen Ellen, with a run up to Jack London State Park for the literary set and a high-country trek on Cavedale and Trinity for the mountain goats. Friday also features the Factory Ride: an escorted visit to the bike factories of Ibis (in Santa Rosa) and Salsa and Bruce Gordon (in Petaluma). Saturday, the riders head west from campus for an exploration of the western hills and valleys of Sonoma and Marin...Valley Ford, Tomales, Chileno Valley, even as far afield as Pt. Reyes Station and Occidental. Sunday, the rides start in Healdsburg and travel through the region's premier vineyards in the Russian River, Dry Creek, and Alexander Valleys. Monday-getaway day-offers a series of short rides, and, for the really intrepid, King Ridge. Each day's set of routes is tailored to offer something for everyone, with distances from 20 miles to over 100. In addition to the road rides, there will be mountain bike rides in Annadel State Park every day, and also some short rides for families with kids.  Go to Places to Ride on BikeCal.com for information and some maps.

The League of American Bicyclists has been sponsoring cycling rallies for many years in the Eastern United States, where they are very popular, but this is only the second rally they have staged in the West. (The first was last year in Eugene.) This rally is a one-time-only event for our club. It gives us an opportunity to share our wonderful backroads and scenic delights with visitors from all over America...a chance to let them experience for a few days what we enjoy year 'round. To make their stay as pleasant and as memorable as possible, we are going to need an energetic crew of volunteers to fill a wide variety of jobs over the course of the weekend. We will need registrars and local information personnel on campus most days. We will need sag drivers and riding escorts. We will need a number of people to host water stops in far-flung outposts, from Tomales to Geyserville to Monte Rio. We will need a small army of course markers to tag all the different courses. We will need bike mechanics (with tools). We will need ride leaders for the mountain bike rides. (Except for the Factory Ride, the road rides are not escorted.)