California Wine Country Becoming Bike Country

When you think of northern California’s wine country tours, what comes to mind is attending the local wineries and imbibing world-class Napa County and Sonoma County wine along with great food. But with this week’s Tour of California cycling race highlighting the area scenery during its first of nine stages, climbing the surrounding mountains and whizzing through the Napa Valley vineyards and past the stately wineries, the area is quickly gaining recognition as something of a Mecca for cycling as well. Northern California wine country is establishing itself as the premier US location for cycling enthusiasts to go for their vacations or training.

Along with the Amgen Tour of California event which has brought television coverage to the area, the fact that three American professional cycling teams – including that of Lance Armstrong, now make their base in wine country () is also playing a large role in painting the wine country as cyclists’ dream location. But the area is also working on creating a more bike friendly setting for locals and tourists – pleasure riders, with the recent approval of another 70 miles of bike path through the valleys’ vineyards and wineries and many more miles in the works around the various towns in three counties. In addition to building designated biking paths, Sonoma County is also going as far as to eliminate some roadside parking in order to create biking lanes along streets. And while wine country is still making some adjustments to sharing the wine country tours with the bike tours, evidence is mounting that the communities are behind the trend, with locals biking to work showing an increase of twenty-five percent last year.