I've never ridden east of Mountain House Pkw so I won't comment on routes across the central valley. Altamont pass is fine, I think Paterson pass (just a bit further south) is quite nice. If you like suburban multi-use trails the Iron Horse trail is fine, but I wouldn't go out of my way to ride it. I think its about 20mi from the start in Pleasanton to RBW. If you want to go that way from its start you will probably go from west of livermore to pleasanton on the south side of things. In that case Id recommend staying off of Stanley. Look at concannon, wente, marina, wetmore, aroyo, vinyard. Personally I think I would take a different route at least as far as say Danvile. Look at N Flyn (if you take Paterson and like hills). From Altamont pass, take Laughlin, Altamont Creek dr, rt on Garaventa Ranch rd, cross Vasco, rtl lft rt to get to Dalton becomes Ames becomes Raymond, rt on Dagnino, left on May School, rt on N Livermore becomes Manning, rt on Highland (very nice road), rt on Tassajara, which becomes Sycamore Valley. You can catch the Iron Horse where is crosses Sycamore Valley just east of I680, or you could leave Tassajara earlier making a rt at Blackhawk. The south route up Diablo is off of Blackhawk. I think you might enjoy the east bay roads more if you were to stop for the night in Tracy and head into the hills with a good nights sleep and fresher legs. When I google map Sonora to Tracy I see routes on the order of 80 miles, then its another 50 or more to RBW. Two days seems like it would me more fun. When you say local bike clubs have not been helpful are you talking about clubs local to you or ones out here? Have you tried the Davis Bike Club (http://www.davisbikeclub.org/annual_events/ultra-distance-brevets-randonneuring)? I suspect they have members that know every decent riding road in the central valley.
On Saturday, March 5, 2016 at 4:17:15 PM UTC-8, ed k wrote: > > I knew the stretch through the industrial ag of the Valley would be hard, > so I was hoping somebody knew a slightly less bad route to Altamont. The > routes going North look just as ugly. > > > The vague plan was to leave Sonora at first light on a Sunday and coast > down the foothills to the valley floor, then hustle across Manteca and > Tracy, hoping for a quiet morning. It looks like once Altamont is behind > you there is somewhat bike-friendly Livermore and Pleasanton, then > something called the Iron Horse Trail to Walnut Creek. Anybody know that? > Is it worth the nightmare? If not I may just do the alternative trips > suggested. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
