The Rides

They aren't kidding when they call it "Backroads."  Our routes have taken us through groves of olives and almonds, fields where they are growing chard, artichokes, and other leafy greens, small towns and gravel roads. On the good side, we've seen a lot of how 'the real people live,' often in charming old homes set on agricultural acreage.

On the bad side, the routes are very complicated. We are constantly turning or veering at Y's or negotiating traffic circles -- it's rare that we get to ride on the same street for even 3-5km.  We are given pages and pages of instructions each morning so in addition to watching for potholes and traffic and each other, we are trying to read our route instructions. On top of that, most of the roads are unnamed and/or unmarked so the instructions will say something like "Easy turn to miss - turn right at the unmarked 3 way intersection, green house on your right.  If you reach a stop sign you have gone too far."  So you can see, we often have to read several sentences to know the next thing to do.  We also have to stop a lot to flip pages of the route instructions and fit them back into the plastic map case.

A trip leader generally guides us out of town in the mornings, and into town for our lunch stops and end-points. And they are tracking us pretty closely via van and bike. Still, we are all finding it rather stressful to stay on course, and it's harder to enjoy the scenery when we're having to be so vigilant. At dinner last night I asked some of the others  who have been on other backroads trips if this is typical and they all said no! They said that other trips feature smoother roads where you can get some decent mileage between turns. This is good to know, as I have been doubting whether I would do another Backroads trip. The food, lodging and logistics have all been top notch but the rides have been bizarre --- my fellow bikers all agree.