Welcome to Adventure Velo, the cyberian home of Bill Oetinger…writer, artist, and cycling fool.

One of the primary reasons this site exists is to publish and share with other cyclists the many great cycle-tour routes you will find under the Tours link. Most of the tours were originally created for the use of the Santa Rosa Cycling Club. Once we had ridden the routes on our own summer club tours, it seemed a shame that no one else would ever do them again. So…

But this sharing of free information comes with one big disclaimer: I am no longer keeping the details in the guide books current. Some of the guides—for tours we’ve done recently—will be almost up-to-date, but others may not have been revised for several years. Nothing stays the same for long in our world, and over time, some details in the guide books may become dated. Roads are closed by landslides; quiet country lanes are gobbled up by new subdivisions; campgrounds go out of business or are burnt out in forest fires; reservation policies change with new management; phone numbers and web addresses change; and of course prices never stay the same for long.

Bearing all that in mind, if some of these tours capture your interest, download them and browse through the material…but then do your own research to confirm whether the information in the guide books is still accurate. With the help of the web and useful mapping apps, you can almost plan your own tours from scratch, and you certainly ought to be able to discover any spots where the guide books have fallen behind on details. But what the best maps and apps can’t do—and what these guide books can—is find the very best cycle-touring roads and give you the assurance that the routes in question have been ridden by experienced cyclists and have our stamp of approval. They are the best, tour-tested routes around.