Hello to spring time in the California Wine Country! We finally got some rain over the last couple of months and now everything is blooming – from apples to poppies to the vines that yield the great wines of the Sonoma and Napa Valleys!
Earlier this year, we shared that Kristen Gentilucci, one of our California Guides was taking her bike and her guiding skills to join the 2012 Bike & Build effort. They will travel across the country – diagonally – from Maine to Santa Barbara to raise awareness for affordable housing and help build houses in some communities. Now that is a powerful way to pedal!
This month, we introduce you to Ross Battersby, the other Brit in our crew (the first being our fearless founder, Tony).
Ross was born and raised in southern England, just south of London. He started riding and racing his bike at 13 and baffled his parents with his commitment to training and racing. In the early 1980′s Ross went to university to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne where he found a new outlook on life. During and after university, there were so many things to do and experience: rugby, marksmanship, a commission in the British Army, and not to mention the studies in Estate Management (that’s agricultural estate!) As if that wasn’t enough adventure, Ross followed that with a job running expedition style trips worldwide in 4×4 trucks for an unorthodox company. His first venture was to East Africa where after 6 weeks of training he was running safaris. This was followed by several Trans-Africa expeditions and several trouble shooting trips that really were very testing. All this excitement translated into several years as a safari guide in Tanzania for a US outfitter. Quite conveniently, he met his wife on one such expedition. After many more adventures Ross and his wife landed in California’s Bay Area where he ran the operations department for a worldwide adventure travel company. After 3 years in a cubicle, the sand in his shoes began to itch and he and his wife decided to realize a dream and set off on a two year trip across the US and Canada and through Europe and Africa in their own Ford F250 4×4 – with no tourists! It was the trip of a lifetime – straight out of an Indiana Jones storyline. They reached the Cape of Good Hope in October 1993, amidst the first multi ethnic elections in South Africa. They later returned to California and moved to Sonoma County’s wine country, where Ross used his rough and ready skills to become a winemaker. He worked for a large corporation and then as the winemaker for a small estate vineyard, making 12 different wines from vines as old as 110 years. The small vineyard struggled financially, so 15 years later and with the world economy on the brink Ross was released into a new world.
Experienced and travelled but without direction, he followed his legs on a bike again, (after 22 years of no steady cycling) and began guiding trips in Sonoma and Napa for LifeCycle Adventures. Ross enjoys showing visitors the delights of our magnificent area and the stunning vineyards and exquisite wines we have to offer. Ross loves riding his bike and his wife and son (adopted from Vietnam) join him on tandems rides. They travel through the forests and local trials and participate in the local Gran Fondos and centuries in our area. Ross and his wife have marshaled for Levi’s Gran Fondo on their tandem for the last couple of years. Whatever the weather, Ross loves to ride, long or short trips, and there is always a challenge, a delight, or something new to enjoy…maybe an espresso and a sticky bun at the end….if the work has been hard enough!
When you join us on a tour, Ross is definitely a good source for the wines and for tackling some of our more fun and challenging hills, and he just might teach you a word or two in Setswana.
Q: What do REI, the US Forest Service, the Clif Bar Company and Lifecycle Adventures all have in common?
A: We have all been designated Bicycle Friendly Businesses by the League of American Bicyclists.
Yesterday, the League of American Bicyclists added LifeCycle Adventurers to their list of Bicycle Friendly Businesses; a list of 412 businesses and agencies who are, in their words are, “transforming the American workplace.” We’re proud to take our place alongside these other bike friendly businesses.
We will continue to work to make the bicycle an integral part of our lives and the lives of our employees, guests and contractors – be it cycling to a meeting or running the best bike-friendly tours in California, Oregon and Hawaii!
I’m in Hawaii putting the finishing touches to our Big Island Bike Tours.
In designing our new Hawaii bike tours tours I’ve worked with one of the islands most experienced bike guides. She’s guided on the island for over 15 years and has helped me discover “Hidden Hawaii” – not just the beaches and tourist resorts. Read more
PRESS RELEASE: LifeCycle Adventures Expands to Hawaii
Successful in California & Oregon, Self-Guided Bicycle Tour Company Now Booking Tours in Hawaii
SAN FRANCISCO (March 9, 2012) — LifeCycle Adventures (www.lifecycleadventures.com), a premier bicycle tour company known for its customized, self-guided tours in California and Oregon, is now offering tours in Hawaii. Tours start and end at Kona Airport on the Big Island and are booking now for departure dates from September, 2012.
“We’re thrilled to offer a way to experience Hawaii that’s more than just the run-of-the-mill hotel, beach and pool package,” said Tony Blakey, LifeCycle Adventures founder. “Our clients can see ‘Old Hawaii’ from the best vantage point: two wheels. There’s an intimacy and sensitivity to this type of travel that make it a great way to enjoy one of the most beautiful and unspoiled parts of a uniquely American paradise.”
Do you remember your last bicycle tour with LifeCycle Adventures?
Perhaps you took a trip to Napa and Sonoma and soaked in the vineyards, redwoods and coast or maybe you cycled in Oregon along the quiet lanes of the Willamette Valley or the heart pumping climbs of the Columbia River Gorge?
Winter provides a few quiet weeks at LifeCycle Adventures, though not for long as we will soon be running cycling and multisport tours in Hawaii year-round. Despite the slow season, we’re thinking about bikes and about staying in shape. We ski, hike and still ride quite a bit, but as winter’s cold and damp lingers well into the New Year, our thoughts turn to spring.
Welcome to the 2012 California Wine Country cycle touring season! It’s been a great start to the year: Sunshine on our shoulders and miles and miles of roads to enjoy along the vineyards, mountains, coast, and oh yes, those hills we love to climb! As we “roll” into a new season, I’d like to introduce you to our California Team of Guides. This month, we feature Kristen Gentilucci.
Kristen Gentilucci
Kristen’s was born in Los Angeles, escaped to Boston, Nebraska, and then Santa Cruz searching for a home with trees and good people. She eventually found it in Oakland, CA, the perfect mix of art, redwoods, real people with disparities, and thus potential.
She studied graphic design and art history at UC Santa Cruz. She likes… no no, she LOVES her bike. She found this love for a bicycle a few years ago and it has taken her around the world on two wheels. Kristen wants to be a traveler that meets people from all walks of life and shares in their excitements and also their tales of sadness and hardship.
This summer, Kristen will be leading a bike trip of 27 young adults ages 18 to 25, across the USA (from Maine to Santa Barbara) for Bike and Build. The goal is to raise awareness for affordable housing. While biking across the country diagonally they will meet with members of the communities they cycle through and tell them about their trip and the affordable housing issues, and help them become involved in efforts to alleviate the problem.
There will also be several days where the group will trade bikes for hammers, and help construct affordable homes with local affordable housing organizations like Rebuilding Together and Habitat for Humanity. In order to participate in Bike & Build, each cyclist must raise $4,500, including the leaders. The proceeds from the trip will be used to fund young-adult driven affordable housing projects.
We wish Kristen all the best on this adventure and certainly look forward to having her back in the Fall for more cycling tours around our bountiful fields of the harvest season.
To learn more about Bike and Build or to support Kristen’s efforts please visit: http://bikeandbuild.org/rider/5558 .
Thanks to Jenn & Andrew Kirker for sending some great autumnal photos of their 2011 bike tour of California. This was one of the last Napa & Sonoma bike trips of the 2011 season and the fall colors are just beautiful – helped by a photographer with a good eye! Read more
Disclaimer: I have to admit that it feels somewhat immoral to write a blogpost for a bicycle touring company that’s got nothing to do with bikes but we had such a fun weekend at the resort that we use for our bicycle tours, that I feel somewhat better about my depravity. Thank you for your understanding. Read more
Written on December 10, 2011 at 3:24 am, by Stacey
