by Bruce Hendler for AthletiCamps

There is no better ride than the “Tour of the Foothills” during springtime in Placer County.  It’s mid- March and the Northern California’s wild flowers are making their annual appearance.  You will never see so much color in the foothills, especially where this ride takes place in between Auburn and Placerville.  Without a doubt, my personal favorite is the California poppy.  I beautiful shade of orange that from a distance makes hillsides look like they on fire (just like the picture)!

This rather difficult ride begins at the top of the American river canyon in Auburn and descends down to the river and up the other side to Cool (yes, that is the name of the town, Cool, CA.).  From Cool, you continue down highway 49 into Coloma (http://www.coloma.com), where gold was discovered in 1848 at Sutter’s Mill.  In Coloma, you take a left and climb one our best climbs of the area – Marshall Grade.  Marshall is 5K long and the views as you are climbing of the Coloma Valley are spectacular.  Another option is to take Prospectors grade (notice a common theme of names here J), which parallels Marshall and literally meets up in the same place at the top in Garden Valley.  In Garden Valley, you go right along a rolling road over to Highway 193, which immediately descends into the a place called “Chili Bar”, crosses another fork of the American and climbs an incredible 5K switch backed climb up to Placerville.  Of course I am making this sound easy.  It’s not, this ride is a true challenge, but worth every bit of the effort.

After a nice break at one of Placerville’s (nicknamed Hangtown) many coffee shops, it back down highway 49 down to the Coloma valley, where we take a left on Lotus road and thru the small town of Lotus up Lotus grade.  Yes, another 4K climb, and again, worth the effort!  From the top of Lotus grade were work our way to Green Valley road thru the town of Rescue (this ride has great town names) and down towards Folsom.  Do you think we are done with the climbing??  No way!  It’s up Salmon Falls Road, around Folsom Lake and up to the town of Pilot Hill where we take another left on Highway 49 and work our way into the Auburn Canyon again, by way of Cool and back up the grade we descended at the beginning of the day, which by now seems ages ago!

Yes, this is a long hard ride, but a great challenge that is worth the effort!