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Club Member Spotlight Chris King Gourmet Century, Sonoma, October 18th What do you get when you combine great food, great coffee, a great route, great people and more great food and drink? The Chris King Gourmet Century! Chris King of Chris King Precision Components is not only a master craftsman of bicycle components but he’s a foodie too. A few years ago he started hosting a cycling event with an emphasis on excellent food and sharing it with friends and family. Thus was born The Chris King Gourmet Century in Portland, Oregon. Last year some FFBC Cinderella Training friends and I participated. The ride was fun and the food was excellent but Portland’s a long way to go to ride your bicycle. Fortunately for us the event expanded this year to include a ride in Sonoma in October. We rounded up more FFBC friends and prepared for another fun day of cycling, eating and drinking, but first there was breakfast...
Before the start of the ride we had breakfast burritos, fruit, bagels & lox, oatmeal etc. and of course delicious, made to order, gourmet espresso drinks. The espresso bar was manned (womanned!) by 2 baristas from Chris King’s cafeteria in Portland. Boy was the coffee good! So good, in fact, that I had a second even before I threw my leg over the top tube of my bike.
The key to a successful Chris King Gourmet Century ride is pacing, and I don’t mean on the bike, I mean on the food front. If you eat too much at the rest stops the next few miles are pretty ugly. After a big breakfast we really weren’t ready for much at the first rest stop but it was hard to resist the little squares of pastry filled with curried squash. Pictured above is Paula Thompson showing amazing restraint! :-)
Annette Smith, Julie Gilson & Kevin McDonnell relaxing, or is that digesting at the first rest stop?
Next up was lunch (after peddling a few more miles). What a feast! Amazing will power was needed to refrain from piling your plate high with delicious salads, curried squash and various BBQ’d meats. In the picture above Jay Gilson samples the offerings.
After lunch it was back to the beautiful Sonoma countryside. The route for the ride used many of the roads from other century rides in the area but in slightly different ways, and since all the other rides are earlier in the year the scenery was refreshingly different.
Just to make sure the riders weren’t hungry we had another rest stop at mile 48 where there were hand tossed pizzas.
At the end of the ride there was beer and wine followed by appetizers and dinner. Yup, after a full day of eating we ate some more. Pictured left to right, Julie Gilson, Lori Sommer, Phil Sommer, Jay Gilson and Kevin McDonnell
The first course was a delicious salad, followed by a liver paté bruschetta.
The main course was melt in your mouth Glazed Beef Short Bibs with Root Vegetables. It was so good I forgot to take a picture until I was half way done!
And for dessert there were little pots of Glen Ellen Start ice-creams with Florentine cookies. Delicious! Definitely not your typical century ride. It was a ride to be savored and enjoyed with friends, just like the great man Chris King intended. |
