There are only two routes that SFR currently uses that stretch back to our first year (1999) as a RUSA region, and of those two (Mendocino Coast (formerly Fort Bragg) 600 and Healdsburg 300) only the Healdsburg 300km has been held every year SFR has held brevets.
History
The route
The next control is in Bodega Bay which offers a short rest before tackling the mega-rollers on the way past Valley Ford and Tomales.
In earlier years the next control was at the Marshall Store, but this control became overwhelmed by the tourists, and the Marshall Store often closed before our control itself would, so the control location was moved 10 miles south to Point Reyes Station where there are many more options for riders to refuel. From there, the route back to the Golden Gate Bridge follows the well used path through Olema, over Bolinas Ridge, through the redwoods of Samuel Taylor State Park, across the San Geronimo Valley and over White Hill and on to Fairfax, and then through lower Marin on back to the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge. With the final return being through Olema in recent years, the shortest route from Bodega Bay to the Golden Gate Bridge is the route listed so soon the Olema control will disappear. Riders will still likely pause in PRS before making the final push to cover the last 35 miles of the route.
Comparing the difficulty of this route to other routes, Ridewithgps suggests there is about 8,200' of elevation gain on this route. The 200km routes used for the rides that often preceed this one on the calendar every year range from 7,000' to 7,500'. Given that, the Healdsburg 300km is in some ways considered a treat. On the route from the point where outbound riders are coasting down the last big roller before Petaluma, there are no significant climbs at all until riders reach the coast south of Jenner. As well, at that point there is often a healthy tailwind as riders head south on CA 1.
Weather and scheduling
While there has been rain on several of the dates over the years, a few years stand out on the misery index. In 2007 rain began about 60 miles in and just kept getting worse through the day and was joined by high winds after sunset, making the crossing of the Golden Gate Bridge a storied adventure. Even though that is the most epic year for weather for those that have ridden multiple iterations of the Healdsburg 300, the number of starters and finishers that year (2007, a Paris, Brest, Paris Randonneur year) is higher than in some subsequent years.
In 2016 the rain began earlier and was also joined by gusting wind, but the difference between the two dates is that there were far fewer starters and finishers in 2016 to tell the tale afterward. The 2022 version was a chilly one, and one year riders had to watch out for black ice as late into the ride as Petaluma when the brevet was held just a day after a big rainstorm and freezing overnight temperatures. The total finishers dropped from 126 in 2015 to just 25 in 2016, just to show the difference between a fair weather year and one less than fair. Following behind 2007 and 2016 on the scale of wet Healdsburg 300kms are the 2019 and 2020 editions, both of which were quite soggy.
In 2022 and 2023 this event was held twice. In 2022 it was held as a memorial ride in September along with two other concurrent events to honor the memor of Metin Uz. The SFR Healdsburg 300km was the route Metin had ridden the most out of the over 200 brevets that he had done. In 2023 the event was held a 2nd time in Spring to allow for some club members to complete the 300km requirement for Paris, Brest, Paris Randonneur qualification.
Participants
SFR was a smaller club in the early years, so it is no surprise that the number of starters was lower. In 1999, there were 21 finishers and the total of finishers dropped as low as 13 by the 3rd running in 2004. In 2010 ridership on this event seemingly exploded and from 2010 through 2015 there were never fewer than 101 finishers, peaking with 126 finishers in 2015 (later exceeded in 2022 (135)). For a period of years, participation dwindled owing to several factors. Rain at the start and rain that begins much later in the ride have different effects.
2021 may look odd with the weather having been so great but with one of the smallest starting rosters, but that was the secopnd pandemic year and turnout would only rebound much later that year.
[Editor's note: for some context, Before 2008, RUSA records did not include the field for # of starters or # of DNF so for 1999 through 2007 we can only use # of finishers. In 2003 CA: Davis had 162 *finishers*. One can assume the # of starters was higher than that.]
No one rider has participated on all 26 events since 1999, and no rider is all that close to matching. In the last few years this particular leader board has been jumbled a little and new names have emerged:
There has been 1667 finishers over the course of the 26 versions of the event. Of those 1667, 189 or 11.3% have been women. Here are the women finishes with 2 or more finishes:
Ride times
For riders with at least 3 finishes, Andrea Achilli looks to be the most consistent with his shortest and longest finishes within 40 minutes of each other (followed by Russ Fairles' 44 minute difference). Riding the event on a particularly rainy date (2007, 2016, 2019, 2020) can easily lengthen your elapased time by over a hour, and more. Glancing at the results we can find a number of riders with three or more finishes with a four hour difference between shortest and longest ride, but Bob Buntrock's 6 hour and 13 minute delta stands out. Bob's two bookend finishes were 11:36 in 2011, and 17:49 in 2004.
Here are the groupings of finishers by hour:
Finally, here is a table of the starters per edition from 1999 through 2025, NB: RUSA doesn't have DNF numbers available to RBAs prior to 2009:
| Date | Distance | # of Starters | # of Finishers | # of DNF riders | First Finishing Time | Mean Finishing Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999/02/20 | 300 | 22 | 14:00 | 17:32 | ||
| 2003/02/15 | 300 | 30 | 13:44 | 16:20 | ||
| 2004/02/14 | 300 | 13 | 13:49 | 15:57 | ||
| 2005/02/26 | 300 | 33 | 11:46 | 13:52 | ||
| 2006/02/25 | 300 | 56 | 11:19 | 14:25 | ||
| 2007/02/24 | 300 | 75 | 12:03 | 16:04 | ||
| 2008/02/23 | 300 | 33 | 31 | 2 | 11:55 | 14:17 |
| 2009/02/21 | 300 | 71 | 68 | 3 | 11:20 | 14:38 |
| 2010/02/27 | 300 | 117 | 110 | 7 | 11:27 | 14:54 |
| 2011/02/26 | 300 | 118 | 108 | 10 | 11:36 | 15:02 |
| 2012/03/10 | 300 | 105 | 101 | 4 | 11:30 | 14:16 |
| 2013/03/09 | 300 | 111 | 107 | 4 | 11:03 | 14:36 |
| 2014/03/08 | 300 | 125 | 122 | 3 | 11:05 | 14:34 |
| 2015/02/28 | 300 | 126 | 126 | 0 | 11:15 | 15:02 |
| 2016/03/05 | 300 | 32 | 25 | 7 | 14:00 | 16:38 |
| 2017/03/18 | 300 | 58 | 55 | 3 | 10:40 | 14:18 |
| 2018/03/10 | 300 | 92 | 87 | 5 | 10:50 | 14:14 |
| 2019/03/09 | 300 | 72 | 61 | 11 | 13:06 | 16:17 |
| 2020/03/07 | 300 | 54 | 40 | 14 | 12:02 | 14:57 |
| 2021/06/26 | 300 | 26 | 26 | 0 | 09:49 | 13:27 |
| 2022/03/12 | 300 | 140 | 135 | 5 | 10:10 | 15:07 |
| 2022/09/24 | 300 | 26 | 23 | 3 | 12:26 | 15:13 |
| 2023/03/04 | 300 | 75 | 73 | 2 | 09:44 | 15:19 |
| 2023/04/15 | 300 | 30 | 29 | 1 | 11:55 | 14:34 |
| 2024/03/09 | 300 | 45 | 44 | 1 | 10:23 | 14:39 |
| 2025/03/08 | 300 | 68 | 67 | 1 | 09:59 | 14:27 |
NB: The data used all comes from RUSA databases. SFR data is not uniformly stored (different columns, different name varients, missing rows) so was not used. Names have been normalized as much as possible, but if members changed how they submitted names as they renew memberships (including middle intial or not, spelling middle name vs. initial, changing last name) these variants need to be collected then normalized. It is possible that some variants were overlooked during this manual step.
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