Contact: Mike Blide 530-320-5711
Sierra Valley’s Tour de Manure Returns on June 4 with a New Director, New Food and More Beer!
The Tour de Manure Metric Century bicycle ride in Sierra Valley has a lot of new features this year. The supported ride is being moved up in time to the first June Saturday, June 4. It has a new organizing structure, with the nonprofit Sierraville 
Recreation Association teaming up with the ride’s original host, Sierraville/Sattley Fire and Rescue, to share responsibilities and proceeds. The Recreation Association supports fun, educational and arts events in Sierraville, including classes and music events at the old Sierraville School on Lincoln Avenue, and the club has painted most of the wooden barn quilts mounted around the valley.
The Tour has been forced to cancel the past two years, due to the pandemic, but returns for its 12th year under the new leadership of Sierraville resident and former owner of Truckee’s Cottonwood restaurant, Mike Blide.
“We’ve missed the Tour,” said Doug Read, who, as part of the Sierraville fire district, helped found the Tour de Manure. “But we’re very excited to have Mike Blide take on the Tour Boss job. He’ll make it run as smoothly as it always did under the watchful eye of Tami McCollum and the Sierraville fire department. We are lucky to have him.”
This year’s event will be capped at 500 riders to ensure safety and fun. “The gentle terrain and the choices of 30-, 42- and 62-mile routes make this a great ride for every kind of cyclist, from people doing their first supported ride to the experts looking for distance and light hills,” Blide says.
The Tour de Manure begins between 8 and 9 a.m. at the Sierraville Firehouse at 102 E. Main Street in Sierraville, 25 miles north of Truckee on California Highway 49. Fees are $75 through May 28 and $100 thereafter until event day. Kids 12 and under pay $35. Participants receive this year’s version of the infamous “raging bull” T-shirt as well as SAG wagon support, rest stop food and amenities, and a big finish line party with a BBQ and live music. The beer tent features brews from sponsors Fifty Fifty, Alibi Aleworks, and The Brewing Lair. Live finish line music is offered, once again, by Michael Hogan and his rockin’ country-rock band “The Simpletones.” The BBQ is catered by When Pigs Fly, based in Sierraville, who will serve pulled pork along with vegan and vegetarian options. Chips and salsa are contributed by Sierraville’s Los Dos Hermanos restaurant.
“This event is the major annual fundraiser for the Sierraville Recreation Association as well as the Sierra County Fire Protection District,” Blide says. “A huge contingent of volunteers from in and around Sierraville come out to help stage this ride. It is a true community endeavor.”
Online registration for the Tour de Manure is at www.tourdemanure.com. Follow the Tour on Facebook.
