Bill Oetinger was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, but has lived most of his adult life in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has been cycling for all of that adult life, rolling out well over 200,000 miles so far.For more than twenty years, he has been the ride director and newsletter editor for the Santa Rosa Cycling Club, one of the larger bike clubs in Northern California. In that capacity, he has planned and coordinated thousands of rides around the Bay Area. Farther afield, he has organized many tours for the club, adding up to over two hundred stages scattered throughout California and Oregon, as well as in other states and abroad. For the tour participants, he prepares descriptive previews of each stage, similar to the write-ups in this volume.Bill has been writing a monthly column at BikeCal.com since 1999, ranging across the full spectrum of bike topics, from touring to racing to advocacy. (Over 180 past essays are archived at the site.)Since 1992, Bill has been either chair or co-chair of the prestigious Terrible Two Double Century, one of the most challenging one-day rides in America. He has completed many double centuries and more than four hundred centuries. Long, hard rides aside, he is happiest knocking off a 60-mile tour stage with his friends.Bill lives with his wife, Kathy, on a rural acre outside the little town of Sebastopol, Sonoma County, 60 miles north of the Golden Gate . . . prime cycling country.