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Jay's Essential Bike RidesThe very best road rides in California and Oregon |
Distance: 51-mile loop Elevation gain: 5900 ft (RWGPS) (A Best of the Best ride) (Update: the recent Stage Road construction is completed and the road is now open. jr) About a quarter of this route is covered thoroughly in words and pictures at toughascent.com, enough to give you the look of the ride. Before we […]
Distance: 11.6-mile lollipopElevation gain: 980 ft Until now Bestrides had no rides on the east side of the Skyline Blvd. ridge, so this is my attempt to fix that. This sweet little loop is easy and short. It includes a very sweet little dirt back route that only locals know—the “dirty” part of Dirty Moody. […]
Distance: 44 miles out and back Elevation gain: 4100 ft (A Best of the Best ride) This is one of the Oregon rides that is expertly covered in Jim Moore’s 75 Classic Rides Oregon (see the “Oregon” section in Rides by Region). This ride is the greatest climb and descent in Oregon. ‘Nuff said. And in addition, you […]
Distance: 16.5 miles out and back Elevation gain: 1420 ft (Note: The road work that had recently closed this ride is completed and the road is clear. Thanks, Drew. jr) The San Francisco Peninsula has a spine running down its center. On the east side of the spine is Palo Alto, Silicon Valley, Stanford, and […]
Where’s Washington? Why doesn’t Bestrides cover Washington state? The answer is, I don’t think the riding is good enough. I’ve done a fair amount of riding there, and it’s often nice, but it can’t match the two states below it. Sorry, Washingtonians. I know of five Washington rides that are worth traveling a distance to […]
All the rides in this directory are good. But I know—you want to know which ones are the really great ones. Here are Letterman lists of the best rides overall, the best descents, the steepest climbs, and so on: BEST RIDES OVERALL Bean Creek/Mtn. Charlie/Soquel-San Jose Big Basin (weekdays only) Bristlecone Pine Forest Caliente Loop Comptche […]