Atlas Peak Road

Distance: 18.2 out and back
Elevation gain: 2350 ft

This is yet another sweet climb out of a Wine Country valley, this time out of the city of Napa. It’s a dead end, and it absolutely can’t be looped. It’s much like our other Wine Country climbs, but its road surface is better than some (about 60% of it is glass), and it’s manicured…that is to say, it looks landscaped, as if a professional gardener was maintaining it. So it’s very attractive and very clean. For much of its length it’s got a sparkling clean center line and sparkling clean fog lines—even a bike lane in the beginning—and the pretty oaks that line much of it look meticulously pruned. Fairly elaborate homes and vineyards dot the landscape. There is no sense of being in the outback or escaping civilization. So it’s prettier than our other area rides, but also more domesticated.

This isn’t a great ride for vistas—at the very top you can see north and east for some distance over barren, rolling hills, but until then, not much.

The workload is roughly the same as our other Wine Valley climbs, with all the hard stuff in the first and last thirds, the middle third being close to flat. There are some short 10-12% swells.

Though the area is more built-up than our other area rides, I still found next to no traffic—4 vehicles in 9 miles on the ride in. The route has many signs asking drivers to share the road, which usually is a sign of traffic, so maybe I just got lucky.

The first mile of so of Atlas Peak Rd. is big and busy and thoroughly uninviting. I skip it and park in one of the shoulder turn-outs by the Silverado Resort or the golf course, where parking is surprisingly easy. As you ascend, the road gets slowly narrower, less populated, and wilder, until finally you’re on a true one-lane road (I met a Fed Ex truck and it filled the road—I had to pull off) surrounded by open spaces and little home-spun vineyards. Halfway up the road surface, which has been glass, begins to break up, and it gets worse over the next 2.5 miles, then thankfully returns to glass for the remainder of the climb.

The road ends at a turn-around and a large gate that reads “Atlas Peak Ranch.” In case you’re in any doubt there is a sign reading simply “END.”

The descent varies from good to excellent, with the exception of the near-flat rough patch in the middle, which I just waited out.

Most of the estates along the route are set well back from the road, and many of them are reached by long, meandering side roads that are little more than paved trails. It looked like they would be fun to explore on a bike, but I didn’t try it.

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