Distance: 18.5-mile out-and-back
Elevation gain: 2680 ft

(A Best-of-the-Best descent)

Shirtail (one T) Canyon Road is the access road into Pinnacles National Park from the west side, the back door into the Park. Also known as State Route 146. As with all rides entering National Parks, if you want to go beyond the ranger’s station you’ll need money or your NP pass and ID.

Shirtail Canyon Road heads east from the outskirts of Soledad, and as you approach the area from the north or the south on Hwy 101 your heart will sink, because you’re in the dead-flat, totally agricultural Salinas Valley and you’ll assume the route is straight, flat, and boring. But Soledad butts up against the eastern edge of the valley, so SCR climbs from the get-go, often steeply (check that elevation-to-distance ratio), and is constantly changing its shape and pitch, which makes for a moderately interesting (though scenically fairly boring) climb and an exhilarating descent.

It’s a dead-end ride, taking you past the Pinnacles westside visitor center and stopping at a featureless trailhead parking lot, so you can’t loop it. I guarantee the ride is a workout (again, check that elevation-to-distance ratio), but if you’re disappointed by the small mileage total I’ve described an add-on which I like a lot in the Adding Miles section.

I am downright picky about when I think you should do this ride. 1. Ride it in the spring, when the hills are green. 2. Avoid riding it when it’s hot, because there is next to no shade. 3. Avoid riding it on Saturday morning, when everyone is driving in, or Sunday late afternoon, when everyone is driving out. 4. Don’t ride it when the valley wind is blowing, because it funnels straight up the canyon, hits you on your nose during the descent, and turns a wonderful descent into a white-knuckle stressfest.

With any ride on National Park roads there’s a concern about traffic. I’ve never had a problem here, even though the road is narrow (often signed “one-lane,” rather over-dramatically) and has absolutely no shoulder. The road is wide enough, the drivers are in no hurry, the sight-lines are good, and almost all traffic enters Pinnacles from the eastern entrance. On a lovely Saturday afternoon in spring I saw perhaps 30 cars, roughly two a mile.

This ride is listed in the “Monterey Bay Area” ride list, but that’s a cop-out. If you look in our ride map, you’ll see that it’s in the middle of nowhere. Nacimiento-Fergusson, also in the middle of nowhere and probably the nearest other ride in driving time, is listed in the “Southern California” ride list. What can one do? Sometimes categories fail you.

Start at the intersection of Shirtail Canyon Road and Metz Road. You’re a couple of miles out of Soledad, and it looks fairly insecure there, so you might feel safer parking in town and riding to the intersection, but I’ll warn you those are dead flat, dead straight, uninviting small-town-outskirts miles. At the intersection there is a large dirt turn-out. Pinnacles, despite being a National Park, is practically ignored by the Soledad community, so there is next to no signage directing you to the intersection and, incredibly, there is no sign for the Pinnacles at the intersection, despite the fact that Shirtail goes to Pinnacles and nowhere else (there is a tiny sign advertising a vineyard). There is also no road sign, anywhere along the route, so I’m taking it on faith that what I rode was in fact Shirtail Canyon Road. This under-the-radar status works to your advantage, because it means you will meet 30 cars on the ride instead of 300. There is a prominent sign for Pinnacles once you start up SCR.

As I say, the ride climbs from its inception. You get some breaks (you descent a total of 800 ft. on the climb, which you’ll notice on the return), but it’s mostly up for the first 7 miles, gently at first but then a stretch of 8-12% stuff. You’re riding up a small and unprepossessing canyon bounded on either side by those round hilly grassy mounds you see all over western Central California. If you’re there in the spring, as I counseled, it’s pretty enough, with a few shapely oaks scattered along the roadside, but it’s not memorable, and any other time but spring it’s brown and therefore worse. After the hard climbing you do some charming whoop-dee-do’s, then climb some more.

Around 7 miles in you reach, in rapid succession, a gaping cattle guard requiring some care (I walked it), a standard National Park photo-op entrance sign, and the Visitor Center. It’s an unpretentious but likable operation, with some nice informational placards outside if you don’t want to leave your bike and go inside.

The two miles of road past the Visitor Center are down (steeply at first, then less so), and there’s nothing to see at road’s end unless you plan to hike, so consider turning around at the Visitor Center unless you just want 2 more miles of climbing.

The ride up SCR is nice enough but the descent back to your car is a dream: lots of variety, a blem-free road surface, smooth sweeping turns that don’t necessitate braking and let you see on-coming traffic, some really good whoop-de-doos you can take at speed, and a long 4% run-out at the end when you can pedal hard and feel like a god. If you can catch it on a wind-free day, it’s one of Bestride’s best descents. You can easily break the 35-mph speed limit.

Shortening the ride: Turn around at the Visitor Center. I don’t think the first 7 miles can effectively be shortened.

Adding miles: If 20 miles just doesn’t float your boat, there’s an unexpected way to add some good miles: Metz Rd. Driving Metz from Soledad, you’d swear it’s as worthless as a road can get, but on the south side of Shirtail it’s a whole other animal. It runs for 18 miles from Shirtail to King City outskirts, and while the last 7 of those 18 (nearest King City) are on the valley floor and therefore very ordinary stuff, the first 11 are rewarding. The road runs above the lip of the valley about 50-100 ft up the sidehill, so it has to follow the contour of the grassy mounds. So it’s up and down, back and forth, with a lovely overview to your right of the Salinas River, the railroad tracks, and the never-ending agricultural work below you, with the hills rising steeply on your left. If you ride to where the road drops down to the valley and ceases to be interesting, then turn around, you add 22 miles to our Shirtail out and back, for a respectable mileage total of just over 40. Absolutely no shade on Metz, so not advisable in extreme heat.

Beyond that, there is nothing in the immediate vicinity. Our legendary Nacimiento-Fergusson Road ride is a 45-minute car drive to the south.

Distance: 41-mile loop
Elevation gain: 3220 ft

(A Best of the Best ride)

This is a staple Santa-Cruz-area ride. It’s an approximate square, and each leg is unlike the other three. The right side of the square is a mellow-to-moderate climb through some of the best redwood forests in the area—more precious now than ever, since most of the magnificent redwoods in our rides to the west have burned. The top leg rolls up and down through oak woods and along a sidehill. The left side is a Best of the Best descent on a serpentining, manicured thoroughfare. And the bottom is a flat cruise through the charming commercial cottages of downtown Soquel and Aptos. The stars are the climb and the descent. The two legs that get you from one to the other aren’t great but they’re worth riding.

(To see the map in a more user-friendly format, clip on the drop-down menu in the RWGPS box in the upper R and select “map.”)

You must ride this route counter-clockwise—otherwise you’ll be swapping a great descent and a great climb for a jarring descent and a long tedious slog. You can begin this route anywhere, but I suggest you start somewhere along the Soquel-to-Corralitos leg, so you have some flattish riding to warm up your legs on before the 10 miles of climbing that begins in Corralitos. Our map begins at the corner of Freedom Blvd. and Day Valley Rd., which gives you 5 miles of flat to warm up on. But in truth the first few miles of the climb out of Corralitos are so mellow you could warm up on them. If you want to start in Aptos, the Safeway on Soquel Drive offers trouble-free parking. Wherever you start along that leg, ride Soquel Drive > Freedom > Corralitos Rd. to Corralitos.

Freedom Blvd. is the worst part of the ride—a shoulder ride on a big, busy road. Gabriel below says you can dodge all of Freedom by taking Valencia Rd. > Day Valley Rd. > Hames Rd. to Corralitos, which I haven’t done yet but am looking forward to trying. It adds some climbing.

Corralitos is an intersection with a grocery store and a tiny park. Note the grocery store: it’s the Corralitos Market and Sausage Company, whose meat department serves an amazing assortment of spectacular made-in-house sausage sandwiches. If you’re a hot dog man, as I am, you’ll want to time the ride so you can eat here afterwards.

Start up Eureka Canyon Rd. and climb for 9 uninterrupted miles of mellow to moderate. The woods along ECR are as good as any in the Santa Cruz area, which means they’re as good as anywhere, and you’re riding along a sweet little creek, which always ups the prettiness factor. The road surface starts out poor and steadily worsens, until near the top of the climb it’s awful, but about the time you’re wishing you hadn’t come you hit two stretches of brand-new (as of Spring 2022) pavement and all is well. Still, the pavement is bad enough that turning around and descending (or riding the route clockwise) is a bad idea, because you’d be in for a jarring, tooth-rattling descent. I did it once—never again. If they ever repave the entire road, it would be a marvelous descent.

After 9 miles of climbing, Eureka Canyon Rd. reaches an obvious summit and the road changes its name to Highland Way (clearly signed). Your work is mostly over. There are other roads at the summit, so make sure you find Highland.

Highland’s pavement is never very good, but it’s never as bad as what you’ve just ridden. The elevation profile is bowl-shaped. Highland begins with a long descent that the rough road surface keeps you from fully enjoying, and the microclimate is too high and too dry for the lush redwoods you’ve been riding through, but the new oak forest is still pretty. On any weekend you’ll probably pass mountain bikers going the other way, and at the bottom of the bowl you’ll see why—there’s a mountain bike trailhead there, and on the Sunday I rode through there were about 60 cars. From there to the far end of the road you’ll have company from the mountain bikers’ vehicles coming and going, but they understand you and are civil.

Climb up the other side of the bowl (it’s pretty easy). You’re now riding mellow rollers on the sidehill of a large canyon (apparently Soquel Creek Canyon) on your L, and some of the views of the canyon below and ahead of you are pretty good. Ride through a confusing 4-way intersection where the two roads to L and R are signed (Spanish Ranch Road and Mt. Bache) and your road, which is sorta straight ahead, isn’t. The two miles from this intersection to the end of Highland at Soquel-San Jose Rd. are perhaps the sweetest riding on the loop, a gracefully curving 30-mph descent on good pavement on a small road through lovely woods. You’ll want it to last forever, but watch for Soquel-San Jose Rd. going off to your L. in the middle of the bliss—for such a major artery, it’s surprisingly hard to see. There is only one sign, and it’s small. Go L onto SSJR. (Highland continues but changes its name to Summit at the intersection, in case you’re wondering.). We descend SSJR on our Bean Creek/Mt. Charlie route, so you can read about it there, but it’s a glassy-smooth, ripping banshee ride you’ll dream about later.

SSJR drops you in the small town of Soquel, where you pick up Soquel Drive, the surface road paralleling Hwy 1, and follow it through Soquel and Aptos and out the other side. This is all through solidly built-up commercial stuff, which sounds at best tedious and at worst dangerous, but these communities are small, charming, and cozy, the vibe is mellow and tranquil, and the ride is pleasant—a perfect cool-down after the high drama of Eureka Canyon, Highland, and Soquel-San Jose. You pass numerous places to resupply or dine (I recommend Zameen Cuisine in Aptos) if you decide to pass on the Corralitos Market and Sausage Co. Ride back to wherever you parked.

Shortening the route: as I mentioned, this is a hard route to shorten. Eureka Canyon Rd. and Soquel-San Jose Rd. have serious drawbacks as out-and-backs, and neither Soquel Drive nor Highland Way is a good enough ride to justify riding it only. The best you can do is ride 6-7 miles up ECR and turn around before the road surface gets seriously bad.

Adding miles: This is Santa Cruz, so good riding is all around you. On Soquel-San Jose Rd. you’re momentarily on our Alma Bridge/Old Santa Cruz Hwy Plus and Mt. Charlie routes. See the Monterey Bay section of the Regions page for an intro to the other riches nearby.

Near the end of Highland on our route you intersect with Mt. Bache Rd., reputed to be a short (0.9 mi.), steep, and delightful climb dead-ending at Loma Prieta Way/Ave., which I haven’t ridden but looks on Streetview to be little more than a coarsely paved path with great vistas, eventually turning to dirt.

Several readers have praised Hazel Dell Rd., which can be reached from Corralitos via Browns Valley Rd. It’s an easy add-on. I found it pleasant. It will take you to Mt. Madonna Rd., a major climb that comes highly recommended.

Distance: 27-mile lollipop
Elevation gain: 3100 ft

(Update 3/23: Cal sends word below that the bridge across the creek at Redwood Lodge Rd. has collapsed and it’s impossible to continue beyond it. I would suggest riding to Summit Rd., turning L, riding the route to Redwood Lodge backwards, then returning. JR)

This outstanding route offers a variety of Santa-Cruz-area environments: rollers through open country, fast serpentining through splendid redwood forest, grand isolation over broken pavement and dirt, and moderate climbing on big, busy roads. There isn’t a bad mile in it. You cover 6 different roads, but the unmissable jewel is Old Santa Cruz Hwy, which is magnificent both climbing and descending. The entire ride is east of the great burn, so the woods are undamaged, and they’re as good as any in the area now that Big Basin has burned.

(To see the map in a more user-friendly format, clip on the drop-down menu in the RWGPS box in the upper R and select “map.”)

Take the Alma Bridge exit off Hwy 17 (accessible from the south only), drive to the Lexington Reservoir County Park, and park there. There is no roadside parking between Hwy 17 and the park. There is a fee, but there is free parking in the dirt across the road from the park.

Ride down Alma Bridge Rd. It’s a wide two-lane roller, up and down on good new chipseal along the open sidehill paralleling the reservoir. Very nice riding. At the intersection with the improbably named Aldercroft Heights Rd., go R, cross the unremarkable eponymous Alma Bridge, and ride the short leg to Old Santa Cruz Hwy. Go L at the intersection with OSCH and begin the steady, easy climb up to Summit Rd.

This is as perfect a stretch of cycling road as I can imagine. The pavement is glass, the traffic is light, the trees are awesome, and the road contour is a perfect meander you’ll appreciate even more on the return descent. Savor this.

At Summit Rd. go straight across onto the unsigned (I think) continuation of OSCH. You are now going to drop without interruption for 3.8 miles, 3 miles of which is on fragments of pavement, rough dirt, and gravel. If you don’t want to do this (and I’m not implying you should), turn around and ride home.

Assuming we’re continuing on: The pavement is lousy from the moment you leave Summit. Shortly after starting down OSCH, take the clearly-signed Schulties Rd. to the L and descend to the creek. The road surface is chattery and can’t be called fun, but I did it on 25 mm racing tires and had no problems other than sore hands from braking constantly. I definitely wouldn’t want to ride up it.

The perks here are the forest and the isolation. The woods are dense, pristine, silent, and entirely empty of people. I love that stuff. Your mileage may vary.

Incidentally, when I was researching the ride I got reports on Schulties that ranged from 1) it’s a piece of cake to 2) it’s rough but doable to 3) it’s brutally rough and you’ll regret it to 4) it’s unrideable to 5) it’s blocked by landslides and impassable. The truth is #2. It is closed to cars, according to the sign, but any car could navigate it, while having little fun doing so.

At the bottom of Schulties, the pavement returns (and is unproblematic to the end of the road), there is a little group of houses called Laurel on maps, and there is an intersection, with your way, Redwood Lodge Rd., clearly signed. It’s hard to trust the sign, because it’s almost an 180-degree turn, but trust it anyway. Somewhere around this intersection it is reported that one can see one of the adits to one of the four defunct tunnels on the old train route from San Jose to Santa Cruz. The tunnels have been dynamited but the adits remain–a thing of much historical interest. I missed it.

Redwood Lodge Rd. drops briefly, crosses the creek, then begins the climb up the other side with a ferocious little pitch. Fear not—since most of the descending on Schulties is recovered by climbing on Soquel-San Jose and Summit later, the climb out of the canyon on RLR is (after that one scare) moderate and short. Very pretty, but slightly less isolated than Schulties because it services the population of Laurel.

RLR deadends at Soquel-San Jose Rd., the road we ride down in the Bean Creek Etc. ride and the Eureka Canyon Etc. ride. Now we go up (L). It’s pleasant climbing through a garden-like landscape with fairly steady traffic on a reliable shoulder back up to Summit Rd. As you approach Summit, there is a sweet-looking little cut-off on our L, Merrill, which will let you skip some of Summit if you’re willing to add some climbing to your total.

Take Summit Rd. to the L and ride 3 miles (assuming you didn’t take Merrill) of shoulder back to Old Santa Cruz. These 3 miles may be tediously pleasant or hellish, depending on the traffic level and the temperament of the individual drivers on your day, but it’s mostly moderate rollers and it passes quickly. Summit is largely built-up commercial, and it’s the nearest thing to slog on the ride.

Go R on OSCH and get ready for one of the great descents. As I said, the surface is glass, the road is almost entirely empty of cars, the scenery is awesome, the road contour is perfectly designed for fast slaloming, and the pitch is just steep enough for serious speed without much braking. Wow. When I did it there was a pair of cyclists who seemed to be riding it over and over. I totally get that.

You’re moving fast so watch for the turn-off on the R to get you back onto Alma Bridge Rd. It’s very large and signed “Aldercroft Heights Rd.” Take it back to AMR and ride home.

Shortening the route: Ride Old Santa Cruz Hwy out and back. For a few more miles, add Alma Bridge Road.

Adding miles: You’re in the Santa Cruz area, so riches abound. The Soquel-San Jose and Summit legs are part of our Bean Creek/Mountain Charlie loop and the Soquel-San Jose leg is part of our Eureka Canyon/Highland Way ride, though in the other direction. At the intersection of Old Santa Cruz Hwy and Summit you’re a short ride from the top of our Zayante Rd. ride, which bottoms out near our Felton Empire ride. And so on.

Distance: 28.5 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 712 ft

Normally I avoid bike trails and municipal trails like poison, because they’re claustrophobic. But there are 6 bike trails that I know of that are so fine that they transcend their genre: the Nimitz Trail, the Willamette River Trail in Eugene, the American River Bike Trail in Sacramento, the Coyote Creek Trail in San Jose, the Sacramento River Trail in Redding, and this one. As with most multi-use trails, the pace here is often slow and the experience is more akin to strolling/ambling/sight-seeing than hammering, but at least half of the route here is far from Monterey proper, largely deserted, and suitable for hard time-trialing if that’s what you seek. And the scenery is excellent: one part rocky coast, one part Monterey harbor, and one part lonely sand dunes. The elevation numbers say it’s dead flat, but it really isn’t (RidewithGPS says 975 ft), and if you hit the rolling dunes hard you can get a workout.

The curse of municipal paths is crowds, and the third of this route that goes through the Aquarium-Cannery Row neighborhood can be downright unpleasant if crowded. (“Hell is other people”—Sartre). As always, I would avoid weekend midday if I could. But my last ride was Friday at 11 AM in July, and other users were never a problem.

Rec trails are meant for rec riders, and if you’re one, you may want to rent a bike. Monterey has you covered. Adventures by the Sea has no less than 3 rental shops along the one-mile stretch of the Trail by Cannery Row. If it’s been a while, rent an e-bike.

Like many rec trails, this one goes by many names. I’ve seen it called the Monterey Peninsula Recreational Trail, the Monterey Bike Trail, and the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail. It’s also a leg of the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail, a monumental project that is in the works and dreams of eventually running from Lover’s Point in Pacific Grove to Wilder Ranch, a few miles west of Santa Cruz—c. 55 miles!

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/37254100

The bike path proper starts at Lover’s Point, but west of there the coast is stunning (better than the Seventeen Mile Drive to the south), so I like to start where Sunset Drive meets the coast, by Asilomar State Beach, so I can ride as much of it as possible. Parking is easy, either as curbside parking along Sunset Drive, at Asilomar State Beach, or on any of the side roads going inland from Sunset.

From Asilomar State Beach to Lover’s Point is conventional street, with ocean on one side and charming houses on the other. Almost immediately Sunset Drive changes its name to Ocean View Blvd, and no road was more accurately named. Take the time to drink in the view from the turn-outs (the best of which is the John Denver Memorial, near the spot where his plane crashed into the bay), and fantasize how sweet it would be to live in one of those houses. Keep your eyes peeled for sea otters, the mascots of Monterey, lying on their backs in the swell eating shellfish. A tiny detour will take you by the Point Pinos Lighthouse (not spectacular) and a moderately old cemetery, if you’re into those.

From Lover’s Point the ride is on multi-use municipal path. The first leg is right past the Aquarium and along the backside of Cannery Row, so we’re talking constant street crossings and dodging of tourists on foot and in those rental pedal surreys. If you can let it be what it is, it can be fun. If you can’t, it’s brief. Obviously there is endless trinket shopping and junk food eating to be done on Cannery Row, and a smattering of interesting historical buildings with informative lectures accessed by your phone.

Soon you’re past Cannery Row and riding through the wharf district, much more my cup of tea. There are three wharfs. The first is just a marina, so you’re only interested in the second and third. The second is Old Fisherman’s Wharf—think Santa Cruz Boardwalk without the rides. It’s straight out of the Fifties, an unpretentious mix of hoke, fish restaurants, and, and penny-crushing machines. The third, a stone’s throw further along, is the Municipal Wharf, a real working wharf with fishing boats off-loading their catch. Everyone there is busy working, but no one has ever shooed me away.

The area surrounding the wharfs is a wonderful place full of sailboats, crepe restaurants, barking sea lions, small art museums, bicycle rental shops, and such. This is the place to sit, eat lunch, and people-watch. You’re a block from a world-class French bakery, the Paris Bakery Cafe, if you forgot to bring a sandwich or dessert.

This area also has one of the best preserved and best presented collections of early California buildings anywhere. Most tourists never know it’s there, and it certainly keeps a low profile, but if you’re interested in the history of California before statehood it’s not to be missed. Even if you aren’t, the flower gardens in the courtyards adjacent to the buildings are lovely, soothing, and deserted. Start in either the Pacific House Museum or the Custom House (the latter the only preserved building you’re likely to notice passing through), and let the docents turn you on to the riches that surround you. If you don’t want to interrupt your ride for long, ten minutes in the Custom House is still time well-spent.

Immediately past the Wharf area the bike path enters some trees, and for the rest of the ride you’re in relatively undevel-oped Nature. Walkers and vacation cyclists quickly thin out and you’re alone with the other serious cyclists. Incredibly, there is one place where you’re liable to get off course: 7 miles in, there’s an unobtrusive hard L onto a little ess-curve climb. You want it—it takes you out of the city and onto the coastal dunes. If you miss it (like I did), the main path dumps you out unceremoniously at the intersection of Hwy 218 and Del Monte Blvd, at which point you must go L and ride Hwy 218 (not pleasant but doable) west until it returns you to the bike path.

The one other place you might get lost is Tioga Ave., where you have to leave the path, ride through a parking lot behind some big-box stores, and return to the path, all semi-well-marked. Look at our route map and you’ll get it.

Once you reach the dunes, it’s all dunes to the turn-around. This leg is why the ride is in Bestrides. The rest of the route has its charms, but this to me is unique. Rolling sand hills topped with ground cover, with vistas of surf for miles to the south and north and Monterey across the bay, with some interesting remnants of Fort Ord’s military presence here and there, and no one but other riders and few of them.

At Mile 10 there’s a noticeable road 90 degrees to your L, with a large, visible sign 50 ft down it. Ride to the sign and read it, which tells you you are now entering the Fort Ord Dunes section of the afore-mentioned Sanctuary Trail. From the sign, take the road on your R (north), which parallels the main trail for 4.1 miles and is called “Beach Range Road” on maps. This is a superior alternative to the main path, because it’s further from Highway 1, more isolated, quieter, and hillier. Ride to the end of Beach Range Road, our turn-around spot. There you can jump over to the main path and ride it back if you hate retracing your steps, but Beach Range Road is still a better ride and I suggest you stay on it for the return trip.

Shortening the ride: it all depends on what experience you seek. Coastal surf and tide pools?—do the Pacific Grove leg. Urban bustle?—do the Monterey wharf leg. Isolated dunes?—do the Fort Ord leg. I’d opt for the last, but it’s up to you.

Adding miles: Our starting point is 1/4 mile from the start of our Seventeen-Mile Drive ride.

The Monterey Bike Path continues on from our turn-around point, but it’s an unrewarding slog on the shoulder of big, busy, straight roads.

Distance: 11 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 1045 ft

I run the risk of having too many Santa Cruz rides in Bestrides, but this one is charming, different from the others, and hard to find on one’s own.  It’s not a great ride, but it’s a nice little one.  It’s officially N. Rodeo Gulch Road, and South Rodeo Gulch Road is directly across the street from its southern end, but people (and most maps) just call it Rodeo Gulch.

How is it different from the other SC rides?  First, there are almost no redwoods.  The scenery is very good, but it’s not OMG awe-inspiring like the others.  The ecosystem is dry, so the woods are eucalyptus and great, gnarly oaks.  And it isn’t all along a creek at the bottom of a canyon in the dark—you work your way up a gulch and break out on the top of a largely open hill where there are (unheard of in SC) clear skies and actual vistas (not impressive vistas, but vistas).  And it isn’t all up and down—the top of the hill and the first miles at the southern end are essentially flat.  You won’t even rack 100 ft/mile.  Consider it a recovery ride.  Yet you’ll do enough work to feel like you rode your bike.  If you want more miles, it’s easy to add on (see Adding Miles).

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Distance: 23 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 3260 ft

(A Best of the Best ride)
(A Best of the Best descent)

(Note: This route and the surrounding area were badly damaged by the terrible fires of 2020.  Expect major fire damage to the forest.)

Let me lay my cards on the table.  This ride is in Bestrides because of 3.7 miles—the length of Felton Empire Road.  Since few Bestrides users are interested in going for a 7.4-mile ride, I’ve added some worthwhile miles to make a day of it, but it’s those 3.7 that really matter.

There are two roads that run parallel north/south through the region northwest of Santa Cruz: Hwy 9 and Empire Grade.  Hwy 9 is a beautiful road but the main artery through the region and is very heavily trafficked with no shoulder—to be avoided except when necessary as a connector.  Empire Grade is much less developed and much less busy, and is a staple bike route for Santa Cruzans, but it’s tamer, bigger, and straighter than the real Santa Cruz back roads and thus lacks that sense of being IN the redwood forest that makes SC riding so special.  It would be a great ride anywhere else, but it’s not near the top of my SC ride list.

These two roads are connected by three roads of interest to cyclists: Felton Empire, Alba, and Jamison Creek.  All three are short (3-4 miles), steep, windy, and gorgeous.  Felton Empire is fairly steep, and Jamison Creek and Alba are very steep (slightly under 10% average).  Locals insist that Jamison is steeper than Alba.  If you want a vertical challenge, go for either one.  Hint: Jamison Creek is shorter (3 miles to 3.7 miles), but it begins with about a mile of low-key climbing so it packs all the hurt in the last 2 miles.  JCR has recently (as of 5/24) been repaved, so its surface is pristine (thanks, Alex).  I think both roads are too steep to be fun descents, but YMMV.  So if we’re looking for a ride that’s rewarding up and down, the choice is Felton Empire, a testing but totally rideable climb and absolutely as good a descent as there is on this Earth.  Since there is a fog line between Boulder Creek and Felton, Felton Empire Road and Alba are wetter, therefore lusher/prettier, than Jamison Creek.

At the top of Felton Empire you can go three ways, and they’re all good.  But two of them, Ice Cream Grade (straight ahead) and Empire downhill (L), are part of the Bonny Doon/Empire Grade ride, so I’ve mapped this ride to go R, uphill on Empire, to its end, then back.

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Distance: 22 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 2700 ft

(A Best of the Best ride)

Bestrides has three rides in the Hollister area, San Juan Grade Road, Lone Tree Road, and this one.  This is the best of the three.  It’s a conventional climb-out-descend-back ride through varied, dramatic, and beautiful  terrain (in the spring), with a mountaintop, a simple State Park, and a stunning view westward at the turn around.

The image of Hollister is hot, dusty, dead flat agricultural fields and a culture stuck in 1955.  Some of that is true.  Hollister is hot and dry in the summer, and cold and dead in the winter, so I would try hard to schedule my riding for late spring (April) after some rain, when the grass is green and the area is momentarily a gorgeous, lush garden.  The town of Hollister and the surrounding agricultural valleys (Santa Ana Valley and San Juan Valley) are pancake flat, but they’re surrounded by small, rolling hills rich with meandering roads offering ideal riding contour.  The three Bestrides rides from the area all have substantial climbing.  As to the culture, Hollister is not especially hip, but it’s a pleasant, easy-going town, and San Juan Bautista 6 miles away is a small Old California treasure with a grand Spanish mission and adjacent historical State Park well worth an afternoon.

Hollister in April would be a cycling mecca were it not for one thing: the road surfaces in San Benito County typically vary from poor to awful.  This ride is the best in the area, and it’s still poor.   If they’d repave the road, this would be a Best of the Best ride.

The elevation numbers (2700 ft in 22 miles) suggest a fairly hard climb, but the climb is actually harder than the numbers suggest.  There is little elevation gain in the first and last miles, so the bulk of the 2700 ft is gained in a 3.5-mile stretch, which translates to lots of 8-11% stuff.

Fremont Peak State Park, your destination, seems to be largely unvisited, so the traffic is next to nothing—both times I’ve done it, on beautiful weekday midday in spring, I saw perhaps 6 cars in the 22 miles, and there was one car in the Park parking lot.

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Distance: 18 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 1700 ft

A few words about riding around Hollister generally:

First, the image of the Hollister area is hot, dusty, dead flat agricultural fields and a culture stuck in 1955.  Some of that is true.  Hollister is hot and dry in the summer, and cold and dead in the winter, so I would try hard to schedule my riding for late spring (April) after some rain, when the grass is green and the area is momentarily a gorgeous, lush garden.  The town of Hollister and the surrounding agricultural valleys (Santa Ana Valley and San Juan Valley) are flat, but they’re surrounded by small, rolling hills rich with meandering roads offering ideal riding contour.  The three Bestrides rides from the area all have substantial climbing.  As to the culture, Hollister is not especially hip, but it’s a pleasant, easy-going town, and San Juan Bautista is a small Old California treasure with a grand Spanish mission and adjacent historical State Park well worth an afternoon.

Second, the road surfaces in San Benito County vary from poor to awful.  You just have to live with it (or ride somewhere else).  The one exception is our San Juan Canyon Road ride, where the surface is OK.  If for no other reason, that makes San Juan Canyon Road the best ride in the area.  I’d do it first, then this one, unless you don’t want to work.

San Juan Grade Road is an relatively easy (1900 ft in 9 miles of up) climb and descent over a low pass, then a return climb and descent back to your starting point in the town of San Juan Bautista.  It’s a “highway” in name only, since it’s a back route to Salinas (on various mapping sites it’s labeled “Salinas Highway,” “Hwy 3,” or “Salinas Road”) and almost all traffic takes the modern multi-lane.  In 22 miles I saw 9 vehicles.  

The north and south sides of the summit pass are about equal in climbing effort but radically different in character: the north side is mostly wooded, through very pretty, riparian oak forest with a very poor road surface (see above); the south side is all fine vistas of open,  rolling grasslands dotted bucolically with picturesque cows and of Salinas in the distance, with a surprisingly good road surface, viz., it’s not terrible (there’s a distinct line across the road where the surface suddenly improves).   It’s still bad enough to put a slight damper on the otherwise swell descent.  Descending the north side is borderline misery.  Both sides serpentine pleasantly, not a moment of the climbing is strenuous, and the scenery is consistently charming and human-free (in April—see above).   A very pretty little ride.

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Distance: 61 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 5860 ft

(A Best of the Best ride)

This is a fairly big, pretty ride through two lush valleys and over three moderate summits. The cumulative elevation gain is substantial, but except for those three ascents the climbing is pretty mellow.

East Carmel Valley Road is the name of Carmel Valley Road east of Carmel Valley Village.  You could add miles by riding the first 11.5 miles of CVR, starting at Hwy 1, but it’s all 4-lane, fast, aggressive, over-developed, trafficky shoulder riding.  Pretty unpleasant, and, while the scenery is nice, it’s nothing compared to what’s on our route.  East of the Village the valley narrows, the valley walls steepen, the traffic lessens and slows down, the people thin out, the foliage gets denser, wetter, and prettier, and the road dwindles until it’s finally a centerline-less, shoulderless back road of exceptional beauty and charm.  The road surface varies from good to poor, often poor enough to be a hamper on your riding pleasure.

Traffic is an issue here.  Traffic isn’t heavy (3 cars/mile perhaps on a Friday afternoon in spring), but local drivers are hostile and impatient.  Sightlines and passing lanes are poor and there’s no shoulder.  So timing is everything.  The last time I did the ride, on a beautiful Sunday midday in spring, I saw 1 car in 15 miles.  Traffic lightens the further east you go, and, as always, the worst time for traffic seems to be 4-5 pm.

Cachagua Road (which means “place of grass” in—you guessed it—Mapudungun) is an alternate to 12 miles of CVR which takes off from it, crosses into the parallel valley to the south, rides along the valley, then climbs and descends the tall ridge that now separates the two valleys and returns to CVR.  It’s as pretty as CVR at CVR’s best, it’s quieter, smaller, and windier, and the road surface is better, so you definitely want to take it unless you’re tired and want to get home as easily as possible.  It adds about 4 miles and one substantial climb to the route.

Calvin, in the comments below, makes the point that there are no water sources on this ride.  So you’re looking at a long day without a refill.  You may have to drop a water bottle at the Tassajara Rd. intersection or knock on some doors.  Except for the leg from the summit to Arroyo Seco, the entire route is largely in forested shadow, however.
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Distance:  34-mile loop
Elevation gain: 3560 ft 

A Best of the Best ride

(As of 5/24, Mt. Charlie is closed due to a landslide and will probably be under repair for a few years. See Lisa’s comment below.  jr)

This is a fairly big, kitchen-sink sort of ride designed to bag five of Santa Cruz’s prime cycling roads, one of which is the area’s only high-speed luge descent and one of my favorite descents anywhere. The route can easily be chopped into smaller pieces in lots of ways.   It’s all up and down, like most of Santa Cruz riding, and it has some steep moments, but those moments never last.  My computer recorded 4000 ft of gain in 34 miles, which is a lot, but you’ll wonder where the 4000 ft are coming from—it doesn’t feel that bad.  The route sports incredible variety—the road contour changes every 25-50 yards—and it’s almost all stunningly gorgeous.

Most of this route has houses but not much else, so if you want to reprovision and don’t like knocking on strangers’ doors, there are stores halfway down Summit Rd. and at the intersection of Soquel-San Jose Rd. and Laurel Glen Rd. (and of course in Scott’s Valley).

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