Distance:  18 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 1140 ft

At last count there were 2,347 roads on the West Coast named Mill Creek Road. Bestrides has three: this one, Mill Creek Road #2 by Fremont, and the Wine Country one in the Adding Miles section of the Pine Flat Road ride.   All three are super-sweet little rides.

This one is Just down the road from Lassen Park, in Mineral, CA.  It’s a thoroughly charming back road that in 9 miles manages to pack in a lovely mountain meadow, a mild 1-mile climb through piney woods, a 2-mile slaloming descent that’s as sweet as cotton candy, and a flat ride along a creek.  Then you get to do all those things in reverse.  The climbing is consistently 5%-ish, just steep enough to make you say, “Wow, I’m climbing strong today!,” the scenery is prime throughout, the road surface is glass, and there is no traffic.  I’m not making this up.  Midway there’s a classic mountain store, like something straight out of Jeremiah Johnson.

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Distance: 56 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 5180 ft

A Best of the Best ride

(Note: In 2021 the Dixie Fire burned much of the park east of the main road.  Damage was severe.)

This is a typical National Park ride—one and only one paved road, running straight through the heart of the park, and it’s grand and expansive and mighty.  Lassen Peak itself isn’t postcard pretty like Shasta or Hood, and the scenery isn’t as in-your-face stunning as Yosemite or the Grand Canyon, but it’s one of my favorite California rides.  The road contour is excellent, the surface is nearly flawless, and great vistas are around every corner.  And since it lacks the roadside waterfalls and dramatic chasms, it’s one of the least-attended of our National Parks, so the traffic can be downright light on a weekday or in spring or fall.   There is no flat here, so you’ll be climbing for 28 miles, but it’s all moderate, 4-6% stuff.  Perks include a good Visitor Center at one end of the ride, lots of history, geothermic activity, a nice mountain lake halfway in, and a photogenic pond and store at the turn-around.  Check Afterthoughts for a way to avoid the traffic.

A reader tells me the road has recently been re-chipsealed, which may be good or bad depending on the chipsealing.

Lassen is a National Park, and they charge standard NP fees.  If you have an annual pass or a geezer’s lifetime pass (like me), remember to bring it and photo ID (that’s the part I always forget).   Some rangers don’t charge entrance fees for bikes, but you can’t count on it.

By the way, you don’t get to ride to the top of the mountain.  You ride through a little pass between Lassen and a small bump next to it, 2000 ft below the Lassen summit.

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Distance: 73-mile lollipop
Elevation gain: 5531 ft

This ride samples a network of little roads in an area roughly bounded by Cottonwood CA, Redding, highway 299, Round Mountain, and Shingletown.  I think this route is the best of them.  The scenery is California Valley foothill and low forest, with a nice mountain town at the halfway point, good views of Mt. Shasta, and one bonus feature: 10 miles of the finest rock wall I’ve ever seen.

Most of this route is covered by the Anderson Century and the Lassen Foothills Century (aka the Give Me Wings Century), both excellent introductions to the area.

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Distance: 67 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 5690 ft

(Note: Some of the recent forest fires hit this area hard.  I haven’t visited the area since, so I don’t know how extensive the damage to the ride is.  JR)

This is an out and back from a spot in the middle of a country road to the tiny town/store of Platina (pluh TIE nuh).  So why is it called the Igo-Ono Ride?  Because it goes through the tiny town of Ono, and the tiny town of Igo is one mile off the route, and it’s just tons of fun to say “Igo-Ono.”  “Halfway down Gas Point Road to Platina” just doesn’t have that ring.

I’m very fond of this ride.  It’s a lovely ride with a lot of nice climbing and descending, good vistas, little traffic, three classic country grocery stores (one of them now apparently closed, sadly), several photogenic barns, and not one unrewarding mile.  The only reasons it isn’t in the Best of the Best list is because it lacks that big Selling Point—no redwoods, no world-class descents—and because the road is a trifle wider than I like (big two-lane).

There are no unending climbs, but you will do some work.  It’s not as bad as the elevation total above (5690 ft) suggests, however—in fact I suspect that number is a RidewithGPS glitch.

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Distance:  c. 35 miles, two out-and-backs
Elevation gain: c. 4800 ft

These two climbs and several other good rides in Siskiyou County are mapped at www.CycleSiskiyou.com.

This is the prime 35 miles of the Shasta Summit Century.  It consists of two excellent out-and-back climbs through typical NorCal landscapes, and nothing else.  The two roads are quite different.  The first is a mild ascent and descent through a rocky, open canyon along a tumbling stream.  The second is tougher climbing and faster descending through (mostly) a wall of greenery on both sides.  I prefer the scenery on the first climb and the descent on the second.  Both climbs are mellow pitches, with only one two-mile stretch that flirts with 8%.  Neither climb is actually on Mt. Shasta, by the way—”Mt. Shasta” in our title refers to the town the climbs start from, not the mountain, which is on the other side of town.  There is a road that goes partway up the mountain, but it’s deadly boring riding.

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Distance: 100-mile loop
Elevation gain: 10,570 ft (RWGPS)

(A Best of the Best ride)

This one is special.  It’s almost unknown, so you feel privileged and in on something, and the isolation is nearly absolute.  I found out about it in the best possible way: a friend told me about his favorite, secret ride.  It starts and ends in Etna, a tiny town with vitality, charm, cheap lodging, and its own excellent brewery.  The roads are mostly tiny and deserted—on the return leg of the loop, I rode for two hours before I saw a vehicle.  Yet the road surface is very good.  (I don’t know why—no car ever uses it.)   The scenery is grand California mountain primeval.  One of the 10 best rides in California, without a doubt.  The logistics are tricky, because services are sparse—for more on that, see Route Options later.

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