Distance: 71-mile out and back
Elevation gain: 4820 ft

This ride has one spectacular virtue: isolation. If you like riding where there are no cars, no cyclists, no signs, no fences, no mailboxes—just nature—this is your ride. It’s very good riding, with fine scenery, a nice road surface, and nice road contour, but there are other Oregon rides in Bestrides just as good or better in those regards. But on no other Oregon ride will you be so alone. In three days of riding these roads—on weekends no less—I saw zero bikes and only a handful of cars. And, while there may be rides in California with similar isolation, the road surface will almost certainly be poor. Only in Oregon do they see fit to keep the surfaces of roads no one uses so pristine.

71 miles is a lot of miles, so we’ll talk later about cutting it down, but it’s all good stuff and I wanted to tell you it’s there because no one seems to know about it. In fact, the route connects with a remarkable number of attractive roads, so adding on miles is highly recommended, if you’re an ironman or you have another day to spend in the area (see Adding Miles). If you plan to shorten the route, the riding goes from good to better to best, so I’ll encourage you to cut from the Wimer end.

Despite the mileage, the ride isn’t all that hard. The elevation gain, only a little over half our 100 ft/mile benchmark for difficulty, doesn’t lie. You’ll climb noticeably 4 times on the ride, a 2-mile climb and a 1-mile climb on the way out and a 4-mile climb and a 1-mile climb on the way back, all of it moderately pitched (5-7%). The rest of the route is imperceptible climbing or descending, just enough to avoid flat/boring.

This is southern Central Oregon, which is pretty dry, so the woods don’t have the rainforest lushness of the rides on the coast or around Cottage Grove. No ferns, no mossy maples, no riparian alders. But still very pretty, I promise—like the other Bestrides rides around Ashland and Grants Pass.

A lot of people don’t like out and backs, and those people will immediately start thinking about making this ride a loop. Indeed, at the turn-around you could continue west on Upper Cow Creek Rd. and ride to Azalea, a little community on Hwy 5, but from there finding an alternate route back to the trailhead in Wimer is a big ask—you’re going to end up riding an enormous number of miles. So I’m leaving the ride as an out and back—if you find a workable loop route, let me know. At the top of our route, you could ride Upper Cow Creek Rd. east (to the R) and turn R on Applegate Creek Rd., which will drop you back at the top of W. Fork Evans Creek Rd., but it’s all dirt.

(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.”)

Our route starts at the unprepossessing intersection of East Evans Creek Rd. and Covered Bridge Road, 1/2 mile from the tiny town of Wimer, which is nothing more than a classic country grocery store and a very few houses. Ride Covered Bridge Road to Wimer so that you can have the pleasure of stumbling upon and riding through “the old covered bridge” (it says that right on it) just before town. Parking at our starting place is difficult, so if it’s more than you want to contend with, or you’re sick of riding through Oregon covered bridges (hard to imagine), drive to Wimer and park in the large dirt parking spot across the street from the grocery store. You’ll cut a mile off our route if you do. While in Wimer, now or after the ride, check out the grocery store, which is pleasant and friendly and has a sign reading, with tongue firmly in cheek, “Best hamburger in Wimer.”

From Wimer, ride East Evans Creek Rd. east to mile 11.3, which is the intersection of EECR and West Fork Evans Creek Road. EECR is the most domesticated and built-up leg of the ride. It’s a pleasant meander through woods and unpretentious farms, and you should see a vehicle every couple of miles. Most of them will say “Joe’s Stump Removal,” “Bill’s Horse Shoeing,” or something equally rural on them.

At the intersection go L (the only possible way) onto West Fork Evans Creek Road. The only sign at the intersection reads “Elderberry Flat Recreation Site” and “Cow Creek.” Now things get good. The traffic should drop away to almost nothing—both times I rode it I saw 4 cars, and they were all in the first couple of miles. After those first couple of miles, all signs of human interference, except for the road itself, vanish—no fences, no power poles, no driveways, no mailboxes, no “No trespassing” signs, and, except for one sign marking the Elderberry Flat campground, no road signs at all. Perhaps because of this, someone has painted large mileage markers every half mile in the middle of the road, so it’s easy to know where you are and when it’s time to turn back if you’re out for a short day.

The riding itself is lovely, for 14 miles an almost imperceptible climb you can do all day without effort, through pretty woods and with a pleasantly varied road contour. At mile 14 (Mile 27.5 on the total tripometer) you hit the first real climb, 2 miles of moderate up that take you to Mile 16, where a number of things happen:

The mile markers stop.
You hit a major intersection, with no fewer that 5 roads heading off in various directions.
You continue straight onward, staying on the obvious main road (despite some maps making it look like you take a fork to the R).
The road changes its name (with no signage, of course) to Snow Creek Rd. The first and only time you will see this name used is on the road sign where SCR dead-ends into Upper Cow Creek Road.
If you ride down SCR 20 ft and turn around, you’ll see a sign (OK there are 2 signs on the route) reading “W. Fk. Evans Cr.”
The riding instantly gets better.

Snow Creek Rd. is smaller, prettier, curvier, and even more isolated that what you’ve already done. As in, if you meet any vehicles at all it’s newsworthy. I saw none. I met so many deer hanging out on the road I had to shoo them away like mosquitos. The road surface is a notch less fine that WFECR, which is basically perfect, but it’s still totally rideable. A truly special stretch of road.

When SCR dead-ends at Upper Cow Creek Rd., notice the road sign telling you you were in fact on Snow Creek Rd. all along, turn around, and ride home.

Shortening the ride: Since the best stuff is at the north end of the route, there are two ways to cut down the mileage and still ride the good stuff: 1) start at the intersection of East Evans Creek Rd. and W. Fork Evans Creek Rd.—that shaves off 22.5 miles; 2) start at the intersection of Upper Cow Creek Rd. and Snow Creek Rd. and ride south as far as you want, then turn around. SCR is 8 miles long, so you can do it out and back, plus as much of W. Fork as suits you.

Adding miles: The roads around this route offer a superfluity of riches:

1. East Evans Creek Rd. continues for a few good miles beyond the W. Fork intersection before the pavement ends.
2. Sykes Creek Rd. is paved for 3.4 miles, all pleasant moderate climbing through partially built-up woods.
3. Mays Rd. is only paved for 1 mile.
4. Six miles up W. Fork from East Evans Creek Rd., Rock Creek Rd. forks off to the R and climbs at a challenging rate for 6 miles of pavement—a real adventure, very narrow, with a less groomed road surface. This gets my vote as the add-on to ride first. As always, there is no sign, but someone have helpfully written “Rock” across the road at the fork.

Distance: 35-mile lollipop
Elevation gain: 1980 ft

The network of roads southwest of Eugene is an amazing cycling resource. Anywhere south of Hwy 126, west of Hwy 5, almost every road is good riding. 

It’s all pretty much the same sort of thing: rolling gently through open, postcard-pretty meadows and ranch-dotted valleys, along wooded streams, and over mellow hills, on moderate-sized, relatively untrafficked roads with excellent pavement. Not an ugly mile to be found. No killer climbs. Few busy highways to avoid. Courteous drivers. No litter. No broken glass. No drama.

It’s all so pleasant, and all so the same, it’s almost a waste of time to designate a particular route. But not quite. Some roads are duller than others. Some are busier. So here’s a lollipop that I consider the cream of the area’s roads, excluding Siuslaw River Road, which is on a whole other, higher, plane and which you should ride first.

It’s an easy ride—check that elevation gain-to-distance ratio. You will climb twice—a moderate, extended climb on Mcbeth Rd. and a short, easy climb up Briggs Hill Rd., which is a climb-and-descend inverted V. Not surprisingly, you also get two noticeable descents, a ripping descent on Fox Hollow Rd. and a very short drop on the back side of the Briggs Hill summit.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/40648029

(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.”)

Begin in the tiny town of Lorane, which is a quaint country grocery store and a few houses. It’s also the start/end point of the Siuslaw River Rd. ride and the Cottage Grove-Lorane Rd. ride (in the Adding Miles section of the Siuslaw ride), which means you can do one of the three rides, then roll without interruption into either of the other two, or both.

Ride north on Territorial Hwy, which sounds like a grand thoroughfare but is in fact a small two-lane without shoulder. It’s the main north-south artery for travel west of Hwy 5, so some people find it too trafficky, but I’ve never had a problem and the contour is very sweet. Ride to the 3-way intersection called Gillespie Corners (actually signed that way on the other road, Lorane Hwy) and continue straight on to Briggs Hill Rd. on your R.

There are two kinds of terrain in this area, rolling, open farm/grassland and wooded hill, and this leg from Gillespie to Briggs is the former. Briggs Hill Rd. is the latter—a tidy, almost manicured road up to a small summit and down the other side through vineyards and pretty woods.

Turn R on Spencer Creek Rd., which is all more open grassland and the nearest thing to boring on the route. The next intersection is confusing because both roads change their names there—the crossing road is Bailey Hill Rd. to your L and Lorane Highway to your R, and straight ahead Spencer Creek becomes Lorane Hwy—but it doesn’t matter because I don’t think there’s any signage there anyway. Go straight onto Lorane, and turn R. on McBeth.

McBeth and Fox Hollow are my favorite part of the ride and the most exciting. McBeth is almost entirely up, 2+ miles of pretty woods and moderate climbing (5-7%) that you will notice. When McBeth dead-ends, take Fox Hollow Rd. to the R and discover an unexpectedly exhilarating descent as you give back all the elevation you gained on McBeth, then descend mildly to Lorane Hwy. Take Lorane to the L. back to Gillespie Corners. This leg is typically fairly busy shoulder riding, but it’s short and mostly a gentle downhill and it goes by what I think is the prettiest meadow in the area.

At Gillespie go L and retrace your steps back to Lorane.

Shortening the ride: Omit the lollipop stem. Super-short: Ride McBeth/Fox Hollow as an out-and-back.

Adding Miles: Obviously, do Siuslaw River Rd.,which begins where our ride ends. The Adding Miles section of that ride has extensive suggestions for additional riding in the area. The handiest of them: Cottage Grove-Lorane Road is a sweet jog that also begins in Lorane, where our ride ends.

Distance: 55.5-mile out-and-back
Elevation gain: 5680 ft

A couple of people wrote to me about the Quartzville Road ride saying, “You stop the ride just when it starts to get good.” So I checked it out. My judgment: Yes and no.

Beyond the Yellowbottom campground, which is the turn-around point of the Quartzville ride, the road changes dramatically, and which ride you prefer depends on what you like and what mood you’re in. The new ride is on a road that’s smaller, less developed, less lush (but still pretty), much more isolated (3 cars in 32 miles), and much more up and down. Usually that’s exactly Bestrides’ cup of tea, but there is one downside: the road contour. For a skinny mountain road, it’s surprisingly straight—so straight that both the climbing and the descending lack a certain drama. So, because it’s prettier and swoopier, I’d still do Quartzville first. But this one’s very good too.

First, a disclaimer: I only rode to the summit and back, 16 miles each way. But I’m assured the rest of the road is also good, so I’ve mapped it all and am recommending it all.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/37770927

Begin at Yellowbottom campground. There is plenty of turn-out parking along the road. At the large “Yellowbottom” sign on the creek side of the road is a pretty little trail that will take you down to the water—either a little falls or a large swimming hole just downstream—if you want to cool off after the ride.

The first mile or two of the route is exactly like the road you just drove on to get there, a wide, developed two-lane road through gorgeous Oregon canopy. Soon you cross a large bridge over the creek and the road forks, both forks looking equally good, just like Robert Frost said they would. Go R, onto FS 11 (it’s signed).

Somebody doesn’t want anyone using FS 11, because there is a fair amount of “All hope abandon”-type signage, all of it lies. First a sign reading “One lane with turn-outs.” Not really. There is no centerline, but the road is plenty wide enough for two cars. The next sign reads “Rough road ahead 25 miles.” I guess Oregonians are a pampered lot. In fact, the surface is flawless save a few cracks here and there, which run lengthways on the road and are easily avoided. Any road with a surface this good in Butte or Sonoma County would be celebrated in story and song. Then you get to a spot where someone has written “BAD BUMP” on the roadway. It marks a pimple in the road so minor you would never notice it if someone hadn’t drawn your attention to it. Don’t let any of this deter you—it’s a sweet, smooth, unthreatening ride, at least as far as I got. Streetview suggests things may get a little more frayed further down the road, but still nothing worrisome.

At first the surrounding foliage is just like Quartzville Road—stunning mossy maple forest, with a nice, noisy creek beside you whose constant rush is guaranteed to mellow out your wa. But as you climb above the creek the landscape gets drier and you’re into alders, ferny walls, and rocky outcroppings—pretty, but different. Finally near the summit you’re in the solid green of conifers (less interesting).

There is some weird stuff on this road. For instance, there are mileage markers painted neatly on the route, but they were done by someone who was insane, had OCD, or had an agenda invisible to me, because they mark mileages like “24.76” and “32.99” (see photo). Almost never are they round numbers. Sometimes the markings are 1/100th or 2/100ths of a mile apart, so you’ll get to answer that question that plagues all cyclists: What’s your time in the 1/100th-of-a-mile sprint?

Weirder still, at one of the many bridges crossing the creek you’re following you’ll see what appears to be a section of freeway, cast aside and lying on the far bank of the creek (see photo). Anyone who has any idea what it’s doing there, or how it got there, let me know.

Just before the summit (at mile 15.6 for me), there’s an unexpect-ed fork with no signage at all and each branch looking equally good. It’s only a momentary worry—the R fork turns to gravel almost immediately, so go L.

If you go to the intersection with Hwy 22 you’ll probably want to ride north on Hwy 22 the few miles to Marion Forks to resupply for the ride back. 

Mapmyride’s elevation profile is useless. Be sure to use RWGPS’s to plan your workout. The first miles are almost flat, climbing at a pitch so mellow that when the first stair steps, around 5%, appear you welcome them as a diversion. But the steps get steeper and longer, until the final 6 miles are work, with regular pitches of 7-8%.

Shortening the route: Ride to the summit, as I did. If you want still shorter, ride until the scenery or pitch fails to please and turn around. It’s only going to get harder.

Adding miles: Ride Quartzville Road, the ride this is a continuation of.

Distance: 35 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 2010 ft

(A Best of the Best ride)

(This ride is discussed as part of a much larger loop in Jim Moore’s 75 Classic Rides Oregon: the Best Road Biking Routes from Mountaineers Books.)

I talk about the network of roads southwest of Eugene in the Briggs Hill Road/McBeth Road ride, which represents the area. It’s all very nice, but not much in the way of a “Wow!” factor. If you want something more intense, ride Siuslaw River Road. Bestrides actually has another ride on the same river, North Fork Siuslaw Road, but that one’s on the coast where the river, now much larger, meets the sea. This one is inland, near Hwy 5. Whereas the rest of the area is merely fine, Siuslaw River Road is great. It’s through a canopied riparian cedar/mossy maple/fern forest that is as pretty as anything Oregon has to offer, which means as pretty as Earth gets. I think you’ll see two houses. The road surface is glass. The contour for the first 12 miles of the ride is not-quite-flat—constantly rising and falling at 1-3%—and always meandering back and forth, so it offers constant effortless variety. The contour for the next 5.5 miles is a series of 0.5-1.0-mile climbs and descents, 5-7%, never seriously taxing or lasting long enough to lose the novelty. The descents are just at that pitch where you can carry some speed without having to ride the brakes, and the curves are sweetly shaped so you feel like a champ. There is no traffic—on my last ride, midday on a Tuesday in August, on the ride out I encountered 0 vehicles (3 on the way back). A basically perfect ride. And you are in total control of the work load: since all the work is in the second half of the route, if you’re on a recovery day you can simply turn around when the climbing starts.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/37188383

(RidewithGPS’s elevation profile is more revealing.)

Begin in Lorane, which is an intersection with a convenience store. Ride Siuslaw (pronounced “sigh-OOH-slaw”) River Road (always signed Siuslaw Road, but called SRR on maps) to its intersection with Wolf Creek Road, then ride back.

The miles from Lorane to Letz Creek Rd are merely good, and if you are only interested in out-standing you can skip them. The name of the road is easy to remember: “Shall we skip the first few miles?” “Letz!”

The first miles of the route meander along the river, but it’s a river in name only—it’s a big stream where it meets the sea but here it’s a mere trickle in late summer. The water itself isn’t especially pretty, and you can almost not see it even though it’s right beside you. The foliage varies from good to breath-taking, from Forest Primeval to clear-cuts and tree farms. Sun lights up the maples, which is nice, but I’ve done the ride in overcast and it’s still stunning.

You ride past Fire Rd., which made me wonder if there was a road named Logging Rd. or Dirt Rd. nearby. A short way into the ride you pass the turn-off to Siuslaw Falls County Park (clearly signed). The falls are lame—just water passing over a low shelf—but the half-mile ride in is pretty and fun.

After you hit the first real hill it’s pretty constantly up and down to the turn-around. The workload isn’t burdensome—2010 ft of gain in 35 miles isn’t nothing but it isn’t a lot. After the climbing starts, the woods dry out (because you’ve left the riparian ecosystem) and you hit clearcutting, so it’s much less pretty, but continue, because the woods return in the last couple of miles before the turn-around and they’re exceptionally beautiful.

Shortening the route: Start at Letz Creek Road. This saves 10 miles of pleasant but fairly domesticated riding. There is no turn-out on Siuslaw River Rd. near the intersection but there is shoulder parking on LCR if you look for it.

Adding miles: Literally, just go anywhere. Siuslaw River Road continues west from our turn-around, all the way to Hwy 126, which was a traffic nightmare the last time I saw it. At our turn-around point you’re actually on the route of our Gardiner to Eugene ride, which will let you ride west all the way to the sea if you ride it backwards. To the east, from our starting point in Lorane you can ride Cottage Grove-Lorane Road, 12 miles (24 miles out and back) of sweet Oregonian farms and woods with a noticeable but not hard hill in the middle (thanks, Andrew). It’s bigger, more developed, and busier than some other roads in the area but well worth riding nonetheless.

Wolf Creek Road heads north back into the Southwest o’ Eugene road network from our turn-around, so take it if you’re looking for a loop. The obvious loop is Wolf Creek to Territorial Hwy back to Lorane. If you’ve got more legs, keep going north when Wolf Creek dead-ends at Territorial Hwy by jogging over to Crow and working your way east by any number of routes, then come south on Lorane Hwy.

I actually don’t recommend that you follow that route, because I think Wolf Creek, Crow, and the roads immediately surrounding them are fairly dull. Instead, I recommend you ride Siuslaw Rd. out and back, then follow this prettier route from Lorane north:

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/37235967

Whatever your route, try to incorporate McBeth Rd. and Fox Hollow Rd. north to south, a beautiful climb (up McBeth) and ripping descent (down Fox Hollow) that will be the high point of your loop.

Distance: 49 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 6640 ft

This ride is very much a matter of taste. It may be one of your favorite rides, ever. You may hate it. It all depends on how much you value isolation, pristine forest, sketchy road surface, and serious elevation gain. It’s one of the hardest rides in Bestrides—roughly 12 miles of tough climbing, not counting the rollers, and a total vert of 6640 ft.

This ride is for people who like to get off the grid. As in, no cell service. No road signs, at all, of any kind. No people, no buildings, no fences, no foot paths, no trail heads, no no trespassing signs, no private property signs, not even turn-outs. I encountered vehicles 4 times in 48 miles. If it weren’t for the pavement under you, you’d swear no one had ever been there. Needless to say, there is no opportunity for reprovisioning. So be self-sufficient, and tell someone where you’re riding.

It’s 48 miles of basically one-lane road through dense woods varying from pretty to stunning, punctuated by a couple of clear-cuts you will welcome for the vistas they provide. The pavement is OK to poor—never terrible but always noticeable—which is the ride’s Achilles heel. Expect to ride slowly, savoring the solitude and the beauty and picking your way around the problem spots. It’s not a pain at slow speeds, but you can’t bomb the descents. This isn’t a “whee” sort of ride. You need a hiking mentality.

And remember, Oregon back back roads are there to facilitate logging. Oregon didn’t get the memo about how the logging industry is dead. There is the occasional clear-cut on this ride, and those clear-cut logs have to get down that road somehow. They are either actively logging in the area or they aren’t. They weren’t when I was there, and the place was as unpopulated as the moon. If they are logging, obviously it’s different.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/37797013

Even finding the ride is an adventure. Drive to the intersection of Coos Bay Wagon Road (see, it’s adventuresome already) and Reston Rd. Continue west on CBWR for 1.5 miles to the first paved road to the R, which has no signage at all—not even a forest service number. That is Burnt Mountain Road. It will change its name halfway through the ride to Burnt Ridge Road, but it won’t matter because there are no signs. But there is only one paved road and you can’t get lost (ignore the route “option” in the map–it’s a glitch).

The profile is simple: you begin by climbing vigorously for 4 miles. If you don’t, you’re on the wrong road. From a kind of summit you roll up and down to about mile 12 and another kind of summit. You might well consider turning around here, which would give you 24 miles and a noticeable workout, because if you continue, the climb back up is major. But if you turn around you will miss the high point of the ride: the idyllic 6 miles along Tioga Creek.

Continuing on from Mile 12, you descend steeply to mile 19, where the road forks, the L fork crosses a small but unmissable bridge and the R fork (completely unsigned, of course) follows Tioga Creek (unmarked) for six of the sweetest, most beautiful miles I’ve ever done on a bike, at the end of which the pavement ends and you T into South Coos River Road. SCRR looks sweet on the map but it is in fact private lumber company property with large No Trespassing signs (the only signs on the ride) and it has a road surface that is particularly gnarly gravel you wouldn’t want to ride even on a gravel bike. So ride to SCRR, then return to Burnt Ridge Road.

Tioga Creek Road is basically flat, which is good because you’re looking at about 8 miles of significantly hard climbing back to the top. The only way to avoid it is to cross the bridge when you get back to it and continue on Burnt Ridge and make a loop of it, riding Middle Creek Road (which BCR becomes) to McKinley, then riding through Dora and Sitkum on what finally becomes Coos Bay Wagon Road and back to your car. It’s only a bit longer and more climbing that going out and back (63 miles, 7125 ft.), but I haven’t seen it. Assuming you’re following my route, do the climb, enjoy the rollers, and descent the last 4 miles to your car. Remember, don’t expect the descent to be exhilarating.

Adding Miles: You could spend a summer riding the good roads in this area of Oregon, none of which I’ve done yet. The obvious addition is the loop described in the ride description above. Beyond that, this area is simply thick with delicious-looking small roads. Every tiny town—McKinley, Gravelford, Dora, Fairview, Myrtle Point—has two or three back roads heading out of it and begging to be explored.

The land west of Roseburg and Winston offers the usual endless miles of PPO (Perfectly Pleasant Oregon) riding—just pick any road that looks small and non-straight on the map.

Distance: 21 miles out and back
Elevation gain:3860 ft

This is a pure climb—10 miles up, 10 miles down—whose prime virtue is the spectacular view of the Willamette Valley at the top. The climbing is mostly moderate and steady, and the descent is fast and tons of fun without white-knuckle thrills, so it’s a great ride if you’re timid about descending at speed but want to give it a try. The first 8 miles are in that gorgeous west Oregon forest I love.

It’s a lot like the McKenzie Pass ride, so how do they compare? McKenzie is longer, the forest is lusher, the view at the top of McKenzie is level moonscape whereas the view at the top of Marys is valley far beneath you, Marys has less traffic, the McKenzie descent is curvier, better banked, and more thrilling. McKenzie is one of the best rides in the world, whereas MPR is merely excellent.

Since a large part of the appeal here is the vista from the summit, try to do the ride on a day with clear weather or high cloud cover only.

This road is favored by sports cars playing race car on weekends. There’s plenty of room, so they won’t endanger you. Riding on a weekday should cut down on the sports cars but may just trade one irritant for another—on my Saturday ride there were no trucks but signs of active logging (in August, 2019). As I say, there is room.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/37941072

There is a serious question about where to start this ride. If you ride from Philomath (fuh LO muth) on Hwy 34, the scenery is excellent and the two miles before the Alsea Mountain Summit, where Marys Peak Rd starts, are fabulous—challenging, steep esses through forest prettier than MPR itself. The only drawback is traffic—Hwy 34 can be very busy, there is no shoulder, there are no sight lines, and there is no room for you at all. Unless you can catch the road at a time of slack traffic, it’s unpleasant and dangerous. Without cars, it’s a dream, especially descending. When I was there, on a summer Saturday, at noon the road was constant cars; at 5:30 it was deserted. It’s your call. Because I can’t guarantee your safety, I’ve mapped the ride from Alsea Mt. Summit. I wouldn’t ride up to Alsea Mt. Summit from the south side—it’s a pedestrian slog.

Park at the beginning of Marys (no apostrophe) Peak Road. There is a nice paved parking area. You get a half mile of mild climbing before the work starts, but if you need more warm-up you’ll have to ride back and forth on Hwy 34 around the summit and on the first half mile of Marys, because everything else is steeply up and down.

Soon the road tips up, and it stays fairly steep for the next 2.5 miles—around 8%, with moments of 10-12%. It’s just across the line between fun and work, and it’s the steepest leg of the ride. When you reach an unexpected mile of quick descending, the hard work is over and it’s moderate to the summit. The pitch is unvaried and the road surface is a bit chattery throughout—not broken surface or chip seal, just cheap road building. Enough to reward bigger tires or lower tire pressure.

As you ascend, appreciate how the microclimate keeps changing. You move through belts of madrone, alder, fireweed, foxglove, and, near the top, a big, imposing pine we don’t see in California.

Around 8 miles in the forest starts to thin out. You pass through a small saddle and get the first panoramic vista, a stunning view of the land to the south (on your R—see photo below). Don’t assume it will get better, because this is the only view to the south you will get on the ride. The view from the end of the road looks east.

Continue to the top, which is a parking lot with picnic tables, outhouses, and hiking trailheads. The view to the east is one of the grandest in my experience. You can see 50 miles or more. It’s on a par with the grandest vistas in Bestrides: Mt. Tamalpais, Mt. Constitution (in the Washington section of Rides by Region), and the Golden Gate Bridge ride. To the south of the parking lot is a small hill blocking your view to the south, so to see the entire panorama you’ll have to do a little hike, easy if you’ve brought walking shoes and a bike lock.

The descent is fast, bendy, and fun without ever being scary or technical. You’ll do little braking, even though you’ll be doing 30+ mph much of the time, because the pitch is never extreme and the curves are big and gentle, and the road is roomy enough that traffic is never a concern. In short, a piece of cake. The chattery road surface is the only slight damper on your pleasure.

Shortening the route: Since the goal here is the vista from the summit, start as far up the road as will allow you to get to the top.

Adding miles: As discussed in the ride description, Hwy 34, which goes by the foot of Marys Peak Road, is a long, dull ascent/descent on the south side and a marvelous but dangerously trafficky serpentine on the north side. A few miles to the south via 34 is the turn-around point of our Alpine to Alsea ride. The Corvallis area offers endless PPO riding (Perfectly Pleasant Oregon) among the farms and ranches along the edge of the Willamette Valley.

Distance: 29-mile loop
Elevation gain: 2670 ft

This ride may not be for everyone.   It’s a rough and tough little loop with one hard climb, pavement that is consistently poor, a descent so steep you have to brake constantly, and 15 miles of shoulder riding.  It’s more work than the elevation numbers suggest, because most of the 2670 ft of gain is in one 3-mile climb, and the lone descent is so jarring that it beats you up.  Still, it has its merits.  The back road half is often beautifully wooded, the isolation is remarkable (on my last ride, a lovely midday in August, I saw one human being of any sort from the beginning of Shotgun Creek Road to Brush Creek Road), and even the shoulder riding is through lovely scenery.  At points the road is so narrow and the solitude so extreme that you’re as close to trail hiking as you can get on a road bike.  So it’s a ride where it’s less about the riding and more about being in this extraordinary place.  It’s a good ride for a gravel bike, because the fat tires will smooth out the road surface and the disc brakes will make the descent less stressful.

Navigation is in one sense easy, because there are few ways to go wrong, but in another sense challenging because there’s no cell service (so no Googlemaps) and several unmarked forks, and many of the roads are unnamed or confusingly named on maps.  So I’m going to be particularly specific about directions.  Of all the maps I’ve seen, RidewithGPS is by far the clearest as to road names, and I’ll be referring to it in my ride directions.

The Shotgun Creek area is a hotbed of OHV recreation.  You’ll see signs and staging areas from the beginning of Shotgun Creek Rd. all the way to the Seely Creek Rd. summit, including signs reading “Watch for OHV traffic on the road.”  I have done this ride twice and never seen an OHV, perhaps because the area is closed to OHV’s during times of high fire danger.  If you’re doing this ride any time but late summer, I’d find out if the OHV’s are active first.  There’s a ranger station in Marcola that can tell you.

I continue to wonder if the ride would be better counter-clockwise.  RidewithGPS says the big climb is even steeper that way, but there would be two benefits: you’d be experiencing the best of the woods at a slower speed, so you could appreciate them more; and you’d have the swimming hole at the Rec Area nearly at the end of the ride, when you could use it.

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Distance: c. 45 miles out and back
Elevation gain: c. 2830 ft

This is another ride leaving Hwy 101 and following an Oregon river upstream.  It’s different from our others (Gardiner to Eugene, Elk River Road) because the North Fork of the Siuslaw River is big, and the land around it is that wide, open flat marsh/meadow unique to big Oregon river mouths.  So for the first half of the ride you aren’t in forest or canopy—you’re in full sun, with trees on your L and the marsh/meadow on your R.  After 12 miles, you leave the river and the ride becomes conventional, lovely western  coastal Oregon forest.  Like our other Oregon coastal river routes, it’s an easy ride—in the first 12 miles you’ll climb 350 ft.  Not a life-changing ride but a very pleasant,  charming day on the bike.

By the way, Bestrides has another ride on the same river, but way upstream on another fork: the Siuslaw River Road ride.

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Distance:38 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 1790 ft

This, like many of the Oregon rides, was suggested by Friend of Bestrides Don.

Is there such a thing as a perfect ride?  Elk River Road is as close as it gets—a beautiful, essentially flat out-and-back roll through my beloved Southwest Oregon coastal rain forest on a good road surface with little traffic and just enough pitch to make the return ride a brisk romp.  Add a spritely rock creek along the entire length, an optional ride to a lighthouse for character, and free snacks in the form of wild blackberries.  Most of the road is on National Forest land, and the road turns to dirt at our turn-around point, which means there aren’t many people up there except campers in the undeveloped campsites along the road.  Once into the Forest, I met 5 cars on the ride in (in 12 miles), on a lovely August Saturday at midday.  The only drawback is…nope, can’t think of any.

This ride is a lot like the first 40 miles of our Gardener to Eugene ride—both gorgeous, canopied forest on a basically flat road along a pretty river—so which should you do if you can’t do both?  GTE is longer, it’s flatter (so there’s no sense of downhill if you ride back downstream) and straighter, it doesn’t turn to dirt (so you can through-ride it), it’s not in National Forest so it’s a little more developed, and the scenery has less variety.  The Elk River canyon is narrower and steeper, and thus the river does more tumbling that the Smith does.  Overall, Elk River Rd is a more dramatic, more intense ride.

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Distance: 52 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 6490 ft

A longer version of this ride is expertly covered in Jim Moore’s 75 Classic Rides Oregon (see the “Oregon” section in Rides by Region).

The Dorena Lake/Cottage Grove area is one of the richest troves of cycling roads in Oregon.  You could spend a couple of weeks here and ride a different good road every day.  See Adding Miles for suggestions.  This ride and our Siuslaw River Road ride are  the best of them.

Our route is the west half of the big, legendary climb and descent from Dorena Lake to Oakridge.  It’s a great ride all the way to Oakridge, if you can figure out a way back (iron men ride to Oakridge and back in a day, exactly 100 miles), but this route just goes to the summit and returns.  It’s the prettier (lusher) side of the divide.  The appeal here is scenery: some of Oregon’s prettiest rainforest, and a very pretty creek alongside you much of the way.

This route used to be plagued by gravel sections and tricky to navigate, but both problems are history—I saw one short gravel section, and it’s impossible to get lost if you stay on the pavement.  That being said, the upper reaches of this ride are remote and wooly, so come prepared for solitude and self-sufficiency, especially on a weekday.

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