Distance: 30 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 3170 ft

What is more delicious than discovering a great ride where you thought there was none?  Tepusquet Road, surely one of the better road names in Bestrides, was suggested to me by a Friend of Bestrides who has local knowledge of Santa Maria.  It’s a delightful surprise.  Rising out of the flat, dry, dusty agricultural fields, it climbs easily and steadily up through lush, shady canopies of riparian oaks to a pass, then makes a joyous little descent into the valley on the other side.   Rewards include grand vistas, lots of banked switchbacks, and a ton of solitude.  Not a life-changing ride, but a very good one, made all the more pleasant by how little you were expecting (or did I ruin the surprise now?).

This is an excellent ride for through-riders, because there’s good riding on either end—see Adding Miles below.

Continue reading →

Distance: 44 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 4900 ft

This road goes by several names: the Maricopa Highway, the Jacinto Reyes Scenic Byway, and Highway 33.  The road contour isn’t fascinating.  It’s a “motorcycle road,” designed to be exciting at 60 mph but at 12 mph is fairly tame.  This ride is mostly about the scenery and the solitude.  It’s a remarkably isolated, stark, and rather grand high desert landscape, with varied and striking rock formations and large vistas, land that seems untouched by Man and so harsh that you understand why.

You can do this road several different ways.  You could ride the entire road as an out and back, starting at Meiner’s Oaks on the outskirts of Ojai and turning around at the intersection with Lockwood Valley Rd., giving you a 70-mile day with about 8000 ft of vert—big but doable.   But the southern 13 miles, from Meiner’s Oaks to Rose Valley Rd., are monotonous going up and not particularly exciting going down (about a mile north of Rose Valley Rd. there’s a small overlook where you can see several miles of what you’re in for heading south).   There’s one moment of interest, Wheeler Gorge, a small rock crevasse bisected by two tunnels, that you’ll be missing if you skip it.  You could ride the entire road one way from south to north, which starts the ride with a 30-mile climb and leaves you with the problem of shuttling back to your car.   You could ride the entire road one way from north to south—certainly better than south to north, because it minimizes the climbing and turns the southern 13 miles into a painless downhill—but you still have the shuttle problem.  The best route is the way I’ve mapped it: start at the Ozena Fire Station just south of the Hwy 33/Lockwood Valley Rd. junction, ride to Rose Valley Rd. and turn around.  This gives you all the good scenery, one good, short climb and one good short descent, and a lot of moderate rolling.  Of course this does leave you with the problem of how to get to the intersection of Hwy 33 and Lockwood Valley Rd, so the second best route is my route starting at the southern end, which involves you driving 13 miles from Ojai to Rose Valley Rd. and back.  Every route has its own inconveniences.

Continue reading →

Distance: 53 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 5800 ft (RWGPS)

( A Best of the Best ride)

This route is covered thoroughly in words and pictures at toughascent.com.

(Note: As the notes sent in by readers make clear, this road always seems to be going through a lot of trauma as a result of fires and winter weather.  Its current rideability is always hard to determine.  See MB’s excellent summary of conditions as of 5/24 below, and check https://www.bigsurcalifornia.org/highway_conditions.html for the latest road conditions.  My latest word, as of 11/24, is that the road is finally, fully open.)

This is the best ride in California and Oregon.  It’s a long way from anywhere, so you’re going to have to go out of your way to get to it, and it goes from the middle of nowhere to a blank spot on Hwy 1.  This is all to your advantage, because it means you’ll pretty much have the road to yourself (see update below).

It’s one of those rides where you just ride the road, from its start to its finish, then ride back.  In the process you’ll ride through four distinct ecosystems and experience four distinct kinds of riding, each a perfect example of its type: first, easy rollers through a valley full of golden grass and magnificent oaks, then gentle climbing along a pretty creek as it ascends a small riparian canyon, then vigorous climbing as you leave the creek and ascend to a saddle through oak forest, and finally a steep plunge down a steep, twisting road to Hwy 1 with views of the sea and coastline that are simply astonishing.  The riding on the return is different but just as wonderful: a challenging 7-mile climb up from the ocean, a flat-out slaloming descent, an easy roll along the creek, and finally the oaken valley.  It’s all just perfect—you’ll swear Disney built the course.

Continue reading →

Distance: 43 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 4930 ft

Our Southern California ride list has three rides that are all big, chest-thumping rides up a mighty mountain: Mt. Figueroa, Gibraltar Road, and Glendora Ridge.  Of the three, Glendora Ridge is the most monotonous climb, both in pitch and scenery.    But it also has the best ridge ride, a rollicking roller coaster, often along the precise ridge spine (see photos below).  All three rides are detailed in toughascent.com, and I encourage you to familiarize yourself with his write-ups.

Despite the title, the ride is actually two very different rides, a long steady climb up Glendora Mountain Rd., then a roller along Glendora Ridge Rd. to the ski town of Mt. Baldy.    My computer recorded 5930 ft of vert, which puts it in the same category as Figueroa and Gibraltar, but it felt easier and I’m guessing the pitch is less intense.  Or I was having a very good day.

A word of warning: At the base of Glendora Mountain Rd. there is a sign reading “No Reckless Driving.”  How odd.  Are there roads where reckless driving is welcomed?  I am reminded of one of my favorite signs near my home, “No illegal dumping here.”  But that sign is LA-area code telling you that GMR and GRR are favorite sports car enthusiasts’ proving grounds, where racer wannabe’s come to hone their skills.  When I was there, the place was deserted.  But see Michael H’s comment below.  On a weekend day in fair weather, it might be a bit hairy.

Continue reading →

Distance:  27.5 miles
Elevation gain: 3540 ft

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

Some of this route is covered in words and pictures at toughascent.com.

The Santa Monica Mountains are THE road network for cycling in the LA area (see LesB’s excellent overview in the comments section of this ride and follow its links).  Everything between Hwy 101 in the north, the ocean in the south, and between Deer Creek Rd. to the west and Topanga Canyon Blvd. to the east is worth exploring, except the major through-routes.  If you haven’t been there, it’s pretty much the exact opposite of your LA stereotype—lovely serpentining climbs and descents on small roads largely without car traffic or houses, through wild, rocky, shrubby, narrow, steep canyons.

Most loop routes involve riding a stretch of Hwy 1, the Pacific Coast Highway—you ride the PCH, climb up into the mountains, ride east or west, then descend back to the PCH—but the PCH is surprisingly pleasant.  Sure, it’s a zoo, with masses of traffic both automotive and human, but it’s a “scene,” easy to enjoy, and there’s usually ample room for bikes.  Once you leave the PCH you will climb, often at 7-10%.  The only alternative to steep climbing heading north are the main arteries, Malibu Canyon Road and Topanga Canyon Blvd, and they’re both very busy.  This route is only one of many, but it includes what I think is the best descent in the area, and one of the best on the planet: Tuna Canyon Road (named not for the fish but for the tuna, the fruit of the opuntia cactus, aka prickly pear).

Continue reading →

Distance: 23 miles one way
Elevation gain: 3410 ft

A Best of the Best ride

Our Southern California ride list has three rides that are all big, chest-thumping rides up a mighty mountain: Mt. Figueroa, Gibraltar Road, and Glendora Ridge.  Of the three, Gibraltar is the hardest, feels the biggest, and has the grandest vistas.  Some of my readers call it one of the best rides in California.  I prefer Figueroa, but Gibraltar is mighty.  All three rides are detailed in toughascent.com, and I encourage you to familiarize yourself with his write-ups.

Gibraltar is an iconic ride—a demanding, uninterrupted 9-mile climb up the mountain to a summit, a delightful 2-mile serpentine descent, a 2-mile climb to a lesser summit, and another long descent down the back side.  It’s 3800 ft of gain in 23 miles (Mt. Figueroa has more gain but less gain-per-mile) and one of the toughest climbs I know.  That may be because it’s without rest or variety, and, unless you know the route, you can’t see how much climbing lies ahead, so the climb seems eternal.  You keep thinking it’s over, and it isn’t.  To guard against this, know as you set out that you are going to climb at a moderate-to-challenging pitch for 9 miles, with one short descent near the top that is only a set-up for heartbreak when the climbing comes back.  Despite my caution, this ride has spectacular vistas, good surfaces, some crackerjack descending, and a general sense of epic grandeur.  When you’re done, you’ll feel like you accomplished something.

As with all these Southern California mountain rides, there is no available water on the route (until Painted Cave Road), and it can be very hot in the summer.  Plan accordingly.

A number of readers say they prefer the ride in the opposite direction (clockwise).

Continue reading →

Distance:  28 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 2150 ft

There’s a whole genre of literature that testifies to Man’s need to make for the sea occasionally.  Amen to that.  Especially on a bike.  Not ride along the sea—head straight for it.  Here’s a ride that does that in classic fashion.

This is not a life-changing ride.  You won’t be able to brag to your friends that you bagged it.  It’s just a lovely rolling ride to the beach, with a Sixties throw-back beach community straight out of a Gidget movie, and, some say, the best burger in California, at the end of the road.   It’s all gentle up and down, with one hill in the middle that’s a bit more than that.  The scenery is perfect coastal hill-and-dale, as you ride up a creek drainage, sometimes in the gnarly riparian oaks and sometimes in the grassy hills above them.  The road surface is a bit rough about 1/3 of the time, but nothing to spoil the mood.   Not a “big” ride but a jewel.

Word has it that Jalama is scheduled for resurfacing soon (written on 5/17), so a) the surface problems may be a thing of the past, and b) you may run into road work.

Continue reading →

Distance: 40-mile loop
Elevation gain: 4690

(A Best of the Best ride)

(Note 4/23: a friend tells me Figueroa is temporarily closed due to winter-weather damage.)

Our Southern California ride list has three rides that are all big, chest-thumping rides up a mighty mountain: Mt. Figueroa, Gibraltar Road, and Glendora Ridge.  Of the three, Figueroa is the prettiest, by a long shot.  All three are detailed in toughascent.com, and I encourage you to familiarize yourself with his write-ups.  I find it’s helpful on big climbs like these to know exactly what lies ahead, so I’ve tried to be unusually detailed about mileages and pitches.

Since there is no reason to drive this road in a car except to gawk at the scenery, and it’s a tough drive, you should be pretty much alone.  When I rode it on a Monday in January, I saw 4 cars and no bicycles once I was on the mountain (c. 20 miles).  It’s nice to have the road to yourself, but you also can’t expect to be rescued, so take everything you might need.

Figueroa is a ride through farm country, then a ranching valley, a climb up the mountain, a ride across the ridgetop, a drop down the back side, and a ride through another valley.  The climb was made famous as a favorite training ride for Lance Armstrong and the Discovery pro cycling team, when the team did an annual spring training camp in the Solvang area.   It’s a substantial ride—4700 ft of gain in 40 miles, which is not to be sneezed at, and there’s a lot of 8-10% stuff—but it’s never leg-breaker hard and if you pace yourself it’s very doable.  It’s not lush but it’s grand, in its spartan way as pretty a ride mile by mile as any in Bestrides.

Several readers complain about the road surface in the miles before the climbing starts.  Apparently it’s pretty horrible now.  Caveat emptor.

There is a serious question about which direction to ride the loop in.  Locals tend to go clockwise.  I have only ridden it counterclockwise, and that’s how I’ve mapped it.  But see Nibbles’s comment below for a compelling argument for clockwise.  The main drawback to that is that the west side of the mountain is distinctly steeper than the southeast side.  One could also make an argument for riding the mountain as an out and back, up and down the east side.  If you do that, be sure to continue 2-3 miles past the summit, because the ridge riding is really special.

In warm weather, people ride Figueroa as early in the morning as possible, because the top of the mountain can be windy—very, very windy—later in the day, and you ride on the spine of some razor-edge saddles where there’s a Venturi effect from one side to the other.  I rode through there once at about 11 AM, and the wind was already a handful. 

Continue reading →

Distance: 26 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 1820 ft

This ride climbs out of Cambria (pronounced both “KAMM bree uh” and “KAYM bree uh” by the locals), one of those amazing little enclaves of culture and fine dining (and Internet-based bicycle supply stores—yes, it’s that Cambria) that somehow manages to get established far from anywhere.    There’s one bike ride here, but it’s a beaut.  It climbs from the shore high up into the coastal hills to a summit saddle with spectacular vistas of whence you came.

It’s four rides in one. The first 5 miles are dead easy, nearly flat cruising through a farming valley (blissfully free of vineyards)—you’ll probably see obviously non-serious riders out for a stroll.  The next 5 miles are a roller-coaster through riparian woods.  Then you do a classic canyon creekside climb.  And finally it turns to hard, hard climbing in the final miles before the summit, as you ride what the locals call The Wall.

This road is an alternative to the main route via Hwy 1 and Hwy 46, so all the through traffic takes the highways and after the first few miles of farms you have the road to yourself, save for the occasional hardy car driving up to the summit to gawk at the view.

Continue reading →

Distance: 21 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 2280 ft (RWGPS)

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

This, the most aptly named ride in our list, is the peachiest climb around Paso Robles (pronounced “PASS-o ROH-bulls,” called just “Paso” by locals), a region of good riding among hilly vineyards.  It’s a lot like the Robinson Canyon ride—a perfect little two hours of climbing and descending.

Peachy Canyon Rd. has no extraordinary features, and there isn’t a “Wow” moment in the scenery (Robinson Canyon’s landscape is much more striking)—it’s just very nice, conventional riparian oak woodlands, nothing you haven’t seen before.  It’s the road contour that makes the ride special, 21 miles of sweetly varied, always-interesting, not-too-hard up and down and back and forth on a perfect road surface.  It’s so flawless it feels like a Virtual Reality ride.

Continue reading →