Distance: 58 miles one way
Elevation gain: 4216 ft

This is one of the Oregon rides that is expertly covered in Jim Moore’s 75 Classic Rides Oregon (see the “Oregon” section in Rides by Region).

Oakridge is an amazing place to ride.  It’s a sweet, utterly unpretentious little town with cheap and charming motels and nice restaurants that was completely under the radar until people noticed it had world-class mountain biking in every direction (check out the Mountain Bike Oregon weekend if you ride dirt).  Now every mountain biker in America knows about it, but it also has prime paved roads leaving it in all directions, not counting the main highway, which is scenic but large and busy.  The plum is the Aufderheide (pronounced OWF der HIGH dee) Highway, AKA Forest Road 19, heading north.  It’s called a highway, but every time I’ve ridden it I’ve seen about a car a mile.  It’s a straight ascent to a summit and descent down the back side, and it’s equally good in either direction.  I’m starting at the south end, for no particular reason.

The terrible fire of 2022 burned most of the McKenzie River valley between Eugene and Aufderheide badly, so you might worry that the northern end of our ride is ugly, but the burn stopped a few miles short of our route and Aufderheide itself is as far as I know untouched.

The road is a bit straighter and a bit more consistent in pitch than I would wish, but you won’t care because the scenery is as good as anything in our list: perfect Oregon rain forest, than which there is nothing prettier, and by some miracle there is a gorgeous creek running alongside you as you ride on either side of the summit (much more visible on the south side than on the north).   The pitch is shallow (3700 ft of gain in 58 miles), so you won’t do do real work until the mile or so before the summit on either side. Continue reading →

Distance: 33-mile loop
Elevation gain: 3035 ft

This is one of the Oregon rides that is expertly covered in Jim Moore’s 75 Classic Rides Oregon (see the “Oregon” section in Rides by Region).

A Best of the Best ride

Obviously.  It’s a chestnut, and it’s in a National Park, so it’s heavily trafficked, but it’s a bucket-list ride if there ever was one.  It’s only 33 miles, but it’s a workout because it’s all up and down (RWGPS pegs the elevation total at just under 4000 ft)—I’ve never finished it and wished it were longer.  I’m short on photos, but you can google “Crater Lake photos” if you don’t have the iconic image burned into your retina already.  See Afterthoughts for a way to avoid the traffic.

Weather matters on this ride.  The Rim Road is closed by snow in the winter.   West Rim Drive gets plowed in the spring, and the rest of the Rim Road gets plowed later—exactly when depends on the size of the snowpack (West Rim opened very early, in late May, in 2021).  The same logic applies if you’re camping by the lake—in 2021 the main campground opened in mid-June, which was atypically early. Continue reading →

Distance: c. 60-mile loop
Elevation gain: c. 2500 ft

A shorter version of this ride is included in Jim Moore’s 75 Classic Rides Oregon: the Best Road Biking Routes from Mountaineers Books.

The Willamette (“wuh LAM ut,” famously mispronounced by President Bartlet in The West Wing) Valley is among the prettiest farming valleys in the USA.   It’s flat, roads go everywhere, and they’re mostly straight and all pretty much the same, so it’s all about rolling along and drinking in the ambiance.  All Oregon ride guides have Willamette Valley rides, and usually they strive to string together as many covered bridges as possible (it’s easy to find routes with 5-6 of them).  Nothing wrong with that.  But I like a little climbing, a little forest, so this ride takes you through the heart of valley, then does a fine climb into the hills on the east side to a pretty falls and and returns via a nice descent.  There’s about 9 miles of climbing, all easy except for 1 mile of 7%, so overall it’s an easy day.

I was introduced to this ride by the weekend version of Cycle Oregon, that massive, wonderful, annual introduction to the glories of Oregon cycling.  Check them out.

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Distance: 40 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 2130 ft

The loop described in “Adding Miles” below is discussed in Jim Moore’s 75 Classic Rides Oregon: the Best Road Biking Routes from Mountaineers Books.

This is a simple, perfect ride.  It’s a 20-mile delicious climb and descent through the usual drop-dead gorgeous Oregon rain forest (forty miles round-trip).   These aren’t the grand, towering redwood forests of our McKenzie Pass or Brice Creek rides—rather, these woods are small, delicate, and aery.  Think sylphs and fairies, not Ents. There’s a fine little waterfall halfway in that serves as a natural break (so take a lock), and a charming country mercantile store at the turn-around point.

This is the sort of riding where you want to pack away your computer, forget about speed or pace or getting a work-out, and just BE in this magical place on your bike.  Stop often to gaze and to listen to the water and the birds and the complete absence of another sound.

I don’t know what’s going on with RidewithGPS, but the elevation profile for this ride is just wrong.  RWGPS says that the 2-mile climb on the ride out has a lot of 12-14% stuff and maxes out at 17%.  This is absurd.  The climb is work, but my legs say it’s never more than 10%.  Similarly, RWGPS says the big climb on the return is 1 mile long and has lots of 12% stuff.  Again, absurd.  The climb is 2 miles long and is easy to moderate—I’d say never more than 7%.  Have no fear.

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Distance: 77 miles one way
Elevation gain: 3590 ft

A modified version of this ride is included in Jim Moore’s 75 Classic Rides Oregon: the Best Road Biking Routes from Mountaineers Books.

This ride is another of those routes leaving the Oregon coast and heading inland along a nearly flat river.  Like all the others, it’s gorgeous, easy (for a while), largely undeveloped, and close to car-free.  In this case, Highway 38 running parallel just to the south siphens off everyone except the few people who live along Smith River Road.  The isolation is in places extreme.  The difference between this ride and the other coastal rides in Bestrides is, this one doesn’t end after a few miles.  If you want to do it all, you’ll want a shuttle.

The first 42 miles are especially beautiful and almost effortless.  The lovely Smith River is smack on your shoulder much of the way, the road is small, and you’re often riding in a canopy with mottled sunshine peaking through the maples.  This stretch of road is that rarity in this list, a flat ride—in the first 20 miles, all upstream, you climb 650 ft, as the river rises a grand total of 30 ft.  But don’t expect it to be “downstream” when you turn around if you’re riding an out and back—it’s just about the same 650 ft.

It’s an easier ride in the other direction, but I’ve mapped it west-to-east because the west end is the unmissable part of the ride and I expect those of you without a shuttle to ride it as an out and back.

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