Distance: 22.3-mile lollipop Elevation gain: 2504 ft
This is another mellow Sierra foothill ride, much like the rides around Grass Valley and Nevada City. It has more climbing/descending than the others (check that elevation total), and it sports two small, charming back-back roads that are cozier than anything the others have to offer. The route covers 5 roads, each with its own character, so the riding experience is varied.
Pleasant Valley Rd. itself, which is the spine of our ride, is a very mixed bag. It’s a cut-off from Hwy 20 to Hwy 49, and it goes through at least 5 distinct personalities along the way. In order, starting at Hwy 20:
From Hwy 20 to Lake Wildwood and just beyond: big, trafficky, over-developed, and without merit.
From past Lake Wildwood to Pleasant Valley Elementary School: generic rolling ranch country, pleasant enough but not special.
From PVES to Bitney Springs Rd.: only 1/2-mile, but the best 1/2-mile of the road—snug winding road through gorgeous fairyland forest.
From Bitney Springs Rd. to Bridgeport/South Yuba River/South Yuba River State Park: steep, very twisty descent on poor pavement (this leg is part of our Bitney Springs ride).
From the river for the next 3 miles: steady, noticeable (often 9-11%) climbing out of the river canyon.
From end of climb to Hwy 59: more pleasant rollers past working ranches.
Our ride covers sections 5 and 6. It would be nice to add section 3, but to do so necessitates climbing the challenging and fairly unpleasant pitch from the river to Bitney Springs Rd., and it isn’t worth it.
In addition to Pleasant Valley Rd., our route covers 4 other roads: Sweetland Rd., Birchville Rd., Oaktree Rd., and Tyler Foote Crossing Rd. The first two of these are sweet little off-the-grid back roads that I love. The other two are bigger, busier, straighter, typical forested main roads for the area. They’re OK, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to do them except I need them to get from Sweetland to Birchville.
Distance: 44 mi. out and back Elevation gain: 4545 ft
Ponderosa Way is, by some reckonings, 800 miles long. We’re aren’t doing all of it.
This leg runs north from Shingletown and goes through some seriously isolated country. It runs through the forests and meadows in the Sierra foothills east of Redding, and there isn’t much up there beyond the occasional ranch or four-corners country store. Traffic is next to nothing (I saw 4 vehicles in 14 miles, and two of them were postal delivery trucks), and the road surfaces are surprisingly good for little-used back roads. The scenery is standard foothill woods—dry, occasionally scrubby conifer forest broken by little valleys and meadows. One of the roads on our route is called Fern Rd., but that must be irony or someone’s name—the landscape is way too dry for ferns.
The Sierra slopes down to the west, so the roads in the area running east/west are all uphill heading east, and the roads running north/south are all constantly up and down with no climb or descent lasting very long. You’ll never have to grind out a climb, but the elevation gain adds up. There are some really nice descents and some nice roller-coasters. There is no flat.
Ponderosa Way
The road system around Ponderosa Way gives you all kinds of route options. Think of it as a continuous road running north, changing its name repeatedly (in order: Ponderosa Way, Fern Rd. East, Oak Run to Fern Rd., Phillips Rd., Buzzard Roost Rd.) and dead-ending at Hwy 299, the highway to Burney. From this north/south spine, roads periodically peel off to the west and run back down to the Valley (in order: Hwy 44, Whitmore Rd., Oak Run Rd., Hwy 299). This means you can make loops of various sizes, but they all have the same downsides: the terrain in the Valley is to my mind bleak—flat, featureless grassland, very hot and scorched in the summer—and the leg from the Valley returning to Ponderosa Way is a long, unvaried, mind-numbing climb. So I just ride the Ponderosa Way spine as an out and back. There are also smaller loop options:
Fern Rd./Fern Rd. East/Whitmore, Phillips Rd./Bull Skin Ridge Rd./Ok Run Rd./Oak Run to Fern Rd., Phillips Rd./Buzzard Roost Rd./Oak Run Rd./Bull Skin Ridge Rd.
The ride quality is about the same on all these roads, they’re all worth riding, and there’s almost certainly more mileage than you’ll want to do. I’ve chosen Ponderosa Way because it’s nearest Shingletown, it’s smaller (no center line), it’s a bit more isolated, and it’s a piece of California history—an 800-mile New Deal construction project that’s even name-checked in Wikipedia.
Start at the intersection of Hwy 44 and Ponderosa Way. There is minimal dirt shoulder parking. If you feel more comfortable parking in town, you can start in Shingletown, a small, pleasant mountain community, but it’s 3.5 miles to the intersection, all down, and you’ll be looking at a 3.5-mile climb of noticeable pitch at the end of your ride.
Ponderosa Way
The map’s profile looks like you plummet for the first 4.5 miles, but it’s a casual stair-step that begins in forest and takes you down to an open valley cattle ranch (you’ll notice the cow poop on the road before you see the cows). Two miles into the ride you hit an intersection, with Inwood Rd. going straight and appearing to be the main road and Ponderosa surprisingly going 90 degrees to the R. It’s clearly signed—otherwise you’d swear it’s wrong. After the turn, it’s impossible to get lost.
Ponderosa Way
After the valley you do mostly climbing for about 4 miles, the nearest to a prolonged workout on the ride, but again it’s not as extreme as the profile suggests. The rest is up and down. You’ll cross two pretty creeks where you’ll get a taste of wetter, lusher landscape.
Fern Road East—note center line
At 14 miles you dead-end at Whitmore Rd. Consider going L and riding the mile to the community of Whitmore, which consists of two large churches, a community center, a classic mountain general store for your ice cream break, and about 10 other simple buildings. Returning to our route, go east from Ponderosa on Whitmore about 1/2 mi. to Fern Rd. East and take it. It’s slightly more built-up and slightly larger than Ponderosa, but otherwise not significantly different. I rode it to Oak Run to Fern Rd. (that’s one confusingly-named road) and some of ORTF. There’s some swell descending on the return ride on ORTF and Fern East, which is the only reward for continuing beyond Ponderosa except additional miles.
Oak Run to Fern Rd.—note center and fog lines
Shortening the route: Turn around at Whitmore.
Adding Miles: As I’ve said, you can ride forever on the surrounding roads and it’s all worth doing, assuming you stay off Hwys 44 and 299. In addition, running south out of Shingletown is one of my favorite back roads, Wilson Hill Rd., a marvel of climbs, drops, and turns. It ends in Manton, a community that consists of one building. WHR is also in our Wildcat Road ride. Feel free to skip the flats at the south end.
Classic mountain mercantile—run-down, friendly as hell, and stocking one of everything
Distance: 38 miles, two loops Elevation gain: 3600 ft.
The Nevada City/Grass Valley area has quietly become one of my favorite riding venues. This is Bestrides’ 6th ride in the area, and it’s more of the same very pleasant rambling foothill stuff. Nothing in this route is spectacular, and it’s not making any Best of the Best lists, but it’s a sweet day on the bike.
How does this ride compare with the other five? Willow Valley Rd. is still my favorite. Pasquale (in the Red Dog/Pasquale ride) still has the prettiest woods, followed by Lower Colfax. This ride has the best (really the only) dramatic descent, on Rattlesnake.
The ride is in fact two adjacent loops, and I’ve mapped them individually. The terrain for both loops is similar: gentle rollers past houses, farms, and horse ranches alternating with dry, scrubby foothill woods. The area is slightly to substantially built up, so you never have a sense of wilderness, but the woods are constant enough that I did almost the entire two loops without sunglasses, and although you’re rarely completely without cars the traffic is almost never a problem, excepting the first miles of McCourtney and the brief stints on the horrible Hwy 49.
If you’re only doing one loop, which one should you choose? The north half of McCourtney is the widest, straightest, most polished road and has the worst traffic. Rattlesnake has the most houses and the best descent, assuming you’re riding the loop clockwise, as you should. Allison Ranch Rd. is the smallest and least developed leg, a wide one-lane road with few houses and next to no traffic. Auburn Rd. is the next-smallest, next-least-developed, and next-untrafficked. If you’re a fan of small and undeveloped, consider riding a loop down Auburn and back up Allison Ranch.
Nothing is flat in the Gold Country, and the total elevation gain adds up, but pitches over 6% are rare on this route, no pitch lasts very long, and it never feels like work. All roads are downhill heading south, uphill heading north. The only leg that registers as a “downhill” is Rattlesnake starting 3 mi. in.
The McCourtney/Auburn loop rides equally well in either direction; the Rattlesnake/Allison loop is much better clockwise, to get the Rattlesnake descent. You could start either loop anywhere along the route, but I’ve mapped both so they start and end in Grass Valley, one of my favorite California hill towns. Try to schedule your ride during the Open Studios tour, two weekends a year when local artists invite you into their ateliers and display their works. And always check out what’s happening at the Center for the Arts, one of the best small music venues I’ve ever found.
The Rattlesnake Rd. leg is part of our Dog Bar ride.
McCourtney/Auburn Loop
If you’re riding from downtown Grass Valley, take Mill St., the town’s main drag, SW to McCourtney, which is just past Hwy 20. The first few miles of McCourtney aren’t great. The road is big, pretty straight, and surprisingly busy (at least it was on the Saturday afternoon when I rode it). About halfway to Lime Kiln Rd., all the bad goes away. The road gets small, pleasantly meandering, and close to traffic-free. You’re passing farms and horse ranches interspersed with patches of woods.
McCourtney Road
Turn L onto Lime Kiln Rd., which is more of the same good stuff. LKR dead-ends on Hwy 49, the area’s freeway, and it’s unpleasant—fast, hectic, noisy, and threatening. You’ve got a short mile of it to endure. Turn L onto Auburn Rd. (take care with the turn). Auburn returns you to McCourtney via some very nice, quiet, pretty, small-road miles. You’ll see signage indicating you’re on a route well-known to local cyclists. Once back on McCourtney, return to your starting place.
Lime Kiln Road
Auburn Road
Rattlesnake/Allison Ranch Loop
Begin in downtown Grass Valley. Take briefly hectic Colfax Ave. under the highway. Colfax becomes Colfax Hwy, which takes you to Rattlesnake on your R. Rattlesnake climbs for a short mile, then descends, a delightful romp rather than a nail-biter, for 6 miles and dead-ends on Dog Bar Rd. It’s moderately built up, but all the houses have lots of trees and you’re in shade all the way.
Allison Ranch Road
Go R on Dog Bar for a stone’s throw, then L onto Alta Sierra Drive. ASD skirts the edge of a large, new, upscale settlement, and I was told that the warren of little streets within is a hoot to explore on a bike.
Alta Sierra Dr. dead-ends at Hwy 49, and again you’ve got a short stretch of cycling hell to endure, this time 1.3 miles. I THINK you can skip about half of it by exiting on Timberland Dr. and paralleling 49 on the surface road, but I didn’t do it.
Allison Ranch Road
Turn L at the enormous intersection that is Allison Ranch Rd. If the traffic is constant, there are pedestrian crossings with push-buttons that will make the L turn safe. ARR is the smallest, least-built-up road on either of our loops, the nearest you can get in this area to getting away from it all. At last you get to ditch the center line. You should see only a car or two. It’s officially a climb, but it’s so mild you’ll hardly notice. Which means this loop is one of those rare treats where you seem to do a lot more descending than ascending.
Allison Ranch Rd. turns into Mill Street , which takes you back to downtown Grass Valley.
Shortening the ride: I prefer the Rattlesnake/Allison Ranch loop. An even shorter loop would be to ride down Auburn and up Allison Ranch.
Adding miles: An embarrassment of riches. Rattlesnake takes off from our Lower Colfax ride route and is a part of our Dog Bar ride. From Grass Valley it’s an easy ride to our Bitney Springs ride, and you’re three miles from Nevada City and our Willow Valley and Red Dog/Pasquale rides.
Distance: 26 mi. out and back twice Elevation gain: 1740 ft.
I used to turn my nose up at bike trails, but I’ve either mellowed or they’ve gotten better. For whatever reason, there are now four bike trails in the Bestrides ride list, in Sacramento, Redding, Monterey, and this one in Placerville, and some other honorable mentions in the Adding Miles sections. This one is a little jewel—fairly short, pretty, and beautifully designed and maintained. It’s a perfect 12-mph recovery day ride.
The trail goes west and east from Placerville, and Placerville is a charming place to begin and end a ride, so I’ve mapped it under the assumption that you’ll begin in town, ride to the western terminus, turn around and ride back through town to the eastern terminus and back to town.
This is a rail-to-trail conversion, and I’m usually not fond of such things, because they tend to be flat, straight, and monotonous, and go through industrial backyards when they’re in urban areas like this one is. They also tend to have stops at cross streets every 100 ft. The EDT has none of these problems. For much of its length, instead of setting the trail directly on the railbed, some genius left the tracks intact and put the bike path on the RR berm, thus providing a gently meandering, rising, dipping profile. The ride is almost entirely uninterrupted, assuming you’re willing to do a little risk-free stop-sign running. The scenery is mostly wooded and varies from good to lovely.
The trail has a very different character west and east of town. The west side is a 1-2% descent heading W. Immediately E of town the terrain pitches up, and so does the trail, climbing steadily at 3-6% for almost 9 miles (not sure how the railroad managed that). The west side passes by the Old Depot Bike Park, where you can watch BMX bikers do tricks, and ends at El Dorado Station, where there are remnants of old railroad cars and a facsimile of the original Station building, built in 1888.
The selling point for the trail is the Weber Creek Trestle, which the trail crosses a couple of miles W of town. Built in 1888, it’s 120 ft above the creek. It’s there, it’s real, but it’s actually just a wide boardwalk with wire fence rails on both sides. There is no moment when you can see the trestle beneath you, so if you didn’t stop and read the historical placard nearby you’d almost miss it. The placard shows you a photo of what you’re riding over.
Notice the original railroad bed next to the trail here and in photo below
The trail runs straight through town on Main St. for 1 mile. This is both delightful and harrowing, since Placerville is usually jammed on a summer weekend. Finding the trail leaving town headed W is easy—just pick it up at the unmissable Forni Rd. Finding the trail leaving town headed E is trickier. Turn L off Main onto Mosquito Rd. at a large and hectic intersection and keep your eyes peeled for the trail going off to your R.
Save some time for exploring Placerville after the ride. It’s a nice mix of Gold Rush California and modern trendy. There are lots of good places to eat, but I recommend The Original Mel’s at the west end of Main. It’s thick with kitschy “American Graffiti” culture, although it (of course) is not the Mel’s used in the movie, which was in downtown San Francisco and has been demolished. (I know, the movie is set in Modesto, which has no Mel’s but has a terrific original A and W drive-in).
Shortening the ride: Ride from Placerville to either trail end and return. The west side is easier than the east side.
Adding miles: When our route touches Mosquito Rd. in downtown Placerville you’re at the beginning of our Mosquito Rd. ride.
Half an hour’s drive east of Placerville and to the north of Hwy 50 lies the Crystal Basin Recreation Area. It’s bisected by Ice House Rd. running north and south, and there are at least 9 back roads with good riding connecting with it or nearby (I’ll list them in Adding Miles). One could easily spend a week happily exploring the possibilities. This loop is the best of them.
Let me repeat what I’ve said elsewhere in Bestrides: riding in the Gold Country north of Hwy 50 isn’t as good as riding south of Hwy 50. Above Hwy 50 is good; below Hwy 50 is great—more intense, more dramatic. But the riding in Crystal Basin is well worth doing.
The area is pretty undeveloped. There is little in the way of infrastructure other than campgrounds—no resorts (except Ice House Resort near Hwy 50), no canoe rentals, no summer homes, no back-country mercantiles. Yet I think the area gets a lot of use. I did my riding in late September. The roads were nearly empty but the campgrounds were busy, I saw lots of ATV trailers, and everywhere I rode there were informal campgrounds in the turnouts along the back roads. Large campgrounds line the lake, which suggests the area expects big numbers of campers in the summer. This matters, for the usual reasons, but also because the bike path along the lake is very narrow and would easily become unrideable if it was busy with walkers. As it turned out, I saw not one human being on it (!), and saw perhaps 4 vehicles on Peavine Ridge and Road #31. So I was largely alone, but riding in summer camping season might be altogether another matter.
Maps of the region, unless they are up-to-date, tend to show roads that are now paved as dirt. Streetview, which covers the area thoroughly, can be trusted. Every road I’m going to talk about, including in the Adding Miles section, is adequately paved or better.
Our loop covers three distinctly different kinds of riding: big, polished two-lane main road (Ice House), wide one-lane traffic-free backroad (Peavine Ridge Rd., El Dorado Forest Rd. #31), and adorable lakeshore bike path (along the northern shore of Union Valley Lake). Every mile is rewarding and well-paved. You could circumnavigate the lake entirely on roads, and if you’re prejudiced against bike paths you might be tempted, but in fact the bike path is what turns the ride into something special and is by far my favorite part of the loop.
The ride works equally well whichever direction you go, clockwise or counterclockwise, and wherever you start. It rides easier than the elevation gain total suggests. There are no services along the route, but the bike path takes you past several campgrounds where you could beg water.
(Despite the map above, the loop is entirely and nicely paved.)
(The “canyon” at Mile 8.6, where the road seems to hit 24% pitches, is RWGPS being confused about the lake’s dam. The top of the dam is, of course, flat.)
Park at the intersection of Ice House Rd. and Peavine Ridge Rd. This area doesn’t believe in signs with road names, but here you actually get one. Ride 2.8 miles down PRR, a small and essentially flat road. The area is in the process of being thinned for fire protection, so you may meet logging trucks and see piles of tree trunks, but the scenery is still pretty.
El Dorado Forest #31
At Mile 2.8 you encounter your first intersection, a well-paved road to the R without a name. A sign tells you you’ve been on Peavine Ridge Rd. and if you continue straight you’ll be on Jaybird Canyon Rd. Another small sign points down the new road and reads “Bryant Springs Rd.,” and some maps show a Bryant Springs in that direction, but that certainly isn’t the name of the road. On Googlemaps it’s called El Dorado Forest Road, but that just means it’s a road in the El Dorado Forest, like calling Van Ess Avenue “San Francisco Street.” Paper maps often identify it merely as “31.” It is in fact El Dorado Forest Road #31. Take it. It goes for 6 mi. of pleasant road contour through lusher, prettier woods to Union Valley Lake. There are at least two unsigned forks—in every case stay on the bigger fork. RWGPS says that at the lake you pass a community named Raffetto, but I saw nothing.
The bike path
Cross the little dam and continue on the one and only road to West Point Campground, where the bike trail begins. Turn into the CG and the trail is unmistakably on your L. It’s delightful riding, if it isn’t crowded—narrow and constantly meandering up and down and back and forth through picturesque forest with frequent views of the lake on your right. Ride the trail as long as it’s fun—it frequently crosses the entrance roads to campgrounds, and you can take any one of them to the L to get back to the main road. There’s a lot of it. I rode it to Wench Creek Campground and bailed, but there’s more. If you continue on past WCC, the trail seems to end at the campground and you have to ride halfway out of the CG to pick it up again. Everywhere else, it’s unmissably marked.
Once back on Ice House Rd., ride it back to your car. IHR is the highway through the region, the biggest, straightest, busiest, and most developed. As such I found it to be the least exciting leg of the loop, but it’s certainly pretty.
Shortening the ride: Just ride the bike path. No one seems to be sure where its east end is (probably around Jones Fork CG), but If you did all of it, you’d probably rack up close to 20 mi. out and back. For a more varied ride, ride El Dorado Forest Rd. 31 and as much of the trail as you wish.
Adding miles: As Monty Python would say, you are spoiled for choice. I count at least 9 other roads in the immediate vicinity of our loop, all worth riding. Most of them are primitive wide one-lane roads—easy for cars to pass but without centerline, fog lines, or shoulders. Miraculously they all seem to have OK to good road surfaces and should have no or next to no traffic. I haven’t ridden them all. Streetview covers most of them, so you can check them out. In no particular order:
Ice House Road. There’s a lot more of it than what our loop covers. It runs north/south for 58 mi. (out and back) all the way from Hwy 50 to Loon Lk., and is pretty much the same all the way: smooth, big, and busy—the only road in the area with noticeable traffic. If you start at Hwy 50, IHR begins with 7.5 mi. of uninterrupted moderate serpentine climbing, and I bet that 7.5 mi. is a hoot on the descent. It’s on my to-do list. A nice 15-mile break if you’re driving from to Lake Tahoe via Hwy 50.
Wentworth Springs Rd. The other “big” road in the area, it goes W from IHR north of our loop and runs for 31 miles (one way) to Georgetown. I find it classic so-so green-wall riding, fairly straight for a mountain road, and almost all down (going W). Georgetown is a cute little old town, worth a visit. Seven mi. west of Ice House Rd. on WSR is the unmissable Uncle Tom’s Cabin, founded 1864 (thanks, Brian).
South Fork Rd. Heading NW off IHR just above Wentworth Springs, it’s very small.
Ice House-Wright’s Lake Rd. A pleasant ride on a “tie road” between Ice House Rd. and Wright’s Lake Rd., all up heading E. Add 2 miles to get to Wright’s Lake, a very pretty little lake, IHWLR passes by Ice House Reservoir but you can’t see it unless you leave the route. Wide one-lane, with the occasional vehicle. You might be put off by Streetview’s refusal to cover it or Googlemaps’ refusal to name it, but it’s there and it’s completely civilized. No road name signs but follow the clear signs to Wright’s Lake.
Granite Springs Rd. Just south of and paralleling IHWLK, less well-known, less developed, and freer of traffic. I’m told it eventually turns to “good” gravel. Like IHWLR it runs between Ice House and Wright’s Lake Rd.
Big Hill Rd. It’s a short, tiny one-lane and it dead-ends, so I’d think you’ve have it to yourself.
Jaybird Powerhouse Rd. The continuation of Peavine Ridge Rd.
Distance: 64 mi. out and back Elevation gain: 1790 ft.
This ride (less commonly called the Jedediah Smith Memorial Trail) is probably the most popular rec trail in California, and nearly the best (I’m sticking with the Sacramento River Trail). On weekends and midsummer it’s slammed with walkers, dogs, joggers, skate-boarders, roller-bladers, and guys in baggy pants riding electric bike/motorcycles with 4-inch tires at 6 mph. So I wouldn’t go near it then. But weekdays in winter, fall, or early spring it belongs to us cyclists. My last ride was a Thursday in late September, and I saw about 200 cyclists and almost no one else. In those conditions, it’s a dreamy ride—about 1/3 in lush riparian woods and 2/3 in adjacent meadows, all of it pretty and sometimes gorgeous, with abundant views of the American River and several bridge crossings..
The path is mostly very small two-lane with a centerline and a dirt shoulder on both sides for the runners. The profile was obviously laid out by the planners to maximize your pleasure, constantly serpentining through little rises and dips. The curse of many bike paths that wind through woods is a bumpy road surface from expansion cracks and root damage, but the ARP is blissfully, spectacularly free of such nuisances—the road surface is amazingly good throughout. There are bathrooms and drinking fountains along the route (see the map below).
A guideline common to all multi-use trails: Even if you catch the Parkway on an uncrowded day, you will meet a lot of people, there are a million blind corners, and the road contour is small-scale, so don’t try to time-trial the route—relax, get your nose out of your computer, take in the scenery, and obey the 15mph speed limit.
RidewithGPS covers the AMP, but there are more informative maps on other websites. Here’s my favorite (I particularly like the mileage markers):
You can find the electronic version of this map at:
runsra.org/community/sacramento-running-routes/
and you can get it in paper format.
Navigating the Parkway is in one sense easy: just stay as close to the river as possible. On the other hand, there are many alternate routes and unmarked forks, and you’ll almost certainly get lost as least once or twice, but it’s all harmless since the river is always unmistakably nearby. If you go wrong, you soon debouch onto some urban street and you just turn around.
Four words of warning:
Sacramento has had trouble with homeless encampments along the Parkway, especially near the west (downtown) end.
Like the rest of the Northern California Valley, the Parkway is fried to a crisp by the end of summer. and in midsummer it’s usually 100°+. if you like cool and green, ride in the winter or spring.
Sections of the trail, mostly at the west end, are under water during periods of heavy rain.
The Parkway is officially off limits to Class 3 ebikes—that is, exactly the kind of ebike I have and you probably have. The website threatens police surveillance and possible confiscation. I saw no police and my bike wasn’t confiscated. At least 75% of the bikes I saw on the AMR were “illegal” and no one seemed concerned. This seems to be the status quo on bike trails these days.
Sixty-four miles is a lot of bike path, but it’s all essentially flat (check out that elevation gain), with all the work in a 3-mile 3-5% climb at the eastern end that gets you from the bottom to the top of the Folsom Lake dam. The Parkway becomes a bit more wooly and twisty the further east you go, but beyond that there is no particular incentive to go all the way to the eastern terminus: Your “vistas” of Folsom Dam are just a rocky hillside, you can’t ride on the top of the dam itself, and the end-point, Beals Point Campground, isn’t especially charming unless you need a bathroom.
You’re frequently alongside the American River
The scenery is delightfully sylvan for a trail that is entirely surrounded by full-on urbanity and that closely parallels Hwy 50 for much of its length. The advantages to this are you can park in nearby neighborhoods or parking lots and access the Parkway just about anywhere, and you’re never far from food. The best stopover along the route is Karen’s Bakery in Folsom, for me a must-do on any Parkway ride. They’re closed Mondays, which can be a heart-breaker if you don’t see it coming.
One novelty along the Parkway is the Johnny Cash Trail offshoot (in Folsom—get it?), whose trailhead is marked by a gigantic guitar pick.
Shortening the ride: My favorite miles of the ARP are in the middle—roughly from William B. Pond Recreation Area (there is no pond—Pond is the guy’s name) to the Folsom Historic Truss Bridge, which is adjacent to the Rainbow Bridge on Greenback Lane and which has a fascinating history (Miles 13-28).
Adding Miles: There’s not much. You can ride south from the western end of the Parkway along the Sacramento River into Old Sacramento, a touristy kind of faux Gold Rush town. There are several paved trails forking off the ARP and leading you back to the urban surroundings, if you want more than 64 miles of bike path. The Parkway area also has some paved or dirt singletrack that’s off-limits to bikes and can be great fun if you don’t get caught.
For years I’ve been hesitant to include this ride in Bestrides because it sounds dumb. Riding through a bunch of residential streets is a great cycling experience? Yes, as a matter of fact it is. The Berkeley Hills is one of those uniquely charming urban enclaves that reward exploration, like Sausalito, Venice Beach, Greenwich Village, Pacific Grove’s Seventeen-Mile Drive, Montmartre, or Venice (the Italian one).
The term “Berkeley Hills” can refer to anything on either side of the ridge running east of Berkeley and North Oakland. But we mean it the way Berkeley residents use it, to designate the small, unique streets in a sloppy rectangle bordered by Cedar to the south, Shattuck-to-Solano-to-Colusa to the west, Moeser Ln. to the north, and Grizzly Peak Blvd. to the east.
Most of Berkeley divides neatly into two large areas: the Berkeley Flats and the Berkeley Hills. The Flats aren’t really flat—they start at the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay and run east at a gradual incline. Somewhere east of Shattuck Ave. the land becomes steeper and remains that way to the eastern border of Berkeley at Grizzly Peak Blvd.
The division between Flats and Hills is obvious on a map, because the streets in the Flats are all perfectly straight and the blocks are nearly identical rectangles. Cycling here is boring. In the Hills the streets are crooked, winding tightly and sinuously through constant ups and downs. This profile would make the cycling here pretty nifty all by itself, but there’s more. The housing in the Flats is predominantly middle-class, so the houses are in the main utilitarian. The Hills were primarily settled by rich, arty intellectuals, and it shows. The houses in the Hills have always been the stuff of dreams. They’re all worth millions plural, they’re all unique, they’re all perfectly maintained, and each has charm to peddle. The architecture is wildly varied. The area is famous for its cedar-shingled Arts and Crafts architecture, most notably by Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan, but in fact the Hills show a spectacular variety of styles—from Spanish pueblo to half-timber to glass-and-angled modern to craftsman to Colonial to fairy-tale cottage—and each home has its own precious, distinctive little garden in front. Because everything is on a slope, the district is rich with lichen-covered stone walls, crooked stairways, and terraced front yards. Most of the streets are lined with magnificent old trees, all gnarly and canopied. And if that isn’t enough, there are several little parks and rec areas nestled among the houses, each dreamier than the last, little creeks and riparian woodlands abound, and the area is riddled with divine walking paths if you ever want to do something other than ride. You will ache to live here, I guarantee it.
One last perk: Berkeley motorists all firmly believe that cyclists have the right of way, whatever the circumstances. Drivers cheerfully stop dead in through-traffic so that cyclists running red lights can proceed, and if you stop and wave them through they’ll smile and refuse to move until you’re on your way.
So why does this post have no photos? Because the richness and variety of the neighborhood can’t be captured in a photo or two. It’s like trying to take one photo to express what Walt Disney World is like. I tried and failed.
There is no best route. Even though I’ve provided a ride map, it’s just a sample, a typical wandering course I improvised one afternoon. For every street on my route, there are twenty others just as good nearby. Instead of following my map slavishly, I encourage you to wander (not all who wonder are lost, after all). When you get to an intersection, head up the smallest street you can see. See what you discover.
Follow these principles:
A good base for your tide is at or near the Circle (also called The Fountain), where several large streets meet: Arlington, Marin, Los Angeles, and Solano, all of which are streets to avoid (too big). Everything north and east of the Circle is good stuff.
Nothing is flat in the Berkeley Hills, but streets running north and south tend to be gently rolling and streets running east and west tend to be steep, sometimes extremely so.
The windier the street on the map, the better.
Minimize your time on the large, straight roads like Arlington and Spruce, but don’t dread them—they’re busy but bike-friendly.
The bigger the street, the bigger the houses. The small streets sport cozy cottages, the large streets sport mansions.
Ride as slowly as possible. You’re here for the architecture and the landscaping.
Though I want you to wander, one landmark is too good to miss: Indian Rock Park. Make sure it’s on your route, and plan to get off your bike there.
Marin Ave. itself is notorious for its lethality. It’s dead straight, very narrow, and very steep. Some foolish cyclists are always trying to prove something by riding it up, or worse, down. Please don’t.
There is a 450-ft tunnel on Solano Ave., the Northbrae Tunnel, which is a novelty You can’t bike on the roadway through it, but there’s a narrow separated foot/bike path on the south side.
If for some reason our area doesn’t exhaust your interest in Berkeley architecture, the area just south of Claremont Ave. is also rich. Oak Vale Ave. even has a BAHA architectural tour on line giving histories for some of the houses. If you’re interested in sheer expensive grandeur, the area’s most palatial piles are in the area on Claremont Blvd. (not Ave.) and surrounding streets. Don’t miss Avalon Ave., the grandest of the grand.
Distance: 18 mi. out and back Elevation gain:1322 ft
This is the only ride in Bestrides that’s mostly dirt.
Once upon a time there was a sweet little dirt road that wound through the backcountry redwoods of Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. It was a chance to get up close and personal with the big trees without the hordes of people jammed into the campgrounds and the famous groves.
Then a terrible thing happened: the State Park decided to promote the hell out of the road. So now there’s a large billboard along the highway encouraging cars to drive it, the local visitor’s center has a large sign advertising its virtues, and the guides at the visitor’s center tell everyone who comes in that they should drive it.
So now in the summer it’s a zoo. Constant traffic in both directions. Cars bumper to bumper. When I did this ride, I saw perhaps 300 cars on the road in 18 miles. I counted 47 cars parked at one of the trailheads. I spent almost the entire ride inhaling the dust of passing cars. The trees and bushes were blanketed with dust.
BUT if you can ride it when the traffic is gone, it’s a unique and splendid experience—the closest you can get to the redwoods on a bike. Just check out the photos in this post. Certainly the second-best redwoods ride in Bestrides, after the Avenue of the Giants. To escape the traffic, all you need to do is: 1) wait until tourist season is over; 2) ride on a weekday (I rode on a beautiful Sunday midday in August—worst possible time); and 3) wait until the region has gotten at least one good soaking rainstorm, to wash the dust from the flora. Obviously you don’t want to ride a dirt road right after a lot of rain, but the road is rock, so a little wet won’t hurt the riding at all.
There are stout gates at both ends of the road which look like at some time they would be closed. I don’t know when that would be (or why), but if you’re planning on a winter ride, check to make sure the road is open.
The ride is basically flat, with a noticeable mile of up and a mile of down at the west end (the “hill” in Howland Hill Rd.). The ride is easy, and the dirt surface is in good shape, but it’s still a rocky road, so a gravel bike is essential. I think the road surface improves as you go west, but I may have just been getting used to it. You can avoid a lot of the road chatter if you ride on the extreme shoulder, but redwood country is poison oak country and you may be getting into it by doing so.
You can start at either end. In theory you could loop it, but it would involve a lot of riding on Hwy 199, where you’re really not welcome.
Park at the intersection of Hwy 199 and South Fork Rd. There’s a large parking lot there (and the large sign advertising Howland Hill Rd.). Ride SFR (briefly) to Douglas Park Dr., which soon turns into Howland Hill Rd. and becomes dirt. Ride HHR to the summit, where it turns back into pavement. You get a very nice mile of descending down to the flats of the Crescent City outskirts, At the intersection of HHR and Bertsch St. you can see ahead of you that HHR goes straight and flat, so turn around and ride back to your car. The paved mile of climbing back to the dirt (some 9-11%) will be the only real work you do on the ride.
I am now going to tell you to do something that will convince you I’m bats if this post hasn’t done that already. Throw your bike in your car and drive the couple of miles westward to the Hiouchi Visitor Center and park. Get on your bike and go ride all the roads of the Jedidiah Smith Campground across the street. It’s about 2 miles total. It’s wonderful—a fairy land of paved paths through pristine forest and almost no traffic. It’s a perfect cool-down.
Shortening the ride: You could turn around at the Howland Hill summit, but you’d be missing a swell little descent.
Adding miles: At the turn-around you can keep going and ride into Crescent City. It isn’t great riding, but riding out of the redwoods through a back door into a city has a certain mystique, and Crescent City is a nice, rough-and-tumble working-class coastal town.
At the intersection of South Fork Rd. and Douglas Park Rd. at the very beginning of our route, if instead of turning R onto DPR you go L and stay on SFR you can ride for miles on what appears to be a well-maintained two-lane road through mostly uninterrupted woods. When SFR ends, it turns into what Google Maps calls “G-O Road” but is in fact Gasquet-Orleans Rd,, a rougher track about half South Fork Rd’s size that runs for miles, also through uninterrupted woods. Both roads together total 31.5 mi. one way. They’re both covered by Streetview. I haven’t ridden them, but they look good.
This ride is a moderate climb and classic descent up and over a big hill. The scenery is standard PPO riding (Perfectly Pleasant Oregon)—oak forest, conifer forest, grassy meadows, unpretentious small ranches. The climb is nicely varied and never steep, but there’s nothing life-changing about it. But the descent is really something. Some descents are white-knuckle workouts. This is not one of those. The curves are all wide-open sweeps—no hairpins—and the terrain is open enough that you can see the turns coming and set up for them perfectly (and see that it’s car-free). In addition, there are lots of small uphill bumps, so you can carry a lot of speed on the downs and scrub it off without braking. And there are stretches of nearly-flat where you can catch your breath. It’s a beautiful balance between exhilarating and relaxing. You can hammer it as hard as you like, easily holding 35-40 mph at times and knowing you won’t get into trouble. I really don’t know of another descent like it, and it’s a gem.
Once the hill is over, the rest of the ride varies from PPO to downright unpleasant trafficky highway.
The ride’s other reward is its proximity to Jacksonville, a preserved Gold Rush town (settled in 1851), a National Historic Landmark and now mostly upscale tourist trap whose Main Street is lined with old buildings converted to expensive women’s clothing stores, bistros, and trinket shops. It’s very popular and jammed with traffic on summer weekends. Such places can be off-putting or charming, and I find Jacksonville to be the latter. Save time after the ride to walk the main street (which is oddly named E. California St.—Main St. is one block away), check out the old preserved bank (it’s free), and hit Churro Rush (nearly next door) if you’re a churro person.
Park in Jacksonville anywhere south of California St. Even just a block away from the crush of tourists on California there is ample shoulder parking in front of the locals’ houses. Take Applegate St. out of town. Even though downtown Jacksonville is in a flat valley, Applegate is instantly uphill, and at 8% this first 1.5 mi. is actually the steepest stuff you’ll encounter on the ride. Applegate becomes Cady imperceptibly. Take Sterling Creek Rd. to the L off Cady and ride to its end—6 miles up, then 6 miles down.
The descent is steepest in the first couple of miles after the summit, so if you want speed get it here, knowing that the pitch mellows out in the latter miles.
Sterling Creek Road: standard Southern Oregon landscape
At the intersection of Sterling Creek Rd. and Little Applegate Rd., pause to appreciate the “community” of Buncom, which is two apparently abandoned shacks (one with a sign improbably reading “art gallery”), then go R onto LAR. Or don’t. As I said, everything beyond this point is merely pleasant or worse, so if you want only prime riding and you’ve got some legs left, turn around and ride back the way you came. If you don’t…well, you were warned.
After 3 miles of slightly downhill PPO riding on LAR, you deadend at Upper Applegate Rd., the third road on our route with the word “Applegate” in it. It’s bigger and busier than LAR, because it’s the road to popular Applegate Lake. It is without charm. It deadends at Hwy 238, which you must take to get back to Jacksonville. It’s truly unpleasant—near-constant traffic, a minuscule shoulder often full of garbage, and a 5-mile mind-numbing uphill grind combine to foul one’s mood.
Sterling Creek Road
You’ll want to get off 238 as soon as possible, so take Cady St. to the R, which will turn into Applegate and return you to your car.
Shortening the ride: Obviously you need to ride the Sterling Creek Rd. downhill, so I’d start at Buncom, ride to the summit, then turn around.
Adding miles: The Old Stage Rd. runs for 13 mi. (one way) from downtown Jacksonville to Gold Hill, where it runs into Hwy 5. It’s all basically flat PPO riding through ranch country.
Upper Applegate Rd. from where we encountered it runs south to Applegate Lake, and it would be PPO riding were it free of traffic, which in the summer it isn’t.
Distance: 39.4 out and back Elevation gain: 2064 ft
This ride continues the riding we did in the Avenue of the Giants North route. It’s more of the same—grand, world-famous redwood groves seen from a modest two-lane road with an excellent road surface and just enough variation in pitch and direction to give it a touch of character. With both rides, Hwy 101 parallels the route just out of sight the length of the route, so all the through traffic is on the highway and you only have to deal with people who have come for the trees.
Of course you could do the two rides as one, but that would give you 72 miles of redwood tunnel, which is probably more than a body needs, especially since this is riding and gawking, not time-trialing through, so you’ll want to keep a very moderate pace. I recommend doing the ride whose description best suits you. Though in fact there is little to distinguish one from the other. I think the trees on the northern ride are a bit bigger and the aura of Bigfoot kitsch a bit stronger.
I’ve included the 4-5 miles of Mattole Rd. on both routes, because they are the best miles in either route.
Both rides are essentially flat. The RWGPS elevation graphs make both look like the climbing ride from hell, but it’s a trick of the map’s scale. At least 95% of this route is 0-2% pitch. The worst “climb” is the overpass to get across Hwy 101. I really can’t imagine where that 2064 ft figure comes from. My Garmin recorded a bit over 1000 ft. gain.
Of course since this is a world-famous State Park (Humboldt Redwoods SP), there is always the fear of mobs and traffic. Maybe I was lucky, but I did the ride midday on a lovely July Saturday—in other words, peak rush hour—and the traffic was light and considerate. Perhaps a car everyf minute. And passing is unthreatening, because the road is wide and the sight lines are excellent. Most of the groves were deserted or had one or two visitors. The only crush was at Founder’s Grove, the Park’s main draw, which I suggest you avoid.
Awe-inspiring as cycling along the Avenue of the Giants is, the road still keeps the trees at an emotional distance. If you get off the main road, the dramatic intensity doubles. This only becomes apparent if and when you either ride a smaller side road or dismount and walk among the trees, and I strongly urge you to do both. The AOTG makes this easy by placing sponsored groves along the route. These groves typically have educational placards, the biggest trees, narrow roads going into campgrounds, and short hiking loops. I encourage you to stop at all of them, but to my knowledge getting up close and personal with the redwoods can be accomplished best in three places:
1. The Mahan Plaque Loop Trail: just south of Weott, this trail is especially magical. You don’t need to do it all (3/4 mi.)—walking 50 feet off the road is enough to awaken the spirits of Lothlórien. For some reason it isn’t on the State Park map, but it’s clearly signed on the road.
2. The California Federation of Women’s Clubs Grove: a stone’s throw from the Mahan Plaque Loop Trail, this grove has the longest, narrowest, and most beautiful road of all the groves on the route. Barely more than a path, it serpentines between the grandest of the trees for about 1/3 mi. The best part is, the grove is closed for what looks like a lengthy spell, so you ride around the gate and have the place to yourself. At the end of the path is an architectural wonder, a four-sided fireplace designed by the beloved Julia Morgan. This was my favorite 15 min. of the ride and not to be missed.
3. Mattole Rd.: the trees are bigger here than along the Avenue, but the real joy is that the road is narrower, so you go from riding BY the redwoods to being IN them. So don’t get to Mattole Rd., assume that Mattole is just more of the same, and turn around.
Mahan Plaque Loop Trail
The route has been kept blissfully free of development and marketing. There are only two places to buy a Powerbar or a Bigfoot keychain: Myers Flat, which is a tiny but complete community, and the Burlington Visitor Center (called the Burlington Park Headquarters on the State Park map), which is a large store-and-campground complex. The rest is trees. Weott (population c. 250) is a small collection of houses without services as far as I know which sits on Hwy 101 a stone’s throw from our route. Apparently it used to be on the AOTG but was destroyed by flood in 1964 and relocated on Hwy 101.
Start in the pleasant village of Miranda. There are 6 more miles of the AOTG south of there, but I don’t know anything about them. Ride north to the large and complicated intersection of the AOFG, Hwy 101, and Mattole Rd.. Ride Mattole westward until the road begins to climb. Turn around and ride home. Views of the South Fork of the Eel River are frequent.
The California Federation of Women’s Clubs Grove
Shortening the ride: The stars of this route are the Mahan Plaque Loop Trail, The California Federation of Women’s Clubs Grove, and Mattole Rd. Luckily they’re all within a few miles from the Mattole Rd. intersection, so I suggest you start at Mattole Rd., ride it out and back, then ride south on the Avenue as far as you want.
Adding miles: Obviously our Avenue of the Giants North ride is immediately to the north. See the Adding Miles section of that ride for other options. There are 6 more miles of the Avenue to the south of Miranda but I don’t know anything about them.
