Author Archives: Jack Rawlins

Honey Run to Centerville Road

Distance: 22 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 1014 ft

Update 11/18: The Camp Fire raced through this canyon on 11/8-9/18. The area is much changed. Much of the understory burned off, which makes the landscape more open, so Butte Creek and the canyon walls are actually prettier because you can see more of them. Most of the big trees seem to have survived. About a third of the houses burned and are now being rebuilt in some form. The covered bridge burned to ash. It’s a different ride, but I think it’s better, especially in the spring when the loss of canopy results in an abundance of spring wildflowers. JR

This is the only ride in Bestrides I can do from my front door. It’s a perfectly charming meander with pretty scenery and a road contour that is ever-changing. In 11 short miles you get a number of bonus features: mid-Nineteenth-Century rock walls, a lively creek lined with stately sycamores, tailings left by the Gold Rush argonauts and their placer mining, a grand little canyon with dramatic rocky bluffs, a small back-country museum, a working flume, a great piece of cycling sculpture, and the remains of one of California’s finest covered bridges. So the ride keeps you interested. In addition, the elevation profile is perfect for your legs: a few miles of gentle rollers, then a little moderate climbing, then more rollers, then a bit more extensive climbing to get really warm, a short recovery period, and finally a 1.5-mile brisk climb to put all that warm-up to use. With the final climb, the ride’s a good work-out; without it, it’s an easy stroll.

(RidewithGPS doesn’t acknowledge that Centerville Road turns to dirt at our turnaround. It does. I’m right, it’s wrong.)

Park at the south end of the Steve Harrison Bike Path where it intersects the Skyway. Appreciate the Bike Path’s gateway arch, in the form of a chainring, made by a local artist to honor Steve, a beloved local cyclist who died tragically. Head east on the bike path bordering the Skyway for 50 yards and merge onto Honey Run—not “Honey Run Road,” as non-local maps insist, just Honey Run. Local lore tells several tales about the origin of the name, but it’s a sweet, flowing ride from the get-go, so let’s pretend it refers to that. You’re leaving the flats of the Northern California Valley and heading east through Butte Creek Canyon into the first ripples of the Sierra foothills.

Honey Run used to be back-country, but like everywhere else the back roads of Chico have been built up, so traffic can be irritatingly dense for the first 5 miles. The road is moderate-sized two-lane without shoulder, but motorists are used to your presence and behave civilly. Even so, I’d try to not do this ride during morning or late afternoon rush hour.

For the first 5 miles, Butte Creek keeps you company—quite dramatic in times of high water, and still bearing along its banks the boulder fields left by 49er gold mining. Observe how the bluffs build on both sides of the canyon as you continue into the canyon—the walls will keep building until they’re 2000 ft above your head. Note the power lines crossing the road—they come all the way from Lake Oroville 20 miles to the south and go north to I don’t know where. Watch for rock walls, built by miners and farmers (not Chinese laborers, as all California school children were taught) in the late 1800’s from stones gathered in the fields, on the north side, and large sycamores, identifiable by their nearly white, smooth bark, to the south. The houses you pass fall into 3 periods of architecture: pre-60’s shack, when living here was as outback as living in the Yukon; 60’s and post-60’s Hippie back-to-the-land sweat lodge; and 90’s and post-90’s rich-person’s McMansion.

The Covered Bridge (no longer there)

4.2 miles in you hit an unmissible fork in the road. To the L is our route, Centerville Rd. The fork to the R (still called Honey Run) crosses Butte Creek on a modern bridge. 50 feet downstream from the bridge was a piece of California history, the Honey Run Covered Bridge, built in 1886. It burned to its foundations in the Camp Fire. There’s a water bib by the outhouses nearby that seems to work even when the bridge rec area gate is closed, so you can do the rest of the ride out with very little water and resupply here on the way back.

Butte Creek Canyon bluffs

Once on Centerville Rd., ride to where the road turns to gravel. After the fork the road is less trafficked and the landscape even prettier than before. You leave the creek, the houses thin out, the bluffs grow grander. About 8 miles in you hit a series of 3 very short pitches, the Three Sisters, then descend to what locals call “the Steel Bridge” even though there is no visible steel because it replaced a bridge that had a steel superstructure that was destroyed in flood waters one winter. Cross Butte Creek (it’s pretty there, and the swimming hole is pretty good) and do the one real climb on the route (7% average) for 1.5 miles to the end of the pavement, where you turn around and ride home.

The Three Sisters

Just as you start to get into the climb, you pass the Centerville-Colman Museum, a classic back-country one-room neighbor-tended museum that used to be the local one-room schoolhouse. It’s only open on weekends from 1 to 4 pm, but if you’re there then it, like all such places, is well worth a stop, not so much for the museum collection as for the folks who care for the place, who are always a treasure—serious, knowledgeable, friendly, generous, unpretentious, and passionate.

At the turn-around point, the road crosses an old Power Company flume. Like all flumes, it has a maintenance footpath along one side, which you can explore on foot or mountain bike if you’re willing to ignore the half dozen signs telling you not to. The flume used to run water, but I haven’t seen it do that since the Camp Fire.

The ride back is just like the ride out, squared, because it’s a splendid 1.5-mile descent followed by a lovely, relaxed, up-and-down-back-and-forth saunter made nearly effortless by the imperceptible descending. It’s especially gorgeous in later afternoon when the light is low, the foliage is back-lit, and the bluffs are in chiaroscuro. The Three Sisters, when you hit them, are one of the world’s great 20-second descents—there are two blind corners, but trust me, they’re both completely safe, so stay off the brakes throughout, or you’ll wish you had.

Shortening the ride: If you don’t want to work, turn around at the Steel Bridge…but you’ll miss the best part of the ride.

Adding miles: At the Covered Bridge fork you can cross the creek and continue up Honey Run. In 5 miles you’ll be in the large village of Paradise, which was obliterated in the Camp Fire. If you go this route, the first 2 miles are mellow, then you have 3 miles of demanding, dramatic climbing through constant tight switchbacks over rough pavement. Going up is a grind, but coming down is worse. It’s too rough, too steep, and too curvy to be much fun. Consider doing the first 2 miles as an out and back 4-mile add-on to Centerville. Most locals who ride up the Honey Run climb loop around back to Chico by means of Neal Road, which is boring but smooth.

If you’re on a gravel bike, you can continue on Centerville Rd. when it turns to gravel. It will climb gradually up through the same canyon until you come out on the Skyway above Paradise. It’s a fairly boring ride but the views are grand. One reader says the road is or was washed out part-way up, but I suspect that was temporary.

As of 6/24, Chico has a lovely little 3.5-mile recreational trail that takes off about a mile from the start of this ride. It’s Humboldt Rd., and the story of its creation is a doozy:

Humboldt Rd. runs parallel to Hwy 32 heading east out of town, just a stone’s throw to the south of the highway. It’s a road with a lot of history—it’s the old wagon road heading east out of town, and wagon ruts in the lava cap are still clearly visible running beside the south shoulder. With the building of modern Hwy 32 it fell into disuse (it runs back into the highway and disappears 3.5 miles from Bruce Rd.), it became a hang-out for drinking parties, the county saw no reason to maintain it, and it generally went to hell.

Enter one of Chico’s most sterling and respected cyclists, who gave the city and the county his own money to have the road repaved and gated off from motor vehicles. Presto! A dream come true—a charming, meandering, moderate climb up through the valley oaks, on glass, free from traffic. It’s a lovely ride to do on a day when you don’t want to work, or you can add it on to the Centerville ride without getting in over your head. The fun starts at the intersection Bruce Rd. and Humboldt Rd. There is shoulder parking. The gated section is 1/4 mi up Humboldt.

Lumpkin Road

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Distance: 61 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 6610 ft

A Best of the Best descent

This is a fine ride through Sierra foothills and forests whose virtues are three:

1. Solitude—the last time I rode it, I saw two cars between the summit and Lumpkin Rd. (20 miles).

2. A 30-mile descent of extraordinary variety—the ride back from the Road 27 summit (28.5 miles) is almost entirely descending, and the road contour is never the same for long.

3. 8.5 miles of the most whee-inducing, roller-coaster stretch of road I know.

The route climbs steeply for 8.5 miles through tiny mountain communities, then traverses the deserted spine of Lumpkin Ridge, then descends for 2 miles to Little Grass Valley Lake, then returns. The scenery is fine without being special: classic Sierra foothill scrub, then pretty madrone-and-conifer forest, with some views into the forested canyons of Fall River (the stream that supplies the water for world-famous Feather Falls) to the west and the South Fork of the Feather River to the east from Lumpkin Ridge. the ride out is pretty much 30 miles of climbing, but after the first 8.5 miles it’s never particularly hard. There are three sensible turn-around points along the way that reduce the work load while preserving the roller coaster, which is in the last 8 miles of the return route and the high point of the ride.

This route (like the alternatives in Adding Miles) is simple to navigate on the road (there are only two turns) but confusing on any map, so follow my directions carefully and ignore what any paper or web map is telling you. To add to the confusion, all road signage is absent, ambiguous, or hard to see until the summit, 28.5 miles in.

From the intersection of Lumpkin Rd and Forbestown Rd, drive 4 miles down Lumpkin to the Enterprise Bridge and park just beyond the bridge—there’s a small dirt road with parking on the R. It’s possible to ride from the intersection of Lumpkin and Forbestown, but if you do you’ll begin with a 3.5-mile drop down to the Enterprise Bridge, which will leave you with a tedious, 3.5-mile uphill slog at the end of the ride, which, after 6500 ft of vertical gain, I don’t need.

From the bridge, ride 8.5 miles of complex, often taxing up-and-down stuff through nice foothill scenery and old-school foothill infrastructure (houses, ranches, a school, a grange hall, a “saloon”). The road is ever-changing—you can rarely see more than 1/10 of a mile of road ahead of you. On the return, these 8.5 miles will turn into something magical, but on the way out they’re mostly just hard—consistently 8-12%. In the first 4 miles you gain 1350 ft. in elevation; in the first 10 miles you gain 2460 ft. in elevation. Most of the work of the ride is right here—the next 20 miles, to the summit, are steadily up but at pitches from imperceptible to moderate.

Absurdly fun stuff in the first 8 miles

At 7.5 miles you pass the turn-off to Feather Falls. The road isn’t named, but two signs clearly read “Feather Falls.” If you take it, the road doesn’t take you to the falls—it takes you to the trailhead. The trail to the falls is a substantial hike, best left for another day.

At 8.2 miles you come to the first of two intersections where you have to pay attention. While the main road seems obviously to continue straight ahead, a paved road enters on the R. It has a stop sign (which has painted on its back side “A-line” and B-line”), and there’s a large sign that mysteriously reads “A Line” in freehand just before it. Take that road. If you miss the turn, no worries—the “main” road (which is still Lumpkin Road, unsigned) will turn to dirt in 1/10 of a mile, and you’ll know to backtrack. The new road (unsigned) is Lumpkin Ridge Road (Mapmyride also labels it “Mill Road”). From here on, the traffic should be next-to-nothing.

Lumpkin Ridge Rd. scenery: good, not great—note typical pothole

LRR at first climbs at a fairly stiff pitch for a mile or so, but then it mellows out and climbs at a mostly gentle rate through pretty woods to mile 15.3, where there’s a prominent intersection and you need to make a decision. An unsigned dirt road goes off on your L at 7 pm. What appears to be the main road, unsigned, continues almost straight ahead at 11 pm—it’s Mill Road, Forest Service 94 (22N94), which we’ll discuss in Adding Miles. An unprepossessing road goes R at about 3 pm. A small post marks it as 22N27. That’s Forest Road 27. Take it and ride 13 miles to a summit at 28.5 miles into the ride. Or turn around and enjoy first a sweet, fast descent, then 8.5 miles of roller coaster.

Some of the canyon forest is pristine

Road 27 is mostly stair-steps—short climbs with little descents or flat stretches between. The road surface is the opposite of Lumpkin Ridge Rd., which was smooth chipseal. Logging trucks have been busy destroying Rd. 27, and the result is smooth pavement scattered with jagged potholes. It’s a mine field. The potholes are easy to see and, with one or two exceptions, easy to ride around/between. I didn’t find them intrusive on the climb, and on the descent I found them an absolute hoot, turning the ride into a game of high-speed dodge ’em. I’m not sure everyone would share my view. Some good samaritan has written “bad spot” before the particularly broken sections of road, which you won’t need going up but which prove quite helpful going down.

Somewhere in here you meet a Y where both forks look equally attractive. There’s a small post with an “22N27” sign on the L fork telling you to take it.

Dyslexic’s warning: bad spot of pavement ahead

At 28.5 miles you pass two roads entering from the L—first Mill Road, Forest Service 94 (22N94), then something I can’t find a name for. Both roads have prominent signs pointing the way to Little Grass Valley, and FS94 has a small sign reading “22N94.” Ignore both roads. Immediately after, you reach a Y or T, whichever you prefer. Take the R fork and descend for 2 miles to Little Grass Valley Reservoir and our turn-around point. But before taking that fork, consider: the 2-mile climb back to the summit adds 510 ft. to your total elevation gain—not a tough climb (roughly 5%), but do you want more climbing?

The roller coaster

The ride from the summit to your car is unbelievably easy, 28.5 miles in which you will have to work at climbing perhaps twice, briefly. The descending comes in all imaginable forms (including pothole slalom), so you’ll never get bored.

Once you’re back on Lumpkin Rd., the roller coaster begins. It’s a bucket-list ride, a rollicking, absurdly diverting 8.5-mile series of turns and drops and little climbs, with your momentum allowing you to hammer up those climbs and maintain your speed. You’d wish you could do it two or three times.

Shortening the ride: After the first 8.5 miles, the rest of the ride is all good but all pretty much the same degree of good. So turn around as soon as you like, but be sure to include those first 8.5 miles.

Adding miles: If at the first intersection of FS 94 and FS 27 you go straight ahead onto 94, 5 things will happen: 1) you’ll rejoin Rd. 27 just before the summit; 2) you”ll add 15 miles to the ride out, or 30 miles if you take 94 out and back; 3) you’ll almost double the vert, from a vigorous 6610 ft to a downright grim 11710 ft out and back; 4) the road will become even narrower and more isolated than Rd. 27; and 5) the road surface, which on our mapped route is mostly fine, will vary from OK to wretched. This is a true adventure ride, spectacular in its way but not to be attempted without fat tires, emergency supplies, and a copy of your itinerary left with a trusted friend back home.

FS 94 gets really small

Whichever route you take to get there, from the summit where 94 and 27 reconnect you can take the other route back to make a 74-mile loop of it.

You can loop this ride another way. From our turn-around point, you can continue along the south edge of the lake on Little Grass Valley Rd., the first half of which is rideable dirt, the second half good pavement and nice riding, for 5 miles. Then Little Grass Valley Rd. ends at Quincy-La Porte Rd. Go R. Quincy-La Porte turns into La Porte Rd. Take the Challenge Cut-Off to the R, which connects with Forbestown Rd., which passes Lumpkin. Take Lumpkin back to your car (75 miles if you take FS 27, 89 miles on FS 94). This is all good riding, almost Bestrides-worthy, and especially nice downhill. Of course returning this way means you give up a glorious 30-mile descent and the roller-coaster section of Lumpkin, so if you go this way you might want to ride counter-clockwise.

If you’re into serious miles, when you hit Quincy-La Porte Rd., go L and ride to Quincy. For a detailed description of the ride, see the Added Miles section of the Oroville to Forbestown ride.

Lumpkin Rd. at its southern end intersects the Oroville to Forbestown ride. See the latter’s Adding Miles section for a discussion of other rides in the area.

The Feather Falls trailhead is about a couple of miles down the nameless road you passed 11 miles into our ride. If you brought a mountain bike or hiking shoes, it’s one of the west’s great trails. It’s a loop, with the Falls at the far end. The left trail is steep and prettier, the right is smooth and built for mountain bikes and mellow walking.

Lower Lumpkin Ridge Road—the only photo of me on a bike in Bestrides? Photo by Byron

Camptonville to Sierra City

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Distance: 69 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 5018 ft

This ride goes through some of the prettiest scenery in the Sierra hill country. It’s 31 miles of climbing, but I promise it’s doable, typically 1-4% and only momentarily over 5%. If that’s still daunting, it’s an easy route to edit—see Shortening the Ride below.

One caveat up front: I strongly recommend you do this ride in October, for two reasons: 1. the leaves of the maples and aspens are changing, which jacks up the gorgeousness level about ten-fold. In spring and summer the forest is just, well, green. In winter you’ll hit snow. 2. Hwy 49 can be busy, and, while the road isn’t narrow so passing is possible, I find the traffic (fast, aggressive) noisome. Downieville is a zoo in the summer, thanks to its excellent mountain biking, and Indian Valley is a string of popular campgrounds. October, almost no one is up there. In October, this ride is A-level; any other time, I don’t think I’d do it at all.

Our route begins with some nice fir/pine forest, does a very sweet 3-mile descent, follows the north fork of the great Yuba River for 10 miles, sees some good rock, climbs easily to the charming mountain community of Downieville, then does 12 miles of easy-to-moderate climbing to the equally charming but less touristy town of Sierra City. The road is consistently shoulderless but wide two-lane, roomy enough to allow safe passing, with a good road surface, and varying from fairly straight to fairly curvy. The riding is never exhilarating—even the descending is mellow—but it’s continuously charming and gorgeous (in October).

Despite its whopping elevation total, this route has something that’s very rare among Sierra mountain rides: flatness. For 10 miles along the river (20 miles round-trip), there isn’t a single significant pitch. For most of those 10 miles the climbing is imperceptible, and the occasional short rise is never worse than 2-3%. If you keep finding mountain rides in Bestrides that sound delicious but have off-putting elevation gains, that ten-mile stretch is for you.

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Del Puerto Canyon Road

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Distance: 49 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 3200 ft (from RWGPS)

This is another of those “best in the area” rides—not a life-changing ride but one worth doing if you’re in the neighborhood. It’s in the midst of a network of southeast Bay Area roads that cyclists ride all the time and which I find sterile and barren: Mines, San Antonio Valley, Tassajara, Highland, Altamont Pass. All rolling grassy hills. But in the midst of this desert is Del Puerto Canyon Road.

On a map it looks like it would be featureless like all the others, but it’s through a little canyon of considerable charm. It winds niftily along a little creek (dry in summer), which means riparian plant life, canyon walls, lots of turns, and some shade. It’s also predominantly next-to-flat (the first 16 miles average 1-2%, and almost all the elevation gain is in the two miles before the summit), which the others aren’t, so it’s ideal for a day when you don’t want to work. Where RWGPS gets that elevation gain total, I don’t know. You can in fact control the effort precisely—the pitch goes from flat to imperceptible to moderate to steep, and you can just turn around when you’re worked as hard as you want to.

In addition, DPCR has one virtue that no other ride in Bestrides can claim: it’s 50 feet off Hwy 5, so from now on when you’re making that tedious drive from SoCal to NorCal or vice versa you can pull off midway and do a refreshing little out-and-back on the bike.

In Patterson, CA, on Hwy 5, take the Sperry Ave/Diablo Grande Pkwy exit, go west under Hwy 5 and take the immediate R turn onto Del Puerto Canyon Road. Park anywhere on the shoulder. Ride to the T at the end of the road, then ride back. You can begin at the other end, but the first 21 miles are uphill from the Patterson/Hwy 5 end so I ride it that way so the work is in the middle of the ride, not at the end. Straight off you see an eerie sight: a large, mature orchard where the trees are all dead. My guess is someone cut off their water.

Best to ride Del Puerto Canyon in the spring

After a couple of miles of moderate rollers through open grassy hill country, you enter the canyon and stay there until the summit at mile 21. A stretch of road has become graffiti central—as usual the messages range from “Love is…” to giant phalluses—but it’s short-lived. As with most desert riding, the beauty around you may not be immediately obvious, and I encourage you to take the time to get into your surroundings. Watch for hawks playing games with each other in the air above you.

After those initial rollers, the pitch increases gradually. For the first 14 miles, it’s imperceptible. Then it’s noticeable. At about 17 miles it’s substantial. The last 2 miles to the summit are downright hard (8-10%), made harder by the deterioration of the road surface. If you’re out for an easy day, turn around when it gets tough, knowing that you won’t be missing anything important. Someone has painted large mileage markers, large but so artfully incorporated into the centerline that they’re hard to see, to tell you exactly how far in you are.

In the canyon

If you continue on past the summit, the road descends the back side of the pass for 3 more miles, then dead-ends on Mines Road. Skip it if you don’t want to climb back up, though it isn’t steep.

I don’t enjoy the first three miles of the return from the summit, because steep descents over rough pavement suck. After that, it’s a nearly effortless ride back to your car. Every time I’ve done it I’ve had a easterly wind in my face, even when there was a strong northerly on Hwy 5, so I suspect that’s the norm.

Nearing the summit

The downfall of this ride may be the traffic. The first time I rode it I saw 2-3 cars total. The second time I met about 100 motorcycles head-on over a stretch of 10 miles. The third time I saw 4 cars. All rides were on weekdays. In addition, there are a very large municipal park, Frank Raines Regional Park, and a OHV playground about midway, both of which are closed in the off-season. I have no idea how busy the area is on a weekend when they’re open.

Mile markers so big they’re hard to see

Even though it’s in a canyon, this ride is still dry and hot in summer, so I recommend doing it in spring, fall, or early morning. See Russell’s excellent comment below for info on traffic and water re-supply. After a very wet spring I did it in mid-April and the hills were already beginning to brown up.

Adding Miles: at the turn-around point you’re in the midst of a classic Bay Area ride, the “Mt. Hamilton Rd. out, Mines Rd. back” loop. To the R, Mines Rd. goes for miles, then ends near the southern-most point of our Morgan Territory Road ride. Mines Rd. was even on the Tour of California route one year—I remember standing on a climbing corner and watching a hard-working Lance Armstrong pass by me an arm’s length away. To the L, San Antonio Rd. climbs the back side of Mt. Hamilton and ends at the turn-around point of our Mt. Hamilton Road ride. I consider both rides tedious, and I don’t know anyone who has ridden up Mt. Hamilton from this side, which says something (but see Andrea’s comment below).

Afterthoughts: just across Hwy 5 from Del Puerto Canyon Rd. and unmissable is an Amazon “fulfillment center,” surely one of the largest one-story buildings on earth. Well worth a gawk.

A few miles into the ride, a large iron door is set into the rock wall. Thoughts of the mines of Moria are unavoidable. Can anyone tell me what it is? Perhaps it’s the eponymous “Puerto.”

“Speak, Friend, and enter.”

Kings Canyon

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Distance: 68 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 7980 ft

(A Best of the Best ride)

(This route has been closed for the past couple of years due to rockslide damage, but is now fully open.)

I’m not a great fan of riding in National Parks. They’re too crowded, they aren’t bike friendly, and they usually have only one or two paved roads, onto which thousands of cars are funneled and forced to fight for room. Our Lassen Volcanic NP ride is an exception, made attractive only because almost no one goes there and you can have the road largely to yourself. (The Yosemite tour is there because Yosemite is too imposing to ignore.)

Another exception is Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Park(s). They’re two parks, but they’re contiguous, so everyone thinks of them as one. You often aren’t sure which of the two you’re in. The riding is excellent and extensive. While Yosemite offers you two roads and Lassen one, KC/S has no less than ten paved roads, and they’re all well worth riding. Not a lot of people seem to know this. In my five days of riding in the two parks, the only person I saw on a bicycle of any sort—road bike, mountain bike, BMX, cruiser—was me.

Of course there is always the traffic problem. I wouldn’t go near any National Park in high season, and even during the shoulder seasons (spring and fall) I adhere strictly to the EMOW rule: ride Early Morning, Only on Weekdays. I did my KC/S riding in late September, and my EMOW rides saw a car per mile or less.

The ride outlined here is the best of the ten, by a long shot, one of the best rides I know of anywhere and a hands-down Best of the Best ride. It’s an 8-mile descent into a rock canyon of indescribable grandeur, then an 18-mile meander between towering granite and marble walls and through a beautiful glacial valley along a perfect Sierra stream. If you ride for the Wow Factor, if you love to be awed, this is the ride for you. There may be other rides as pretty or as pleasant, but none more mighty and imposing. Photos can’t do it justice.

I’ve mapped the ride from the obvious starting place, but if you want to get the climbing out of the way first (and I’m with you), drive to Convict Flat Overlook, park, ride back up the hill to the forest line, turn around and descend to your car, then continue on to Road’s End and turn around.

It’s a big ride—69 miles, 8000 ft of gain. In Shortening the ride I’ll show you ways to cut it down that maintain the grandeur.

By the way, the name of the park and the canyon is Kings Canyon, not King’s Canyon. It’s a translation of Canon de los Reyes, “Canyon of the Magi.”

Our route starts in Grant Grove Village, one of the two large communities in KC/S. Ride north on Hwy 180 until it dead-ends at Road’s End 34 miles later, then ride back.

An early glimpse of the canyon—click on photo to see your road in the center of the photo

At first the ride does not impress. You do 3 miles of up, then 5 miles of down through plain Sierra forest. The truth is, the forest here is dry, rather bedraggled, and often fire-damaged (though not as bad as KC/S’s other highway to the south, Hwy 198), and the road contour is only OK. At Mile 6.7 you pass the turn-off to Hume Lake, and at mile 8 you emerge from the trees and see the canyon you are going to ride into, at which point your heart soars like a hawk (or trembles like a leaf, depending on your nature). Kings Canyon is enormous and mighty—deeper than the Grand Canyon in places—and you’re going to spend the rest of the ride exploring its wonders.

Drop 8 miles and 2400 ft through a Best-of-the-Best descent. You’re passing turn-out after turn-out with incredible views, but they’re easier to take in when you’re climbing out at 7 mph. After you pass the foundations of Kings Canyon Lodge, destroyed in 2015’s devastating Rough Fire, the road takes a right turn and levels out and meanders up and down to Boyden Caverns (closed for years but recently reopened and worth a visit). The few miles from the leveling-out to just past Boyden are the geologically richest and visually most spectacular miles on the ride—linger and take in your surroundings. I know of no riding to match it. Mother Nature has done some of her best rock work here. Soon the road joins up with the Kings River, a boulder-strewn series of cascades and pools, to add to your pleasure.

Just past Boyden the nature of the ride changes. The canyon goes from being water-carved (vertical V-shaped) to glacial (wide, open U-shaped), the river becomes tranquil, and you begin a steady, easy 10-mile climb to Cedar Grove. The elevation profile makes this look harder than it is—you’ll climb about 1500 ft in 11 miles. Halfway to Cedar Grove you pass Grizzly Falls (clearly signed), an unpaved 40-ft walk from the road. Worth seeing.

Amazing rock

One mile before Cedar Grove the road crosses the river on a large bridge and a smaller road, Cedar Grove Road (unsigned), takes off to the L (staying on the north side of the river). It’s a back door into Cedar Grove, and if you take it (in either direction) it will save you one small but rather steep hill. My mapping forgot to include it. At Cedar Grove there’s a snack bar (with board games!), water, good bathrooms, lodging, and all the things you expect from a National Park complex. If you’re seriously out of season, check what’s open and what’s shut before you ride, so you don’t get surprised.

Kings River

You could turn around at Cedar Grove, of course, but the 6 miles of road remaining offer three rewards. 1. Roaring River Falls, a .2-mile paved walk from the road, is an exquisite little falls into an emerald pool—don’t miss it. 2. Zumwalt Meadow is a classic Sierra meadow with an educational hike around its perimeter. This takes walking shoes, since you can’t see the meadow from the road or from the parking lot. 3. The last 3 or so miles of the road enter a glacial canyon with towering rock walls surrounding you (very reminiscent of Yosemite and El Capitan). The tallest of them, to the south of you, is Grand Sentinel.

The ride back to Boyden Caverns is effortless. Not so the rest of the ride. You’re going to climb 3600 ft in 13 miles. None of it is really steep, and the vast bulk of it is 4-6%, but that’s still a lot. Mind your water. There is no water source after Cedar Grove, so if you aren’t going to wear a hydration pack you might think about dropping some water midway on your original descent (this is another argument for starting in the middle and riding up the climb first—you pass your car midway through the ride). Be sure to stop at every turn-out, wide spot in the road, and overlook to take in the vistas.

The glacial canyon

Shortening the ride: First, cut the first 8 miles. It isn’t rewarding riding and it adds 1000 ft of climbing. I drive to where I can see the canyon and start there. Second, if you aren’t up for a big climb, drive to where the road levels out (past Kings Canyon Lodge) and ride to Road’s End and back—36 gorgeous miles that includes the best of the canyon’s geology. Total elevation gain 3000 ft. If you want less, drive to the Convict Flat Overlook, drive the obvious descent that follows, park when it ends, and ride to Road’s End. That will save you 500 ft. If you want even less and want to ride only the most spectacular geology, start at the same place and ride to Cedar Grove.

Hangin’ at Roaring River Falls

Adding Miles: Surely you’re done for the day after this ride, but there are lovely rides all around you for other days. My favorite is Big Meadows Road, 11 miles of pavement before it turns to dirt, with one nice descent and one nice climb, an almost deserted dead-end road used only by hunters and horse packers. Also very nice is Hume Lake Road/Ten-Mile Road, 14 miles of not-too-steep, more domesticated back road that passes a very pretty lake with an interesting history (it used to be a logging mill pond). It’s also the only ride in the parks you can do as a loop. The ride to Panoramic Point is a brisk, sometimes quite steep 2 miles that’s a wonderful little luge run (and the panorama at Panoramic Point is marvelous—expect a short paved hike doable in bike shoes or bare feet). All the other roads—Mineral King, Crystal Cave, Crescent Meadow, Buckeye Flat, Little Boulder Grove—have their appeal and will reward if you can catch them at a low-traffic time. Just remember than the highways of KC/S are on a spine, so roads that leave them tend to go down, usually precipitously—then they come back up when you turn around.

Approaching Boyden Caverns

Hwy 198, the major artery southward through Sequoia NP, is a mixed bag. It’s all very pretty—the best woods in the parks—but it has no shoulder and obviously can be busy. From the intersection with 180 to Big Meadows Road it’s pleasantly up and down, nice if you can catch it early before the cars are out. From Big Meadows to Giant Forest the road is more extremely up and down, but still quite rideable. At Giant Forest the road begins a wonderful 23-mile descent to Three Rivers. It’s a long climb back, but if you can arrange a shuttle or hitchhike I’m told it’s dreamy. In the Giant Forest area you do get to ride right by some splendid Giant Sequoias.

See Jeff’s comment below for an excellent survey of rides in the foothills south of the parks.

Afterthoughts

Most of the riding I’ve discussed isn’t actually in the National Parks. The borders of KC/S are odd, so many of the rides are on roads in the surrounding Giant Sequoia National Monument or Sequoia National Forest. Only the first 2 and last 7 miles of the Kings Canyon ride is in Kings Canyon National Park—in fact, none of Kings Canyon (the canyon itself) was in the park until recently, when the park was expanded to include the last 7 miles of Hwy 180.

Brice Creek Road

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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.

In Culp Creek, a cluster of houses east of Cottage Grove on Row (rhymes with “cow”) River Road, park at the eastern end of the Row River Trail (more on that in Adding Miles), in a little dirt parking area cum outhouse on the L side of the road with the large sign reading “Culp Creek Trailhead/ Row River Trail.” Ride east on Row River Road and in one mile go L onto Lower Brice Creek Road. Row River Road itself is fine riding and you may be tempted to stick with a good thing, but don’t, because Lower Brice does RRR one better. It’s not only gorgeous—it’s also tiny, rolling, and deserted. And it has a wonderful little falls and swimming hole, Wildwood Falls, which may call to you on the return ride if the weather is warm. I was sorely tempted to ride up and down Lower Brice Creek Rd. all day and forego the work, but noblesse oblige.

Don on Lower Brice Creek Road

At 4.5 miles Lower Brice dead-ends on Layng Creek Road. Go R for forty feet and reconnect with Row River Road, which now (or somewhere in here) changes its name to Brice Creek Road/NF 22. From here to Mile 17.5, BCR climbs at a relaxed pace through a lovely forest of maples, moss, alders, and fern, much of its length on the very lip of charming Brice Creek.

Brice Creek Road

You won’t be alone here—the National Forest is thick with hiking trails to falls, the road itself has several campgrounds along it, and dirt roads lead to OHV meccas, so there are people up there, but the traffic is amazingly spare. The last time I rode it I saw 7 (!) vehicles on the road, on a lovely summer Monday mid-day. Once I rode it on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend and traffic was still light.

Half a mile past Cedar Creek Campground

Brice Creek is pretty but often below you and obscured by foliage in the first miles. There’s one place where you should really get off your bike and check it out. You can’t see it from the road, so you’ll have to follow my directions. Exactly .5 miles after the large Cedar Creek Campground sign on the R and campground turn-in on the L (at Mile 11), there’s a small, one-group campground without a name. Pull in, take off your shoes, and walk the 40-ft trail on your L down to the water. There you’ll find a gorgeous little stair-step falls, perfect for meditating, wading, and even swimming (well, emersion) if you’re determined. You’ll hear it before you see it.

At around 13 miles you pass the Champion Creek Trailhead (signed). Immediately afterwards, you cross the creek on a bridge and it’s now on your R. Now begins my favorite leg of the ride. The road gets smaller and the creek is now right along the road, at your elbow, and it’s utterly charming—a constant series of little falls, mini-rapids, and still pools, all lined with mossy maples. Of course there is a price: for the creek to make falls, it has to drop, so you, who are going in the other direction, have to climb a bit more than you’ve been doing. Slow down, stare at the water, and let the climbing miles roll by painlessly. When you cross the creek a second time, the road ramps up again, enough that you’ll feel like you’re doing a little work, but it’s not hard, and it only lasts for a mile or two.

At Mile 17.5 you must take a 90-degree turn-off to the L, and you have to watch for it because there is one small sign marking your route and nothing else. The sign is a small rectangle reading “Connect Lane” (the county) and underneath a very small sign reading “Oakridge CL 1” with an arrow. I could find no forest service numbers or other markings. Luckily you have little choice because the only alternative, straight ahead, is obviously wrong because it turns to gravel in 50 ft.

Following the sign, go L and the road changes dramatically. It’s much steeper and much narrower (though it’s still NF 22), and the forest is drier, with the trunks of mighty conifers instead of maples. Any traffic you’ve been seeing should trickle to nothing. The next 4 miles are the hardest climbing in the ride. It’s never brutal, but you can get lulled into complacency by the previous gentle climbing, and if so it’s a shock.

Ferns and alders

At Mile 21.5 you reach a notorious 4-way intersection which in the old days reduced riders to tears. Now it’s foolproof. You enter on NF 22. Straight ahead is Rd 2110, dirt, clearly numbered. Crossing your path is 5850, clearly numbered. To the R, 5850 is dirt. To the L, it’s paved and it’s the road you want. Because of road curvature, you end up making a tight near-180-degree L turn. There is also an obvious sign reading “Hwy 58—Oakridge” pointing our way. Trust your navigation at this point, because you aren’t going to see signage (and quite possibly humans) for the rest of the climb.

There is nothing marvelous beyond this intersection. If you turn around now, you won’t miss anything but the satisfaction of making it to the top.

The road continues up for about another 4 miles at a straight and steady pitch, none of it grim, all of it work. Again the landscape changes, because it’s been logged here and there’s less water, so the forest is stunted and at times feels more like shrubbery than forest primeval. At the obvious summit you descent for 1.5 miles to the bottom of a large saddle and meet the gravel patch that is our turn-around point. Again, if you’re done climbing for the day, turn around back at the summit—you won’t miss anything. On the other hand, if you decide to log a few more miles, past the gravel the road soon climbs 8 more miles to a second summit before plummeting steeply down to Oakridge.

Brice Creek Road, but a likely sight on any back road in Oregon

On the ride home, the descent from the summit to the four-way is fairly straight, but the descent from there back to the main road is breath-taking. Descending the main road offers some 30-mph stretches, but it’s slow and straight enough in the main to let you relax and take in the splendid scenery a second time.

Take Lower Brice Creek Road on your return for maximum scenic payoff or creek swimming, but it is more up and down than the main road, so if you just want to be done, stay on Row River Road back to your car.

There are at least three campgrounds with formal outhouses before the turn at 17.5 miles—after that, you’re on your own. There is no potable water. There will be campers, from whom water can be begged.

Shortening the route: Turn around at the 17.5-mile-out L turn.

Adding miles: As I said, there’s a lot of good riding within 20 miles of this ride. Most simply, you can continue on from our turn-around point to Oakridge, an additional 24 miles, making for a total of 50 miles—actually fewer than our out-and-back route but more work because past our turn-around point you climb for 8 more miles). You just need to find a way back from Oakridge. Riding from Oakridge to Culp Creek you do the same elevation gain in fewer miles, so it’s steeper (14 miles to the summit from the Oakridge side, 34 miles from the Culp Creek side). Once in Oakridge, you’ve got the Aufderheide ride and the other roads discussed in the Aufderheide ride’s Adding Miles section.

If you’re looking for tranquil, there’s the Row River Trail, a rail-to-trail conversion that runs from our parking lot all the way to Cottage Grove (16 miles). I’m not a fan of rail-to-trail conversions, but this is one of the better ones. The miles before and after Dorena Lake are pretty stock flat farm country stuff, highlighted by a couple of nice covered bridges along the route and a couple of nice bridge crossings (of the Row River and Mosby Creek), but the 5 miles along the lake and the 2 miles west of them are prettily wooded. The trail by the lake has a lot of root upheavals, but they’re all boldly outlined in yellow paint. There’s a nice pamphlet on the trail, with a good map, free at any visitor’s center in the area.

The roads on either side of Dorena Lake (smaller Row River Road on the north shore, larger Shoreview Drive, the main road, on the south) are good riding (though the south side is somewhat trafficky), so you can actually ride along the lake three times and never repeat your route—both roads and the rail trail. There are also two roads leaving Brice Creek Road that are very worth doing: Layng Creek Rd. turns to gravel in about 8 miles and is beautifully wooded when the light is right. If you have a gravel bike, you can continue on when the pavement ends and ride to short (1/3-1/2-mile) hiking trails leading to any of three stunning little falls: Spirit, Moon, and Pinard—Google for details.

Sharps Creek Rd. keeps going. You can keep riding southward until you get to Steamboat (33 miles one way starting at the north end of Sharps Creek Rd), or you can make a 74-mile loop starting in Cottage Grove and riding Row River Rd to Sharps to Clark Creek Rd. to Big River Rd. back to Cottage Grove. The Lane County Bicycle Map lays out the loop route. Take a map—there are a number of road name changes. But Sharps Creek Rd is good for shorter out-and-backs too. For the first 10 miles it’s a mellow 2% climb on a big, domesticated, smooth two-lane road through woods that vary from OK to fine. Then at the unmissable, well-signed fork (Sharps Creek Rd goes L, Martin Creek Rd goes R, but it’s soon renamed Clark Creek Rd), you go R, cross a bridge, the road becomes smaller, rougher, more densely wooded, and steeper—an easy 4% for a while, then suddenly a truly daunting, unrelenting 8-10% for 4 or 5 miles. By this time the road has shrunk to bike path size and the woods have closed in dramatically. I rode 24 miles of Sharps Creek Road and saw not one car on the road.

Don’t be tempted to ride the loop up Sharps Creek Rd., past Bohemia Mt., and down Champion Creek Rd. The Lane County Bike Map says it’s all paved, but it’s actually gravel from when you leave SCR.

On the west side of Cottage Grove, all the roads are favorite cruising grounds for Eugene cyclists—feel free to wander. See our Siuslaw River Road post, especially the Adding Miles section, for details.

Quartzville Road

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Distance: 44-mile out and back
Elevation gain: 2880 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).

There is very little to say about this simple, perfect ride. It has no grand vistas, no exhilarating descents, no craggy monoliths—no breath-taking features of any kind. It’s just 22 miles of lovely, pleasantly meandering, gently rising and falling two-lane road through the faery Western Oregon rain forest, then back. It follows Quartzville Creek, which for 10 miles of our route is widened by Green Peter Dam into Green Peter Lake. There is in fact 50 miles of Quartzville Road (or Quartzville Drive on some maps), which is officially the Quartzville Road Back Country Byway (though I saw no evidence of this along the route), and runs from Sweet Home on Hwy 20 to its dead end at Hwy 22. The other 25 miles of Hwy 22 are chronicled in the Beyond Yellowbottom ride, which has a very different character.

This is one of the easier rides in Bestrides. The road is rarely flat, but the pitch is often so mellow you can’t be sure if you’re climbing or descending, and it’s never enough to make you break a sweat.

Park at Sunnyside Park, a lovely county park that is friendly, cheerful, and free. Ride up Quartzville Road/Drive for the entire ride. The scenery is gorgeous—mossy maples, golden canopies—almost from the gun. It isn’t going to get any prettier, so don’t hurry through these early miles to get to the mythical good stuff. I recommend riding in the morning if possible, so the sun backlights the trees on your R.

The road surface is excellent, and made better by the fact that new shoulder strips have recently (summer 2016) been added on both sides of the road, and this new surface makes climbing practically effortless. On my last ride I met a flagman who told me they were about to repave the road “to make it really nice for you,” but I can’t imagine how it could be better. He also said they were going to be adding guardrails, which might impair the road’s sense of intimacy a tad.

In 3.6 miles you reach the unfortunately named Green Peter Dam and Lake. The view of the lake from the dam is usually quite striking. Take it in, because hereafter it’s not a pretty lake, and you can’t see it very well anyway. You’re here for the road and the forest, not the water views.

In about 10 miles (about where you cross on the obvious but unsigned Rocky Top Road bridge spanning the headwaters of the lake), the creek returns to being a creek and the character of the ride changes. The scenery is rougher, drier, and rockier. The land is more open, so for the first time in the ride the road is often in full sun (if it’s sunny). To my mind, the scenery is now only good, not grand—turn around if you don’t like what you see. Now the creek is strewn with boulders that form lovely, large swimming holes you should try if it’s hot enough. The road is now also marked by miniature camp sites in most of the dirt turn-outs, which is a handy thing because water sources are scarce along this route and you may need to beg water from a camper.

In the last miles before my turn-around spot the road stops rolling up and down and does a steady, easy climbing grade you’ll hardly notice until you turn around and discover it’s now a descent.

At 22.2 miles you reach Yellow Bottom (or Yellowbottom), a lovely spot with a rocky beach and swimming hole on one side of the road and developed campground on the other. I turn around here. The ride back is close to effortless—just a few easy climbs to break up the long, gentle descents.

I love this ride in sunshine, but it has a different kind of beauty when wet, also wonderful, so I wouldn’t write it off because of rain. The pitches are never steep enough to cause you any wet-road bike handling concern.

Shortening the ride: The ride begins lush and moist, and gets rockier and drier as it climbs. Pick your foliage.

Adding Miles: Keep riding up Quartzville Road past Yellowbottom and do the Beyond Yellowbottom ride.

The miles to the south and west of Sunnyside Park are also very good—classic farm and foothill riding. Don’t follow Quartzville Drive to Hwy 20; instead, take the almost-immediate R off Quartzville onto N. River Drive and follow it along the north side of pretty Foster Lake. From Sunnyside Park to Sweet Home this way adds 8 miles (one way) of very pleasant riding.

Afterthoughts: I know of no guaranteed water sources between Sunnyside Park and Yellow Bottom, but there are frequent bathrooms—at campgrounds, at Green Peter Dam, and at road intersections for some reason.

Blue Lakes Road

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Distance: 23.6 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 1730 ft

This ride isn’t thrilling. But if you’re in the mood for a mellow jaunt through pretty High-Sierra country, you can’t beat it. It’s a idyllic ride, perfect for a recovery day after you’ve tackled one of the harder rides in the area—Carson Pass, Ebbetts Pass, or Monitor Pass—or for a day when you only have an hour or two in the morning or evening to ride. It’s all easy climbing (1730 ft. in 24 miles), with a brilliant blue Sierra lake at the turn-around for snacking or meditation.

Blue Lakes Road isn’t plowed in winter and is therefore impassable above the snow line.

(The RidewithGPS map shows the pavement lasting longer than I think it does.)

Begin at the junction of Blue Lakes Road and Highway 88, which you pass on the Carson Pass Plus ride. There is no “Blue Lakes Road” sign per se, but there are signs reading “Blue Lakes 12” from either direction on 88. There is a nice dirt area for parking on the SE corner of the intersection, and if you don’t like leaving your vehicle on roadsides it’s a pleasant, flat ride from Sorensen’s Resort (which seems to have been renamed Desolation Hotel—see the Carson Pass Plus ride for details).

Just your basic pretty Sierra scenery

Ride to the end of the road. After the first couple of miles of flat, You’ll climb pleasantly for about 6 miles, then climb moderately for a mile to a summit at mile 9, then descend 2 miles to a junction at Lower Blue Lake.

As you ride, enjoy your surroundings. This is not the time or place to hammer or train. You’ll pass meadows, ponds with dark green conifers reflected in their waters, great boulders, and signs of cattle ranching, with a background of lofty mountains flecked with snow (in season).

Near the summit, looking back on the climb (road visible in center)

At the junction there’s a wooden sign reading “Blue Lakes Basin,” a board with some interesting history, and a map showing that four lakes lie in front of you. If you’re on a gravel bike you can ride to any one of them, but the roads are all dirt, so if you’re on a road bike you have one option: ignoring the road into the campground directly ahead of you, take the road on your R, ride along the edge of the campground until that road turns to dirt, then ride the dirt for 1/4 of a mile along the shore of Lower Blue Lake until you see granite boulders jutting out into the water. You should have the place to yourself. Bliss out.

Lower Blue Lake

On the return you’ll do an untaxing 1-mile-or-so climb back up to the summit, then have some thoroughly pleasant moderate descending for the bulk of your ride home. No hairpins, no daredevil 40-mph straights. It’s all rejuvenating, not draining, and you end the ride fresher than when you started.

Adding Miles: This ride lies between two Bestrides.org rides, Carson Pass Plus and Ebbetts Pass. See both those rides’ Adding Miles sections for other possibilities and information on the area. The miles of road between Sorensen’s and Markleeville are almost all trafficky, straight, monotonous, moderate descending—effortless in this direction but not particularly rewarding.

Blue Lakes Road boulder

Tin Barn Road/Annapolis Road

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Distance: 38-mile loop
Elevation gain: 4845 ft

This is the loop ride directly to the north of the King(‘s) Ridge ride—in fact the two routes share a few miles—so the question arises, how are they different, and which one should you ride? They’re very similar. They’re both great rides and serious efforts with much climbing. Each has one pleasant, tiny town near the beginning of the ride, then you’re totally on your own. The terrain and landscape are similar for both (pretty coastal hill country). Tin Barn/Annapolis is further from Santa Rosa, the nearest large population center, so it gets ridden less. TB/A has more redwoods, the climbing is spread out more, and the road surface is a quantum leap better though still flawed (for the rare good pavement in Sonoma County, see our Occidental Loop ride and Bohemian Highway ride). TB/A has rhododendrons in the spring, a few miles of pretty, mellow Hwy 1, some totally ridable dirt, and by far the harder pitch (1 mile of 15-20%). TB/A, unlike King Ridge, can easily be cut short if you overestimated your resources. If that sounds like I think TB/A is the better ride, I do.

The coast is always subject to fog and wind, and thus chill, even on the hottest days. The hills of Tin Barn and Annapolis can get very hot. So dress for a huge temperature swing. The last time I was there, it was 102 degrees on Tin Barn and 64 (and windy) on Hwy 1—a swing of 38 degrees. Also, plan your water supply before starting out—on a hot day, two water bottles may not be enough to get you from Ratna Ling to Stewart’s Point.

(The map erroneously shows the Hauser Bridge Road as dirt. It’s paved.)

Start at Stewart’s Point (not to be confused by you STNG fans with Patrick’s Point to the north), a tiny coastal community with a very charming general store where you can get root beer floats after the ride. Ride south on Hwy 1. I’m not a fan of Hwy 1 riding, but this is completely pleasant—charming, nearly flat, with easy passing lanes for cars and not too many of them. It’s not the extreme/sublime scenery of the Hwy just to the south, which is known as Dramamine Drive, but for that reason it isn’t dangerous and leg-killing.

FOB Brian on Kruse Ranch Road—note the excellent dirt

Ride the short distance to Kruse Ranch Rd. (labeled Krause Ranch Rd on the Sonoma bike map) and take it to the L. You’ll soon be in the Kruse Rhododendron Preserve, which is a treat during the spring bloom. The road surface is all dirt, but it’s easy on 25 mm tires, the scenery is that matchless coastal redwood and fern rain forest, than which there is nothing better on this earth, and the pitch is pleasant until you get to The Plantation (can’t miss it). From there it’s a rather steep pitch to the road’s end at Hauser Bridge Rd. Rear wheel traction can be a problem on skinny tires, but it’s over soon enough.

Annapolis Road

Turn L on Hauser Bridge Rd., and now you’re riding the King Ridge loop backwards. (RidewithGPS shows HBR as unpaved, but it’s wrong.) Stop at the drinking fountain thoughtfully provided for you by the monks at the Ratna Ling Retreat Center (past the front gate on the L) and fill up—there’s no water source between here and the end of the ride, and it can be hot in those hills.

Drop steeply down to Hauser Bridge and begin the climb up the other side, which is something you’ll tell your riding buddies about. For 1.1 miles it’s a constant 15-20% (RidewithGPS says it tops out momentarily at just over 21%); after that it’s just 10-12% for a while. It’s a extraordinarily difficult climb, and if you aren’t in shape for it it can drain you and make the rest of the ride miserable.

Annapolis Road

At the top of the climb go L at a fork onto Tin Barn Rd (the other fork is King Ridge Rd). The rest of the ride, with one exception, rolls constantly but never fiercely, so if the ride hasn’t killed you by now it probably isn’t going to. Where Tin Barn T’s into Stewart’s Point/Skaggs Springs Rd., go R for a brief stretch almost entirely consisting of ripping descent and go L onto Annapolis Rd, crossing the old metal bridge to do so. Annapolis Rd begins with the other demanding climb (nothing like Hauser Bridge—just standard hard), and from there to the end the climbing is never worse than moderate, though there’s a lot of it.

Hwy 1 is sweet and unthreatening here

All of Tin Barn and Annapolis is lovely riding—climbing and dropping and back and forth through standard coastal ridge meadows and woods. The final descent on Annapolis, down to the South Fork of the Gualala River paralleling Hwy 1, is grand. It would be world-class if the road surface were better, but as it is it’s still very good. I confess I ruined my carbon front wheel by overheating the braking surface with all the braking I had to do, but that’s rim brakes for you—disc brakes won’t have a problem.

Often along this stretch of coast there’s a killer climb on the other side of the Gualala River to get back to Hwy 1, but not here—the mellow little riser here is a pleasant surprise. Turn L on Hwy 1 and ride the few miles back to Stewart’s Point, hopefully with the northerly wind for which the area is famous at your back.

Shortening the route: You can cut the route in half by turning L instead of R on Stewart’s Point/Skaggs Springs Rd. and riding it to Hwy 1. It’s a lovely stretch of road, so you won’t be losing any beauty. You could also cut the route in half the other way, by riding just the Annapolis half of the route (Annapolis to Stewart’s Point/Skaggs Springs Rd. to Hwy 1). It’s probably equally hard in either direction. Some people ride just Annapolis Road, as an out-and-back.

Adding miles: Obviously you can add King Ridge to the route, since it’s contiguous, and if you’re up for that my hat’s off to you. You can add Hwy 1 miles by continuing south past Kruse Ranch Rd, enlarging the loop by leaving Hwy 1 at either Timber Cove Rd, Fort Ross Rd., or Meyers Grade Rd. (in that order heading south), all of which are much harder climbs than Kruse Ranch. Remember, Hwy 1 gets tougher and scarier as you go south.

You can ride Stewart’s Point/Skaggs Springs Rd. east all the way to Geyserville. It’s a standard test of conditioning for local racers, and it accumulates serious elevation gain. It’s also hot on a sunny day, since much of it is exposed, and not particularly pretty once you clear the coastal redwoods.

Soda Springs Rd, which leaves Annapolis Rd at the tiny community of Annapolis and turns to dirt at a gate in about 4 miles, is reputed to be a fine little out and back.

Clear Lake to Cobb

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Distance: 23 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 2430 ft

This is a short, relatively easy, totally joyous out and back climb and descent—one of the easiest 10-mile climbs you’ll ever do. It stairsteps with much variety of contour through pretty scenery, then gives you a sweet descent you can really attack on the return. No bragging rights on this one, no sufferfest—just sweet riding. To add to your bliss, at the turn-around point is a unique, charming cafe/bakery/bookstore/coffee shop.

Begin at the intersection of Hwy 175 and Highway 29, the moderately big highway paralleling the southern shore of Clear Lake. The stretch of 29 has recently been reworked and expanded, and the base of 175 has been enlarged as well, but you’ll be back to moderate two-lane very soon.

Since our route is steepest in the first couple of miles, you might want to warm up on 29, which is flat or gently sloped in both directions, but it’s big and busy, so it can be disconcerting.

Ride 175 to the tiny mountain town of Cobb, where you turn around and ride back. Hwy 175 is the second-most popular route from Middletown to Clear Lake (after Hwy 29), so it’s not car-free, but the traffic is light (even on weekends) and the two-lane road offers plenty of passing room. And the payoff for riding on a “highway” is the road surface is glassy throughout. The scenery is good, starting in vineyards and deciduous oaks (particularly colorful in the fall) and climbing to lush Coast Range conifers near the top. The route used to be prettier, but it’s suffered the same population growth as the rest of California and there are a few too many hardscrabble homes with accompanying junkyards. But it’s still very good.

175 is moderately steep in the first mile, but then it mellows out and you won’t work again until the hill just before Cobb. You gain 2430 ft in 11 miles, according to Mapmyride, but in fact the climbing feels much easier than the numbers suggest. The road contour is pleasantly varied, so you never do the same sort of riding for more than about 50 yards.

About 8 miles in you hit the one noticeable hill, 1.3 miles to an obvious summit, followed by a fast, straight 1.5-mile descent into town. Turn around at the summit if you don’t want to do work, because the climb out of Cobb on the return is noticeable and not particularly interesting or pretty. But riding to Cobb is worth the effort, because it allows you to visit Mountain High Coffee and Books, on your R just before you intersect with Bottle Rock Rd. in a little strip mall (easy to overlook), a delightful coffee/smoothie/bakery/sandwich/breakfast eatery/aroma therapy/book store which makes for a perfect mid-ride pit stop. This place is one of my favorite little stores anywhere. It sells about 100 used books, all of them hand-selected and worth reading, with a children’s book section, big easy chairs for extended browsing, and outside tables for lunch munching.

The ride back from the summit is very special. It’s never straight, but it’s not twisty, and the pitch is just steep enough that you can get up some real speed (in places you’ll touch 30 mph) but never so steep that you have to back off and brake. I love descents like this, where you can really charge the hill, press the pace, and pedal hard.

In 2015 the Valley Fire burned tens of thousands of acres south of Clear Lake. The fire burned on three sides of Cobb, but the town and our stretch of Hwy 175 were largely undamaged. There is still some signs of the fire damage in the last couple of miles before Cobb (suspiciously thin forest, lots of 10″ tree plantings on the hillsides), but most of the terrain is green again now.

Hwy 175: love that glassy road surface

Adding Miles: There is an outstanding alternative to our route. Two-thirds of the way towards Cobb you go through the tiny town of Loch Lomond, and at the town’s one and only intersection you can take Seigler Canyon Rd. back down to Hwy 29. It’s a marvelous two-lane descent, serpentining smoothly on fine pavement. The only drawback is, there is no shoulder and no room for cars to pass, so you’re almost forced to pull onto the dirt for all traffic. But it’s still grand. Not better than our route, but as good, so you’ll just have to ride up 175 twice to experience both descents.

From Cobb you can continue on 175 to Middletown. It doesn’t begin to match the interest or beauty of what we’ve already ridden, but it’s pleasant enough—bigger, straighter, more open, more developed—and just past Cobb there’s a substantial descent (1700 ft in 5.5 miles, c. 7%) you want to make sure you want to climb if you’re doing an out and back.

The other riding around Clear Lake is plentiful, popular, and consistently good once you’re off the main highways. The hills south of Clear Lake are a warren of good roads, all much like Hwy 175—pretty, a little trafficky, never flat, never severely steep. It’s easy to make up loops. Bottle Rock Rd., which parallels our ride just to the west, is a little bigger, straighter, and busier than 175 (or was the day I rode it), and it has a 3-mile slog of a climb—straight, unvaried of pitch, and downright monotonous—soon after leaving the lake, all reasons I didn’t include it in our route, but it’s worth riding nonetheless. If you love straight, fast descending, ride up 175 and down Bottle Rock. Also worth riding in the area are Loch Lomond Rd. and Red Hills Rd.

Big Canyon Rd. has the advantage of dropping you off on Middletown, right by Harbin Hot Springs, so you can take in a soak. Its contour is also nice: from its north end on Siegler Canyon Rd. it climbs for a while, then drops all the way down into a large canyon, crosses the creek at the canyon bottom, then follows the creek downstream, crossing it frequently on quaint bridges. Sounds great, but the pavement is poor enough that it was a once-only for me. There is a stretch of dirt in its middle (in ways better riding than most of the pavement) and it goes through the heart of the Valley Fire burn, so the scenery is stark. Perini Rd. is much like Big Canyon: it takes off from Siegler Canyon Rd., it’s quiet and isolated, it suffers from poor road surface, and it has a substantial stretch of dirt that’s perhaps better riding than the pavement. It has the advantage of going nowhere (it leaves Seigler Canyon and returns) so there is little reason a car would be on it.

Seigler Springs Rd. and Diener Rd. are largely dirt.

Creating loop routes in this area almost always involves riding a stretch of Hwy 29. It can be fine or harrowing, depending on where you are. It’s a big two-lane highway with constant gentle rollers, a lot of traffic, and an unreliable shoulder. The scenery—vineyards, hills—is charming.

A stone’s throw south from Lower Lake on Hwy 29 is Spruce Grove Rd., 9 miles of peachy, meandering road on OK surface through moderately farmland/woodsy scenery (surprisingly lush for this area—no burn damage). Since it’s a horseshoe that takes off from Hwy 29 and returns, it’s classic side road and sees little traffic. At the north end it’s all low-rent ranches for the first mile, and at the south end you find yourself in the midst of the upscale, pretentious gated community of Hidden Valley Lake, but in between it’s borderline Bestrides-worthy.

Heading north from the north end of Clear Lake is one of those effortless gems that cycling brings our way now and then, Scotts Valley Road. It’s a near-flat, dead easy, but utterly adorable roll through an unpretentious valley of ancient pear orchards and old farm houses (the kind with unmanned produce stands in front of them). Take the Hwy 29 exit marked Scotts Valley in Lakeport. Park as soon as the road leaves the congested highway area, ride to the road’s dead end at Hwy 20, then ride back. You can add 6 miles by taking Blue Lakes Rd out and back along the river a stone’s throw before the intersection with 20, and you can add interest by taking the alternate route along Hendricks Road on your L about a mile down Scotts Valley from the beginning of the ride. Rumor had it that the Mendocino Fire damaged Scotts Valley, but I’m happy to say it’s totally intact as of 11/18.

From Elk Mt. Road looking back toward Clear Lake

At the northwest corner of the lake is the town of Upper Lake, and from there you can do the Elk Mountain Rd. ride, the exact opposite of the Scotts Valley ride. This one is a rough and rugged ride for a day when you want to work. Ride away from the lake down Upper Lake’s Main St., jog R on Second St. and turn immediately L on Middle Creek Rd, which turns in less than a mile into Elk Mountain. Ride Elk Mountain until it turns to dirt 17 miles out, then return. For the first 9 miles you’ll roll sweetly through pretty oaks along the edge of an ever-narrowing valley. As soon as the valley ends, the road turns up, and you’ll do a demanding 8% pitch for the next 5.5 miles over rough pavement with some splendid switchbacks and grand vistas of the country you’ve just ridden through. At 14.5 miles you summit and roll up and down, mostly down, to the end of the pavement.

The returning descent from the summit would be a Best of the Best descent if the pavement were smooth, which it isn’t. It’s generally poor, and in places it’s downright nasty. Bring your 40 mm tires and prepare to do a lot of braking and feel a lot of jarring.

Elk Mountain Road leads to Pillsbury Lake and to a hugely popular off-road vehicle playground, so there are a surprising number of people up there. I did it at 11 am-1 pm on a beautiful fall Saturday and saw two cars on the ride in—one of whom stopped, asked me if I needed anything, and offered me water. But all those people have to drive up and down that road sometime, so at some hours it must be heavily trafficked, and it’s not a pleasant road to meet traffic on. Plan your ride accordingly.

All that makes Elk Mountain sounds pretty dreadful. It isn’t. If you like a hard climb, don’t mind rough pavement, and can find a ride time that avoids the traffic, it’s the only ride in the Clear Lake area with a sense of epic grandeur.

A popular ride is to circumnavigate the lake. I can’t see the appeal. Highway 29, on the south side, is scenically pleasant but is all shoulder riding, Highway 20 along the north shore goes through a series of small, congested, bike-unfriendly towns that are hectic even in a car, and the connecting roads on the west and east sides are the epitome of big/flat/straight/trafficky.

Fire damage near Cobb, since repaired

Jay's Essential Bike Rides

The very best road rides in California and Oregon

Author Archives: Jack Rawlins

Honey Run to Centerville Road

Lumpkin Road

Camptonville to Sierra City

Del Puerto Canyon Road

Kings Canyon

Brice Creek Road

Quartzville Road

Blue Lakes Road

Tin Barn Road/Annapolis Road

Clear Lake to Cobb