Author Archives: Jack Rawlins

McKenzie Pass

Distance: 44 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 4100 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).

This ride is the greatest climb and descent in Oregon. ‘Nuff said. And in addition, you get class-A Oregon forest and an enormous lava “moonscape” you’ll never forget.

Others seem to find this climb harder than I do. The defunct Lane County Bicycle Map, which I love, had a place along this route marked with 3 chevrons (hardest pitch). Baloney. I promise you the pitch on this climb is consistently mellow (when it isn’t downright easy). RidewithGPS gets it right (but inexplicably says most of the climb is unpaved).

(The RWGPS map shows half of the route as unpaved. This is untrue—it’s all excellent pavement.)

This out-and-back starts at the intersection of Highways 126 and 242. If you approach the ride from the Eugene side, as I always do, you’ll find that the terrible fire of 2022 burned most of the McKenzie River valley in the miles before the Hwy 242 turn-off, and you’ll fear for our ride, but the burn stops a few miles before the turn-off and the forests of 242 are untouched except for the very last mile or two before the lava fields.

Park at the intersection of Hwy 126 and 242. There’s a nice paved turn-out at the beginning of 242 for that purpose. Climb Hwy 242 (The McKenzie Highway) to McKenzie Pass and return. It’s a long but consistently moderate climb, not a foot of it hard, followed by a descent that’s beyond words. If you don’t like out-and-backs it’s possible to ride the Pass from end to end one way, and I’ll discuss how later, but it’s less good that way, because the east side of the summit is boring compared to the west side, both climbing and descending.

Morning light through the lower forest

I suggest you do this ride in the summer or fall, in sunshine. The road is gated off to cars and impassable in winter. Then it’s open to bikes only for a few weeks in the spring. Some riders love that, but typically the road is a wet black ribbon between tall banks of snow at that time and I would think the views would be about as exciting as a bureaucratic hallway, which is a terrible thing to have to look at as you freeze to death. For me, much of the delight of the ride comes from sunlight through leaves. Summer is hot, however—it can be 90 degrees at the summit—so I suggest you start early in the day. About 8 am seems ideal. Once I started at 7 AM and the light was disappointing, the sun too low to illuminate anything. Even though this road is a magnet for tourists and motorcyclists, I’ve always had it to myself until around 11 AM. Last time I started at 8 am (in August) and saw 2 cars in the first hour.

The first five miles of the ride are easy climbing through the typical spectacular Oregon rain forest—ferns, canopies, sun backlighting mossy maples. You’ll see lots of signs that you’re very welcome: “Share the road,” “Scenic Bikeway,” “Bikes may use full lane,” and (new to me) “Bikes stay to right of centerline”! You’re not in Kansas, or California, any more.

Five or so miles in, the pitch steepens a bit, to around 5-7%, and stays right there for 9 miles. It’s never hard, but there’s a lot of it, so pace yourself. Though the pitch is monotonous, the road contour never fails to reward, constantly re-inventing itself as it meanders back and forth. Nine miles into the ride you pass a big turn-out/parking lot for the Proxy Falls trail head. The first of 2 falls is about 1/2 mile down the trail, just a bit too far for walking in cycling shoes, and it’s beautiful, so you might bring some sandals and do the hike on the way up or down. The forest is unbroken—you’ll see only one break in the trees, an unlikely little “meadow,” and there’s an info board explaining how it got there—interesting (disease control).

As you rise, the landscape begins to dry out and the forest changes—wet undergrowth (ferns) is replaced by drier plant life (fireweed). Eventually the maples disappear entirely. When the trees drop below you and you start getting vistas, you know the end of the big climb is near.

Two of the Three Sisters behind the lava bed

When the climbing eases off, the next/last 8 miles are mostly untaxing rollers working their way gradually upward to the summit. You’ll gain about 700 ft in those last 8 miles, most of it in one distressingly long pitch that catches you off-guard. At first you ride through the burn, then a few miles of ordinary conifer forest. Then you enter the lava flow, the reason most of the cars are up here. The word “moonscape” comes to everyone’s mind. The area around the summit is an ocean of ancient, black lava, sprinkled with gnarly trees bravely growing in it, or having tried to grow in it and failed. Their dead trunks and broken limbs are irresistibly reminiscent of skeletons and bones.

Ridiculously fun descending

At 22 miles, the turn-around point, you reach the Pass (there’s a summit sign to have your photo taken under) and the inimitable Dee Wright Observatory. It’s for observing the lava, not the stars, an old queer building made entirely out of the local lava rock. From its top you can see the Sisters mountains, Mt. Hood, Mt. Hamilton, and a dozen other points of interest, all identified for you by a large brass compass.

The ride back begins with one little pitch. That’s the last significant climbing you do in the return 22 miles. The descent is simply astonishing (after you re-ride the 8 miles of plateau), a perfect 14 miles of serpentining, banked curves on a pitch that ranges from mellow to exhilarating, all on a glassy road surface with good sight lines, with all the dangerous curves clearly marked by speed limit signs (when it says “20” you know you need to slow to 25, and so on). No two corners are alike. Every 1/4 mile is a new experience. There will be some traffic (6-10 cars), but they won’t pass you, because you can ride this road faster than they can drive it. I actually had a car pull over and wave me on because I was going faster than it was. How often does that happen?

Park your bike and walk out into this stuff

Oh, and the scenery—what was a pristine new dawn on your ride up will now be a golden fire on the way down. It’s none of my business, but I strongly believe in getting off the bike in forest like this, walking 50 feet into it, and just sitting for a few minutes, to drink it in. Imagine what the pioneers thought when they encountered it. Imagine carving out a homestead from it.

Is it the best descent in Bestrides.org? Of the descents called “best” on the Best Of the Best page, Tunitas Creek Rd is the least stunning visually and most traffic-free. McKenzie, Tunitas Creek, and Ebbetts Pass are all long. McKenzie is the lushest. Ebbetts is the fastest. Do them all and tell me which you prefer.

A cathedral moment

If you are determined to through-ride the pass (which almost everyone does), you can ride it west to east or east to west. If you go west to east, you end up in Sisters, an oddly famous upscale tourist town (think, high-end women’s fashions and rodeo instead of trinket shops) that’s worth a stroll. But then you have to get back. Riding there and back makes for a long day, but it’s possible, since the climb up from Sisters is mild. If you want to go east to west, McKenzie River Mountain Resort will shuttle you from the resort (15 miles west of the west end of our ride) to Sisters, whence you can ride back to the resort, or drop your car at the start of Hwy 242. The climb from Sisters to the summit is half as hard as the climb from the west side, so start in Sisters if your goal is to avoid climbing. But the insurmountable downside to through-riding is that the road between Sisters and the summit, ascending or descending, just isn’t in the same ballpark as the west side. It’s OK—that’s all. So by through-riding you miss either the great ascent or the great descent. Which is why I do the ride as an out-and-back.

And how does this ride compare to the Aufderheide ride just a stone’s throw down the road? Both are fairly long, steady, moderate climbs with roughly equal workloads. Both are drop-dead gorgeous. Aufderheide is lusher and wetter (though the fact that I did it last in a light rain might have something to do with that). The terrain of McKenzie is much more varied, from fern forest to moonscape. Aufderheide is much straighter, so the ride up is more monotonous and the descent is faster and much less interesting.

There are bathrooms at a couple of developed turn-outs along the climb and at the Observatory. There is no water anywhere. You can beg water from RV’s at the turn-around.

Shortening the route: Ride to the start of the plateau and turn around (12.5 mi one way). You can save a little time (but hardly any effort) by skipping the first 4 miles of the route, which are flatter (therefore less thrilling to descend). At 14.2 miles you reach a kind of leveling off with a large dirt turn-around/parking lot on the R. It’s tempting to turn around here, but don’t, because if you ride for half mile or so to the actual plateau you’ll get a superb stretch of descending when you turn around. You’ll know the climb is over when you see badly burned trees.

Adding Miles: At your starting point, Hwy 126 is pretty, but it’s big, straight, and unvarying in pitch, and very busy with a big shoulder for bikes. People descend it all the time, but I wouldn’t. In fact, a standard big ride for Bend cyclists, and a stage in the Cascade Classic stage race, is to do the loop from Sisters to the Santiam Pass (Hwy 20), down 126 to the McKenzie Highway, and up McKenzie back to Sisters, but I’m not recommending it because Hwy 20 is the worst sort of big-road monotonous bleak.

Obviously you can continue on from the summit to Sisters, and obviously I don’t recommend it.

The Aufderheide ride is a few miles down Hwy 126.

Highway 32 Canyons

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Distance: 51-mile out and back
Elevation gain: 4920 ft

(Update: as of 8/18, this ride has undergone some improvements and some diminishments. On the up side, the entire descent and ascent through Chico Creek Canyon has been repaved and is glass. On the down side, much of the leg along Deer Creek has been thinned for fire control. It’s not ugly like clear-cutting, but much of the maple understory, which provided the light show, is gone.)

(Update: in 2024 much of this route burned severely in the Park Fire. The leg along Deer Creek, the prettiest part of the ride, is largely intact.)

This ride has major pros and cons. Pros: smooth, blissfully meandering two-lane road in and out of two pristine NorCal creek canyons, the highlight being 12 miles (one way) along Deer Creek, as pretty a little babbling stream as there is. The cons: traffic, all of it in a hurry, some of it consisting of loaded logging trucks or heavy equipment haulers (because this is a working corridor), and only a small dirt shoulder or no shoulder at all. This is the only ride I’ve ever done anywhere where I had to pull off the road onto dirt to let traffic pass. Don’t do this ride if you aren’t willing to put up with that. To minimize the problem, I wouldn’t do this ride during high-traffic periods: late Saturday morning through Sunday evening.

This route has no amenities or perks—no quaint inns, amazing rock formations, or giant redwoods—other than Deer Creek Falls (see below).

Start at the intersection of Highway 32 and Humboldt Road (the road to Butte Meadows), 28 miles northeast of Chico on Hwy 32, an intersection called Lomo though there is nothing there. Ride to the end of Hwy 32, where it T’s into Hwy 36; ride back. The route profile is simple: you’ll drop down from the ridge into Chico Creek Canyon, cross Chico Creek (it’s a lovely spot, worth a stop and a walk along the water), climb out of the canyon and up to the summit ridge between Chico Creek and Deer Creek, drop down into Deer Creek Canyon, cross Deer Creek, and ride along the creek to the T. This involves a lot of elevation gain, but it’s never steep—I don’t think there’s a foot steeper than 6%. You’ll do three moderate, extended climbs in the 51 miles.

Looking down into Deer Creek Canyon—you're going to ride right up it

Looking down into Deer Creek Canyon—you’re going to ride right through its heart

Good as it is, there are other rides in Bestrides where the climbing and descending is as good as this. The real draw here is the 24 miles (out and back) along Deer Creek. You ride along its banks, then leave it to climb up over a little ridgelet, then return to the water, again and again, as if the stream is ever calling you back. The road crosses the creek seven times in 12 miles. Because you’re riding upstream, the progress on the ride out is steadily ascending, but pleasantly and with much variety of contour; then when you turn around you find the ride back is a surprisingly invigorating rolling descent.

Deer Creek Canyon floor, with typically narrow shoulder

Because the suffering on this ride is all caused by the traffic, and because you want to see the forest with the light coming in low, this is a ride you want to do early in the day and in sunny weather. Sunrise is the ideal starting time, keeping in mind that the sun “rises” later in a canyon that it does on the flats. I wait until summer when the sun rises early, and then I start at 7 am. The last time I did it, I encountered about 10 logging trucks or huge equipment haulers in the 50 miles, and maybe 50 vehicles all told. As I say, the moments of high risk and terror are few. Early evening is even prettier, but then the traffic is at its worst.

Deer Creek, than which there are no creeks prettier

Shortening the ride: The Deer Creek Canyon riding is better in every respect than the Chico Creek Canyon riding, so drive about 8 miles past the Butte Meadows fork, park anywhere along the 2 miles of flattish summit, and ride to Hwy 36, thus cutting the mileage from 51 to about 37 and reducing the climbing by over a third. If you want even less, drive to the first bridge over Deer Creek and start there.

Adding miles: At the start of the ride you’re a short, challenging climb up Humboldt Rd. from the back door to our Paradise to Butte Meadows ride. At the turn-around, on Hwy 36, you’re an unexciting but easy 15+ miles from our Mill Creek Road ride and our Lassen National Park ride. to the northwest. In the other direction, to the southeast, you’re an unexciting but easy 13+ miles from our Chester Back Roads rides.

From your starting point, Hwy 32 in the other direction (back toward Chico) is seemingly endless miles of trafficky, long, straight, fast shoulder descending. I hate it, but locals ride it all the time, usually riding to or returning from Butte Meadows.

Afterthoughts: The only services on this ride are two primitive campgrounds, Potato Patch (about halfway out) and Elam (a few miles before the turn-around). Both have pit toilets (Elam’s are always locked when I come through on an early weekday morning—I don’t know about Potato Patch), and both have water (Elam’s a charming old hand pump). Elam was closed to camping by Covid, but the bathrooms were accessible.

Deer Creek and its canyon are natural wonders. If you want to explore them off-road, stop at the first Deer Creek bridge crossing and hike the obvious trail on the northwest side heading downstream. It’s a smaller version of Mexico’s Copper Canyon—grand, harsh, and solitary—and it rewards an extended exploration. Take lots of water.

Deer Creek is small, but there are manageable swimming holes along the route. The water is cold.

Midway along the stretch along Deer Creek is Deer Creek Falls, clearly signed. It’s a very short hike, well worth doing and probably manageable in cycling shoes or bare feet.

Bean Creek/Mtn. Charlie/Soquel-San Jose

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Distance: 34-mile loop
Elevation gain: 3560 ft

A Best of the Best ride

This is a fairly big, kitchen-sink sort of ride designed to bag five of Santa Cruz’s prime cycling roads, one of which is the area’s only high-speed luge descent and one of my favorite descents anywhere. The route can easily be chopped into smaller pieces in lots of ways. It’s all up and down, like most of Santa Cruz riding, and it has some steep moments, but those moments never last. 3560 ft of gain in 34 miles is a lot, but you’ll wonder where they’re coming from—it doesn’t feel that bad. The route sports incredible variety—the road contour changes every 25-50 yards—and it’s almost all stunningly gorgeous.

Mountain Charlie Rd. is notorious for being closed due to winter mud slides. Latest report (2025) is, it’s open.

Most of this route has houses but not much else, so if you want to reprovision and don’t like knocking on strangers’ doors, there are stores halfway down Summit Rd. and at the intersection of Soquel-San Jose Rd. and Laurel Glen Rd. (and of course in Scott’s Valley).

Begin at the south end of Bean Creek Rd. in Scott’s Valley. Parking is tricky, because Scott’s Valley is downright snooty and the neighborhood curbs are designed to prevent visitor parking. If you get tired of cruising the side streets, go L off Bean Creek onto Blue Bonnet and in 1/2 a mile you’ll see a large parking lot in front of the municipal building on the R.

Ride up Bean Creek Rd. to its end at Glenwood Rd. BCR, surprisingly, begins with a substantial descent, then climbs moderately for a while, so you don’t need to warm up your legs on flat streets. The only taxing pitch on BCR is at the very end, so when it get’s hard, you know you’re done. BCR is narrow and gorgeous and lightly trafficked.

Bean Creek Road

Go L on Glenwood and ride the short, mostly down leg to Mtn. Charlie Rd. on your L. This leg of Glenwood is quite delightful in itself, so you might be tempted to stay on it, but the road surface soon becomes unpleasantly rough, then it debouches onto Hwy 17, where you don’t want to be.

Take Mtn. Charlie to its end at Summit Rd. It’s more typical Santa Cruz rainforest gorgeous. Compared to Bean Creek Rd., it’s steeper, narrower, windier, more deserted, and rougher of surface. The road goes up and down, back and forth, never staying the same for very long. You’ll come upon a few stretches of 15-18%, but they’re over almost before you can start to worry, and thanks to the God of Cycling almost every tough pitch is followed by a stretch of flat or descent so you can recover, which is how I like to do my steep stuff. The road surface is poor enough to make descending on these roads a poor idea (though many cyclists do), but at my 5 mph ascending isn’t a problem. In short, it’s an adventure and needs to be approached in that spirit. I don’t hammer this sort of stuff—I forget about speed and get as much into the beauty that’s surrounding me as I can. Think of it as hiking on your bike. If it’s not your cup of tea, rest assured that everything else on the route is much more domesticated.

Bean Creek Road

When MCR deadends at Summit Rd., take Summit Rd. to the R, do a little steep drop, immediately cross over Hwy 17, and go L at the stop sign, which is still Summit (there’s a large sign). The next 4 miles is wide, open, straight, with big rollers where you can hit an honest 40 mph, a refreshing change of pace after all that 5-mph climbing over patchy pavement. But it’s no fun, because Summit is a busy 2-lane artery, and the shoulder comes and goes, so expect to have cars passing you riskily as you’re doing 35 mph in the middle of the lane. I’m glad when it’s over. For an alternative route that bypasses most of Summit, see Brian’s Schulties Rd.-to-Redwood Lodge Rd. route below (some dirt).

Assuming you stay on Summit, watch for Soquel-San Jose Rd. going off to the R and take it. It’s a big road, and there are no fewer than 4 road signs announcing its approach, but they’re all small and it’s still easy to miss.

Shawn in the comments below outlines a back-alternative to the busyness of Summit Road, or at least two thirds of it: From Summit, go R on Old Santa Cruz Hwy > Schulties Rd. > Redwood Lodge Rd., which dumps you out partway down Soquel-San Jose. This detour is laid out in detail in our Alma Bridge/Old Santa Cruz Hwy Plus ride, and it adds considerable difficulty to the loop.

Mtn. Charlie Road

SSJ is the sort of road I typically avoid—big and busy. But in this case it’s not to be missed—a Best of the Best descent without qualification. Smooth as glass, with sweeping turns that keep you alert but don’t slow you down, through beautiful woods, it begs to be ridden at a sustained, easy-yet-exhilarating 35 mph. I promise you will never touch your brakes. The cars (and there will be cars) are courteous—there are even signs reading “(bike icon) may use full lane.” If you needed an invitation to ride here, there it is.

Mt. Charlie Road

Turn R off SSJ onto Laurel Glen Rd., the first real road on your R (at the country store) and return to climbing through small-road, light-traffic, dense woods. You might be tempted to continue down SSJ, and you wouldn’t regret it (come back up on Branciforte Dr.), but the big descent is over and the rest of the road is just very mellow/pleasant.

Laurel Glen climbs briefly to a summit at the intersection with Rodeo Gulch Rd. (make a mental note to come back and ride our Rodeo Gulch ride some other day—it’s a pip), where it changes its name to Mountain View Rd., then does a rough and only-OK descent and dead-ends at Branciforte Dr. Go L on Branciforte.

Branciforte is unique in the Santa Cruz area: an easy ride. It’s a pretty and mellow road that climbs gently from its source in Soquel to where we join it. Enjoy it for the tranquil respite that it is, and remember to bring your non-riding partner back here for a relaxing roll.

There are two ways back to the car from Branciforte: Glen Canyon Rd. and Granite Creek Rd. Glen Canyon is the more direct and less steep route, so take it if you’re done taking on challenges for the day. Granite Creek Rd. adds about 4 miles and is the slightly harder climb, but it’s prettier (though Glen Canyon is just fine), so do it if you can. The difference between the two pitches isn’t great—maybe the difference between 4% and 6%. Our map goes up Granite Creek.

As you enter suburbia on Granite Creek, watch for S. Navarra going L (shortly after plain Navarra goes R)—if you miss S. Navarra, you’ll find yourself on an entrance ramp to Hwy 17 within seconds. Take S. Navarra, ride it to a dead-end, and go straight ahead through the dead-end barrier onto the arrow-straight frontage road along Hwy 17 heading directly away from you. Ride its rollers for 2 miles until you get to the first road going R (there’s a stop sign). Take the R, which immediately plunges straight down for 30 ft., then crosses under Hwy 17. Stay on that road to the T at Mt. Hermon, go R onto Mt. Hermon, R on Scott’s Valley Rd, and L onto Bean Creek. These last 3 turns take about 2 minutes and cover at most 1/3 mile.

If you parked at the Blue Bonnet civic center, you can actually save yourself some climbing by staying on Mt. Hermon and crossing Scott’s Valley Rd., then going R on King’s Village Rd., which runs into Blue Bonnet at the Center.

Shortening the route: There is no way to significantly shorten this route without losing its heart. Riding Bean Creek/Mtn. Charlie as an out-and-back isn’t desirable because Mtn. Charlie is a very unpleasant descent. Riding Soquel-San Jose as San out-and-back would suck because climbing SSJ would be a tedious, trafficky slog. So I think you’re in for the full monty.

Adding Miles: The Soquel-San Jose leg of this route is also part of the Alma Bridge/Old Santa Cruz Hwy Plus and the Eureka Canyon/Highland Way routes.

Almost everything in any direction is good—see the Monterey Bay discussion in the Rides by Region chapter for a survey of roads in the Santa Cruz area. Since it’s the same conversation for all 6 of our Santa Cruz rides, I’ll do it once there and leave it at that.

Mosquito Road

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Distance: 24-mile loop
Elevation gain: 3540 ft

There is an endless amount of rideable road north of Placerville, but most of it is just-OK, generic green-wall riding. This route has some real drama. It’s a short, serious climbing route, the bulk of it on a small, energetic back road. You plunge down to the bottom of the American River canyon, cross the river, climb steeply back out the other side, roll up and down along the side of the canyon, do a fast drop on a moderately traveled mountain highway back down to the same river, and end with a challenging 1000-ft climb. Along the way you get some nice woods, some nice canyon vistas, and a lot of nice solitude. It’s 3540 feet of gain in 24 miles of riding (which means 12 miles of climbing), so you’ll work.

There’s a possible issue with car traffic. When I did the ride I saw no cars at all, but that was some years ago. Now there is an active community at the intersection of Mosquito Rd. and Rock Creek Rd., with a population somewhere between 1000 and 2000 folks, and they have to get in and out, so you may meet some traffic on RCR.

Begin in downtown Placerville. It’s a town well worth some checking-out time. Don’t miss the hardware store, one of the oldest in the West and a bit of living history guaranteed to delight tool fetishists and non-fetishists alike. Ride east out of town on the main street and when you’re almost out of town take the L turn under the highway onto Mosquito Road. Climb steadily and moderately for 2.5 miles, until you’re at the lip of the South Fork American River Canyon. From here to Hwy 193 there should be next to no traffic. Plunge 4 miles down through thick, pretty Sierra Nevada foothill woods to the river. The pitch is often too steep to be ideal descending, but it’s still exciting. The last 100 yards are very steep and can be wet and treacherous.

Crossing the American River

Cross the river on a charming little bridge and begin the grinding climb up the other side. It’s very steep for 1/2 a mile, then just steep for another 2 miles. You’ll feel some pride when you get to the summit at mile 9.0. At the intersection you encounter an unexpected cluster of mountain estate homes. This is the historic community of Mosquito (pop. 1000+), also known by the name of Mosquito’s most prominent housing development, Stansboro Country. Google “Mosquito CA” for some interesting background. Take the unmissable hard L onto Rock Creek Rd. and follow it as it rolls sweetly along the sidehill. Enjoy the striking vistas of the river canyon.

American River canyon from Mosquito Road

When you deadend at highway 193 (Georgetown Rd.), go L and delight in the all-too-short but smooth, fast, sweeping descent back down into the canyon. Cross the bridge and do a moderately challenging 2.5-mile climb back to town. You’re on the shoulder here, the traffic will be noticeable, and the pitch is unvaried, but you’re in pretty, dense forest so the scenery is good. On the outskirts of town you’ll merge with Hwy 49 (Coloma Rd.) but you won’t notice.

The route can be ridden in the other direction, but it will involve you in a 40-mph descent right off the bat, which I’d rather not do.

Adding Miles: The larger roads north of Placerville are merely good riding and all pretty much the same green-wall stuff. But just a stone’s throw north of our intersection with Hwy 193 lies a warren of small to very small roads, all very isolated and worth riding: Shoo Fly Rd., Transverse Creek Rd., Bear Creek Rd., Spanish Flat Rd., Meadow Brook Rd., Balderston Rd., and the amazingly narrow Darling Ridge Rd. They’re all inter-connected—feel free to wander. Mt. Murphy Rd., bisecting our route, is largely dirt.

Georgetown is a cute little village with a nice old general store and hotel, and Garden Valley has a wonderful plant nursery.

Apple Hill woods

If you’re looking for something mellow, ride the loop through Apple Hill (so-called because every fifty feet of road there’s an apple farm). Begin at the intersection of Union Ridge Road and Carson Rd. Go Hassler Rd > North Canyon Rd. > L on Larson > L on Cable > R on Mace, then R onto Carson and take Carson back to your car. Carson is bigger, flatter, faster, and more trafficked than all those back roads, so stick to it if you’re really looking to avoid up and down. This is not a ride to attempt during apple harvest, when the area is mobbed with tourists.

Where our route intersects Hwy 183 , you’re a mere 3 miles south on 183 from where our Prospectors Road to Bayne Road route turns onto Bayne. So it’s easy to do both routes as a single ride, a rough figure eight, thus turning two moderate rides into one big one.

Big Basin

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Distance: 34-mile lollipop
Elevation gain: 4520 ft

A Best of the Best ride (on weekdays only)

(Note: Big Basin and much of the Santa Cruz area was devastated by forest fires in September of 2020. The Visitor Center was destroyed. The large trees were burned but are alive. The understory has begun to return, so as of 9/25 the park is by no means a wasteland, but it’s a shadow of its former self. It’s still a great ride, though not the wonderland it formerly was. The park roads are remarkably free of cars and all roads are open, including China Grade. The noticeable burn begins on Hwy 236 c. 2.5 miles west of our starting point, becomes very noticeable around the intersection with the top of China Grade, and continues to around the Old Big Basin Rd. intersection. Most of China Grade has burned as well—again, not a barren wasteland but not what it once was. See photos at the end of this post.)

The Big Basin area is just north of our other Santa Cruz area rides and has much in common with them: beautiful, lush woods, good road surfaces, constant variety and interest in the road contour, and lots of vertical. But the main appeal here is the redwoods. The Big Basin redwoods are second-growth, so they rarely overwhelm you with sheer enormity like those of the Avenue of the Giants ride (there are a few behemoths around the Visitor Center), but they’re gorgeous nonetheless, and the descending on this route is far better than on any of our other redwoods rides, except for Felton Empire/Empire Grade (there is a list of Redwoods rides on the Best of the Best page). This route has three really nice descents (including one that is as nice as descending gets), and the climbing to earn them is all remarkably mellow except for a mile or two of China Grade—don’t let Mapmyride’s rather intimidating elevation total scare you off. And, as an extra-special bonus, in 10/16 all of Hwy 236 was repaved, so the road surface is perfect—as good as I’ve ever seen.

This is a State Park ride, which means traffic. Expect the road to be unpleasantly busy with cars and motorcycles on weekends, even in winter. This is a ride you really want to do on a weekday if at all possible—hence the conditional Best of the Best rating. On a weekend day in January I saw 80 cars on the road; on a weekday two weeks later I saw 6. Seven AM on a weekday is even better.

After your ride, In Boulder Creek the Foster’s Freeze at the south end of town on the main street is run by the nicest man in the world. Three more miles down Hwy 9 in Ben Lomond is the best Italian bakery outside of Italy, La Place Family Bakery.

Start at the intersection of Hwy 9 and Hwy 236. There’s a nice, wide dirt turn-out for parking on Hwy 9 just before the intersection. Ride up Hwy 9 (which you probably just came down in your car) to Saratoga Gap, at the intersection of Hwy 9 and Skyline Boulevard. It’s all up for six miles through pleasant woods and past a couple of nice vistas of receding ridges. I usually avoid starting a ride with a climb, but it’s a mellow climb the entire way (1500 ft gain in 6 miles), so it’s easy to soft-pedal until you’re warm. If you’re worried about the total elevation gain you could do the Big Basin loop first, then decide if you want to do the Hwy 9 out and back. You could also start at Saratoga Gap and do the Hwy 9 descent first thing, if you don’t mind ending the ride with a 6-mile climb—there’s a big, formal paved parking area at Saratoga Gap if you do. The traffic on Hwy 9 is the worst on the route, and I’d seriously consider skipping it if it’s a weekend.

Big Basin redwoods—look at that road surface!

At Saratoga Gap turn around and return to your car—the first of our three fine descents. Since it was mellow going up, it’s mellow going down—not a hair-raising, white-knuckle thrill ride, but a graceful, lovely slalom with big, sweeping turns that never send you to your brakes. Literally (and I mean literally) you will never have to touch your brakes in the 6 miles unless you’re hammering and hit the infrequent corners signed “25 mph” at more than 30 mph. Otherwise it’s a constant, easy 25-30 mph drop.

China Grade

Just past your car, go straight at the intersection onto 236 towards Big Basin State Park (there’s a sign). You’ll be in beautiful redwood forest and on deliciously serpentining road for the rest of the ride. Ride to the State Park Visitor Center via a moderate climb followed by a descent (our second of three) that is one of the best descents in Bestrides.org. At the Visitor Center there are nice bathrooms, water, a store that serves food, guided hikes, 4-5 very big redwoods, and a fee if you want to stay. If you want to go for an easy walk and get closer to the trees, there’s a flat .7-mile loop right from the Visitor Center that goes by some of the biggest trees in the park.

The non-redwoods are gorgeous too

Leaving the Visitor Center, ride through what I think are the prettiest of the trees, then climb moderately to the summit (at the intersection of Big Basin Way, Little Basin Rd., and Old Big Basin R., curiously enough), then descend to the L turn onto China Grade.

The China Grade turn is signed but hard to see. Watch for it going sharply L (about 7 o’clock) after you’ve ridden through a couple of unmissable descending hairpins (the first marked only by a “20 MPH” sign for warning) and the road goes almost flat for the first time in the ride. China Grade is short, scenically primeval, in places dauntingly steep (the only hard climbing on the ride), and cursed with impressively horrible road surface, but it isn’t long, and it’s blissfully tranquil, which you’ll be craving if you’ve been fighting the weekend traffic. Stop several times to drink in the solitude. The pitch may make you stop anyway. Adding Miles shows you how to skip it if you’re saving your legs.

Big redwoods by the Visitor Center

When China Grade T’s into 236, turn R and ride back to your car. First you do a short climb, a short descent, a climb, then the third of our descents, and it’s an absolute rip-snorter, over too soon. On a weekend assume you will meet cars.

The loop is rideable in the other direction. It means you’ll come down China Grade, which is a pain, and the 2-mile descent from the Little Basin Rd./Old Big Basin Rd. intersection to the Visitor Center isn’t nearly as good as the descent from our side, though still excellent.

Shortening the route: Skip the Hwy 9 out-and-back. Even shorter: start at the Big Basin Visitor Center and ride the loop.

Vista point on Hwy 9: the only open view on the ride

Looking south toward Santa Cruz: only the Hwy 9 leg has vistas

Adding miles: If you stay on 236 past the China Grade turn-off, in a few easy miles you’ll end up in the pleasant small town of Boulder Creek, where you can reprovision, then loop back to your car via Hwy 9. This lets you avoid the steep pitches of China Grade. Hwy 9 has a much gentler pitch than China Grade and is an absolutely smashing stretch of road, but it’s much busier and without shoulder (though 3/4 of the traffic turns off Hwy 9 at Bear Creek Rd).

If you love the descent into the Big Basin Visitor Center (and you will), there’s a loop you can add to our route that will let you do it a second time. From the Visitor Center, ride into the main parking lot and take the unmissable road on your R, splendidly called North Escape Road. It meanders through more gorgeous redwoods along pavement that is often shabby or worse for 3 miles and returns to Hwy 236 at the top of the descent back to the Visitor Center. The isolation is priceless once you pass the “additional parking” lot. The road is more or less flat for 2 miles, then 8-10% for the last mile (500 ft gain). Ignore all maps (and there are many) that show NER as dead-ending or turning to dirt—it does neither. It is, however, gated off, which should not deter you.

An alternate route that skips China Grade but preserves our last, splendid descent is, from our starting point, go west to the visitor center, ride North Escape Road back to 236, and go L on 236 and return to your car.

From Boulder Creek you can easily connect to all the other great Santa Cruz riding (see the Monterey Bay section of the Rides by Region for a list of the good roads in the area).

Siletz Bay to Newport Inland

Three Capes Ride

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Distance: 33 miles one way
Elevation gain: 2560 ft

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

The Oregon coast is a legendary destination for touring cyclists, and it’s certainly leaps and bounds better than California’s coast—fewer cars, kinder motorists, far more towns for R and R and refueling, and only slightly less spectacular scenery. But I’m not nuts about it. Notice I only have two rides that explore it, and the other (Gold Beach Century) does it as much out of necessity as out of choice. Perhaps it’s because I did my north coastal riding on the July 4th holiday, and the place was a zoo. This is the best ride on the Oregon coast and is well worth doing, in large part because here Hwy 101 goes inland and the coastal riding is on smaller secondary roads. The rewards keep on coming—four charming coastal towns, grand bays, a lighthouse, miles of deserted beaches, grand ocean vistas, and one delightful hike.

The route you want to ride is slightly different than what is mapped, for reasons that will be made clear below.

My favorite part of the ride is the first 10 miles, from Tillamook to Short Beach. Begin in Tillamook and head west on 3rd St. Take a R onto Bayocean Rd. and roll along the very edge of Tillamook Bay. It’s lovely and car-free out there. Be sure to stop and read the large sign on your R headlined “City of Bay Ocean Park,” detailing the quirky history of the community once built on the spit crossing the bay.

Meares Beach: worth the detour

Just past the spit there’s an intersection. The road straight ahead changes its name to Meares Avenue NW and the road on the L is Cape Meares Loop. Even though I haven’t mapped it, go straight at the intersection, leaving the main road, and continue west to the tiny beach community of Cape Meares. Ride as far west as you can, then walk the 50 ft to the beach. White sand, lovely surf, and no people. Enjoy.

Return to your bike, return to the intersection and go R onto Cape Meares Loop. CML was closed for 10 years by a slide and has just (11/23) reopened, but RWGPS hasn’t caught up to the reopening so it won’t let me map the leg. So from here to Short Beach ignore my mapping (which is an alternate route marked as “unknown surface” by RWGPS) and stay on CML. It’s a dreamy stretch of road, with a short, brisk climb (up to 12%) and descent .

Midway along Cape Meares Loop you pass Lighthouse Drive on the R. I haven’t mapped it, but take it for a short jaunt to Cape Meares Scenic Viewpoint, from which you can take short, easy paved walks to the lighthouse and the Octopus Tree. Return to CML and ride to Short Beach.

Anderson’s Viewpoint overlooking Netarts Bay spit

The rest of the ride is an easy ramble down the coast, during which you will experience several small communities worth hanging out in—Short Beach, Oceanside, Netarts, and Pacific City—one killer vista point (Anderson’s Viewpoint at about mile 22. Watch for it over your R shoulder—it’s just an unsigned dirt turn-out), one nice climb (up and over the Cape Lookout ridge), and lots of views along two shallow bays.

As you leave the coast to climb over the Cape Lookout ridge, you’ll pass the prominent Cape Lookout Trailhead on your R. From this trailhead a beautiful hiking trail heads out to the cape itself. It’s 5.2 miles round trip, all gentle downhill going out, gentle uphill coming back, through rare and magnificent old-growth Sitka Spruce to a spectacular ocean overlook. By no means do you need to walk all of it. Even a short jaunt takes you into a very special and spiritual place.

Climbing over the Cape Lookout ridge

The entire bike route is easy to follow—just stay as close to the ocean as you can. I got lost once. Leaving Netarts, I took my eye off the map and missed the R onto Netart’s Bay Drive. If you do that, you’ll stay on Hwy 131 and climb an unnecessary hill to an inland intersection signed “Cape Lookout State Park” to the R. Follow that R back to the coast and your route. This is also the route you’ll take if you opt for Short Ride Version #2 in Shortening the Route just below.

Getting back to your car/Shortening the route: You could ride this as a long out and back, and it would all be worth seeing twice. Or you can ride it one way, then jump on the bus that runs from Lincoln City to Pacific City to Tillamook (there’s a bike rack)—see Kevin’s comment below for details. Or you could loop back on Hwy 101 from Pacific City to Tillamook, which would be 25 miles of trafficky shoulder riding (I haven’t done it and wouldn’t dream of doing it). Or there are three shorter versions of the route: 1) ride the miles from Tillamook to Short Beach as a plumb 24-mile out and back; 2) stay on Hwy 131 through Netarts and following it east, then north as it loops back to Bayocean Road near where you started; or 3) take Sandlake Rd. east from Cape Lookout Rd to Hwy 101 and heading north to Tillamook, making a loop of roughly 40 miles. This leaves you with only about 10 miles of Hwy 101.

Adding miles: besides riding 101 back to Tillamook and the cut-off roads we’ve already discussed, the only option open to you is to continue south on 101. Some riders keep going until they hit Mexico.

Vernonia to Astoria

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Distance: 66 miles one way
Elevation gain: 3440 ft

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

For the first 63 miles, this is not a dramatic ride. It is instead a perfectly pleasant, easy meander through nearly-flat, charming farm country—little wilderness here, few deep, solitary woods. It’s on a numbered state highway, which is usually a no-no for Bestrides, but it’s a remarkably untrafficked one. I did this ride on a sort of recovery day, and I found it to be magically mellow. Rarely have I been so glad to be on a bike. After 63 miles, the road begins to roll, then enters the city of Astoria, and finally ascends steeply to a dramatic finale at the very summit of the city, the Astoria Column and its stunning vistas of the surrounding land and water.

Begin in downtown Vernonia, a town whose name is so hard to remember that I’ve seen official Oregon state highway signs that call it “Veronica.” Ride east on the main street, which is also Hwy 47. Turn L immediately out of town to stay on Hwy 47 (towards Mist). The next 40 or so miles are effortless bucolic rolling. At the well-signed intersection in downtown Mist don’t take the R curve that would keep you on Hwy 47; go L onto Hwy 202 (sign reads “Astoria 47”). At around 38 miles comes the only noticeable climb in the route before the very end, a three-mile ascent that is enough of an effort to give you a nice change from all that level.

Miles and miles of this

Do the unspectacular descent from the obvious summit and watch for Olney Cut-Off Rd. on your L. I don’t think it’s signed exactly that way, but with a map and the available signage you’ll know when you’re there. Now you have to make a choice. If you’re tired and you want the mellowness to continue, stay on Hwy 202 to Astoria. If you’ve got some legs left, take Olney Cut-Off and stay on it as it becomes Youngs River Rd. This back route (which is my Mapmyride map route and Moore’s route) is pretty and interesting, but it involves you in about 10 miles of demanding short rollers that will finish you off if you’re near the end of your energy. To make matters worse, the prevailing winds in the area are in your face and can be intense, so factor that into your decision.

Astoria Column: your destination

Ride on Youngs River Rd. to its end and navigate two apparent but unsigned turns: 1) at the end of Youngs River Rd., your road takes a very sharp 90-degree L and the road becomes (says the map) Warrenton-Astoria Hwy. You don’t need to know this, since the road gives you little choice, but Moore tells you to take Warrenton-Astoria, so if you’re following his ride log it’s confusing. Warrenton-Astoria lasts about 1/10 mile, then intersects with a very large, busy highway you can’t miss. This is US 101 Business Route, and you can go in two directions, straight ahead and R. Go R (north) and Astoria is a short ride on a causeway across the bay. There is a lot of signage at the 101 intersection, but none of it is what you need to know, which is that Astoria is thataway—it’s so close you can see it. If you get confused and go straight (going west on US 101), you make a 10-mile clockwise loop and come into Astoria from the west instead of the south.

View from the Astoria Column: Saddle Mt. and points south

Once in Astoria, find your way to the Astoria Column. It’s a quirky, amazing monument atop the highest point in town, and the views in all directions are delicious. Take some time to ponder the historical figures that cover the monument itself.

There are many routes to the Column through town, and they’re all killer steep. You will hurt. Do it anyway. Our RWGPS map shows you one way. Our Mapmyride map leaves you on your own. There are signs everywhere pointing you to the Column, and anyone can direct you. Just keep going up.

Shortening the route: this ride isn’t hard (Moore rates it “challenging,” but I don’t know why). Still, it’s pretty long, so riding it as an out-and-back would be a very long day. If you haven’t got a shuttle and want to shorten it, the drama and the work is in the second half—the climb, the descent, the Column. The first half is uninterrupted mellow rambling.

Adding miles: Vernonia is the northern terminus of the Banks-Vernonia Trail, a paved rail-to-trail conversion. Normally I don’t like riding road bikes on paved trails, but I drove along this one to get to Vernonia and the woods looked utterly sublime. For the scenery alone, I’d give it a try.

Afterthoughts: despite the fact that you’re riding through inhabited country on nearly every mile of this ride, there are next to no formal places to resupply. I had to knock on a farmer’s door and ask for water. There is a county park at mile 48 with bathrooms and (I think) water, and the imaginary town of Birkenfeld has the Birkenfeld Country Store (self-titled “The Birk”), but it was inexplicably closed when I came through on a lovely June afternoon.

Sweet Creek Road

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Distance: 22 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 1730 ft

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

This is one of the few rides in Bestrides that isn’t primarily about the riding. Oh, the riding is fine—pleasant miles along a pretty river followed by a sweet climb through a pretty forest. But the jewel in the crown is Sweet Creek Trail and its many waterfalls. So bring a bike lock and walking shoes.

Begin in the tiny town of Mapleton, which is a short row of shops at the intersection of Highways 126 and 36. Ride up Hwy 126 a stone’s throw and turn R onto Sweet Creek Road. Ride the aforesaid pleasant 4.5 miles along the Siuslaw River. This isn’t wilderness—the river is dotted with fairly elaborate vacation homes. Turn L onto what appears to be a new road but is in fact the continuation of Sweet Creek Rd., and leave all signs of civilization behind. Ride to the end of the pavement (see the reader comments below about how I’m wrong about that), climbing steadily through standard Oregon woods. Turn around and ride back. The road surface coarsens near the turn-around point, so the first stretch of the descent is jarring. The rest of the descent is smooth.

Usual Oregonian gorgeousness along Sweet Creek Road

But before you ride back: you’ve really come to hike the short, spectacularly beautiful stretch of Sweet Creek along the last leg of the ride. This is one of the sweetest little hikes I’ve ever done. In thirty minutes of easy walking you’ll walk past several falls and cascades of peerless beauty. Take your camera. If you really hate hiking on a ride (and I do), the first 1/4 mile of trail will yield some of the trail’s best views.

Sweet Creek

Moore’s instructions for finding the trailhead left me confused. There are in fact three trailheads along the creek: in the order in which you’ll encounter them, they’re Homestead, Sweet Creek Falls, and Wagon Road, all signed. You want the first one, because you want to encounter the falls walking upstream. Hike until the trail turns L, climbs, and leaves the creek at an impassible falls, then hike back. If you start at Sweet Water Falls TH and hike upstream, you’ll miss the prettiest water. Here’s a map to guide you.

When you get back to your car, don’t leave without checking out Mapleton. It’s my favorite teeny town in Oregon. It has about six shops, and many are worth a visit. All Mapletonians seem delighted you’re there. The general store is a classic—it has one of everything, and sells real food and ice cream. A few doors down is a store specializing in vinyl records (remember them?) from the 60’s and 70’s, and the memorabilia that goes with them. Talking to the owner may well be the high point of your ride.

Shortening the ride: Ride to the first trail head; hike; ride back. You could skip the flat miles along the Siuslaw, but you wouldn’t be saving any work.

Sweet Creek

Adding miles: If you’re up for riding dirt, you can keep riding up Sweet Creek Road and after many miles come out on the Smith River at a point midway through our Gardiner to Eugene ride (I think there’s even a mileage marker that says Reedsport X miles ahead before our turn-around point), and I’m sure it would be a great adventure. I haven’t done it.

4.5 miles up Sweet Creek Rd. from where it leaves the Siuslaw, Road 24 takes off to the R. It’s a small paved back road you can ride all the way to Siltcoos Lake and Hwy 101. It turns into Road 945, which some maps call Maple Creek Rd. It has one mile of very steep climbing going west and a similar mile or so coming back. It’s on my to-do list. You could loop it by riding it westward and returning on Hwy 126, but see my slam of Hwy 126 below. At least you’d have a tailwind.

Highway 36 north of Mapleton looked nice, though I didn’t ride it, and it goes nowhere in particular so it shouldn’t be trafficky.

Moore begins his route with 14 miles of riding on Hwy 126, from Florence to Mapleton. I wouldn’t ride this road on a bet. It’s classic flat, high-traffic, high-speed highway shoulder riding. To cap it off, if you begin in Florence you’ll end the ride with 14 miles of riding back to Florence into the teeth of a strong headwind if weather conditions are normal.

Jay's Essential Bike Rides

The very best road rides in California and Oregon

Author Archives: Jack Rawlins

McKenzie Pass

Highway 32 Canyons

Bean Creek/Mtn. Charlie/Soquel-San Jose

Mosquito Road

Big Basin

Siletz Bay to Newport Inland

Three Capes Ride

Vernonia to Astoria

Sweet Creek Road

Lolo Pass Back Road