Distance: 52-mile lollipop
Elevation gain: 1790 ft

This is another of those rides worth doing if you happen to be in the area, but probably not worth driving any great distance to do.  It’s a pleasant roll through typical, often quite pretty westside (west of the Sacramento River) landscapes—orchards, cattle farms, small valleys, and  up into the first bumps of the Coast Range.  Its primary selling point is that it’s a few minutes’ drive off Highway 5, so it’s one of those rides in Bestrides you can use as a break while you’re driving between Oregon and Southern California (others being the Old Siskiyou Highway, Del Puerto Canyon Road, and some others).  It’s flat or gentle rollers throughout (2500 ft gain in 52 miles on my computer), but if you want to climb, a simple extension of the route will give you all you could ask for (see Adding Miles below).   Traffic is minimal, since there’s nothing along these roads but a few small ranches—my last time I saw 4 cars in the first 20 miles.

Two caveats: 1) for me, this is a spring-only ride.  In summer the hills are burned brown, the heat is intense, and the creeks are dry.  Once the rainy season begins the gravel leg (see below) can be a muddy quagmire.  In the spring you get almond orchards in bloom, green grass on the hillsides, running streams, and happy cows.  2) There is a 4-mile stretch of gravel, as notorious for Chico-area riders as is the pavé of Paris-Roubaix for Europeans, smack dab in the middle of the loop.  There’s no alternate route around it, and it can be unpleasant.  The gravel is completely loose, so you slide around a lot.  If the road has been regraveled recently, it’s like riding in rocky sand.  If there has been recent rain, the road becomes a bog.  Suffice it to say, timing is everything here.  If you’re determined to avoid the gravel, at the end of this post I’ll show you two gravel-free out-and-back routes.

You can start this ride anywhere along the route, and it’s equally good in either direction.  I start at the intersection of Corning Rd. and Black Butte Rd. because it’s the spot closest to Hwy 5, and I ride in whichever direction gives me a tailwind on the Black Butte Rd. leg, which is the straightest, flattest, and least scenic (read: most boring) leg of the route.  My description goes clockwise, since the prevailing winds are northerly.

The spring show: almond blossoms along Black Butte Rd.

Ride Black Butte Rd. to Newville Rd., passing almond orchards whose blossoms are spectacular for about two weeks in late February or early March.  Note the buffalo ranch on your R, with grazing buffalo in season.  Mt. Shasta is to the north, smack dab behind you and prominent on a clear day.  Mt. Lassen is to the east, over your shoulder on your L.  At Newville Road go R. You’re paralleling the shore of Black Butte Reservoir, but don’t expect lake views.  After two impressive rollers, the climbing for the ride is over unless you add the optional extension of Round Mountain Rd. (see below).

Coast Range in spring, from Black Butte Rd.

Cross a small bridge and begin the most bucolic leg of the ride, through a gallery of oaks along the lip of a small open valley.  You’ll pass the Newville Cemetery, with gravestones from the 1870’s.  Around mile 20 the road character changes from smooth, wide two-lane to battered country track, and you do 1.2 miles of nasty patches and potholes.

Newville Road

At 21.5 miles you cross another bridge at one of the ride’s more scenic spots and the road turns to gravel for the next 4 miles.  It’s mostly gradual uphill, which might be an argument for riding the route counterclockwise.  These 4 miles are not without their rewards: on your L along the length of the gravel is a valley walled by masses of small round mounds that look like the work of gigantic gophers.  Geologically fascinating and quite lovely in its way.

The infamous gravel

At 25 miles the gravel ends at a T at paved Round Mountain Rd.   Here you have a choice.  You can go R, skipping the out-and-back lollipop stick, thus avoiding some climbing and lopping 7 miles off the route.  But I go L, because that takes you up a draw through those round mounds you’ve had on your L for the past few miles, and I think it’s the best riding and best scenery of the entire ride.   The road rolls easily up and down and back and forth for 3+ miles, then sets in for a very long, uninterrupted, rather grim climb into the heart of the Coast Range.  There are great views of the Northern California Valley behind you, but not much else to offer besides exercise.  My route turns around at the base of the climb, at about 29 miles in.

Coast Range mounds at sunset, from Round Mountain Rd.

Retrace your steps to the intersection of Round Mountain and Newville and continue straight on Round Mountain to the hamlet of Paskenta, which is nothing more than a pleasant little country store where you can reprovision with ice cream or soda.  Stay on the main road through Paskenta and continue on what is called Corning Road after the Flournoy store until you close the loop at Black Butte Rd.  Check out the views of Mt. Lassen directly ahead of you as you ride.

Shortening the route and/or avoiding the gravel: There is no way to loop the ride and avoid the gravel, so you’re limited to riding out and backs on either side.  On the north side, begin at Black Butte Rd. and ride to Paskenta and up Round Mountain Road until you’ve climbed as much as you want, then ride back.  If you turn around at our turn-around point, this will give you 44 miles.  If you want less, start at Flournoy.  On the south side, I’d start at Black Butte Rd. and Newville (skipping Black Butte itself) and ride to where the road turns rough and return, for a total of about 22 totally pleasant miles.  If you’re doing this version, leave Hwy 5 at Orland and follow the signs to Black Butte Reservoir.

Adding miles: There is a lot of worthwhile riding nearby, none of it as easy as what you’ve done.  You can continue on up Round Mountain Road past our turn-around point for about another 5 miles of uninterrupted, substantial climbing before the road turns to dirt  (in a normal spring, you’ll hit impassable snow before that).  There is a similar road that climbs up into the same hills from the Paskenta intersection, Toombs Camp Rd, for about 12 miles of similarly uninterrupted, substantial pitch.  If anything, TCR is even more featureless and interminable than Round Mountain Rd.  Again, closed by snow until summer.  Serious locals do a hard training ride in which they ride one road to the dirt, then ride the other.

A whole other kettle of fish is Rd. 306, which heads south (on your L) shortly before Newville turns to gravel.  This road continues south for many miles, through Elk Creek, along Stony Creek, and through Stony Ford, Lodoga, and Leesville.  You can even continue on from Leesville to Bear Valley Rd, which turns to ridable dirt, goes through world-famous wildflowers in the spring, and passes charming Wilbur Hot Springs (which recently suffered major fire damage).  It’s all essentially flat except for Leesville Grade, and the spring scenery is excellent, but it’s not popular, for one reason: the road surfaces are often horrid.  My cycling club used to run centuries out there, and people would bring mountain bikes.

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.

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