Author Archives: Jack Rawlins

Dead Indian Loop

Distance: 46-mile loop
Elevation gain: 5010 ft

(A Best of the Best ride)
(A Best of the Best descent (on Hwy 66))

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 an approximate square. Each of the 4 sides is a different kind of riding. Three sides are great, and the fourth is a pleasant warm-up. The four sides are 1) 7 miles of gentle shoulder riding through pleasant farmland, 2) 7 miles of uninterrupted climbing up a dramatic canyon, 3) a rambling, rolling saunter through rich forests, past meadows, and along lake shores, and finally 4) a breath-taking, supersonic 14-mile descent. You also get two resorts, one charming inn, one pretty lake, one semi-pretty lake, and the likelihood of eagles. Dead Indian Road is actually only about a third of the ride, but it’s a much more energetic name than “Highway 66,” which is our other choice, so let’s go with that.

You can ride this route in either direction, but the experience is very different. Hwy 66 ascending is a pleasant, varied, moderately steep serpentine. Descending, it’s a Best of the Best ride, a splendid romp through tight corners, fast esses, and ripping lazy turns. Dead Indian is mostly straight and unvaried, a blazingly fast rocket sled on the descent and a boring slog as a climb. So I prefer the counterclockwise loop, and in fact I usually ride up Hwy 66 to the Green Springs Inn and turn around. But it all depends on what sort of descending you like.

The weather at the top of this loop is much colder than at the bottom—expect at least a 10-degree drop—so take a layer more than you think you’ll need. I once did this ride during a cool spell in the middle of June. I dressed for summer, it was 48 degrees at the lakes, and I froze.

You can start anywhere on the loop, but I’m starting you at the intersection of Dead Indian Rd and Hwy 66 (Green Springs Highway), because you’ll get about 7 miles of gentle rollers to warm up on. Head south on Hwy 66. This is outskirts-of-town farm country, pretty to the eye, but the road is always busy and you’re on the shoulder, so it’s not great. Most of it is, however, a lovely shoulder, wide and smooth.

Hwy 66

Shortly after the Old Siskiyou Hwy turn-off, you dump almost all of the traffic and start to climb, and you climb without interruption for about 7 miles. The climb is always 5-7%, so you work but you don’t suffer (2200 ft in 7 miles), and the scenery is grand, open, and varied, and the road, while constant of pitch, is always serpentining and giving you different looks. It’s one of the prettiest roads I know, a series of curves as lovely as a Japanese ink drawing. If you look west across the valley after you gain some altitude you can clearly see Hwy 5 making its long descent into Ashland.

Hwy 66, looking back at Ashland after the first miles of the climb (typical summer forest fire smoke)—click on photo to see the road

At the end of the climb you reach the obvious summit signed “Summit Green Springs Mountain,” and at the precise summit Old Hyatt Prairie Rd. takes off on your L. Don’t be tempted to take it, unless you want to ride a 10-mile dirt road that intersects our route later. The road we want is E. Hyatt Lake Rd., the next paved road to the L. about 3 miles further along. Finding it is made more complicated by the fact that some maps call our road “Hyatt Prairie Rd.,” which it later becomes, and the fact that our road has no road-name sign at the intersection. In fact there are no road-name signs between Hwy 66 and Dead Indian Rd., so you have to follow directional signs, following signs first to Hyatt Lake, then to Howard Prairie Lake, then to Dead Indian Road, through a couple of questionable intersections. Just keep along the western shore of both lakes.

Because the turn off Hwy 66 is sketchy, look for a large colorful sign reading “Hyatt—Howard Prairie Recreational Area” on the L and the unmissable Green Springs Inn on the R. Consider checking out the Inn. It’s quite a place (note the free re-supply depot for PCT hikers). The pies are legendary, and the cinnamon buns are the size of hubcaps.

Tub Springs: worth the added 3 miles

In the old days, Before one turned down E. Hyatt Lake Road, one stayed on Hwy 66 for another 1.5 miles and visiting Tub Springs, a tiny State Park consisting of three stone troughs with the best spring water in Oregon. People drove hundreds of miles to fill up the back of their station wagon with 5-gallon jugs of the stuff. But the water quality has been condemned, and the site is now open for viewing only—moderately interesting but not the unmissable treat it once was.

Hwy 66 at early morning

The miles from Hwy 66 to Dead Indian Rd. are a lovely break from the drama that precedes and follows them—easy, sweet meandering through lush conifer forests and grassy meadows. You do 3 miles of very low-key climbing to Hyatt Reservoir, then ride along the reservoir’s edge, with constant pleasant views of the water, which is not the most beautiful lake in the world but is OK. Hyatt is reportedly a haven for bald eagles and ospreys, though I never see any—there’s a turn-out with informative plaques about the birds just past Hyatt Lake Resort. Then it’s on to Howard Prairie Lake, which you can only barely glimpse from the main road and which you could easily not know is there unless you take the 1/4-mile road to Howard Prairie Resort. Which I encourage you to do, because HPR has much to offer: splendid bathrooms (with soap and showers, in case you want to freshen up mid-ride), a developed marina, nice picnic tables overlooking the lake (much more scenic than Hyatt), and a snazzy glass-and-stone central building.

Mt. McGloughlin behind Howard’s Prairie Lake meadows

Soon after you clear Howard Prairie Lake you dead-end into Dead Indian Rd. and turn L. Thinking all the climbing is over, you quickly hit a 3.8-mile climb, a shallow, tedious grind to an obvious summit at the sno-park. If you know it’s coming, it’s merely a pain in the ass; if you don’t, it can be soul-crushing.

Now it’s all down. The descent down Dead Indian Rd. is spectacular, a masterpiece of wide-open, high-speed descending, with big sweeping curves that rarely force you to drop below 35-40, and it goes on and on until your hands are cramping and your neck is aching from being in the drops. It’s the best of that sort of descent I know. If you love fast descents, do this ride.

Dead Indian Road: smooth, straight, and fast

This route offers you three places to resupply: Green Springs Inn, Hyatt Lake Resort, and Howard Prairie Resort—IF you’re late enough in the season for them to be open. Many resorts in Oregon don’t really open until July. Call ahead. I think Green Springs is year-round.

Shortening the route: Ride to Green Springs Inn and turn around. Riding Dead Indian as an out-and-back is an option, but I consider the climb a mind-numbing slog.

Adding Miles: About 8 miles into our route you pass the start of our Old Siskiyou Highway ride.

Our route has you riding about half of Dead Indian Rd. You can turn R instead of L when you intersect it and ride the other half, up to Lake of the Woods, and turn around. Not that I’m recommending it.

You’re about a half hour by car from a good ride from the charming faux village of Jacksonville to Applegate Lake, detailed in Moore’s book. On this ride you can spend time on Applegate Road, Upper Applegate Road, and Little Applegate Road. I take pleasure in little things like this. You can take the direct route, which is flat, or the more challenging route up Sterling Creek Rd, which involves a moderate climb and long, almost Bestrides-worthy descent.

Old Siskiyou Highway

1 Reply

Distance: 24 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 3323 ft

(A Best of the Best descent)

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

This is a not-hard, not-easy climb and Best-of-the-Best descent through canopied woods and along open hillsides with grand vistas, all on an old highway that sees almost no traffic. This is extreme Southern Oregon, so you won’t get the ferns and mossy maples of the Oregon rain forest, but the forest is still very pretty. I love this ride, in both directions. A perfect life would start every morning with it. And you’re riding a stretch of old Hwy 99, which when I was a boy was the only route north through the Northern California valley and into Oregon, so there’s an added element of nostalgia if you’re a native of a certain age.

Our map starts at the intersection of Hwy 66 and Old Siskiyou Hwy. I actually start at the intersection of Dead Indian Hwy and Hwy 66, to give my legs 4+ miles of easy-roller warm-up before the climb, but if you don’t want to there is dirt parking at the base of OSH. Ride Old Siskiyou until it turns into a Hwy 5 on-ramp. There’s a large dirt turn-out for parking at the intersection. There is a mile or so of fairly level at the beginning, but if you want to warm up first, Hwy 66 is pretty and mellow in either direction.

The first 7 miles of Old Siskiyou—to the Hwy 5 underpass—is steady climbing through lovely forest. The pitch is just under hard—one more degree and you’d have to work, but as it is you just feel like you’re climbing strong today. The canopy is cathedral, the road serpentines constantly and gracefully, the traffic is nearly non-existent because all the cars are on Old Siskiyou’s replacement, Hwy 5, and the road surface is good. There’s even a 270-degree turn where you get to cross your route on an overpass—shades of Disneyland’s Autopia.

The canopied first half of Old Siskiyou Highway

The first half of Old Siskiyou Highway: in the canopy

The second half of the ride is easier, more open, and big on vistas. Leaving the Hwy 5 underpass behind, you climb up a short, straight, boring slog, and then the climbing is over. You’re out of the trees and you’re alone on an wild, rocky sidehill far above the wide ribbon of Hwy 5 visible below you. At the fairly obvious summit you can see far into California to the south. The best view of Hwy 5 is about 100 yards after you start down the other side—watch for it because it doesn’t last long.

From the summit to the end of the road is 4 miles of stready 25-30-mph, fairly straight downhill. Given the fact that no car is ever going to be on this road (in the summer), the road surface is in remarkably good shape, varying from excellent to good to patches of OK. Turn around before the road sweeps you onto Hwy 5 and ride the 4 miles uphill back to the summit. This last 8-mile out-and-back is only moderately rewarding, and if you want to ride to the summit (or the good view of Hwy 5) and turn around I won’t think less of you.

As good as the first 7 miles were going up, they’re even better coming down. The curves are just big enough so that you don’t have to do much slowing and just small enough so that you can ride them hard and feel like a pro, and the pitch is just steep enough that you can get up speed without working and just shallow enough that you don’t have to do a lot of braking. It’s a Best of the Best descent, a constant 20-30-mph ripper through dappled sunlight. The road surface isn’t ideal—there are lots of vertical cracks to dodge, so you’re often choosing between the ideal line through the corners and the best pavement—but it’s good.

Shortening the route: Ride to the Hwy 5 underpass and turn around.

Second half of the ride: looking south at California and Hwy 5

Adding miles: The beginning of this route is on the route of the Dead Indian loop ride.

Just beyond the Hwy 5 underpass midway on our route is the turn-off for Mount Ashland Road, a challenging climb to the summit of the area’s tallest peak.

There is a bike path, the Bear Creek Trail, that runs up the valley from Ashland to Medford, which is sometimes nicely in the thick of the reparian woods and sometimes boringly on the very shoulder of Hwy 5 (Note: the fire that destroyed Talent in Sept. 2020 laid waste to much of the countryside along the bike path).

Galice to Golden

Mosquito Ridge Road

12 Replies

Distance: 50 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 6500 ft

A Best of the Best ride

(Note 9/22: In 9/22 the Mosquito Fire burned a large area with this ride at its very center. I haven’t seen the damage, but the flora must be devastated. Of course the rock formations and road contour will still be there. jr)

This is one of the prettiest mountain rides in Bestrides. For the first 22 miles, you’re treated to views of a large river canyon on one side of the road and stunning multi-colored rock walls on the other. If you’re a rock lover, this and the Kings Canyon ride will be your favorite rides, ever. And the road is one continuous lazy serpentine—downhill, it’s 25 miles of buttery-smooth slalom course. The only thing that keeps it from being the ride of your life is that it’s also 25 miles of almost unvaried, fairly monotonous 4-6% climbing—never difficult, but a bit tedious. Luckily you can take your mind off the monotony any time by looking at the scenery on either side of you. No distractions here—no inns, no houses, no waterfalls—just you, the road, and the canyon.

A reader tells me that the end of this route before the turn-around is unplowed in winter.

The route couldn’t be simpler: from downtown Foresthill, CA, a small ridge-top mountain town with all the amenities, ride down Mosquito Ridge Road to the turn-off to Big Trees Grove. Turn around and ride back.

Out of the gate you plunge into a joyous, easy 9-mile descent from the top of the ridge to the bottom of the American River canyon, with open views of the majestic canyon on your R and more and more colorful rock walls—red, blue, purple, yellow, gold, black—on your L. The scenery will steadily improve for the next 14 miles. The pitch is a consistent 4%, good for a descending speed of around 24 mph and mellow enough that you needn’t dread the climb back out.

Cross the big steel bridge over the river. Now you climb, without interruption, until the turn-around point, at a slightly steeper pitch than what you just came down—5-6%, which will give you a sweet 30-mph descent when you turn around. At 11 miles in, you reach a junction with a smaller road, named Blacksmith Flat Road (signed with a number, FR 23, but no name—there’s a sign on Mosquito Ridge Rd with the name after the turn-off, so you’ll see it when you’re returning), on the R. If you take the southern loop option discussed under Adding Miles, you close the loop here, or go R onto 23 if you’re going counterclockwise. But we aren’t doing that today.

Keep climbing up the south wall of the canyon, as the canyon vistas get grander and the rock walls get more varied and colorful. The best scenery is from around 12 miles in to 14 miles in, so if you’re out for a shorter day try to make it that far, or drive to the bridge and start there. At about 17 miles in, you reach the top of the ridge, swing R, cross the ridge into the canyon to the south, and ride along the northern wall of the new canyon. The varicolored rock displays are all behind you, but the new canyon is, if anything, grander than the first one.

About 21 miles in, you ride out of the canyon and into standard prime Sierra forest, no better or worse than any other pristine Northern California woods, and the pitch shallows to imperceptible climbing. Feel free to turn around—you won’t miss anything wonderful if you do. Pass the oddly named Interbay Rd on the R and in a few miles you’ll be at Big Trees Grove. The Grove has some nice giant sequoias, but you have to hike a 1/2-mile trail to see them, so unless you brought walking shoes there is little point in riding the 1/2-mile (paved) road to the picnic area, unless you need a drinking fountain or a bathroom—there’s one of each (but see Afterthoughts below).

Rock lover’s paradise

Turn around and ride home. Soon you will notice something about the road contour if you didn’t notice it on your descent to the bridge: you don’t need brakes. There are no hairpins. Every curve, with the exception of one obvious 180 at 11 miles in, is rounded and lazy, so you never need to scrub speed. You can ride from Big Trees to the bridge—15+ miles—and never drop much below 30 mph (minding that one corner). You don’t have to brake, you don’t have to pedal if you don’t want to, you never speed up or slow down much—you just sit there, leaning the bike from side to side, carving esses. Dreamy.

There’s a reason for this. The road was built for logging, so it’s wide (for a two-lane), smooth, gentle of pitch, and lacking tight corners that would slow a logging truck down. The downside of all this is that, while the road is almost without other traffic, you may meet loaded logging trucks and other large equipment. But the road is roomy, the sightlines are good, and you can hear the trucks coming, so they aren’t a problem here, though having one pass you on the 10-mile climb back to your car, where the road can be narrower, does elevate the heart rate a bit.

Back at the bridge, you’re looking at 9+ miles of climbing, and if you’re tired that can seem daunting. But it’s not bad. It’s never more than 4%, so you can maintain 6+ mph even with tired legs, there are no soul-crushing straightaways, the rock walls are a constantly entertaining distraction, and there’s a sweet 1-mile descent right where you need it most, halfway up. The whole thing won’t take more than 80 minutes of leisurely spinning.

Shortening the route: The best scenery is around 12-14 miles in, so plan to go that far or drive to the bridge and start there.

Photo by Brian

Adding miles: If you want to ride on past Big Trees there is no reason not to. Eleven miles further down the road is French Meadows Reservoir. You can ride there and turn around, or you can do either of two loops, both more challenging that the ride I’ve mapped out here. Loop 1 forks L a few miles after Big Trees Grove and takes Road 43, Robinson Flat Rd, which was or is largely dirt, until it runs back into Foresthill Rd, which you no doubt took to get to the town of Foresthill. Just go L and follow Foresthill Rd west back to town and your car.

Loop 2 is tougher. Ride to French Meadows Reservoir, cross the dam, and immediately turn R at the fork onto French Meadows Rd. Follow it through some name changes back to its intersection with Mosquito Ridge Rd (by which time it’s named Blacksmith Flat Road, or Rd 23), which you passed 11 miles into your ride. Go L and return on Mosquito Ridge Rd to your car. This is a long, demanding ride with some fierce climbing, and is often done counterclockwise to cash in on that 15-mile descent after Big Trees. The good folks of the Sierra Foothills Cycling Club have provided a detailed ride log.

You are a few car miles down the road from the back door to the Iowa Hill Road ride, and if you want more miles after any one of these three options, my hat’s off to you.

Afterthoughts: Plan your water carefully on this ride, especially if you’re doing one of the bigger loops. There are only two water sources, Big Trees Grove at our turn-around and French Meadows Reservoir 11 miles further on, and both taps are shut down off-season. I take a third water bottle and drop it at the bridge for the return climb, but even this would be inadequate on a hot summer day.

Mt. Veeder Road

6 Replies

Distance: 21 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 2440 ft

Mt. Veeder Rd. is a text-book two-hour ride: a straight ride up and over a summit, down the back side, then return. The landscape is varied and always pretty, and the road contour is ever-changing. It’s a perfect, delightful ride, and the descent is my favorite descent in the Wine Country after Fort Ross Rd. Once it was cursed with the usual Sonoma County lousy road surface. But MVR was recently repaved (Thanks, Joel) and as of 2025 the one-obnoxious chipseal has worn down nicely, so it’s close to perfect.

MVR, like most of California, has been built up some since I started riding it, so it’s not quite the wilderness it once was, but it’s still lush and gorgeous. It’s paralleled by a much more car-friendly road, Dry Creek Road (more on that later), that goes to the same place, so logically it should be car-free. It isn’t. Expect a couple of cars a mile.

By the way, names are misleading here. You are not climbing a mountain, and, despite the fact that you begin on Redwood Road and follow Redwood Creek for miles, these are not redwood forests. If you look up the hillside to the west you can spot some scraggly redwoods, but that’s it. Still, the non-redwood woods are quite pretty. For redwoods, add on the Redwood Rd. fork (see Adding Miles below).

It’s very lush for the first miles

If you’re planning on returning via Dry Creek Rd., you can park among the housing tracts off Dry Creek Road’s east end and ride the easy mile to the start of Redwood Road, but you don’t have to—there is ample shoulder parking in the the first miles of Redwood/Mt. Veeder around Browns Valley Rd., and BVR itself offers endless tract housing parking. The first miles of the ride are a shallow enough climb that you can easily warm up on them. You ride along Redwood Creek, a pretty, heavily canopied stream. Soon Redwood Rd. goes L, and the road straight ahead becomes Mount Veeder Rd (it’s all signed). You’ll see numbers painted on the road—1100, 1200—which for a long time I thought were elevation markers, but I think they’re street addresses. The pitch goes from mild to moderate, then gets serious for the last 1.2 miles (9-11%) before the summit.

At the summit, a number of things happen: 1) you reach the intersection of Mt. Veeder and Lokoya Rd to the L; 2) you get the best vista on the ride of the land to the north; 3) you enter an area damaged by the Tubbs Fire, which burned 2800 homes in Santa Rosa in October of 2017, though it’s still pretty; and 4) you do not descent yet—you roll up and down for 2+ very pleasant miles. At 8.5 miles the real descent begins, and you drop for 2 miles, all the way to the T at Dry Creek Road.

It’s drier further up the hill

This descent is full of lovely moments and the scenery is gorgeous, which if you descend like me you won’t notice until you climb back up.

At the turn-around point you have a route choice: ride back on Mt. Veeder, or turn R and ride the half-mile to Dry Creek Road (not the famous Wine Trail road out of Healdsburg—this is another Dry Creek Road) and ride it back to Redwood Road. Both are very good options, and most local riders do the loop route. I don’t.

Here’s how to make up your mind: DCR has a much gentler pitch, and is wider, straighter, more open (sunnier), and much more developed. And it eliminates the 2-mile climb at the start of the Veeder return ride. As a result of all this, it’s easier, gentler, and less dramatic. It’s pretty, but not as pretty as MVR. Do it if you’re ready to relax on the ride home. The Mt. Veeder return is dramatic, exciting, and dodgy. Do it if you want to whoop and holler, and work a bit. I’ve mapped the ride as an out and back, because the MVR descent must be experienced at least once. The two-mile climb that starts the return ride is substantial but never daunting, and the scenery is excellent.

Dry Creek Road: slower, smoother, more open, blander

Shortening the route: Ride to the summit and turn around.

Adding miles: The easiest add-on is the 3+ miles of Redwood Rd. (one way) that forks off to the L on the ride up and gives the main road over to Mt. Veeder. It’s prime riding, much like Mt. Veeder, and a joy both climbing and descending. The descent is especially good, thanks to the immaculate road surface.

If you turn the other way at the far end of Mt. Veeder Rd and go L onto Dry Creek Rd, it will soon turn into Trinity Grade, a classic little up-and-down across a ridge separating Napa County from Sonoma County. It’s very steep, very twisty, and pretty busy, but it’s very pretty. It’s discussed at length in the Cavedale ride post.

Speaking of Cavedale Road, it takes off from Trinity to the L (southeast) at Trinity’s summit. See our Cavedale write-up for details and for info on looping Mt. Veeder and Cavedale.

If you go R at the Veeder/Dry Creek Rd intersection, then go straight instead of R again at the next intersection, you’re on Oakville Grade, a short stretch of road famous for its steepness. I haven’t ridden it.

Mt. Veeder Rd. is part of the Tour of the Napa Valley, a century with good folks, good food, good roads, and a great attitude. On the century, as you approach the summit of Mt. Veeder Rd, you hear bagpipes. The music is live and coming from the summit, and it’s meant to lift your flagging spirits. Boy, does it work. One of the great century perks of all time.

Eagle’s Rest Road

3 Replies

Distance: 29-mile lollipop
Elevation gain: 3160 ft

This ride comes from Oregonian FOB (Friend of Bestrides) Don.

This route has a specific sort of appeal. It’s as isolated a ride as you can find on a road bike. You’ll ride for 20 miles without seeing any sign of human presence—no houses, no fences, no “No Trespassing” signs, no directional signs, no street signs, no cars, no people, no nothing. That 20 miles is through some of the most pristine, virginal forest I’ve ever seen. Even though the route is dead simple (you literally need to negotiate one intersection), I’ve never felt so lost.

To add to the sense of isolation, both my GPS trackers (on my iPhone and my Garmin) had no idea where I was. And when you’re in the comfort of your own home with a strong GPS signal, neither Googlemaps nor RidewithGPS will show you the route, because neither acknowledges there’s a paved road there. And, if you can find the road, no source will tell you what it’s called. I’m about 70% sure my RWGPS map has the route right, but don’t hold me to it.

So it’s an adventure. The risk is, in reality, tiny—the route is simple, the road surface is sound—but the sense of risk can be high, and I would in fact take extra water, food, and clothing, because if you run into trouble god knows how long it will be before someone comes along. Since the usual route guides are useless, I’m going to describe the route in excessive detail.

All this may seem off-putting. Rest assured, it’s a grand and memorable ride—one of my favorite rides in Oregon. Its only problem is, once you turn onto Eagle’s Rest Rd., the road surface is unpleasant for the next 14 miles—at first coarse chipseal, then worse. I wouldn’t do the ride without big tires.

Some of the comments below speak of previous storm damage and logging impact on the route. I last rode it in 8/25 and the conditions were perfect.

(RWGPS erroneously shows a large chunk of the route as unpaved, but it’s all pavement.)

Begin the ride in Dexter, a tiny town notorious for containing the bar where the roadhouse scene in “Animal House” was filmed. (You can start at the foot of Eagle’s Rest Rd, but you’ll be starting the ride with a leg-killing climb.) Ride south from Dexter on Lost Creek Rd (passing Lost Valley Rd—lots of getting lost around here) for 3.6 miles, then turn L onto Eagle’s Rest Rd. Here begins the 20 miles of virgin woods I promised you.

20 miles of this

The afore-mentioned climb begins immediately. It’s long, uninterrupted, and steep, often 10-12%, and made more difficult by the chipseal surface. The woods are stunning—don’t let the climbing keep you from appreciating them.

At 8 mi. you hit a false summit. At 9.6 mi. you hit the real summit. At this point the hard work of the ride is done. You roll up and down until mi. 11.7 mi., the one tricky spot in the ride: you reach a fork, and you must go R, though L looks like the primary road (see photo below). Left fork goes down, right fork goes up—you did it right if you’re climbing (briefly) after the split. My Garmin marked the new road as “Development Road 512,” but I’ve never seen that name anywhere else.

This is the fork–go right

Once you make that R, you have no more decisions until Mile 23.5, when the road you’re on runs into a much larger, more developed road and you take it to the L.

After the fork and a brief climb, the road drops noticeably, then meanders up and down through less glorious woods (bare conifers, no understory) on a road surface that is often worse than the previous chipseal. Not awful, but poor.

At mile 17.2, three things happen: 1) you turn north, back towards Dexter; 2) the road surface dramatically improves, to OK; and 3) you start to drop—at first steeply, then more gently, all the way to Mile 23.5. Some of this descending is spectacular, and much of the foliage is as magnificent as anything I’ve ever seen. Somewhere along this stretch my Garmin began identifying the road as “Lost Creek Rd.”

At Mile 23.5 you dead-end at the completely unsigned larger, fully-developed (double yellow line) road. You are in fact at the intersection of Lost Creek Rd. to your L and what Googlemaps labels as “Hartunos Rd.” to the R (not that it does you any good to know this). Go L (actually continuing on Lost Creek Rd.) and continue on Lost Creek Rd. back to your car. Midway you’ll pass Eagle’s Rest Rd. on your R.

Shortening the ride: The prettiest foliage is on the leg from the beginning of Eagle’s Rest Rd. to the fork at 11.7 mi. and (riding the route backwards) on the leg from the Lost Creek Rd./Hartunos Rd. fork to the beginning of the serious climb. Either is a grand out-and-back, the first being a major climb and the second being nearly flat.

Adding Miles: A few miles down Hwy 58 from Dexter is Oakridge, home of the Aufderheide ride and all the others mentioned in Aufderheide’s Adding Miles section. If you go northeast from Dexter and cross Dexter Reservoir, all the roads around Fall Creek Reservoir are gorgeous and mellow, especially Big Fall Creek Rd and Ruben Leigh Rd—perfect for a recovery day or social ride.

Looking north toward Dexter mid-ride—thanks to clear-cutting

Lone Tree Road

East Zayante Road

5 Replies

Distance: 22 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 2750 ft

This is a drop-dead gorgeous out-and-back climber that starts out with a few miles of easy, rolling climbing among rural houses, and continues to get steeper, narrower, more isolated, more densely wooded, and prettier as it goes. The woods are different from those of rides like Felton Empire and Big Basin—instead of mostly redwoods, you get a lot of bigleaf maples, so there’s a lot more light coming through, and at times it looks like the forest is on fire. The entire ride is along Zayante Creek (or tributaries), with frequent creek crossings, which means quaint little bridges and fun little descents and ascents before and after. All in all, arguably the prettiest ride in the Santa Cruz area. There are two stretches that are hard work, but the rest is mellow and so varied in pitch as to keep you fresh and perky.

The road surface used to deteriorate as you go, to a point where descending the way you went up was unpleasant, but it’s all been resurfaced and is now good surface (see Nibbles’s comment below). Also, it’s far enough east that it escaped the terrible damage from the recent fires.

Park near the intersection of Graham Hill Rd. and E. Zayante Rd. There are small dirt turn-outs just a stone’s throw up E. Zayante and a large church parking lot at the intersection. Ride up E. Zayante. The first mile or so is hectic and boring. There always seems to be a lot of traffic in the lower stretch of this road, and if it bothers you you can drive up a few miles until you get past most of the houses and park, but very shortly you can take the L turn onto W. Zayante (which explains why E. Zayante has “East” in its name), and ride up the other side of tiny Zayante Creek in relative carlessness for the busiest 1.2 miles, which is how I’ve mapped it. W. Zayante dead-ends at Quail Hollow—take QH 50 ft to the R (crossing the creek) to rejoin E. Zayante. The traffic will continue to thin out until you clear the houses, when it drops to next-to-nothing for the last two-thirds of the ride. On my last ride, I saw 6 cars in the last 8 miles.

The first 6.5 miles are mellow and varied climbing, so you’ll have time to warm up your legs before the serious pitches start. The area is fairly built up, but the houses are old and the canyon is steep so the houses are quirky, quaint, and busy with stilts, decks projecting into space, and staircases.

At mile 6.5, you start a mile of serious climbing that ends at the intersection where E. Zayante changes its name to Upper Zayante (clearly signed). Immediately after the intersection, you get a long recovery in the form of a mile of down.

The road continues to get narrower and the woods get thicker and prettier. Soon you’ll see a sign that says “one-lane road, two-way traffic next 3/4 mile. 5 mph” (I’ve never seen that sign anywhere else), and you climb, at a substantial pitch for a mile, then at a moderate pitch to the end of the road. When the road T’s into Summit Rd., look back at the three signs warning motorists starting down Upper Zayante what they’re in for.

Upper Zayante gets narrow!

How to get back to your car used to be a dilemma, since all routes back had their problems. Now that Zayante’s pavement has been redone, just bomb back down the way you came. Nibbles (below) says it’s a Best of the Best descent. I won’t go that far, but it’s very good. There are a few corners in the first (steepest) miles where you can get into real trouble if you don’t have disk brakes. Also in those first miles, you will meet at least one car and it will be smack in the middle of the road (because there’s really only one lane), so descent accordingly.

If you’re dead set against out and backs, you can go R on Summit, ride to Hwy 17, do a death-defying descent of 17 down to Glenwood, and ride Glenwood back to Scotts Valley. But the Glenwood surface is lousy. Or you can come down Mtn. Charlie, but that surface is even worse. You can go L on Summit and ride Bear Creek Rd. back to Boulder Creek and ride Hwy 9 down to Felton, but BCR is the main car corridor between Hwy 9 and Hwy 17 with no room for bikes, and Hwy 9 is even busier. So, no good alternatives to turning around.

Shortening the route: Since the scenery gets prettier, the traffic lighter, and the road smaller the further up you go, I’d start wherever the mileage lets you reach the end of the road.

Adding miles: As with any ride in the Santa Cruz area, you’re near scads of great riding on this route. 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.

Afterthoughts: Unless the heat is fierce, try to do the ride sometime other than early morning or just before sunset (for a change), because you want the sun high enough to backlight the bigleaf maples. You’re in almost constant shade for the last 2/3 of the ride, so sunstroke shouldn’t be a problem. On the other hand, high noon is less than ideal because the sun is directly overhead and the backlighting is minimal. So we’re talking 9-11 am and two hours before sunset.

Nacimiento-Fergusson Road

32 Replies

Distance: 53 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 5800 ft

( A Best of the Best ride)

This route is covered thoroughly in words and pictures at toughascent.com.

(Note: As the notes sent in by readers make clear, this road always seems to be going through a lot of trauma as a result of fires and winter weather. Its current rideability is always hard to determine. See MB’s excellent summary of conditions as of 5/24 below, and check https://www.bigsurcalifornia.org/highway_conditions.html for the latest road conditions. My latest word, as of 11/24, is that the road is finally, fully open.)

This is the best ride in California and Oregon. It’s a long way from anywhere, so you’re going to have to go out of your way to get to it, and it goes from the middle of nowhere to a blank spot on Hwy 1. This is all to your advantage, because it means you’ll pretty much have the road to yourself (see update below).

It’s one of those rides where you just ride the road, from its start to its finish, then ride back. In the process you’ll ride through four distinct ecosystems and experience four distinct kinds of riding, each a perfect example of its type: first, easy rollers through a valley full of golden grass and magnificent oaks, then gentle climbing along a pretty creek as it ascends a small riparian canyon, then vigorous climbing as you leave the creek and ascend to a saddle through oak forest, and finally a steep plunge down a steep, twisting road to Hwy 1 with views of the sea and coastline that are simply astonishing. The riding on the return is different but just as wonderful: a challenging 7-mile climb up from the ocean, a flat-out slaloming descent, an easy roll along the creek, and finally the oaken valley. It’s all just perfect—you’ll swear Disney built the course.

The ride is not terrifically hard—all the nasty is in the 7-mile climb up from the beach.

Valley of the giant oaks

It’s impossible to get lost once you’re on Nacimiento-Fergusson (“birth-Fergusson” in English) itself, but finding it is a bit of a challenge. Drive to Fort Hunter Liggett near King City. It’s a large, functioning army base no one’s ever heard of. If you ask directions, show the locals you’re cool by pronouncing Jolon Rd. “ho-LONE.”

Once you turn onto the base, you’ll pass an unmanned gate of sorts on the outskirts and drive for a few miles through open country with little signs of life. As you approach the base complex, about a mile before the fort main gate the road makes a sweeping curve to the R, and on the outside bend of that curve, on your L, is a small road that immediately crosses a metal bridge. That’s your road. There is no sign reading “Nacimiento-Fergusson,” but a sign reads (among other things) “State Route 1” with an arrow. (Once you begin riding, the road is clearly signed “Nacimiento-Fergusson” in the first 1/2-mile and whenever necessary thereafter.)

Riparian woods

DO NOT PARK AT THE INTERSECTION or anywhere else along the roads—this is a military base, after all. Drive on, pass the front gate to the fort on your R, pass the huge, gleaming white Hacienda on your R, and come to an intersection of (counting the one you’re on) no less than 6 roads. In front of you is a narrow fork with a sign between them reading “Mission San Antonio.” Take the fork to the L of the sign, drive to the mission (it’s barely visible from the intersection), and park there. It’s a real, functioning Spanish mission, Mission San Antonio de Padua, with plenty of parking. The mission itself is worth checking out. There is some interesting history here.

The creek

Ride back to that road with the bridge and take it. After a short up and down, you’re looking at a few easy warm-up miles through a grassy valley dotted with magnificent old oak trees. You can see the draw you’ll soon be climbing ahead of you. Then you climb peacefully along the creek at a constantly varying 0-4% through a pretty riparian woodland of sycamores, yellow penstemon, ceanothus, and California’s state plant, poison oak, until you cross the creek on a small bridge and the road tilts obviously up. The new climb is moderate of pitch and serpentining without interruption and ends at an abrupt, razor-sharp summit—you can almost stand with one foot on each watershed.

Climb to the summit (looking back down)

This ride is in our list of Best Descents, but not for what’s about to come—the drop to the ocean is so steep and the curves are so tight that you’ll be constantly braking, the road has a lot of loose rock—marble to softball size—so you have to go cautiously, and the sight lines are terrible so you can’t see cars coming. But the vistas are bucket-list so you don’t want to skip it. The entire Pacific Ocean is laid out before you.

The climb from the ocean: seven miles of this

Halfway down the 7-mile descent to the ocean, looking back up

At the bottom you’re on as isolated a stretch of Hwy 1 as there is, but there’s a tiny jewel of a campground called the Kirk Creek Campground, thank god. There’s a good bathroom but no water source, so I always just ask one of the campers for a couple of bottles’ worth, which they’re always happy to give. One time the campground host bawled me out for eating a sandwich at one of the picnic tables without paying the day use fee, but I think it was an aberration.

First sighting of Hwy 1 (photo by Don)

The 7 miles back to the saddle is a truly challenging climb, especially in the first 2-3 miles, which has a lot of 8-10%. After that it mellows out, a little. It is also mostly in full sun and typically very hot later in the day. But of course you can always lose yourself in the scenery. Past the saddle is one of my favorite descents and the reason why the ride is in the Best Descents list—long, smooth, never straight, with wide, cambered curves you can take at speed and frequently good sight lines. Then it’s back along the creek and through the valley and back to your car for some serious gratitude for a universe that gives you such things as this ride.

Afterthoughts: I always drive to and from the ride, but if you want to stay in the area you’ve got a few options (other than King City 15 minutes away, which is a valley ag town without merit). You can stay at Kirk Creek Campground and do the ride backwards. There are at least two small, pretty campgrounds along the ride route, between the military land and the summit. And there is the afore-mentioned Hacienda, a complex designed in 1930 by the famous Julia Morgan for William Randolph Hearst that sits on the military base and rents rooms to civilians (thanks, Patricia).

Shortening the route: Obviously I hate to give up any of it, but if you must, it’s just a matter of choosing what sort of riding you want—flat oak meadow, mild creekside climbing/descending, serious climbing/descending to/from a summit, or hairy descent/ascent to/from the sea.

Adding miles: I’m not a fan of riding Hwy 1, because of the traffic, but the section to the north and south of N-F might not be bad, since you’re a long way from the more popular stretches near Big Sur and San Luis Obispo. Also, winter weather often destroys sections of Hwy 1 to the north of you, so you may find Hwy 1 almost or entirely devoid of cars.

At the Hunter Liggett end the nearby riding is flat, hot, and boring in all directions.

At the ridge summit you cross a dirt road called the Coast Ridge Road that is highly regarded by gravel bike riders.

Forty miles away is our Shirtail Canyon Road ride.

Seventeen-Mile Drive

6 Replies

Distance: 17-mile lollipop
Elevation gain: 1177 ft

This ride is a lot like the Golden Gate Bridge loop—a complete chestnut, over-hyped and tourist-ridden. Plus it’s all about money (you ride by Pebble Beach Golf Course, for god’s sake)—but, all that notwithstanding, it’s a delightful bike ride. Every time I do it, I wish I could live there so I could do it every day. You ride by waves smashing into coastal rocks, through lanes of coastal cypresses, do a nice little climb, roll through nearly unpopulated Monterey pine forest, then do a fun, fast descent, all on the best road surface money can buy. The forty-million-dollar houses used to amaze me when I started riding here, but now they look just like the McMansions in the upscale conclaves of my little home town and every other population center of California.

This isn’t just a scenic tourist stroll—the riding is outstanding. The road contour on the south side is a delightful rollercoaster—up and down and back and forth—and the inland half of the loop is almost as good—glassy smooth meandering, intermixed with effortless descending. You’ll do some work—c. 1200 ft vert. The traffic can be a bit noisome, granted, and if you can do the ride before 10 AM so much the better. Of course you’d like to do the ride at sunset, but that’s when everyone else wants to be there too—the last time I did it at sunset, one parking area had four gigantic motor coaches disgorging tourists.

This is California coastal riding, so wind is likely and the weather can feel surprisingly cold given the temperature—dress prudently.

The route is impossible to miss. Because the locals want to keep you from exploring the neighborhoods, they’ve painted huge, unmissable “17-Mile Drive” signs on the road and posted beautiful wooden route marker posts at all the intersections. Just follow them. Start where the Drive takes off from Sunset Drive in Pacific Grove. There are places where you can park on the dirt shoulder near the beginning of the ride, or find parking along Sunset. Immediately you’ll see a manned gate charging an entrance fee from the cars, but you’re free, so bypass it on the R (officially you’re supposed to pay a cyclists’ fee, but no one ever does).

The rock garden at Spanish Bay Beach

Take an absurdly well-signed R onto Spanish Bay Rd. (not the first R, into a golf course and the Inn at Spanish Bay). When you hit the water, take a moment to detour into the parking lot on your immediate R and explore the playful rock cairns covering Spanish Bay Beach (signed “Spanish Bay #3,” referring to the numbered tour guide you don’t have because you didn’t pay a car fee). Continue along the ocean, stopping at parking lots for the views.

They REALLY don’t want you to get lost

Let me be brutally honest: this stretch of shoreline is nice (the tourists are impressed), but it isn’t spectacular, or even the best in the immediate area—the coastline on the nearby Monterey Bike Path ride between Asilomar Beach and Lover’s Point is much more dramatic. Additionally, you can’t get close to the water easily—you’re largely restricted to formal parking-lot viewing areas, whereas on the Monterey Bike Path route you can tide-pool and boulder-hop to your heart’s content.

Continuing on our mapped route, make a big L turn and climb up from the water onto a bluff running SW along the shore. Here the road is lined by grand cypresses and some of the most expensive mansions you’ll ever see. Feel free to fantasize. The tread is up and down, back and forth, at a deliciously relaxed tempo through deep shade—the best part of the ride, to my mind.

The 17-Mile Drive coastline is justly famous...

The 17-Mile Drive coastline is famous…

Just after you pass Pebble Beach Golf Course and ride through the parking lot, you reach an intersection and turn R. A sign reads “Narrow road—cyclists exercise caution,” and you’re in for a few minutes of white-knuckling. I guess the cars are free to continue their reckless ways.

At the southeast corner of the loop, the road Y’s, with the main road turning right-angle L and beginning an obvious climb away from the water, and the secondary road going R and dropping to a lovely back door into the hamlet of Carmel (see Adding Miles below). There’s a temptation to turn around here and retrace your steps, since you’re naturally keen to do all that sweet riding a second time, but I wouldn’t—what lies ahead is not to be missed. Do the substantial (800-ft) climb up to Hwy 68. Ignoring the R to the exit gate, go L, paralleling 68, then R to cross over 68 as soon as you can. When you’re on the overpass, all noticeable climbing is over.

What follows is just a perfectly sweet 7 miles of cycling. Continue on the main road through a series of intersections, mostly descending, all the way back to Spanish Bay Rd. All the sight-seeing cars leave the Scenic Drive at Carmel or the Hwy 68 gate, and few people live back here, so you’ll have this back side of the loop all to yourself. In some ways it’s the best part of the loop.

But the inland scenery is just as good

The one place where you might be in doubt as to the route is when you close the loop at Spanish Bay Rd, which you took to get to the shoreline earlier. An enormous, unmissable sign painted on the road will tell you that the Scenic Drive goes L, down Spanish Bay Rd. toward the ocean. Well, the loop part of our route does, but you already did that, and if you go down there you’ll find yourself retracing the loop forever. There are worse fates. But ignore the sign, go straight, and you’ll re-ride the stem of the lollipop and end the ride at the Sunset Drive entrance.

Shortening the route: Turn around at the Pebble Beach Golf Club. You won’t save miles but you’ll eliminate the climb.

Adding miles: The 17-Mile Drive works its way around the perimeter of a network of residential streets, and you can explore any of them. The architecture is fascinating everywhere, and there are equestrian stables with rich girls doing dressage and such—it’s a whole world in there you’re only allowed to glimpse. Reader John recommends Palmero Way and Ronda Drive, both on your L as you pass the Pebble Beach Golf Course.

At the start of our route you’re a quarter-mile from our Monterey Bay Bike Path.

At the southeast corner of the 17-Mile Scenic Drive loop, at the Y, if you go R instead of L, in a quarter-mile you reach the back door into Carmel, perhaps the most adorable village in America. Every house looks like a variation on Hansel and Gretel’s candy house, every restaurant serves good and interesting food, every shop boasts tasteful, unique goods and friendly staff. You can ride down to the beach via Ocean Avenue, take the simply and appropriately named Scenic Road past the beach bungalows, and eventually work your way to Hwy 1, at which point you’re seven miles from my beloved Robinson Canyon Road ride. A few miles past Robinson is our East Carmel Valley Road ride.

Jay's Essential Bike Rides

The very best road rides in California and Oregon