Distance: 25-mile dumbbell
Elevation gain: 3340 ft

(A Best of the Best ride)

(A Best of the Best descent)

April 2025 note: sometimes road surface is everything. I’ve always liked this ride, but felt I had to apologize for the lousy tread of the descent down Howell Mountain Rd. to Pope Valley and the less obnoxious tread problems ascending Ink Grade. Happily I can now report that both roads have been gloriously resurfaced, are now glass, and are now both wonderful riding. That elevates the ride from good to great—hence the Best of the Best rating. Even better news: now that Ink Grade is glass, it’s become a top-tier descent—one of the best descents in Bestrides and one of the best I’ve ever done.

As with all the rides in the Wine Country and Marin County, try to do this ride in the spring, when the foliage is lush and green, the scotch broom is blooming, the vineyards are beginning to bud, and the temps are moderate. Of course it’s doable any time of the year, but in other seasons the scenery is merely pleasant, whereas in the spring it’s drop-dead gorgeous.

This ride is a bit of a grab bag.  It strings together three climbs and three descents, each with its own character.  Locals typically ride it as a one-way, from south to north, and continue on, as a part of pleasant longer routes we’ll discuss in Adding Miles.  But I’m not crazy about those longer routes, so I’ve mapped it as an out and back dumbbell.  The route includes Old Howell Mt. Rd., most of which is officially closed, to cars, bikes, and walkers, so if you like being naughty (as I do) this ride is for you. If you don’t crave wooly, off-piste riding, you might want to skip the entire western half of the route. There is also 1.6 miles of a nasty mix of heavy traffic and broken pavement which you must simply survive.

Because Old Howell Mt. Road is officially closed, many maps (including electronic ones) don’t acknowledge its existence.  Also, various maps have various opinions about what it’s called.  Just follow the route map and you’ll be fine.

Park just outside St. Helena at the intersection of Silverado Trail and Old Howell Mt. Road (which is also the intersection of ST and Pope St.). There’s a small dirt turn-out for parking at the end of Pope. At the intersection OHMR is signed simply Howell Mt. Road, but is signed Old Howell Mt. Rd. at its other end.  RidewithGPS calls it “Howell Mountain Road South.”  It climbs from the gun, so consider warming up on Silverado, the region’s primary recreational bicycle road, which is nearly flat and heavily trafficked but with an adequate-to-plentiful shoulder. It’s good, mellow riding in general and in the miles south of Pope is particularly sweet, so you may want to just keep riding ST, and I won’t think less of you for it, but we have bigger fish to fry.

A short leg up OHMR brings you to the intersection of OHMR and Conn Valley Rd.  CVR is serious vineyard country, as evinced by the 20 wineries whose names hang from the unmissable sign at the intersection.  It’s a pleasant road by itself, and it goes all the way to Lake Hennessey, so it’s worth riding some other day. Go L to stay on OHMR, and very soon you see a permanent sign that reads, “Road closed ahead: no vehicles, no bicyclists, no pedestrians.”  Indeed, shortly thereafter you reach a permanent and serious gate across the road and a sign that reads “road very closed.” Getting around the gate is easy, but immediately beyond it you’ll swear the signs are right because you’re looking at a giant mound of dirt and no road in sight. Fear not. The mound is about 40 ft up and 40 ft down the back side (ride it if you have a gravel bike, walk it if you don’t), and after the mound the road reappears and is in remarkably good shape—lots of small cracks, lots of weeds growing through the median, and a few fallen limbs to dodge, but absolutely no risk.

OHMR is a steady moderate climb through typical east Wine Country dry scrub.  Watch for a nice open vista to the southeast, with Lake Hennessey in the distance.  After 4 miles, OHMR dead-ends at a road that is Howell Mountain Rd. to the R and Deer Park Rd. to the L.

Here you have a choice.  As I’ve routed it, you go straight across onto White Cottage Rd. and ride it for 4 miles to its end.  White Cottage is a pleasant but not exciting steady climb through pretty, fairly developed terrain on a polished, wide two-lane road.  The eponymous Cottage is nowhere in sight.

The alternative is to go R and take Howell Mountain Road through Angwin to the juncture of Ink Grade, White Cottage Rd., and HMR.  The upside to HMR over White Cottage is, after Angwin the road contour is more interesting (curvier).  The downside is, at least through Angwin, the traffic is heavier.  Since you’re going to come back this way, I suggest you go up White Cottage and come down HMR.

Just before White Cottage dead-ends at Howell Mt. Rd., it crosses Ink Grade.  Now you have one of the toughest decisions you’ll ever have on a bike. Do you descent Ink Grade (which used to be a no-no due to rough road surface but is now a superb ride), or do you continue on White Cottage to the intersection with Howell Mt. Rd. and do the descent of HMR, which is also a wonderful ride? Here are some things to consider:

Both descents are on glassy, perfect surface.

Both go to roughly the same place—Pope Valley Road..

HMR is much steeper (9-12%, compared to Ink Grade’s 4-8%).

HMR is curvier.

HMR is less varied—all pretty much the same pitch, the same amount of twistiness. Ink Grade is much more varied—no two corners are alike, lots of changes of pitch.

Ink Grade is much narrower—it’s a true wide one-lane, with no centerline. I’m not sure two cars meeting could pass each other. HMR is an obvious main route—two substantial lanes with centerline.

Because IG is narrower, it’s much less trafficked—seeing any cars at all is news-worthy—and it’s prettier (at least in the spring), because you’re more snugly in the woods.

I prefer Ink Grade, but I ‘m not a big fan of brake-burning plummets. I’ve mapped the route down HMR, but that was before the repaving.

At the bottom of HMR, at the tiny community of Pope Valley (which consists of a market in case you need ice cream, a garage with a sign that reads “since 1915,” an old barn advertising “blacksmith and wagonmaker,” and a vast automobile graveyard with some amazing old car bodies), go L on Pope Valley Rd., ride to Ink Grade on your L and go right on past it for 1/10 mi. to gawk at the spectacle that is Hubcap Ranch.  Return to Ink Grade and ascent it. It’s a dream, as good as ascending gets—constantly reinventing itself, 4.1 miles of bliss through beautiful scenery, just hard enough to make you feel like you’re accomplishing something and with lots of changes in the pitch to vary the workload. With the new surface, I loved it so much I went back and did the climb the following day, something I never do. Don’t miss the tongue-in-cheek “Col de la Croix de Ink Grade” distance-and-elevation markers along the route.

At the top of Ink Grade, return to the White Cottage Rd./Howell Mt. Rd. intersection whichever way you didn’t ride up.

Now you are in for 1.7 miles of hell, the descent of Deer Park Rd. DPR is quite nice in places, but here it’s awful—lots of cars whizzing past you at 55 mph while you fight for control at 35 mph over steep, dangerously broken pavement and no shoulder.  None too soon, bail out to the R onto Sanitarium Rd. (you’ll feel like checking in), which is heaven in comparison to what you’ve just done. Sanitarium used to be the best road surface on the route, but no more. Still, it’s pretty good, and it’s a fairly straight, very fast descent (40 mph if you want). It used to be almost car-free, but Siri has decided it’s a better route than Deer Park Rd. and is sending through traffic down it. And it’s built up, so the scenery is without interest. When it returns to Deer Park Rd, it’s a stone’s throw down DPR to Silverado Trail, which you take L back to your car.

At the bottom of Sanitarium, there are a couple of little detours you can take to the R to add 3-4 miles to the route and avoid the little leg of Deer Park Road at the bottom of Sanitarium—first, Crystal Springs Rd., which seems to be a local favorite, and second, Glass Mountain Rd., which is shorter and I think a bit prettier.  Both go north and run into the Silverado Trail, which you take L back to your car.

Shortening the route: Do either loop by itself—I recommend the northern loop. Or ride Ink Grade as an out and back—8 total miles of perfect climbing and descending..

Adding miles: On Pope Valley Rd. you’re in the midst of eastern Wine Country cruising country.  The roads in every direction are popular riding routes.  Continuing W on Pope Valley Rd. from Ink Grade, the riding is easy and lovely until the road turns into Butts Canyon Rd., at which point the road surface deteriorates and the landscape turns into post-forest-fire dreary—rolling hills full of dead tree trunks emerging from a sea of scrub brush. Butts will take you all the way to Middletown (16.5 miles), but I wouldn’t do it.  Turning R on PVR from Ink Grade,, you soon reach Pope Canyon Rd and Chiles-Pope Canyon Rd., both staples of regional touring.  I like the ride from Pope Valley down Chiles-Pope Canyon to Hwy 128 a lot, especially the descent from Chiles to 128. Hwy 128 will return you to the Napa Valley (I wouldn’t go the other way on 128—the traffic can be deadly, though the road contour is good).

Pope Canyon connects with Berryessa Knoxville Rd., which runs for 37 miles all the way to Clear Lake (where it’s called Morgan Valley Rd.), and locals have told me they’re ridden it in previous years, but I drove (not rode) the miles from Berryessa to Knoxville and I’m here to tell you, do not ride this road. The road surface, as of 6/25, is beyond horrible—it’s life-threatening. Do not trust the Streetview images—the road has been torn to pieces since they were taken. Morgan Valley Rd. itself (Knoxville to Lower Lake) is totally rideable as an out and back from Lower Lake, and the contour is nicely varied, but the scenery is poor, thanks to major fire damage, and the sun exposure is intense in hot weather.

You’re 11.5 miles down Silverado Trail from the Old Lawley Toll Rd, a tiny gem of a climb I absolutely love but which stands in the midst of a cycling wasteland (since Hwy 29 is unrideably trafficky) and is only 4 miles long.   You don’t want to drive any distance to do 4 miles, so you should go bag it now while you’re in the neighborhood.

Just on the other side of St. Helena is Spring Mountain Rd./St. Helena Rd., a road which on paper looks like a perfect ride—small, relatively untrafficked, curvy.  It’s all up then all down across the ridge between the St. Helena valley and the Santa Rosa valley, and it’s a pretty good ride with a couple of drawbacks that keep me from recommending it: 1) the climb up from St. Helena is really steep, steeper than I find fun either going up or going down (like, lots of 12%+); and 2) the pavement on the Santa Rosa side is uniformly lousy, the kind of lousy I find really interferes with my pleasure.  If they would repave the west side of the summit, riding just it as an out and back would be a dream.  But this is Sonoma County after all.

Distance: 35 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 3925 ft

(A Best of the Best descent)

This is one of seven rides (all detailed in the Adding Miles section of the Mountain View Road post) that are worth doing around Boonville, a charming little town with good food and an interesting history, so I encourage you to find a place to stay in the area, make a cycling holiday out of it, and do all of them.

This ride has its drawbacks.  The road is a little too trafficky, a little too wide, and  a little too monotonous of pitch and a little too long climbing.  But the pros outweigh the cons.  The road contour is continuous mellow serpentining, the road surface is immaculate, the vistas in either direction are outstanding (Russian River Valley to the west, Clear Lake to the east), and the descents, on either side of the summit, are superb.  I’ll put the descent on the east side up against any descent in Bestrides.  It’s that good.

Which brings us to a dilemma: how do you ride a hill with a great descent on both sides?  I’ve mapped it as an out and back, which is frankly asking a lot of your climbing legs and your patience.  If you’re not up for that, you have three choices: a) arrange a shuttle and ride it one-way, and that way should be west to east; b) ride it as an out-and-back from base to summit, preferably on the east side; or c) do the loop I lay out in Adding Miles.  Whatever you do, descending the east side should be your number-one priority.

The first miles

Park on Hwy 175 out of Hopland.  The route is very mild climbing for the first 5 miles, but if you want more warm-up you can ride Old River Rd., a perfectly pleasant flat ride, running north and south off 175 (clearly signed—the southern leg soon dead-ends at Hwy 101, the northern leg runs forever). 

Back on 175, the vineyards in the first 5 miles are particularly picturesque.  After 5 miles you run out of valley, you hit a 180 turn and climb for 5 more miles to the summit at a moderate pitch (6-7%) that hardly varies.  Watch for the vistas of the Russian River Valley below you as you climb, but if you miss them the vistas on the east side are grander.

Miles of this

Just before the summit, you pass an “Entering Lake County” sign.  If you’re planning on turning around at the summit,  continue on a while because the vistas in the quarter-mile past the summit, of Clear Lake to the east and the ridges and canyons to the north, are magnificent.  Much of the landscape was burned in the 2018 Mendocino Complex fire, but you’ll hardly notice now.

Just past summit, looking down on Clear Lake and fire damage—click to enlarge

Again, the descent from the summit heading east is simply perfect.  Perfect pitch, perfect curves, grand vistas, open sight lines, lovely rock cuts.  Notice I have no photos of the east side—I wasn’t about to interrupt my bliss by stopping to take photos.

If you’re following my route, turn around and ride back to the summit.  Both climbs are about 5 miles of serious pitch, but RWGPS says the elevation gain on the east side is less because you’re starting higher.  Be that as it may, I promise you’ll get your fill of work.

The eastside climb—your road is in center and at 10:30. Click to enlarge

Back at the summit, there’s a sign that reads “9% grade, next 4 miles.”  Having already climbed it, you know that’s not true—it averages maybe 7% at the most—but it’s a lovely descent, all smooth, sweeping, banked curves where you can hold your speed easily, and the traffic becomes a non-issue because you’re going as fast as they are.  At the bottom of the descent you have 5 miles of perfectly sweet 2% descending to make you feel like a god on the bike.

Shortening the ride: ride from either end to the summit, then return.  Again, I recommend the east side.

Added miles:  As I mentioned, Old River Rd. near the beginning of the ride is pleasant, easy riding in either direction.  Old Toll Rd. takes off from 175 on the R a couple of miles into our route and gives you 2.7 miles of lovely rambling on good pavement before it turns to dirt.

Speaking of Old Toll Rd., after it turns to dirt it wends its way all the way to the eastern terminus of Hwy 175, changing its name midway to Highland Springs Rd.  If you like dirt, consider looping the route, riding one way on 175 and the other on Old Toll/Highland Springs. Here’s a map:

I think RWGPS’s got the pavement/dirt proportions exactly right.

The good news is, once on this road it’s impossible to get lost—there are no forks or options, in either direction.  The bad news is, the 10 miles of dirt range from OK to nasty.  I did it once, on a gravel bike, and it beat my brains out.  I feel no need to ever do it again.  Don’t even think about it on skinny tires.  However, I was riding clockwise, when most of the dirt is rocky downhill—if you do the loop counterclockwise, most of the rocky stuff is a moderate climb and much less jarring.  But you give up the east-side descent on 175.  It’s a tough call.

At the east end of our ride, 10 pleasant miles down Hwy 29 is our Clear Lake to Cobb route, which by some devil’s logic is also Hwy 175.  See the Adding Miles section of Clear Lake to Cobb for more riding in that area.  Five miles to the north on Hwy 29 is a short, easy gem, Scotts Valley Road, a pretty, mostly flat saunter through old pear orchards—perfect for a family spin.

Distance: 42-mile loop
Elevation gain: 3820 ft

(Note 11/12/20: Geysers Road was a victim of the Kincaide Fire.  Richard (in his comment below) says the landscape is OK.)

For a comparison of 4 climbs in the Wine Country—Pine Flat Road, Geysers Road, Ida Clayton Road, and Cavedale Road—see the introduction to the Ida Clayton Road post.

Many areas have the “Big Ride,” the one you do on the day you want to put in some miles and do some work.  In the Wine Country, the Big Ride is Geysers Road (when it isn’t Stewarts Point/Skaggs Springs Rd.).

When I reached the beginning of the Geysers Road climb, I was stopped by a group of road maintenance guys and we got to talking.  Did I really want to do this?, one of them asked.  Geysers, he said, was a mess.  Long and steep, with a surface that was at its best broken pavement, at its worst full of gravel, rocks, and fallen plant material, with frequent stretches of dirt road and spots of minimally repaired earthquake damage where the road “just falls off.”  Also no water or other reprovisioning opportunities, and little to no cell service.

As it turns out, he was absolutely right, but it’s a wonderful ride nonetheless and nothing to be feared.  Except for one hard mile of 14-15% climbing, all the elevation gain (c. 4000 ft) is thoroughly manageable, and the scenery is stunning.  As with all Wine Country riding, the road surface is indeed poor, varying from sorta OK to wretched, but the worst of it is on the ascent, when you’re doing 5-7 mph and it’s not an issue.   I found the earthquake sections geologically fascinating.  And the isolation is a large part of the appeal—after I passed the turn-off to the gravel pit 3 miles in I can’t remember seeing a single vehicle.  (Mike below says 2021 saw a major patching of potholes and the road surface is now better.)

If you have everyone’s image of the Wine Country—vineyards, gently rolling hills, old farm houses, everything neat as a pin—forget it.  Geysers is a wild and woolly climb up the side of a creek canyon, followed by a few ridge crossings and mad descents through more canyons, all barren of signs of humanity (one house, one thermal power plant).   No wine tasting here.  You do, however, get that stereotypical Wine Country riding experience on the Geysers Rd.-to-Cloverdale leg.

You want to ride Geysers from north to south.  The road is in two halves with very different characters.  The north side (up to the Geysers Resort Road turn-off) is narrow, mellow of pitch, rough, and winding.  The south side is steep, wider, straighter, and smoother (though not smooth).  So riding from south to north robs you of most of the road’s rewards: instead of a charming, curious, and mellow ascent and a speedy, relatively smooth descent, you get a steep, relatively featureless slog up to the summit, followed by an unpleasantly rough descent.  You’ll see riders beginning at the south end, but I suspect they’re riding to the summit and back.  This is fine if all you want is a workout, but the north side is by far the prettier and more dramatic.

By the way, you won’t see geysers.  You’ll see some developed thermal activity in the distance to your L, but it isn’t pretty and the resort itself is closed.

I would avoid this ride on a hot summer day, since much of it is exposed and there is no water.

River Road

The route is in the shape of a D, with Geysers being the rounded part and the straight part being Hwy 28/Geyserville Rd./Asti Rd.  The latter is all gently rolling valley riding, so you could start anywhere along it.  I like to ride a while before climbing, so I start in Asti, which gives 6 miles of warm-up before Geysers, though in fact you could start in Geyserville if you wanted to get all the flat stuff out of the way.

Early miles of Geyser Road

Start at the intersection of Asti Rd. and unpretentious Washington School Rd. (there’s a small turn-out for parking).  Ride down Washington School for a half-mile to River Rd…if you can.  Washington School crosses a gully on a dirt bridge that is impassible in inclement weather, so WSR is gated off much of the year.  (Note 6/2026: a reader comment below says the bridge is out of commission and looks to be so for some time.). Give it a try—consider walking the 100 yards of the bridge if it’s unrideable—because River Rd. is just perfect, an idyllic roll along the edge of the vineyards, with grapes on your L and woodlands on your R, on the only glassy road surface you’ll see today.  It’s like the over-ridden Silverado Trail without the traffic and with more contour. If WSR is off limits, ride north on Asti Rd., which is merely OK.  It will take you to the same place.

Leaving the creek

River Rd. runs into Geysers Rd.  Geysers is narrow and rough at first as it follows beside and climbs high above Big Sulfur Creek, but the character of the road varies—from patchy one-lane to gravel to smooth two-lane with bright centerline.  You will “climb” for the next 13 miles, to the Geysers Resort turn-off, but a lot of it is mild up and down and absolutely none of it is hard—mostly 4-5%, never more than 7%.  This is the best scenery of the ride, particularly in the fall when the leaves are turning, and the road is constantly rising, falling, turning, so it keeps your interest.  There are several short stretches of gravel, all easy to navigate on 23mm tires.  Notice the earthquake damage—very short stretches of road where the surface has dropped a foot or so.

Much of the upper climb is nicely wooded

At the Geyser Resort intersection, everything changes.  The road becomes a polished, wide two-lane with centerline, and the pitches are steeper.  From here on the scenery is about big, open canyon vistas, and there are several places where the road skirts the lip of the drop-off vertiginously.

Typical south-half view: looking back from the summit (Geysers Rd. in upper right)

Immediately after the Resort Rd intersection, you will do the ride’s only real work, 1.5 miles of truly hard 14-15%.  Then it’s an easy mile or two to the first of the ride’s two summits.  Don’t expect to see the Hwy 101 valley when the view to the west opens up—there are canyons and ridges between you and it.  Check out the perfect view of the next climb, a serpentining stretch laid out perfectly before you on the opposite hill.  It looks like an utter bitch but isn’t bad.

Looking at the second climb, from the first summit

A steep 2-mile descent reminds you that no descending in Sonoma County is really much fun—too rough, and the possibility of potholes, frost heaves, or even gravel stretches is always there.  Cross the bridge and do the last climb, 1.5 miles that at first threatens to be ugly but soon turns moderate.  Then substantial descending, which would be great if they’d just pave the damned thing, until you re-enter the valley.

Hwy 128: nice if the traffic is light

Take Hwy 128, which is very pretty but a bit too trafficky, to Geyserville, then Geyserville Rd, which becomes Asti Rd., back to your car.  This last stretch is on the very shoulder of Hwy 101 and thus is only OK riding, and it rolls more than your tired legs would like, so be prepared (or start your ride in Geyserville).

Shortening the route: I wouldn’t.  You could ride to the first summit and turn around, but you wouldn’t save yourself much in the way of miles or work, and you’d miss some very good stuff.

Adding miles: Our Pine Flat Rd. ride is a short bike ride to the south of you.  The Hopland Rd. ride is a short car trip to the north via Hwy 101.  The Old Howell Mtn. Road ride is about 20 miles to the south.

Earthquake drop-off, with repair