Distance: 61 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 5860 ft

(A Best of the Best ride)

This is a fairly big, pretty ride through two lush valleys and over three moderate summits. The cumulative elevation gain is substantial, but except for those three ascents the climbing is pretty mellow.

East Carmel Valley Road is the name of Carmel Valley Road east of Carmel Valley Village.  You could add miles by riding the first 11.5 miles of CVR, starting at Hwy 1, but it’s all 4-lane, fast, aggressive, over-developed, trafficky shoulder riding.  Pretty unpleasant, and, while the scenery is nice, it’s nothing compared to what’s on our route.  East of the Village the valley narrows, the valley walls steepen, the traffic lessens and slows down, the people thin out, the foliage gets denser, wetter, and prettier, and the road dwindles until it’s finally a centerline-less, shoulderless back road of exceptional beauty and charm.  The road surface varies from good to poor, often poor enough to be a hamper on your riding pleasure.

Traffic is an issue here.  Traffic isn’t heavy (3 cars/mile perhaps on a Friday afternoon in spring), but local drivers are hostile and impatient.  Sightlines and passing lanes are poor and there’s no shoulder.  So timing is everything.  The last time I did the ride, on a beautiful Sunday midday in spring, I saw 1 car in 15 miles.  Traffic lightens the further east you go, and, as always, the worst time for traffic seems to be 4-5 pm.

Cachagua Road (which means “place of grass” in—you guessed it—Mapudungun) is an alternate to 12 miles of CVR which takes off from it, crosses into the parallel valley to the south, rides along the valley, then climbs and descends the tall ridge that now separates the two valleys and returns to CVR.  It’s as pretty as CVR at CVR’s best, it’s quieter, smaller, and windier, and the road surface is better, so you definitely want to take it unless you’re tired and want to get home as easily as possible.  It adds about 4 miles and one substantial climb to the route.

Calvin, in the comments below, makes the point that there are no water sources on this ride.  So you’re looking at a long day without a refill.  You may have to drop a water bottle at the Tassajara Rd. intersection or knock on some doors.  Except for the leg from the summit to Arroyo Seco, the entire route is largely in forested shadow, however.

East Carmel Valley Road west of the summit

Begin in Carmel Valley Village, a charming little upscale artsy community with friendly folks and good, unpretentious places to eat, if you like towns where every shop is a wine tasting salon, a spa, or a fine arts gallery (22 wine tasting rooms in a very small town, according to the town map).  There are no public bathrooms in the village proper, but there are three bathrooms west of town: at the Chevron at the west end of town, at the visitor’s center/community center/museum/city park complex a bit further west, and Garland Regional Park still further west.

Ride east on East Carmel Valley Road to its end at Arroyo Seco Rd.  The first few miles do not impress.  You’re still in the Greater CVV Area, and it’s busy.  The further you ride, the lighter the traffic becomes, the smaller the road, and the prettier the scenery, until you get to the summit 18 miles in (Mile 30 on the mile markers, which start at Hwy 1).   These first 18 miles are mostly all up, but almost all of it is mellow.  (Reader Bruce points out that the MWGPS map erroneously goes off-route briefly at mile 3.7—ignore it.). At Mile 10 you get the first and only laborious hill on the ride out (1 mile).  Shortly after Tassajara Rd. goes off to the R (remember you saw it), you lose the centerline and things get really good.  The canyon is small here, the woods are deep, and you’re riding alongside the creek, crossing it repeatedly on little bridges.  It’s all up but never steep.

East Carmel Valley Road east of the summit

At the summit you have a decision: turn around or not?  The rest of the ride is very different from what you’ve been through.  This is the lee side of the hill, so instead of lush, dark oak canopies in a narrow creek canyon, you get down-at-heel ranches scattered on open, grassy hills and moderate vistas.   By the time you get to the turn-around, you’re practically in California desert.

The Cachagua climb—2.5 miles of perfection

Ride back to the Tassajara Road intersection.   The last 6 miles of the climb back to the summit are work.  The road from the summit to Tassajara is all blissful down.  Take Tassajara L, which is the only way it goes.  In a short while take Cachagua Rd on your R.  Cachagua descends very  gradually for a few miles through pretty woods and low-key farms along Cachagua Creek, then does a major climb—2.5 miles of c. 7%—through lovely woods, as you climb over the ridge between Cachagua and Carmel Valley Road.  The road meanders constantly and is never boring—a peach of a climb.  After summiting and cruising on the flats for a bit, you are treated to a 2-mile, 10% plummet back to CVR.  It’s fun, but it’s a lot of braking, so with rim brakes it’s stressful—I imagine with discs it would be a hoot.

Turn L on CVR and ride the 4.3 miles back to the Village.

Looking up the Cachagua descent (steeper than it looks)

There is an argument to be made for riding Cachagua in the other direction, west to east.   Instead of a moderately taxing climb and a steep descent, you would have a tougher climb (2 miles at 9-10%), followed by a wonderful descent at high but manageable speed.  It’s up to you.

Carmel Valley from the Cachagua descent

Shortening the ride: There are several ways to ride only a part of this route and still preserve the charm and the beauty:

1. Ride to Arroyo Seco Rd. and back on Carmel Valley Rd (57 miles).  This skips the big climb on Cachagua.

2. Ride to the summit on Carmel Valley Rd. and return, either via Cachagua or CVR.  This skips the climb back up to the CVR summit.

3. Ride to Tassajara Road and take it, then Cachagua, turning the ride into a lollipop that skips the CVR summit in both directions.

4. Since the best legs of the route are Tassajara to the summit and Cachagua Rd., the shortest route that bags both of them is, start at the intersection of Tassajara and Carmel Valley Rd., ride to the summit of CVR, return, ride the Tassajara/Cachagua/CVR loop.  That’s the short route I’d do.

Adding miles:   At the turn-around at Arroyo Seco Rd. you can continue on Arroyo Seco in either direction.  To the L/northeast, there are dramatic views of eroded hills for a few miles.  Ride until the landscape isn’t interesting any more, then turn around.  To the southwest the road is paved and the scenery dramatic until Arroyo Seco Campground, about 5 miles one way.

To the west of our ride, you’re only 5 miles down Carmel Valley Rd. from the jewel that is the Robinson Canyon Rd. ride. and about 14 miles from the Carmel entrance to the Seventeen-Mile Drive.  You’re about 3 miles east of Laureles Grade, an up-and-down pass locals ride constantly and I hate—hot, dull, trafficky shoulder riding full of debris.  Good vistas, though.

Buzzards on the north side of the Cachagua summit

Distance:  34-mile loop
Elevation gain: 3560 ft 

A Best of the Best ride

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

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

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

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

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

Bean Creek Road

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

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

Bean Creek Road

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

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

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

Mtn. Charlie Road

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

Mt. Charlie Road

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Distance:  34-mile lollipop 
Elevation gain: 4520 ft 

A Best of the Best ride (on weekdays only)

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

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

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

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

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

Big Basin redwoods—look at that road surface!

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

China Grade

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

The non-redwoods are gorgeous too

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

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

Big redwoods by the Visitor Center

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Distance: 21 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 2700 ft

A few words about riding around Hollister generally:

First, Hollister’s image is hot, dusty, dead flat agricultural fields and a culture stuck in 1955.  Some of that is true.  Hollister is hot and dry in the summer, and cold and dead in the winter, so I would try hard to schedule my riding for late spring (April) after some rain, when the grass is green and the area is momentarily a gorgeous, lush garden.  The town of Hollister and the surrounding agricultural valleys (Santa Ana Valley and San Juan Valley) are flat, but they’re surrounded by small, rolling hills rich with meandering roads offering ideal riding contour.  The three Bestrides rides from the area all have substantial climbing.  As to the culture, Hollister is not especially hip, but it’s a pleasant, easy-going town, and San Juan Bautista is a small Old California treasure with a grand Spanish mission and adjacent historical State Park well worth an afternoon.

Second, the road surfaces in San Benito County all vary from poor to awful.  You just have to live with it (or ride somewhere else).  The one exception is our Fremont Peak ride, where the surface is OK.

Lone Tree Road is a straight climb and descent out-and-back out of an agricultural valley up a draw into the surrounding hills surrounding.  It’s only the third or fourth best ride in the Hollister area, after San Juan Canyon Road and San Juan Grade and perhaps Cienega Rd (see Adding Miles below).  The climb is challenging and harder than the total elevation gain suggests, since the first 3 miles are flat—more like, 3000 ft gain in 7 miles.  Expect a fair amount of 8-12% stuff. 

The ride has three drawbacks.   1) The road surface is poor (see above)—an irritant on the ride up, a serious impediment to joy on the descent.  The surface deteriorates as you ascend, so you could turn around if and when it gets unpleasant.  2) The scenery is all the same and a bit vanilla—grassy, rounded hills.  “Lone Tree Road” is a pretty accurate name.  I can imagine some people loving this landscape, but for me it’s just OK.  The scenery on our other two area rides (San Juan Canyon Road and San Juan Grade) is much better, assuming you prefer oak canopy to grassland.  Since there is next to no cover, I wouldn’t do this ride on a hot, sunny afternoon.  3) There is no summit, pass, or other “top of the world” culmination providing you with the grand vista—the road hits a gate before you summit and you turn around.

All that not withstanding, it’s still a good ride and worth doing.

Park at the west end of Lone Tree Road and ride it until it dead-ends.  It begins as a straight 2-lane road among cultivated fields, but soon leaves them and winds and ascends without interruption through round, unpeopled grassy hillsides on a classic 1½-lane road without centerline, gradually steepening until you’re doing short stretches of 10-12%.  When you hit a stretch of real work, 15% or so, then go basically level, you’re near the end.   You’ll see a saddle ahead of and above you and assume you’re heading for it, but well before you get there the road terminates at a mansion’s gate and you turn around and ride back.   Since it’s a dead-end road with almost no houses after the first few miles, you can expect next to no traffic.

Shortening the ride: Skip the opening flat miles.  After that, it’s all much the same—turn around anywhere.

Adding miles: It’s 12 miles from Lone Tree Road to the other local rides in Bestrides, San Juan Grade and San Juan Canyon Road, both out of San Juan Bautista.  Midway between you pass Cienega Rd. (“see EN uh guh”), the most popular bike route in the area, an easy, charming, and gorgeous (in April) meander through riparian oaks and small, unpretentious farms that locals do as a loop and I would do as an out-and-back (18 miles one way), since the return on Hwy 25 is a drag.  Another sweet little back road, discussed at length in the Adding Miles section of the San Juan Grade ride, is School Road, a few miles west of San Juan Bautista.  A longer ride that’s reputed to be worth doing goes from Paicines to Panoche.

Lone Tree has its pretty spots…

But mostly it’s exactly like this—note the road surface

 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.

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 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.

Distance: 21-mile lollipop
Elevation: 2680 ft

(Note 3/21: This route and the surrounding area were seriously damaged by fire during the terrible summer of 2020.  See W. G. Scott’s comment below for details.  jr)

This strenuous little 20-miler climbs up from Hwy 1 and the ocean, then loops around to take in two classic back roads, all through picture-book Santa Cruz redwood forest.  Bonny (sometimes spelled Bonnie) Doon itself is pretty famous because whenever the Tour of California came down the coast from San Francisco to Santa Cruz it was the climb where the winning move was made.   I stood on the side of the road and watched Levi Leipheimer stick it to Mick Rogers and Dave Zabriskie on this climb one year on his way to the overall victory.

Begin at the intersection of Bonny Doon and Hwy 1. There’s a good dirt parking lot right at the intersection.   Ride up Bonny Doon.  It’s steep up from the get-go, so I do 20 minutes on Hwy 1 (straight, flat, relatively uncrowded) to warm up beforehand.

The road contour is not the attraction here.  Bonny Doon is a fairly wide, fairly straight,  and fairly monotonous, with a constant pitch just short of ouch.  But the woods surrounding you are gorgeous.  A little fog (which is likely) only adds to the atmosphere.

Go R onto Smith Grade, a thrilling mostly-down roller coaster through primordial Eden.

Bonny Doon Road: these woods are dense

When Smith Grade dead-ends on Empire Grade, if that feels like enough for today you might be tempted to turn around and ride back, since the next leg is merely OK riding, but if you do this a) you will miss the glory that is Ice Cream Grade and b) you won’t save any work, because Smith Grade is a lot of climbing going the other way.  So let’s push on.

Smith Grade

Go L on Empire Grade.  It’s feels pretty dull after Smith Grade—monotonously up, too wide to feel you’re “in” the trees, and fairly full of cars in a hurry.  But it’s only 3 miles.  At the intersection of Empire Grade and Ice Cream Grade and Felton Empire Rd. (yes, all three), you touch the Felton Empire/Empire Grade ride, which rides through the same intersection in the other direction.

At that intersection, go L onto the little jewel that is Ice Cream Grade.  The first miles of ICG are as pretty as Santa Cruz gets, which is saying a lot.   There isn’t much in there except forest, so you’ll have the place to yourself.  You immediately drop down a sweet, serpentining descent to the creek, then climb back out a surprisingly easy grade up the other side until it dead-ends at Pine Flat Road.  Go L and enjoy the rollicking descent down Pine Flat Rd./Bonny Doon to your car.

The loop is rideable in the other direction.  It would add considerably to the climbing on Smith Grade and Ice Cream Grade.

Shortening the route: I’m torn about the best way to drop miles from this route.  1. You could skip the Bonny Doon lollipop stick and just ride the loop. 2. You could ride Bonny Doon/Smith Grade as an out-and-back. 3. You could ride Bonny Doon to the far end of Ice Cream as an out-and-back.  Each has its merits.

Ice Cream Grade

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

Distance: 19 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 2760 ft 

(7/25 update:  For a couple of reasons, I’ve cooled a bit on this ride.  One is, the road surface is now iffy.  Not bad—no potholes—but you will get rattled on the descent.  The other is, traffic has for some reason exploded.  I have no idea why cars are on this road in numbers now, but on my last ride I probably met 40 cars.  The ride is still gorgeous and the road profile is constantly intriguing, but I’ve gone from “Total wow” to “Very nice.” (But see Roy’s encouraging theory below.)  jr)

This is a lovely little ride.  It’s a perfect climb—varied, challenging, interesting—up a gorgeous wooded riparian draw to a dead-end, followed by a constantly intriguing, constantly rewarding descent back down.  Every foot of it is delicious, in both directions.  It used to be largely ignored by all, even though it begins in a densely populated area, because it’s a dead-end road to a private lake.   Once upon a time you could expect to meet a car or two, but now the word seems to be out, and it can be unpleasantly trafficky (I have no idea where the cars are all going).  The road surface is consistently good but not great.

Robinson Canyon Rd. takes off to the south from Carmel Valley Rd. about seven miles out from CVR’s beginning on Hwy 1.  You can park along the foot of Robinson, but the climbing begins immediately, so I like to spend 20 minutes warming up on Carmel Valley Road, which consists of mild ups and downs around there.  If you want more miles, park in the mega-mall parking lot 1/4 mile down Carmel Valley Rd. from Hwy 1 and ride from there, but take notice, if you ride later in the day you may well be ending the ride with 7 mostly (mild) uphill miles into a significant head wind in heavy traffic at dusk (but the shoulder is good).

RCR begins with about a half-mile of fully built-up flat.  Then you cross a little bridge, all housing stops, and it’s never flat again.  Beyond the bridge is a sign that reads “Road Closed 3 Miles Ahead, Local Traffic Only.”  I have no idea why the sign is there—ignore it.

It really looks like this

Robinson Canyon is a pretty serious climb—about 2700 ft of gain in 10 miles, most of it in a 2.5-mile stretch of 8-10% before the summit.  So it’s possible to get seduced by the work load.  Please don’t—this is some of the most gorgeous woodland I know of, so I hope you’ll keep your head up and take it in.  It’s gorgeous from the moment you leave the houses at the bottom of the climb, and it stays that way to the end.

At the summit the hard work is over.  There’s an unmissable saddle with prime vistas of Carmel Valley and the Monterey area behind you.   Do a mellow 1-mile descent (the climb on the return is easy) into a pristine hidden valley with the only signs of habitation being a few expensive, pretentious stone gates in front of driveways (the golf course is behind you on the hillside to your L).   Cross the valley, then do a series of short, easy climbs through an oak and redwood forest, different from the woods you just rode through but just as pretty.  Watch for a field with 3 titanic oaks on your right.  Ride to a gate across the road keeping out all but the members of the private lake that lies beyond.  If the gate-keepers are out and about and the season is right, ask if you can have an apple from the trees beside the road.

After the summit: perfect valley rollers

Turn around and ride back on the peerless descent—one of the best descents in California.  It’s 10 miles of constantly changing, constantly interesting, constantly challenging curves.  The road surface is now very good thanks to a recent repaving, so you can get up to terrific speeds, but don’t go to sleep, because there are a few hairpin corners that are hard to see coming and I always seem to meet at least one car.

Shortening the route: Please don’t.  You could of course save a few miles by riding to the summit and turning around, but you’d be missing beautiful country, and at the summit you’ve done almost all of the work.

View from the summit, looking at where you started in Carmel Valley

Adding miles: As I said in the Monterey Bay section of the Rides by Region chapter, there are three good rides in the Monterey area.  From the intersection of  Hwy 1 and Carmel Valley Road it’s an easy ride through Carmel Village to one of the others, the Seventeen-Mile Drive ride.  A few miles past Robinson down Carmel Valley Road is the other one, our East Carmel Valley Road ride.

Robinson Canyon near its gated end intersects with Rancho San Carlos Rd., which is gated off at both ends and prominently marked “Private Road” where it intersects Robinson Canyon (in fact it looks like someone’s driveway, though there is a road sign).  I’ve never tried it.  The word used to be that the locals looked the other way when cyclists jumped the gate.  Now the word is, they don’t—the closure is enforced and taken seriously.  Yet Anonymous in the comments below says he was treated well when he rode through recently, and he says the ride is worth the risk. The entire area, including Rancho San Carlos Rd. and Robinson Canyon Rd., is in fact a “preserve” run by the Santa Lucia Conservancy.  It’s exclusive—I notice a house along the road just sold for $7 million.  Your legal status there is ambiguous.  I always figure the worst that can happen is, you get caught, plead ignorance, and get asked to leave.