Distance: 46-mile loop
Elevation gain: 3600 ft

(A Best of the Best ride)

This may be the prettiest wooded ride, mile for mile, in California.  It is, by far, the Bestrides route that has elicited the most “Best ride I’ve ever done!” responses from readers.  And it has the selling point of starting and ending in downtown Mendocino, one of my favorite places.  It climbs and descents up and over a summit among simply perfect piney woods, passes a classic country store, descends gradually along the Navarro River and its stunning riparian redwoods, and ends with a pretty but trafficky leg on Hwy 1 that’s thick with lovely, charming inns and one State Park to stop and explore.  The road surface is glass half the time—on Flynn Creek Road it’s OK to poor, and the western half of Comptche-Ukiah is merely OK.  The climbing is mellow to moderate. It rides equally well in both directions—see Which Way to Go? below for the comparative virtues of the two routes.  I’ve arbitrarily picked the clockwise route to describe. 

Ride out of town heading south on Hwy 1.  You immediately cross a large bridge over Big River and turn L on Comptche Ukiah Rd.  You soon climb moderately up two pitches through perfect conifer forest, over a summit (at Little River Airport Rd.), and down a descent (two descents actually, with a short climb between) that is borderline Best-Of-List-worthy.  It’s so smooth, so easy, so picturebook that it’s almost placid—every curve is so effortless and so sweetly banked you could almost go to sleep.  Look around—I think the foliage between the summit and Comptche is as pretty as California forest gets.  The road surface was seriously harmed in 2020 by a new layer of nasty chipseal, but it’s about half worn down now (in 2023) and is only occasionally obnoxious.  40mm tires won’t notice, 25’s will suffer.  The surface turns to glass 4 miles west of Comptche.

Roll into Comptche, an intersection with a few houses, a church, and a pleasant little grocery store for resupplying if you’re riding the route in the other direction.  The gas pumps used to sell “Arab Gold” gasoline, but I guess the issue got too touchy because it’s just “Road Gold” gas now.  In July of 2023 the store was open every day except Sunday.

Turn R on Flynn Creek Rd (the only other road in Comptche), which is  less lush than Comptche Ukiah but still pretty.  In this direction it’s a short, fairly steep climb (the hardest work on the loop), then mostly gradual descending on a road with an excellent, constantly entertaining contour but a surface that is consistently poor.  It dead-ends on Hwy 128.  Turn right on 128 and ride to Hwy 1, where it dead-ends.

The 12 miles on 128 are like nothing else I know.  Take your time—you’re riding through some of the best redwoods accessible to bikes.  They aren’t as big as the old-growth trees of the Avenue of the Giants or Big Basin, but they have something the big trees can’t match: because they’re just a thin strip of trees between you and the river, and because they’re between you and the sun, the light illuminates them like the rose window of Chartres Cathedral—glorious, in the religious sense of the word.  Try to ride this leg when the sun is shining and it’s low in the sky (i.e. not at noon), to get the effect.

Hwy 128 can be trafficky, and there’s no shoulder, but the two lanes are wide enough and the road straight enough that vehicles can pass anywhere comfortably while you hug the fog line, so it’s never a problem.

At Hwy 1, turn R and ride 11 miles of Hwy 1 back to Mendocino.  This stretch of Hwy 1 is busy, often narrow and without shoulder, and consists of constant rollers (you’ll climb 850 ft in those 10 miles), but it’s a pretty stretch of Hwy 1 with some good views of the matchless Mendocino coastline and several dramatic bridge crossings over river mouths debouching in mostly-deserted beaches.  This stretch of road is also lined with interesting settlements worth exploring: in the order in which you’ll encounter them, 1) Albion, 2) Heritage House, 3) Little River, and 4) Van Damme State Park (good beach walking and kayaking on your L, good fern canyon hiking on your R).  Right after you cross the Albion River Bridge, you must take a side trip on Albion Ridge Rd. and look at the support system holding up the bridge.  It’s an engineering marvel.

Which Way to Go?: Riding counterclockwise, opposite to the way I’ve mapped it, has the following virtues: 1) you get to do Hwy 128 early in the day, to beat the traffic; 2) you get to do Hwy 1 early in the day, to beat the traffic; 3) you get to ride Hwy 128 uphill, an imperceptible 2% that slows you down for better scenery gawking; 4) you do the serious climbing later, when you’re warmed up; 5) you typically get a tailwind on Hwy 1; 6) you end with a descent instead of 10 tense, tiring miles on Hwy 1; 7) you do the climbing and descending later in the ride, when the road is dry; and 8) you ride Hwy 1 in the west lane, the one nearer the sea, so the views are much better—believe me, it matters.  Pluses to going clockwise, as I’ve mapped it: 1) you get a splendid long descent into Comptche; and 2) The climbing is less intense.  I truly can’t decide which way is better, and tend to alternate my rides, first one way, then the other.  If you’re going clockwise, starting at the intersection of Hwy 128 and Hwy 1 solves a lot of problems.

If you go counterclockwise, know two things: 1) the climb out of Comptche contains the Mother of All False Summits—you climb, get a substantial downhill and think it’s over, then climb plenty more.  And 2) at the exact summit of the climb out of Comptche you intersect with Little River Airport Rd, and you have a choice about which way to go.  If you continue on Mendo-Comptche, the descending is smooth and graceful, as you carve big turns like a downhill skier.  The forest scenery is nice but no better than what you’ve just ridden through.  If you take LRAR, things are more intense.  For 3 miles, the riding is as good as cycling can get, a fast and exciting slalom on a perfect pitch—not too steep, not too shallow—on glassy new pavement through a new, more jagged forest I find sublime in the original sense.  Then, around the intersection with Albion Little River Rd., the pavement gets poor for a short stretch, then turns into unblemished, moderately rough chipseal for the rest of the trip to Hwy 1.   So go straight if you want dreamy, take LRAR if you want drama.  Taking LRAR adds about 1.5 miles of Hwy 1 to the ride.  It also takes you by the Pygmy Forest, worth a detour on foot if you like either ancient miniature trees or elevated boardwalks.  You can walk your bike, so you don’t need a lock.

Shortening the route: The Hwy 128 leg or riding from Mendocino to Comptche and back makes a lovely out-and-back.  Or just ride Comptche to the summit at Little River Airport Rd. and back—18 miles of bliss.

Adding miles: A 30-minute car trip up Hwy 1 is the Branscomb Road ride.

Our Noyo Headlands Coastal Trail ride is 15 minutes by car to the north in Fort Bragg.

You can extend the Mendo/Comptche ride in two directions:

1. In Comptche you’re at the beginning of our Comptche to Ukiah ride.

2. You can continue east on Hwy 128 all the way to Boonville—the road stays a gorgeous gradual ascent all the way—or even continue on past Boonville on 128 to its end, all good stuff though more domesticated east of town.   See the Mountain View Road ride and its Adding Miles section for possibilities in the Boonville area.

The Mendocino area has an abundance of what San Juan Island sailors call gunk-holing—poking around at a leisurely pace into nooks and crannies.  These would include almost anything paved, but I would point you especially to

1.  Navarro Ridge Road just north of Hwy 128 (see photos to R and at end of post).  You ride right past it on our route (the sign is easy to miss, 100 ft up NRR from Hwy 1).  It’s paved for 5 miles, then perfectly rideable dirt for another 3 or so before hitting a locked gate.  Pleasant, nearly flat (between the first 1/3-mile pitch and the dirt), pretty, isolated (I saw 1 vehicle on the ride out), with one dramatic view of Hwy 1 serpentining down to the mouth of the Navarro River, more glimpses into the Navarro River drainage, hard-scrabble farms, very pretty forests, and dramatic, overgrown redwood stumps left by long-ago loggers.  Once on the dirt, the road is up and down (1700+ feet of gain for the entire 17-mile ride, but it’s almost all in these 6 miles), so you can get work if you want it.  Pavement quality varies from good to lousy.

If you’re doing NRR as a solo, it begins with a real climb, so if you’re like me and hate to put a big load on your legs when they’re cold, you’d be tempted to drive to the flats above the climb and start there.  Unfortunately, the road is narrow and has a ditch on both sides, so there is absolutely no place to pull off for miles.  So park in the spacious turn-out at the NRR/Hwy 1 intersection and ride Hwy 1 in either direction until you’re warm.

2. Our Mendocino Coastal ride.  It begins directly across Hwy 1 from Comptche/Ukiah Rd.

The Jackson Demonstration Forest to the immediate east of Mendocino has a nice warren of dirt logging roads and singletrack that cries out for mountain biking.  There’s a MTB map and guidebook in local stores.

Riding Hwy 1 is always iffy because of traffic.  But the stretch of 1 from Fort Bragg to Westport is as sweet a ride as I know of, with world-class scenery (farms, meadows, hills, beaches, cliffs), a perfect road surface, and the sweetest possible road contour—constantly up, down, back, forth.  But there is often no shoulder and the traffic can be intense.  The traffic lightens after MacKerricher, and the drivers seem to handle cyclists with aplomb, so I (cautiously) recommend it.

If you’re looking for a sweet little Fort-Bragg-based loop that’s half very ridable dirt, try this: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/44232514.  It goes through some lovely, untouched woods and is incredibly isolated given its proximity to a large town.  This route includes the Old Haul Road discussed above. Know your route well—there is no cell service and no signage once you’re on dirt.  By the way RidewithGPS says the entire route is paved, but they’re wrong—everything between Little Valley Rd. and Fort Bragg-Sherwood Rd. is dirt.

Afterthoughts:  Like all northern coastal areas, Mendocino is foggy and drippy, and the road to Comptche is largely in deep shadow, so wait for dry conditions or prepare to climb and descend in drizzle.

Finding affordable lodging in Mendocino is an art.  Ft. Bragg, eight scenic miles to the north, has standard motel accommodations at reasonable prices.  Lodging in Mendocino tends toward expensive B and B’s in Victorian farmhouses or weekly rentals of people’s second homes through airbnb or some such.  My secret spot is Alegria, a not-cheap but joyful, friendly, and unpretentiously luxurious B and B in downtown Mendocino with good deals if you come in the off-season (which is when you want to be there anyway).  Tell Eric I sent you.