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  "PageContent": "<h3>Home Page - Jay's Essential Bike Rides</h3>News flash: Bestrides.org has a baby brother, a comprehensive guide to road riding named Bicycle School.  Check it out by clicking on the link in the header above.AcknowledgementsThis ride directory was made by you.  For the last several years, all the rides I’ve added to Bestrides were suggested by readers.  So thanks to you all for making it what it is.But some contributors deserve special thanks.  So here are the people who have given to Bestrides above and beyond the call of duty:Eric, who built the site.Brian, who suggested most of the California rides.Don, who suggested most of the Oregon rides.George, our tech guru.Literally, couldn’t have done it without you.  My eternal gratitude.What’s New in Bestrides?If you’ve used the site in the past and want to know what rides have been added since you were here, at the end of this page is a list of recently-added rides, newest rides last.The Bestrides Mission StatementWhen I’m in an area that’s new to me and looking for a good ride, I do what you do: I google “bicycle rides Area X” and poke around in whatever sites pop up. And what pops up is almost always not what I want.I get one of three things: either I get a site like Map My Ride, which lists all the possible rides in the area (Oh boy—if I want to do 200 rides, I’m set!); or I get a list of the longest, toughest, most badass rides in the area; or I get huge loops, where 30 miles of the route is really good riding and the other 70 is to get you from one good stretch to another.I’m not in town to do 50 rides, I don’t ride for difficulty’s sake, and I don’t want to spend the bulk of my riding time getting to the good stuff.  I want the best, prettiest, sweetest road in the area—maybe the best two—I want it short enough that I can do another ride the next day.  And most of all, I don’t want the merely-OK miles of connector roads.  If I want to ride from good section to good section, I can consult a map and find the connector roads myself.So that’s what this site offers you. Nothing but great rides.  No loops for loops’ sake. No climbing for climbing’s sake.  No mention of the fifth-best ride in the area.  No dull parts.  Just the 136 (or so) best rides I know on the West Coast.A great road ride has six virtues:It’s scenic.  There are no rides on this site that aren’t eye candy.It’s interesting.  That is to say, the road contour has character.  It goes up and down, back and forth, presents you with changing conditions.  No endless 6% pitches.  No ruler-straight flats.It’s small—two-lane certainly, without a center line ideally.It’s untrafficked.  Not even trafficked with a substantial shoulder.  I don’t do shoulders unless I have to in order to get to better riding.The road surface is good.It has some climbing and descending.  Flat is boring.  A flat road would have to have San Francisco Bay or the Redwoods for scenery to make my list.If we were to do only rides with all six virtues, we’d rarely get on our bikes.  So I include rides that have missing virtues but make up for that in the other ones.  On such rides, I’ll warn you about the missing virtue(s).  For instance, almost all the rides in Sonoma County have poor road surfaces but are worth riding anyway.So that’s what you’ve got here.  One hundred thirty-six rides around California and Oregon, each one being one of the two or three best rides in the area.How to Use This SiteYou’re welcome to use the site any way you want, but readers seem to use it in a few distinct ways:A. If you’re traveling to a spot on the West Coast that’s new to you and you want to do a couple of rides there, look at the Ride Locator Map to see what Bestrides rides are nearby and click on them. B. If you want to know what Bestrides thinks of a particular road (say, you’re thinking of riding Hwy 1 from San Francisco to Mendocino and want to know what you’re in for), type the name of the road in the search window in the upper right corner of any page.  Counting the Adding Miles sections, Bestrides contains evaluations of about 500 West Coast roads.  See the How to Get the Lowdown on a Given Road section below for more detailed instructions (there’s a trick to it).C. If you’re coming to the West Coast from afar and want to know where to ride, you can work from the Best of the Best page and put together a short list of Bucket List rides you want to do, then map a route that connects them, or you can use the Planning the One-Week Bicycle Vacation section below.D. If you live on the West Coast, you can build a bike vacation around the Best of the Best list.E. If you’re driving from point A to point B, you can use the Ride Locator Map to see what rides lie along your route.F. If there’s a particular kind of riding you like (great vistas, splendid descents, hard climbs), you can probably find a list of rides with your chosen feature among the Best of the Best lists.How to Get the Lowdown on a Given RoadIn the upper right corner of every page of Bestrides is a “search” window.  There you can find out what I have to say, if anything, about any road or location in California and Oregon.  Enter the key word/phrase (“Markleeville,” “Hwy 1,” “redwoods,” “Laureles Grade”) in the window and click on “search.”  A search for “redwoods” will turn up a list of every Bestrides post where the word appears.  However, if you enter multiple words (“East Bay”) or numbers (“70,” “Hwy 70,” “Highway 70”), the search engine will give you numerous false hits in addition to the true ones.  To prevent this, enclose in quotation marks all phrases (everything consisting of more than a single word) and everything including a number.  Even this is often not enough.  The search engine is idiotically fussy: for instance, in the Philo-Greenwood Rd discussion I mention Signal Ridge Rd.  You can find it by searching in the search window for “Signal Ridge” or “Signal Ridge Rd”, but if you search for “Signal Ridge Road” (without the abbreviation) the search engine draws a blank because I didn’t spell it that way in the post!  In the Siuslaw River Road ride I discuss Hamm Rd.  If you enter “hamm” in the search window, even with quotation marks, you’ll get sent to any and all posts that contain the word “hammer” (which is quite a few).  You have to enter “Hamm Rd.” exactly.Once you’re in the post, do a word search to find the mention of the particular road within it.  On my Mac,  &lt;command&gt; f opens a search window.Planning the One-Week Bicycle VacationBy far the most common question I get from readers of Bestrides is, “I’m coming to the West Coast for a week (or two) of riding—where should I go?”  Here is my answer:1. Plan to rent a car.  Even if you settle in a ride-rich location, if you are carless, you will have to begin and end all your rides from your residence, which will involve a lot of mediocre miles.2. As is obvious from the Best of the Best list, if you want to ride only the best rides in California, you’ll have to cover an enormous amount of distance getting from one to the other.  This is tiring and eats up vacation time.  It’s probably wiser to stay in one spot that’s rich with good riding and drive to rides nearby.  The Ride Locator Map doesn’t make clear where those places are, so here’s a list, not in order of excellence.  Each has enough good riding to keep you busy for a week at least.  For details on any one of them, read the discussion of the area in the Rides by Region section, then read the discussions of the Bestrides rides in the area (there’s a list after each regional discussion in the Rides by Region section), including the Adding Miles sections:A. The San Francisco Bay Area—IF you can stand to do a lot of driving in freeway traffic and tolerate the other evils of the megalopolis.  The Bay Area without doubt has the densest population of good rides on the West Coast—Bestrides lists a whopping 16 Bay Area rides, at least 10 of them outstanding, and that’s not counting nearby Marin.  Drawback: long, stressful drives in awful freeway traffic.  BART helps.B. Marin and Sonoma Counties (aka the Wine Country).  Bestrides lists 14 rides, from Mt. Tam to the south to Tin Barn/Annapolis Rd. to the north, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  A primary appeal here is cultural—the Wine Country towns are world-famous for their charm, their food, their wine, and their expense.  The riding around the town of Occidental is particularly rich (five Bestrides rides within easy riding distance)—see The Coleman Valley Road post’s Adding Miles section for a survey.  Drawback: Marin terrain is often not spectacular—mostly rolling dairy country—and Sonoma roads are notorious for their broken road surface.  Notice that, while the Wine Country has a multitude of rides in Bestrides, none of them is a Best of the Best ride.  It’s all good, but not great.C. Santa Cruz.  Endless good riding, charming rural atmosphere, one very cool city, and three cool villages.  This and Paso Robles below are the two locations where you could ride to many good rides from your door without logging tons of mediocre miles.  You’re closer to the riding if you stay in the small towns north of Santa Cruz: Felton, Ben Lomond, or Boulder Creek. Drawbacks: the terrain is all the same (though gorgeous)—dense redwood forest—and everything involves a lot of climbing, much of it steep.  In addition, in late summer 2020 the area suffered a devastating fire which did major damage to the forests on all of our routes on the western side of the Santa Cruz area.D. The Gold Country.  The Bestrides routes are just a sample of the area’s riches—there is no bad riding here.  Stay in any of the charming towns along Hwy 49 (Sutter Creek, Jackson, Plymouth, Placerville, San Andreas).  Drawback: no flat or easy rides, few short loops.E. Eugene, Oregon–IF you’re willing to do some driving.  Oregon’s great rides are spread around the western half of the state, and Eugene is as near to a hub as there is.  From there it’s an hour west to the nearest coastal riding and an hour east to the McKenzie and Aufderheide rides.  There is a ton of pleasant farmland and creekside riding around Eugene itself, especially SW and NE of town, but nothing on anyone’s bucket list.  Drawback: long drives to the rides, unless pleasant is good enough for you.F. Paso Robles/Atascadero.  Bestrides has 5 rides in the area (7 if you include nearby San Luis Obispo), and they’re the tip of the iceberg—there’s plenty of riding to keep you happy for a week.  The riding is either rolling hills covered by vineyards and thick oak woodland (west of town) or flattish, open, grassy cattle/horse country (east of town), so you get some variety, both in landscape and difficulty level.  Paso Robles itself is a pleasant little town, and there are three charming coastal communities nearby: Cambria (very small), Cayucos (tiny), and—by car—San Luis Obispo (small city).  In Paso, as in Santa Cruz, you can get to all or most of the good riding without using a car.  The nearby stretch of Hwy 1 (11 miles west) isn’t good riding, but it’s great for exploring by car, since it includes the Hearst Castle, a resident pod of elephant seals, and some other cool stuff.   Drawback: Vineyards attract oenophiles in cars, so the traffic can be bad on the primary wine roads, so I suggest riding someplace other than west of Paso on weekends.  All of Bestrides’s rides in the area that are not west of Paso are relatively vineyard-free.  See the Adding Miles section of the Peachy Canyon Road ride for details on other routes.G. Oakridge, Oregon.  At least 5 great road rides out of one little town.  See the Aufderheide Highway ride for details.  The only drawback is that the town itself is interesting for perhaps one afternoon and evening—after that, it’s all about the riding.H. Boonville, California.  Seven rides worth doing from a charming little town—see the Mountain View Road Adding Miles section for the list.  Extra credit if you can go during the Mendocino County Fair, a classic old-school rural fair of great charm.  Drawbacks: none.I. Bishop to Lone Pine on Hwy 395.  An hour apart, these two towns have 6 rides in Bestrides and 4 more rides that didn’t quite make the cut—see the “Eastern Sierra” section of the By Regions page for a complete list.  Drawbacks: difficult climbing at high elevation; a long drive to get there for most of us; substantial distances between rides.J. The Shaver Lake area.  The rides here are spread out over a lot of country, so you’ll have to do some driving, but there are at least 10 rides worth doing here.  Bestrides has 3: Million Dollar Rd., Auberry Rd., and Kaiser Pass.  In addition (all discussed in the Adding Miles sections of those rides) are Dinkey Creek Rd., Beasore Rd., Minarets Rd.., Black Rock Rd., Courtright Way, Kaiser Pass to Edison Lake, and Big Creek Rd..  You’ll notice that Hwy 1, the highway along the California coast, the West Coast’s most spectacular scenery and the west’s most popular bike touring route, isn’t here.  That’s because Hwy 1 is, as I say in many of the coastal ride write-ups, with a few exceptions, a sucky, tedious death-trap, albeit stunning to the eye.  The most rideable sections of Hwy 1 make their appearance in various Bestrides rides—search for “Hwy 1” in the search window above to find them.3. A common sort of bike vacation is the enormous loop, where you get on your bike and ride hundreds of uninterrupted miles over several days.  Bestrides isn’t very helpful here—it’s designed for another kind of riding.  The best you can do is take a map, highlight all the Bestrides routes in an area, and try to map out a loop that incorporates as many as possible.  The “Shortening the Route” SectionsAt the end of each ride description I’ve suggested ways to cut down the mileage or the labor without missing the ride’s best miles. The “Adding Miles” SectionsAt the end of each post, an Adding Miles section discusses the pros and cons of the worthy routes nearby—either within riding distance or a short car trip away.  These may be other Bestrides rides, other rides I’ve done but which weren’t quite up to Bestrides calibre, or rides suggested by readers and in my to-do list. If I haven’t done the ride, I try to be clear about that in the description.  The Readers’ CommentsBelow most Bestrides rides are comments from readers.  These are usually more than “Wow, what a great ride.”  More often than not, they are useful updates on the ride by riders fresh from the experience.  Has the road been resurfaced?  Has the traffic intensified since my write-up?  Is the water turned off at the State Park mid-ride?  More important, they frequently suggest other roads nearby that are worth riding.  And here’s the catch: the Bestrides search engine cannot search readers’ comments.  So unless you read the comments below the ride you will miss hearing about all those great roads, even if you search for them by name in the Bestrides search window.  How to Use the MapsClick on the RWGPS map in any post to open the actual RWGPS file and get a version of the map you can interact with.How to Use the RidewithGPS LinksRWGPS offers several different formats in which to view their maps.  When you click on one of our RWGPS links, if the map that opens has a box in the upper R that says “RWGPS” (and it almost certainly will), click on it, and from the drop-down menu that appears select “map.”  It’s a far superior format, with more road names and fewer distractions.   How to Use the PhotosThe photos accompanying the rides were all taken by me unless attributed, and were almost all taken from the saddle during the ride.   Often, if you click on the photos they will go full-screen so you can see them better.  Where’s Washington?Readers often ask me why Bestrides doesn’t cover Washington state.  The answer is, I don’t think the riding in Washington is good enough.   I’ve done a fair amount of riding there, and it’s often nice, but it can’t match the two states below it.  Sorry, Washingtonians.  I’ve described the five rides I know of in Washington that are exceptional at the beginning of the Rides by Regions chapter.Obviously I’ve only been able to include rides I’ve done, and I’ve ridden probably 1% of the good roads in California and Oregon, so I welcome nominations from the floor.  Tell me about the ride you treasure (not the ride you just do all the time or the ride that’s a really good work-out, please), and be as specific about its virtues as you can.  And be clear about connector sections that are necessary but aren’t in themselves particularly rewarding.Where’s the Gravel?“Gravel” bikes and dirt road riding are the hot trends in road riding at the moment.  Yet there are no specifically gravel/dirt road rides in Bestrides.  A very few of the rides have unavoidable dirt sections, but that’s it.  I don’t recommend dirt routes for two reasons:a. You don’t need me for that.  Good dirt roads are literally everywhere.  There are 100 good dirt roads in my neighborhood alone.  Really good paved roads, on the other hand, are relatively few and hard to find.b.  I hate riding a drop-bar bike on dirt or gravel.  You’re welcome to differ, but to me the perfect dirt-road bike has been around for years: a light-weight hard-tail mountain bike.How Many of the Rides in Bestrides Have I Actually Ridden?All of them—most of them several times—except for one, Whitney Portal Road.  I only bring this up because people have asked me.  Sometimes in the Adding Miles sections I will discuss rides I’ve only been told about by Bestrides readers, and in those cases I try to be clear that such is the case.What’s New in Bestrides?Here is a list of all the rides added to or substantially revised in Bestrides recently.2024Noyo Headlands Coastal TrailKelsey Creek Road LoopTioga PassBristlecone Pine ForestHorseshoe Meadows Road2025Ida Clayton RoadCavedale RoadAtlas Peak RoadSonoma Mountain RoadOld Howell Mountain Road to Ink Grade Whiskey Slide RoadDrum Power House RoadKaiser Pass RoadMillion Dollar RoadAuberry RoadOld San Pablo Dam RoadMontaña de Oro State ParkEagle’s Rest RoadSoda Springs Rd./Weaver Rd.Lower Skyline BoulevardMendocino/ComptcheCamptonville to Sierra CityBitney Springs Road to Bridgeport2026Sulphur Bank DriveHopland Road",
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