Earth Day Ride
 

Yesterday, I rode the 70-mile Ponderosa Pine Earth Day ride out of Northfield, MN. Northfield boasts some awesome gravel roads in any direction, with this event featuring some of the best of those roads. Conditions were breezy with a 15-20 mph (24-32 kph) headwind for most of the return making for a memorable event.

Kevin g

Some video from my ride.

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Ponderosa Pine Earth Day Ride by Kevin Gilmore, on Flickr

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Lone Climber by Kevin Gilmore, on Flickr

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Gravel by Kevin Gilmore, on Flickr

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Shady Lane Climb by Kevin Gilmore, on Flickr

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Gravel by Kevin Gilmore, on Flickr

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Road Rash by Kevin Gilmore, on Flickr

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Ponderosa Pine Earth Day Ride by Kevin Gilmore, on Flickr

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Windmill and Field by Kevin Gilmore, on Flickr

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Imminent Brewing, Northfield, Mn by Kevin Gilmore, on Flickr

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Giant Revolt Advance 0 by Kevin Gilmore, on Flickr

Yankee Springs TT yesterday. Technical course. Roots, rocks and berms. The temp jumped to 80 at the finish. Hot for Michigan this time of year.

A great weekend of cycling in California's central coast!

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morgan territory
 

best part of the year to ride this road!
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for those who like panoramas...
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link to the location/route ? looks very inviting !

Love how green it is.

Ditto.

and the powder (pollen) on the small water body justifies the name "powder creek ranch"

get there fast, it will all turn brown in a week

wowwwwwww that's gorgeous. where is that?

It is finally getting warmer in Connecticut.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw...-gm?authuser=0

This particular photo was taken on West Cuesta Ridge in SLO. I started in town, rode through Poly Canyon, and up West Cuesta Ridge.

One ride in San Luis Obispo, CA and one ride near Templeton/Atascadero and Cambria.

I thought that looked familiar from Eroica routes.

Lovely shots, Kevin.

I'm always struck by how much variance there is in "gravel." I have only rarely encountered that kind of smoove surface here in CA, and especially in Southern CA.

Sweet pic! That bike looks so damn good in the wild!

An oval weekend was spent exploring the northern foothills of the Appenines. Too much cycling and eating and not much time for photos. Here are a couple on the way back across the flatlands towards the north.

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South Shaftsbury VT last Saturday
 

This past Saturday was a great gravel ride out of Howard Park in South Shaftsbury, VT, with the “Gravel Giant” himself, aka Chet L. who worked out a 27-mile route that was both scenic and challenging, including the initial climb over Holy Smoke Road, which I now think should be renamed “Holy CRAP!” road! At one point it was 14%! But one that was out of the way we were ready for the short stretch of Class 4 Vermont forest “road” that came later in the ride. After that it was blessedly a lot of downhill back to South Shaftsbury and a beeline for the Amish market just down the road for some post-ride sandwiches. Unfortunately, it WAS an Amish market, so no beer! Oh, well . . . A great day on Vermont gravel! (Photos with Panasonic Lumix ZS200D and iPhone 13 Pro.)

Thanks so much.

We've got some super gravel roads near me in Minnesota. Springtime is when we'll see gravel-hauling trucks laying down stretches of new gravel to supplement the old gravel. That generally takes a few weeks of vehicles packing it down before it's decent for riding.

Where in CA are you?

Kevin g

Really intrigued by that ride. Does this route look good for a gravel bike?

^
I would not, personally, enjoy riding 1 on that loop. I think there are adjacent roads that parallel it that let you get off the main highway for most of the distance. Or head farther south to Los Osos and take Los Osos Valley road and Foothill Road.

The last times I rode TV Tower road, it was rough and sandy in places. Do-able, but perhaps not fun. I don't know its current condition.

The really tough part is Highway 101. I don't know of a way to avoid that last little segment of it. If I wanted to do that loop, I'd make sure to do it clockwise and so descend 101 into SLO rather than climb up out of SLO and have to cross 101 to get to Old Stage Coach Road. It's a real missed opportunity that there isn't a way not to take 101 there.

By the way, if you're looking at roads in the area, google maps shows a number of roads off 1 that are private. Notably Little Moro Creek road, unfortunately.

It was cool but beautiful yesterday on a ride around St-Émilion France with some old friends. There is a huge density of small roads around and through vineyards there, much better riding on low traffic roads than I ever would have thought, given the tourist density in the most popular areas.

Land Shark looking at its water-bound cousins.

Land Shark? Oh yeah, I think this one was a Great White...

I would change a few things on your route:

- From Cal Poly, take Poly Canyon Rd to Stage Coach Rd. This will take you up to TV Tower Rd/top of the ridge without riding on 101 (do not recommend)

- From Morro Bay, do not take Hwy 1 back to SLO. Instead, ride south through Morro Bay State Park and get on Turri Rd. It's a really scenic stretch of country backroad. And then take Los Osos Valley Rd back to SLO.

Edit: The last 2-3 miles of before getting back down to Cerro Alto campground are singletrack. If you are a mountain biker on a gravel bike, you should be able to ride it and may need to walk a few spots. If you are a roadie on a gravel bike, I do not recommend it.

If it were me, I also wouldn't want to ride on highway 41. To each his own, but I'd rather do an out and back than make a loop that involves extended highway riding.

The both times I've ridden 41, it's been fine. The traffic is not heavy and cars are usually nice about giving cyclists some space. It's also a descent, so you can ride at a pretty decent speed. The headwind is usually pretty bad though.

But yeah, it's definitely not ideal riding.

Thanks for the feedback! (And to Mark) I did notice the steep drop off at the crest to the singletrack. I’m definitely in the “roadie” category so I’ll have to reconfigure things. Maybe an OAB on West Cuesta Ridge.

Edit: West Cuesta Ridge looks like an undertaking. 17.7 miles and 2,883 feet of elevation gain. As an out-and-back is this better on a MTB or gravel bike? Looks really beautiful though.

My experience as well. Would prefer to avoid it but it's got a generous shoulder and I found the drivers very considerate. But each time I've only done a couple of miles to connect between roads, never all the way down to 1.

P.S. If you're in the vicinity of Los Osos, you might as well add the Prefumo Canyon/See Canyon piece, it's fantastic (thanks @Steve_in_SLO).

I'm in West Los Angeles. Since you are good about sharing videos of your rides, I thought I'd provide a video with a flavor of what CA gravel can be like. This was up in Marin but there's plenty of this down here too. Let me know if you're unable to access the clip.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16i5...ew?usp=sharing

(Edit: sorry, neglected to change the access permissions to 'anyone with the link' -- should be viewable now.)

Some pics from a few recent rides. We just moved to Colorado Springs 4 weeks ago, so every ride has been like paradise.

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Oh, man! That's not gravel! Thems be rocks! I don't think I'd be a gravel cyclist if that's what I had to ride. That seems much more like mountain biking than gravel riding. How far is a typical gravel ride for you?

The worst we see here is maybe 2" chunks of gravel that in time will be absorbed into the road's limestone surface and make for a fairly smooth ride.

I lived in San Diego in the mid to late '70s. It's where I fell in love with road riding on my 1976 Eisentraut Limited that I bought from a guy in the city who was getting married and needed cash.

Kevin g

Well, that was intended as an exaggeration. At the end of that section I was definitely of the "this is not fun" mindset, but there were many great pieces to compensate.

Length really depends. There are shorter loops like this, 22 miles and 2400', about 40% of which is dirt. I can extend it to this, 39 miles and 5k', flipping the dirt/road split. Or if you want to go crazy, here's a local segment that covers nearly 60 miles and 10k'. There are portions of that route that are definitely as bad as what you saw in my video.

My serious riding also started in the 70s when I was a student in Santa Cruz, first on a too-big Masi then on the Gios that I still own. It's still one of my favorite places to ride, though I'm amazed that I was able to do those climbs with a low gear of 42/21.

did you get the required training?
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:D great pics!!

Put some fat n nimble 3.5" tires on the Beargrease today and hit some singletrack! It was a blast!https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...92bd7d203e.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...ad5e9d0e02.jpg

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk

The Skinny Camel route looks like a real test. I would love to give it a go. The other routes look nice as well. Is there much vehicle traffic on those roads? Our gravel roads get some light traffic but it's not much. They're a treat from the constant drone of cars on some of our busier highways. We'll get the occasional farm dog that will give chase to us but that's usually all in good fun.

Kevin g

Essentially zero. Once in a great while there could be a maintenance vehicle on one of the fire roads but all of the roads in those routes are exclusively for hikers and cyclists.

It's very green!

It looks like paradise for my gravel or MTB.

Kevin g

"This isn't Kentucky" LOLOLOLOLLL...

Chapstick(s), accurate
IPAs, accurate
Sunscreen, accurate
The Springs, accurate
Color-a-do, accurate