My wife and I are recently retired and looking for some fun/scenic gravel rides in the US for some trips. I’ve tried searching the web, but the results seem to be predominantly populated with races and events, which is not what we’re after. We just want someplace to go and do a ride (or two or three different routes, for a longer stay) that would be fun and scenic. It would also be preferable if the routes are reasonably close to decent lodging, as our camping days are behind us! Beginner to intermediate routes would be best, as my wife is new to gravel riding, but not to cycling.
And if there are other things of interest in the area that would be even better!
I’ll sometimes browse strava heatmaps in combination of segment filtering to find ride ideas in areas I’m unfamiliar with. To get a sense of ride, I’ll click into public rides from the segment top lists to try to get a sense of the terrain/scenery.
Well being here in the PNW and partial to the area, highly recommend these…
Olympic Discovery Trail is scenic with the Olympic mountain range and Victoria BC Canada across the water. Rideable on gravel and mountain bikes. You’ll encounter bikepackers during the summer months but throughout the year mountain bikers as well. Lots of lodging nearby in Port Angeles, Sequim and Port Townsend. Lake Crescent is a pleasure sight to see along with the smell of lavender farms dotting through Sequim.
And across in OR is C2C - Corvallis to the Coast. Make your way through the beautiful loamy forests out to the Pacific ocean. Again rideable throughout the year and most tackle these from early spring to the summer for longer daylight and warmer temps. My family and friends enjoy these when we need a relaxing activity to reset and wind down.
Lastly, we also have the Palouse to Cascades trail (aka John Wayne pioneer trail). Beautiful trail through the summer and nearby lodging in various cities along the way such as Ellensburg. Bring a light for the Snoqualmie tunnel and a light jacket as it can be cool.
Santa Fe? Probably quite a few ride outs and loops from there. Was there recently (no bike) and coming from drizzly London, New Mexico could be a cool and very different place to experience - it really depends what you are after, not just riding wise but climate, etc.
The Asheville/Brevard area in NC has a lot of options, and easy to mix in some road (including the Blue Ridge Parkway) or easy singletrack (especially in Dupont State Forest), and plenty of bike-friendly rental availability. Plenty of other activities as well.
We 100% need more of this. More publicly available quality routes, and fewer paywalls.
What I’ve done (only a handful of times) in the past is to either check out some local races/events, and use part of the route, or find publicly available routes from Ride With GPS.
I’ve used ridewithGPS with some success, but I also ended up on a “gravel ride” that ended up routing me through blue & black difficulty MTB-trail access roads for about 15km (I came from MTB, so could ride a decent amount but still several hike-a-bike sections), then into 15km of soft sinking sand. To finish off the loop, when I finally made it back to tarmac and was 20km from my vehicle, the headwinds were so strong that I was struggling to hit 20km/hr on flat road, and was below 40km/hr on 8% descents. An expected 3 hr ride took almost 5, and the temperature was high.
I know try to ask locals before trying any merry adventures in the heat.
There was one big one still out last June when my wife and I were there, but fairly easy to get around, and easy ti link up with some other gravel outside Dupont itself
You can always search for events and see if they post the route. And then just go ride the route and/or use something like RideWithGPS to search the surrounding area. This is what I do a lot. Even if the event itself doesn’t post the route, if you search online I guarantee you can find the route.
In Oregon we have OMTM which are some pretty killer gravel rides centered around Portland. I’d argue these lean on the more technical side but they’ve got good writeups on the site that detail tire size. Bigger tires generally correlates to more adventure: OMTM ROUTE LIBRARY — Our Mother The Mountain
There’s also the dirty freehub routes which are based out of Bend, but have routes all over the western US. These have proven to usually be easier technically in my experience and also easier physically. Both route sites are pretty well vetted by the route creators (or disclaimers are made if its still in development) so you’re not going down a random mapped road that should go, maybe. https://dirtyfreehub.org/
Beginner to intermediate routes would be best, as my wife is new to gravel riding, but not to cycling.
