Our Calaveras Canyon gravel loop took us back into forests probably rarely seen by people. This ride had a little of everything from singletrack, to open choose your own adventure meadows, old abandoned rutted loose pipeline paths, muddy forested dirt roads, deep sand sections, and even good gravel. This was a definite adventure at 32 miles with 3002′ of climbing.
We started with a warm up on pavement just past Fenton Lake and rode out to the fish hatchery before turning on gravel forest service road 314 that turned to doubletrack that further narrowed to singletrack soon. This section of the ride weaves up the canyon through cow pastures and along the stream. We passed a group of bikepackers relaxing in a meadow and then saw no other cyclists all day.
Once we reached the split with forest road 257 we went left and up a heinously steep jumble of rocks and ruts that required some hiking. I hated this part. It got better though, and what followed was a lot of climbing through meadows and forest. A lot of the forest roads we rode are closed to cars so it’s very quiet. Even the ones open to cars weren’t used but by a couple people because they are in ridiculously poor condition that most people can’t get through. Perfect for bikes!!!!
The sand section sucked. There were a couple miles of sandy road that is really hard to ride a gravel bike through. This section was open to cars which made it suck more because every time a car came by, sand, which is more like dust, is kicked up obscuring vision and breathing. We powered through and were treated to a fast gravel descent for miles back down to the start.
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