“Not many people can say they’ve been up here with a bike,” Kiefel says. And on a clear day, looking east past Denver, you can actually see the curvature of the earth.
And the views? South, there’s 14,110-foot Pikes Peak. Up there, a 6 percent grade feels like 10. There aren’t many places you can climb for four hours straight.” From Idaho Springs, the highway passes shallow Echo Lake and breaks out of treeline into a rocky, lunar landscape. “Evans isn’t the steepest or craziest mountain I’ve ever done,” he says of the 6,575-foot, 18.4-mile ascent. Evans-the highest paved road in the United States, at 14,265 feet-a few times in his life. Olympic medalist and seven-time Tour de France rider Ron Kiefel has ridden Mt. Tamalpais, thrilling descents through redwoods to windswept grasslands, and beach-side rollers out to Point Reyes Station-where the Bovine Bakery has been handing out warm chocolate croissants for 20 years. Loops range from 30 to 200 miles our pick is the 94-mile “climbing” route, with a lung-sucking grunt up 2,500-foot Mt. Hit the highlights on any of the Marin Cyclists’s annual century rides, which roll out each August from San Rafael. But Marin County is the one place to which every California cyclist has to make a pilgrimage. The Golden State is the kind of megaplayground that gives us kid-in-a-candy-store fits. Mountain biking in Arkansas? Yes, please-on a 31-mile stretch of singletrack that follows the Ouachita (Oh-Ah-Sha-Tah) River and undulates through hardwoods, racking up 6,000 feet of climbing. It’s quintessential Arizona, fat-tire style. And it all parallels Interstate 17 (for easy car access) and the Bradshaw Mountains, which make for desert views and thrilling exposure. This just-built, 8-inch-wide singletrack rolls for 62 miles through saguaro cacti, winding canyons, and dusty washes. Subscribe to Bicycling for more of the good stuff. Alaska Railroad-complete with a bar car and a double-decker glass-topped viewing car-and chug past jewel-blue glaciers back to square one before the 11 p.m. Follow the Seward Highway past the remnants of mining claims and keep your eyes peeled for whales and eagles. But not many places are like Alaska, where June sunlight stretches to 20 hours, roads meander past fjords, and caribou outnumber people. There are not many places where you can pull off a point-to-point 125-miler and still make it home before sunset. Hell, end it at Lulu’s too, because owner Lucy Buffett brings in great live music and “sometimes her brother, Jimmy, drops in,” says Kirk Iverson of the East Alabama Cycling Club. Catch the $5 ferry to tiny Dauphin Island, then head home for a total of 40 easy miles. Start this rocking ride at Lulu’s, home of fried crab claws, then trace white-sand beaches and scout for protected turtles along the southern end of Mobile Bay.
0 kommentar(er)
