General Area: Around Mt Diablo
Difficulty: Not hard
Ride Length: 2-2.5 hours
Scenery: Nice variety of views from Mt Diablo, to inside the tree canopy, to fall colors.
Special Notes: Point D to Point E is a one lane road.
The route described: Point A/G to B is uneventful city riding. Point B to C is part of the route from “
Point D to Point E is the “really fun part”; it is all one lane road. The first half isn’t the best maintained piece of road, but it is fairly wide. The best part about it is that most of the turns aren’t hair pin, and have good sight lines, unlike the one lane death trap of “Ride Friday: Calaveras Reservoir“. Point E to F was a little diversion I took to stop by Tri-Valley BMW. Point F to G, the first half until you get to Blackhawk is also a very enjoyable back road ride, after that it is all city riding. I could have completed my circuit faster by getting on the freeway, but I figured “Why rush the day?”, which also is why my pathing was fairly circuitous.
Comments: A little while back, I was futzing about on Google Maps looking for somewhere in the area to go that might be an interesting ride, and I stumbled upon Morgan Territory Road. It happens to spur off of Marsh Creek Road which I covered in “Ride Friday: Antioch to Clayton“, the first “Ride Friday” (oddly enough it turned out to be not such a half-assed idea after all). After looking over the map a bit more, I mentally plotted a route that would take me all the way around Mt Diablo, but more importantly, I would not set tire on Freeway the entire time.