Friday, March 7, 2014

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Click here to watch a short video of today’s ride

An early arrival in Paso Robles allows us to get in a short ride before checking in at the Wine Country RV Park for our 6 days/5 nights stay in San Luis Obispo County. A quick change of a route on hand will give us a 20 something miles loop along a couple of the wine trails through Paso Robles Wine Country.

We begin the ride from Barney Schwartz Park off Union Rd; it’s a huge park with a lake, several different ball fields, playgrounds, group picnic areas, snack bars and great restroom facilities.

We head west on Union Rd and make our way through the business district on Golden Hill Rd. The road continues through the residential neighborhoods and leads us east towards the industrial area of town onto Sherwood and Fontana Rd.

Linne Rd takes us out to the back country with a scattering of acreage ranch homes, open meadows with rolling green hills and vineyards.

The Linne Road Bike Trail begins at Sculpterra Winery to Cass Winery; these wineries offer FREE bottled water, the use of their outdoor patio area and restrooms for cyclists. Linne Rd runs 3.2 miles on gentle flat rolling terrain with a bridge crossing over the Huerhuero Creek.

The road roughly follows the curvatures of the creek with gorgeous oak studded hills, open meadows, horse ranches, old barns and hillside vineyards amid the dry riparian landscape.

After passing Cass Winery, Linne Rd becomes Geneseo Rd for the next 2.1 miles. At R & E Ranch, there is a short wooden suspension bridge along the side of the driveway-it’s an interesting unexpected sight to see!

Geneseo Rd continues on rolling terrain through more horse ranches and pastoral lands to another dry creek crossing with loose gravel.

The creek crossing is followed by a steep 0.3 mile climb with grades of 12-14%!

The descent drops us down into “horse country”; the properties along this road have nothing but horse ranches with boarding and training facilities.

I’ve come to notice that many country back road must have one or two places with abandoned nonfunctioning vehicles and other salvage materials lying around with no other purpose than to take up space-why not? The rustic looking log barn/shed sitting next to the rusting trucks is pretty cool to look at.

Geneseo Rd ends at the intersection with Creston Rd; this is our turn around point. We stop for a quick snack and reverse our way back on Geneseo Rd towards Linne Rd.

We stay on Geneseo Rd and head north for the stair step climb up towards Dry Canyon. It’s 1.3 mile with an average grade of 3.5% with some steeper pitches of 7-9%.

Enjoy the stunning views of the contoured hills and rolling vineyards-it’s spectacular!

The bumpy descent down to Dry Canyon takes us through a ranching community with old barns and open pastoral lands. The rolling climbs on Geneseo bring us to the turn onto Union Rd.

Union Rd takes us along the Wine Trail through the gentle rolling hills with acres of vineyards tucked around every bend of the road.  

Union exits the wineries and vineyards onto a creek crossing into another rural ranch community outside of town.

We continue westward on Union for our return to Barney Schwartz Park.

This short jaunt on Linne and Union is a wonderful introduction to the quiet back roads along the wine trails surrounding Paso Robles. You can even make the ride shorter with less elevation gain by skipping the out and back section of Geneseo to Creston Rd. It’s a gorgeous scenic route-come and ride it!

Garmin Stats:
23.43 Miles with 1186′ of elevation gain
Max elevation: 1198′
Max grade: 14%
Terrain: Gentle rolling hills with a couple of climbs

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Follow this route for today’s ride: