Finally! A century ride with just the right amount of everything! Enjoy incredible views of some of nature's finest scenery as you ride this fabulous route.
The ride begins with a beautiful cruise along pristine Siskiyou Lake, then test your mettle with a challenging climb up a scenic one lane windy mountain pass to Mumbo Summit along the Sacramento River. The river should be rushing and wildflowers blooming along the way! Enjoy a refreshing rest stop at the top of Mumbo Summit with fabulous views to the West. Then enjoy a fantastic downhill segment with distant views of Shasta lake, the Trinity Alps and Scott Valley. Both the Metric and full century routes will circle around the sky-scraping 6000 ft. spires of polished granite called the Castle Crags. Your second rest stop with be in the quaint little town of Castella at the bottom of the Castle Crags themselves. The route then takes a scenic forested one lane road along the Sacramento River across the Pacific Crest Trail and through the bucolic little town Dunsmuir on the way back to the City of Mt. Shasta where you enjoy a fantastic lunch in the city park, where the Headwaters of the Sacramento River emerge.
After lunch, you will head to the North through the Shasta Valley, crossing creeks and pasture lands along the way, all the while, Mt. Shasta looms overhead as you sail through Weed to your final Rest stop of the day at Bel Aire Park next to the College of the Siskiyous, voted the most scenic college campus in California.
This route has never been offered as part of a century ride before but we guarantee that it will quickly move to the top of your list of annual "Must Ride" favorites!
We will be offering 4 ride options. The full century is 96 miles with roughly 8000 feet of climbing. It combines the two optional rides below for the full Century. There is just enough climbing to make this challenging, but the rewards are immense -- spectacular views of Mt.Shasta, Scott Valley, Trinity Alps, Castle Crags and the Sacramento River to name just a few. There are a few short sections of gravel on the full century, so beware -- there are also some pot holes but all in all mostly beautiful, quiet one lane paved roads... a cyclists dream!
The Metric Century is comprised of only the Castle Crags section, which is 61.4 miles with approximately 5,600 feet of climbing. This loop is where the short sections of gravel will be found and a few pot holes so please be careful.
The Family ride begins in the Mount Shasta City Park and goes out to Edgewood, around Hoy Road and back through Weed. It has 35 miles and about 2000 feet of very gently rolling hills.
We are also going to offer the "gone fishin" ride. It will be exactly 10 miles, and offers an optional stop at the Sisson Museum and fish hatchery at mile 5, where there will complimentary museum and hatchery tours and fun activities for kids to do including feeding the fish at the hatchery!
The Castle Crags were formed in much the same manner as nearby Mt. Shasta and the other peaks of the Cascade Range—by volcanic activity some 200 million years ago. For the last million years, the Crags have been subjected to the forces of wind, rain, ice and even some small glaciers, which have shaped the granite into its distinctive shapes. Rising beside the spiky peaks is a round one, Castle Dome, which many mountaineers liken to Yosemite’s Half Dome.
In 1855, the territory below the Crags was the site of a struggle between local native people and settlers. The locals, armed only with bows and arrows, were driven from their land in a one-sided battle that was chronicled by Joaquin Miller, “poet of the High Sierra.” During the 1920s and 1930s, conservationists worked to protect the Castle Crags; they circulated photographs of the scenic spot and promoted the idea of a comprehensive California state park system. This beauty is now yours to behold from the seat of your beloved bicycle -- the best place in the world to see the world!
