4-Day Ride 2020 - Route Details

Route Sheet and Map for each day -

Day 1 - Wednesday June 17 - San Jose to Patterson

We plan to leave at 7:00 AM, from Don's house (4637 Holycon Circle, near Branham and Snell). It is best if you can ride your bikes to the start, or get dropped off. You could drop your tour bag off a day or two before. If you need to leave a car, there is space on his street.

The Day 1 route is 73 miles with 6600 feet of climbing. We climb up Clayton Rd and up over the top of Mt.Hamilton, then drop down the backside. Sorry, the Junction Cafe is closed on Wednesdays. We cruise down Del Puerto Canyon to Patterson. ETA is 3:00 PM. We are staying at the Villa Lago Inn. Make your own motel reservations (see Reservations page). Check-in time is 3:00 PM. If you do arrive sooner, then it is possible to hang out at the pool until your room is ready.

Dinner in Patterson is at any of the restaurants nearby. Thursday morning's breakfast is at Dennys.

Day 2 - Thursday June 18 - Patterson to Columbia

The Day 2 route is 90 miles with 4010 feet of climbing. A 7:30 AM departure will get you to Columbia by 4:30 PM. This includes a coffee stop in Ripon, a lunch stop in Knights Ferry, and an ice cream stop in Jamestown.

We plan to stay at Marble Quarry Campground in Columbia. Don has reserved the campsites (T5, T6, T7), with the cost as part of the group expenses. We will be making our own dinner and breakfast in camp. We will have access to electricity to charge our phones. We also have cell service in camp.

Day 3 - Friday June 19 - Columbia to Calaveras Big Trees

Day 3 is our shortest day, at 33 miles with 5600 ft of climbing. This allows for a more scenic/rustic route, and more touring stops. We start off by dropping down to cross the Parrots Ferry bridge for a photo-op. Then just a 1-mile climb up the other side we get our next scenic stop, at Natural Bridge. The plan is to do a quarter-mile hike down to the creek, where it goes through a limestone cavern a few hundred yards long. Very nice for swimming. Next we ride on into Murphys for coffee. We will skip the Mercer Caverns tour this year. We continue along Sheep Ranch Rd, then turn right to get to Avery, and back on Hwy 4.

We will stop at the Big Trees Market in Arnold for lunch, and to buy supplies for our camp dinner and breakfast. We will be staying at Calaveras Big Trees, two campsites are NG20 and NG22 (same as last year). Very nice campsites. Note: there is no cell service and no electric outlets.

Day 4 - Saturday June 20 - Calaveras Big Trees to Lake Tahoe

The Day 4 route is long, 90 miles with 9800 ft of climbing. We climb first up to Pacific Grade, then drop down to Hermit Valley then up and over Ebbetts Pass at 8730 ft elevation, then stop for lunch in Markleeville. Then it is through Woodfords and up over Luthor Pass then down to South Lake Tahoe to meet up with the S2S tour group. We will be using special SAG leap-frogging to move the group along faster. Each riders daily totals will be 50 to 70 miles with 5000 to 8000 ft of climbing.

This is the official end of the mini-tour. Those people on S2S will have their camping, dinner, and breakfast included as part of the Sierra to the Sea tour. Those people who are not part of the tour can either drive home that evening or stay overnight and drive home the next day. We have reserved campsite C06 (same as last year).