Sierra Cascades Bicycle Route

[MrBent]

I'm excited to see ACA putting together this route.  I have one serious concern.  From the rough map on the home page, the route appears to take the main highway between Mt. Shasta and Truckee, Hwy 89.  I certainly hope this is not the case. I've been on that stretch  a couple of times.  While the section north of Truckee is okay for a while, the area around Quincy and north is some pretty hairy riding--tight, shoulderless, and, worst of all, subject to some very high volumes of very fast driving, very angry logging truck drivers.  These dudes are some special kind of unhappy jerks.  They'd lay on their horns, curse, shake fists, even called the CHP with the hopes of forcing us to get off the road.  A cop actually stopped to talk to us.  He was great, and told the truckers that we had every right to be on the road.  I CANNOT recommend this route to anyone.

The country is beautiful, but stay off 89.  You can take some alternates further east, hooking through Susanville and then climbing out and over to Calpine/Sierraville area.

Be well!

Scott

[wanderingwheel]

You've got better eyes than me if you can pick out the route on that small map.  I can certainly understand your concerns about 89, but I wouldn't go out of my way to avoid it.  The worst of 70 and 89 is the area right around the junction at Paxton, the rest I think is actually pretty good.  Also, the Davis Bike Club has been sending riders up the Feather River Canyon quite a bit over the past several years, and drivers and truckers in the area have become much more aware of cyclists on the road.  Lower on the canyon, there are now automated caution signs when cyclists are in the tunnels, and this alone is a huge improvement.  If you really want to, I think there are some back roads between Quincy and Taylorsville over China Grade that will bypass that area without heading all the way out to Susanville and the high desert -- although I've never tried them myself.  I'm looking forward to this new route as well.

Sean