CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
141 km from Fresno to the finish, about 2 h 17 of riding. The stops in between: Grant Grove and Kings Canyon Overlook. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 45 km this is Kings Canyon Scenic Byway, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Fresno is the biggest city of California's Central Valley, a flat, sunburnt metropolis of over half a million people surrounded by some of the most productive farmland in the world. Raisins, almonds, grapes, figs, peaches and oranges all come from this valley, and the city was once the raisin capital of the world, a distinction it still takes some pride in. In summer it can be brutally hot, with temperatures above forty degrees Celsius for days at a time, while in winter, a thick ground fog known as tule fog sometimes hangs over the roads for days.
Read the complete Fresno write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fresno is where the day begins. Next is Grant Grove.
The first big tree you meet here is a surprise because it looks like a building. The General Grant Tree, in the grove that bears its name, is about 270 feet tall and nearly 30 feet across at the base, and by volume it is the second largest tree on Earth, after the General Sherman a few miles south. It is somewhere around 1,700 years old. President Coolidge named it the Nation's Christmas Tree in 1926, and it was later declared a national shrine to those who died in war, and each December a ceremony is held at its foot. It stands in a quiet loop of giant sequoias and fallen logs, a short walk from the visitor centre.
Read the complete Grant Grove write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grant Grove comes up about 92 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kings Canyon Overlook.
Highway 180 east of Grant Grove does something rare: it goes down. After the sequoias and the climb through the high forest, the road begins to descend into the canyon of the Kings River, and at a series of overlooks above the gorge you can see how steep the descent will be. The canyon is among the deepest in North America, plunging from ridge crests over three thousand metres to a valley floor less than half that height, and the walls are cliffs of granite, streaked with water stains and dotted with pines.
Read the complete Kings Canyon Overlook write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 137 km into the recorded legs you reach Kings Canyon Overlook. Next is Cedar Grove.
Cedar Grove is at the bottom of Kings Canyon, a deep, glacier-carved trench in the Sierra Nevada that John Muir compared to Yosemite, and it feels like the end of the world in the best sense. The road runs out a few miles beyond, at a place called Road's End, where the Kings River rolls past and trails lead into some of the wildest country in the lower forty-eight. The valley floor is at about forty-six hundred feet, framed by granite walls that rise thousands of feet, and the air smells of pine and river water.
Read the complete Cedar Grove write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cedar Grove closes the day.
Fresno → Grant Grove is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Grant Grove → Kings Canyon Overlook is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kings Canyon Overlook → Cedar Grove is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.