I’ve done variants on a 30-mile vineyard and trails loop in Livermore a few times over the years. One of those years we biked past Wente and up to the South end of Arroyo Road, and could see gravel trails stretching off along Lake Del Valle– but the gravel was too steep and loose and we turned around.
I’ve always wanted to go back with some wider tires and see how practical (and fun) it is to ride gravel along Del Valle, connecting Arroyo road to Mines road…
Google Maps thinks you should just go the long way around instead…
But last week two of us finally did it (after putting some knobby 26x2.1" tires on the Long Haul Trucker).
We mostly rode the wider gravel roads, but took a few sections of singletrack as well (neither of us are experienced mountain bikers). The views were amazing, and the hills were tough for me but mostly manageable– I walked two or three sections. This is the general route (about 37 miles and 2700’ round trip), though a few trails and paths we took are not on google maps / ridewithgps: along an Eastern section of Vineyard Ave there’s a great off-road paved bike path on the North side of the road. And along the lake there are a number of parallel singletrack options to the main road, for the more adventurous.
Some day I’ll organize an overnight camping trip along this dirt, to camp (and boat? fish?) along the lake…
