*depends on what you classify as “gravel”… A few of the road surfaces were what we’d consider “poorly paved”.
It was nice to have the first 6 miles of this Red Feather Lakes Loop be mostly downhill (since we generally tend to go straight up on most rides!).
There are many cool rock formations that pop up out of the landscape.
The road was a lovely groad with good, easy, rideable surfaces and very few washboards.
We tend to go for the long, difficult routes and it was nice to do an intermediate ride. This Red Feather Lake Loop had some climbing but nothing to intense, and the entire route is on roads- no trails or single track.
We had planned a slightly different and longer loop but were foiled by a private property gate and “No Trespassing” signs.(So if you click on the map above and go to the actual record of the ride, you’ll see a little extra out and back. The downloadable GPX file is the corrected 22.5 mile loop).
There was steady traffic on the road, mainly from people who had been camping in the Red Feather Lakes area for the weekend. (We did this on a Sunday morning).
Do this ride if you want to camp and bike in a beautiful area where gravel roads and trails and lakes abound!
If you like to do dispersed camping, there are many spots all along this route.
There are some services when you go through the “town” of Red Feather Lakes (at about mile 11 on our route). We did this ride during Covid-19 so we didn’t stop to check out the town, but it appears you could find bathrooms, food and water there.
Be careful about planning any routes on the trails in the area. We found many of them were actually on private property with no trespassing signs.
We camped and bike straight from our dispersed camping site, which was quite close to Cherokee Park in the Lost Lakes area.
Laura & Rose
Laura Karpinski and Rose Barcklow are the creators of Gravel Bike Adventures. Click on the About page to learn more about them.
