We love that Gravel Bike Adventures has the ability to bring the bike community together. One of our followers, Kelly, was using our Old Fall River Road Groad in Rocky Mountain National Park Route and posted on Instagram saying that “Access to curated gravel routes reviewed by other women has definitely improved my confidence in setting out on longer, solo adventures to new places!” This is the exact reason we started Gravel Bike Adventures!!
She reached out when she was in town visiting from Atlanta, GA and we were able to show her this Sugarloaf Loop route in the Boulder Area.
Kelly will also be sharing some of her favorite local Georgia routes as a guest route contributor, so you can look forward to those soon.
It was a pleasure to meet a fellow cyclist who we could share gravel stories with and get inspired to continue to find new and exciting adventures.
All the gravel roads other than Switzerland trail are well-packed, had very few washboards and were pretty fast to ride.
Descending Gold Run Rd was particularly fun! It had a comfortable grade and flowing roller coaster type curves. (We had joy in knowing that we chose the right direction to do this ride so we didn’t have to climb up this section!)
The short paved section down Sugarloaf is pretty darn fast and fun as well!!
We wracked our brains for a low but we honestly don’t have one. This ride is pretty terrific. The only low was actually off the bike. Boulder Canyon is under some construction and there was significant stand-still car traffic getting to and leaving the ride. We would recommend going early if you want to beat the worst of it.
Do this ride if you want a short and sweet ride that packs a good punch. It’s a really great mix of all types of terrain and we can pretty much guarantee you’ll have a big smile at the end.
No bathrooms or services out there except the Gold Hill general store. (They have prepared food, coffee and beer!)
We didn’t have cell phone reception at the start, so don’t forget to pre-load the route on your bike computer.
When we’ve ridden Switzerland trail in the past we have encountered some ATVs, motorcycles and Jeeps, but we may have just timed this ride perfectly because there was very little traffic when we went.
We parked on Switzerland Park Rd, but it turns into private property if you keep going down the road. The place we marked on the map in the link above would be our recommendation. It is just a pull off parking place on Sugarloaf just before Switzerland Park Rd.
Laura & Rose
Laura Karpinski and Rose Barcklow are the creators of Gravel Bike Adventures. Click on the About page to learn more about them.
