This is a long road ride that encircles a good chunk of Marin County. It's the kind of ride that would be more suitable to be done on a road bike. But, if you're like me, there's no real harm in adding some extra air to your tires and doing it on a mountain bike either.

The ride sets out from Fairfax by climbing on Bolinas-Fairfax Road. This is a moderate road climb until the trailhead of Pine Mountain Fire Road. From there, it's mostly a nice descent with occassional short climbs, all the way down to Alpine Lake.

The road descends all the way to the water level of Alpine Lake and then you cross the dam. If the water of the lake is still and you see the reflections of the surrounding hilltops on its surface, the name "Alpine Lake" might suddenly start making better sense.

Very shortly after riding across the dam at Alpine Lake, you ride past the trailhead of Cataract Trail (right at the first right-hand hairpin curve). If you happen to be doing this ride at a time that followed shortly after some significant rains, it might be worth doing what I did and parking your bike somewhere near this trailhead (somewhere on the uphill slope behind some trees might work) and hiking at least part of the way up this trail to see the flow of the water, like I did on this ride. You'll notice that the GPS track lingers at this curve and creeps toward where I left my bike on the roadside. You might also want to bring a lock with you to make this more secure, of course. If it's during the dry season, however, you would do better by leaving it for a rainier time; the creek is less impressive when there aren't huge amounts of water flow.

Keep in mind that the route information shown on this page includes this hike in all the totals, with the exception of total climb. The total climb is of the riding portion, only.

Bolinas-Fairfax Road does another serious climb after this. That's about the last unbroken significant climb that you'll encounter on this loop. Once you're at the end of that climb, you'll be traversing Ridgecrest Boulevard. Ridgecrest keeps trending uphill, but the climb is not continuous and is a bit gentler.

Ridgecrest Boulevard is scenic for not only what you can see from the road, but also for what the road itself looks like. It playfully meanders through grass-covered rolling hills that descend to the coast on one side. This is the darling of car commercials. If you see a curvy road through rolling green hills with the view of the sea in any car commercial on TV in the US, I would claim that there's something like a 30% chance that it was filmed on this road. It's that common. When you see it (unless you have already), you'll understand why. Riding or driving on it makes you feel like you're in a made-up landscape, designed just to be pretty.

When you turn onto Pan Toll Road, a short but very scenic descent awaits you. From the upper portions of this road, you can see the Bay, the ocean, and even parts of Golden Gate and San Francisco.

The route meets Panoramic Highway at Pantoll Ranger Station (another opportunity for a rest stop). From there, Panoramic Highway will take you on a winding thrill ride without requiring you to pedal at all for a while. Once you emerge into the residential part of this road (starting from around Mountain Home Inn), there'll be a few short stretches of climbing. But the descent then resumes to continue all the way to Mill Valley.

After Mill Valley, the ride follows roads with comparatively higher traffic to return to Fairfax. There's only one noticeable climb along this part of the route, but it's milder and much shorter than anything that came before.