Dead end roads

[Steve_M]

Pretty well all of our touring is done by travelling from A to B to C etc, with the occasional loop back to A eventually. We never, or rarely, back track on a road or ride a cul de sac.

 

However. While researching for roads in the area surrounding the Picos I came across the CA1 to Tresviso*. It seems to fit our general criteria for having good scenery, and probably minimal traffic. However, I’m not sure I can be arsed to ride up a road only to have to ride back down it. 

Thoughts?

 

 

* there are other roads with similar attributes.

[Nick the wanderer]

I don't get it. You only want to ride a road in one direction?

One of my favourite roads is great and very different in either direction.

If you CBA to have to ride back down a road what's the point of going anywhere?

[Steve_M]

12 minutes ago, Nick the wanderer said:

I don't get it. You only want to ride a road in one direction?

One of my favourite roads is great and very different in either direction.

If you CBA to have to ride back down a road what's the point of going anywhere?

I prefer to be “just passing through”. Going somewhere just to come back along the same road seems pretty pointless to me unless there’s something at the destination worth the necessity of going there. I suppose it’s an inherited behaviour - my dad rarely wanted to return by the same route he’d travelled. 

 

But, then, as I said elsewhere, we’re all different. 

[Fiddlesticks]

Totally get it. Loops are just more satisfying somehow.

[Gerontious]

When we went up the Mangart. That was a dead end road and I have to say one of the most thrilling rides I’ve ever done.
 

With @smallfrowne a few years ago. Quite the experience.

 

[Steve_M]

7 minutes ago, Gerontious said:

When we went up the Mangart. That was a dead end road and I have to say one of the most thrilling rides I’ve ever done.
 

With @smallfrowne a few years ago. Quite the experience.

 

I’ve just checked that out on Google Maps. It does look amazing. 

[Gerontious]

7 minutes ago, Steve_M said:

I’ve just checked that out on Google Maps. It does look amazing. 

You have a talent for understatement. It’s not so much the summit that’s amazing. It really is. It’s the road up. I think it’s very likely one of the most dangerous roads I’ve ever ridden. Only one other that I can think of was more scary. I was kinda expecting this so we arrived quite late in the day to avoid other traffic. It worked. For the entire climb we didn’t encounter another vehicle. I can’t express in words just how grateful I was. The ride back to base was “interesting” - mountain passes on a moonless night. A tunnel that almost killed me. Or could very easily have killed me I mean and squeezing past the biggest dead deer I’ve ever seen in my life. It took up more than half the road and was surrounded by very happy looking Italian police - who I think were more interested in venison than anything else.

[Simon Davey]

Great picture too. 

[S-Westerly]

If it's an interesting road with an interesting destination I've no issues with coming back the same way. Assuming it's an interesting road - twisty - the bends will all be different coming back and the views will be different too.

[Steve_M]

1 hour ago, Gerontious said:

You have a talent for understatement. It’s not so much the summit that’s amazing. It really is. It’s the road up. I think it’s very likely one of the most dangerous roads I’ve ever ridden. Only one other that I can think of was more scary. I was kinda expecting this so we arrived quite late in the day to avoid other traffic. It worked. For the entire climb we didn’t encounter another vehicle. I can’t express in words just how grateful I was. The ride back to base was “interesting” - mountain passes on a moonless night. A tunnel that almost killed me. Or could very easily have killed me I mean and squeezing past the biggest dead deer I’ve ever seen in my life. It took up more than half the road and was surrounded by very happy looking Italian police - who I think were more interested in venison than anything else.

In my defence. Online images  - especially google street view - rarely do justice to landscapes. 

[Gerontious]

1 hour ago, Simon Davey said:

Great picture too. 

it’s a zoom. I took another before he joined me. I think he was doing a bit of secret mountaineering. To pass the time. This is the wider view. We got there following a valley road and you can see the same valley to the left. That was a fantastic ride. We needed petrol so we had to sort that first and so didn’t ride it again. Sadly.

 

[smallfrowne]

20 hours ago, Gerontious said:

When we went up the Mangart. That was a dead end road and I have to say one of the most thrilling rides I’ve ever done.
 

With @smallfrowne a few years ago. Quite the experience.

 

Ah yes that was fun

[smallfrowne]

Talking of dead end roads. The Italian job road is one as well. We sort of got near it that trip, but not really. Another time. 

[RideWithStyles]

doing u turns and going down the road you came comedown is safer as you know whats state the road is at with cambers, water, pot holes, farming debris.....

[Fiddlesticks]

I find if you don't think of it as going back on yourself, rather, doing a very narrow loop it helps with the old OC/DC.

[Pie man]

I often ride down roads and tracks and have to return the same way , at least you get to view the scenery from a different direction. I travelled across the Hahntennjoch twice in a day, both directions gave equally stunning scenery and the road gradient changing while traversing the pass in a spirited way was delightful

[Gerontious]

4 hours ago, Pie man said:

I often ride down roads and tracks and have to return the same way , at least you get to view the scenery from a different direction.

This is very true.  Though it’s not a dead end road (except for one side road) The Grossglockner is well worth treating like this. First time I went over it, I was actually riding it for a full day - did end to end non-stop. Then again. But stopping frequently to take in the views. Photos. Or just to take it all in, watch the world go by. Some glamorous vehicles always on that route.  Stop for a coffee. Or a bite to eat. A souvenir badge. Then ended the day doing the “Southern triangle” and then back over the Glockner to the base near Zell am see. Really got my moneys worth that day.

 

There are plenty of other dead ends in the Alps (and elsewhere) that are worth riding, some that are bucket list roads. Like the Otz glacier road, which is the highest paved road in Europe - outside of Spain. Though it’s an anticlimax if you don’t have a sat nav and see the altitude. There’s no sign to tell you. I can think of so many more - but in every case you get a very different view coming down as you did going up and that’s what makes it worth the diversion.

Edited June 17, 2024 by Gerontious

[curlylegend]

There was a young woman on You Tube recently showing us the longest dead end road in the UK. It is apparently in Scotland and goes from Glengarry and ends up at Kinloch Hourn and it's 35 km long. Pretty scenic...if it's not raining/sleeting/snowing.  

The thing is, it's not actually a dead end road if you have the right kind of bike and a degree of foolhardiness.

In 1980, a friend and myself set off on a pair of Honda 185 SL trail bikes. We never stopped at Kinloch Hourn, there was absolutely nothing there in those days, but tackled the rough foot path leading into the fastness of Knoydart.  After 25 km or so of pretty strenuous riding/ walking/pulling we reached the midden of Inverie .  Apparently it's been well gentrified nowadays so it might be doubtful whether fossil fuel burning infidels would be welcomed.  There's a photo of the ferry we took to get us to the metropolis of Mallaig.

 

 

This is the path to Knoydart 

 

This was Kinloch Hourn in 1980

 

 

 

[Fiddlesticks]

Knoydart is Amazing. Took a bunch of young people there last year and we did a 2 day hike from the campsite around all the peaks in a horseshoe in perfect weather. We got the ferry in though.

[Simon Davey]

7 hours ago, curlylegend said:

There was a young woman on You Tube recently showing us the longest dead end road in the UK. It is apparently in Scotland and goes from Glengarry and ends up at Kinloch Hourn and it's 35 km long. Pretty scenic...if it's not raining/sleeting/snowing.  

The thing is, it's not actually a dead end road if you have the right kind of bike and a degree of foolhardiness.

In 1980, a friend and myself set off on a pair of Honda 185 SL trail bikes. We never stopped at Kinloch Hourn, there was absolutely nothing there in those days, but tackled the rough foot path leading into the fastness of Knoydart.  After 25 km or so of pretty strenuous riding/ walking/pulling we reached the midden of Inverie .  Apparently it's been well gentrified nowadays so it might be doubtful whether fossil fuel burning infidels would be welcomed.  There's a photo of the ferry we took to get us to the metropolis of Mallaig.

 

 

This is the path to Knoydart 

 

This was Kinloch Hourn in 1980

 

 

 

 

The right tools for the job! 

That's so cool, thanks for sharing, how incredible to have those photo's. 

[curlylegend]

On 21/06/2024 at 02:05, Fiddlesticks said:

Knoydart is Amazing. Took a bunch of young people there last year and we did a 2 day hike from the campsite around all the peaks in a horseshoe in perfect weather. We got the ferry in though.

It sure is. I used to spend quite a lot of time there usually just after the Scottish Six Day Trial in May.  

Here's some photos from the campsite at Barrisdale Bothy

 

 

 

 

No, we're not getting tossed out of the Old Forge Pub in Inverie, we're leaving because back then it was such a midden !

 

 

[AstronautNinja]

These 35mm "photos" are a blast from the past that many a rider will presume are "insta filters"

[bonio]

2 hours ago, AstronautNinja said:

These 35mm "photos" are a blast from the past that many a rider will presume are "insta filters"

That is how the world actually looked in 1969.