Mines Road & Del Puerto Canyon
Diablo Range (Livermore-Central Valley) · near Livermore · SF Bay Area
Road Cycling
At a glance
- Distance
- long
- Best season
- Spring (green & wildflowers) & fall; hot and dry in summer
What is here
- Scenery
- mountain
- Amenities
- Legendary Bay Area backcountry loop · The Junction ranch cafe · Empty Diablo Range solitude · Spring wildflowers & raptors
- Best for
- A big, remote insiders' backcountry road epic
- Features
- Bay Area's classic backcountry epic · The lonely 'Junction' cafe · Empty Diablo Range ranch roads · Wild Del Puerto Canyon descent
Worth knowing
- Hazards
- Very remote, almost no services · Long stretches with no water · Summer heat, scarce shade · Rough, narrow roads
- Beginner friendly
- No
Road Cycling detail
- Nickname
- The Bay Area's Backcountry Secret
- Ride types
- pass · climb
- Road
- quiet
- Climbing
- 4
- Ride notes
- A legendary all-day paved traverse of the empty Diablo Range backcountry - a narrow, near-carless road from Livermore over the San Antonio Valley to the wild Del Puerto Canyon descent, with a single ranch cafe at the midpoint
- Stats note
- ~60 mi point-to-point (Livermore-Patterson), ~4,600 ft gain, ~5,000 ft descent
- Intl tip
- THE FIND: the Bay Area's great hidden backcountry epic, beloved by randonneurs and gravel veterans but unknown to outsiders. A near-carless traverse of the empty Diablo Range — from Livermore for hours through wild ranch country to the lonely San Antonio Valley and its single ranch cafe ('The Junction,' the only services for ~50 miles), then the wild Del Puerto Canyon descent to the Central Valley. Big and committing: long waterless stretches, summer heat, real isolation astonishingly near the city. Best in spring (green hills, wildflowers, golden eagles). No camping — a point-to-point/loop day for fit, self-sufficient riders. Quiet, wild, and quintessentially insider.
The guide
Ask Bay Area randonneurs and gravel veterans about the region's greatest hidden ride, and many will point to Mines Road and Del…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Mines Road & Del Puerto Canyon — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 37.4, -121.5