Ride the three creeks (Pine, Boulder, and Kitchen) if you must. This ride is just stupid!
The three big creeks in San Diego are Pine Creek Road, Boulder Creek Road, and Kitchen Creek road. Individually, they are tackled in other rides on The Mappy Thing. To do the as a set is a a feat nothing short of heroic. Pros and folks who live by the mantra "by endurance we conquer" are known to do all or part of this ride. Pine creek will tear you apart with 20 percent pitches, the dirt road on Boulder Creek will rattle you senseless (did I mention that a good part of this ride is on dirt!!!) and Kitchen Creek will seem like it goes on forever. On top of all of that Viejas Grade (another dirt masterpiece) is thrown in there for S and G's. One hundred and nine miles of pure lovin'. I don't have too much more to say about this ride. If you are going to attempt it you probably do not listen to common sense anyway. Good luck and if you have one of those snappy gel cushions for your saddle you might consider bringing it with you.
This ride is so stupid that our sattelite mapping program got angry when we tried to create an interactive map. The following is a static image of this monster. To view an interactive and more detailed map of this ride simply upload the KML file to Google Maps. Please be sure you know what you are doing if you attempt this. The Boulder Creek segment is a prolonged stretch of dirt road. Again, only ride this ride if you understand what you are getting yourself into.
This ride starts off in Alpine in the Alpine Creek Shopping center. Numerous chain store amenties can be found here but none worth mentioning by name. Straight off the bat you will be heading up Viejas Grade. I know this is the Tour of Three creeks but a better name would be "At tour of three creeks AND Viejas Grade" since this dirt road is nothing to sneeze at. Next up is Boulder Creek. Warning: this is a 13 mile of rough road. After the Boulder Creeks affair it is up Pine Creek but you should probably stop off at the store on HWY 70 (it is located just past Lake Cuyamaca). Pine Creek is a monster where you can expect grades of 20%. Leave some in the tank because after that you head over to Kitchen Creek. On the way, stop off at the general store at Mount Laguna Lodge (http://www.lagunamountain.com/index.html) to refuel. You will pass the exit of Kitchen Creek as you descend Sunrise Highway (say hello and be sure to pray to the Creek Gods on the way down). Kitchen creek is next on tap and then it is time to wind you way back to Alpine.
To download additional information about your ride, right click on
the links below and then click "save link as" to download the file to
your computer.
Download a cue sheet to see the route in Microsoft Excel
Download a GPX file you can use to upload to your Garmin
Download a KML file you can use to upload to Google Maps or Google Earth
