The ride starts in downtown Bentonville, where a few miles of pavement ease you out of the city before the gravel begins in earnest. Early on, the route throws a handful of steep, punchy climbs. Once those opening miles are behind you, the terrain settles into long, winding country roads that carry you north through the Ozark hills toward the Arkansas-Missouri state line.

The miles through this stretch are some of the most peaceful on the route. Traffic drops to nearly nothing on the farm tracks, and the scenery rewards the effort of the climbs. The route encircles the town of Pea Ridge, where the landscape opens up around a well-preserved Civil War battlefield and the roads offer beautiful climbing on some of the quietest tarmac in the region.

The final miles follow Sugar Creek Road home, a tree-lined downhill that peels off the hills and carries you back into Bentonville at speed. It’s one of those finishes that leaves you grinning.

The ride begins in Bélesta, a small village set among the clay-and-sand terrain that defines the early miles. Gentle rolling hills carry you away from the valley and into increasingly open country, where low scrubland and dry vegetation give way to the bizarre, sculpted rock formations of the Orgues d’Ille. These eroded basalt columns rise like natural towers from the hillside and stand as one of the most striking geological features in the Pyrenees-Orientales. They mark your arrival into the town of Ille-sur-Tête.

After passing through town, with time to stop at the boulangerie or the remarkable Caminade café and bike workshop, the route climbs back into the mountains. The ascent follows forest roads maintained by the Fire Defense Organization: wide, well-surfaced tracks that wind through stands of cork oak and pine with virtually no traffic. As the trees thin toward the upper reaches of the climb, the views open dramatically. The Spanish Pyrenees stretch across the horizon and the great mass of the Canigou peak dominates the skyline to the southwest.

The descent from the high forest drops through the quiet village of Oms on a narrow paved road before delivering you into Céret, a sun-filled Catalan market town with excellent cafés, a celebrated modern art museum, and the kind of end-of-ride atmosphere that makes you want to linger.

The ride begins in Deadwood, where the streets still carry the character of a frontier boomtown. Almost immediately, the route joins the Mickelson Trail and begins a sustained 11-mile climb out of the valley at a steady 3–4% average gradient. It’s a manageable ascent with time to settle into a rhythm.

Near the midpoint, the trail crests and the terrain shifts. A long, flowing 15-mile descent carries you into high plains country with an almost effortless sense of momentum. The landscape opens dramatically here, rolling grassland stretching to the horizon with the dark ridgeline of the Hills framing the distance.

A lunch stop in Hill City breaks the ride at just the right moment, offering shade and a chance to refuel before the second half. From Hill City, the route continues on gentle rolling gravel toward Sylvan Lake, one of the most scenic destinations in the Black Hills. 

The ride rolls out of Sagres and quickly joins the coastal tracks that define the character of the day. The terrain crosses exposed Atlantic scrubland fragrant with rock rose and mastic shrub before dropping into sheltered valleys of pine and cork forest. The landscape shifts between open and enclosed, wild and protected, with each turn revealing something new.

The highlight of the early miles comes as the route swings north along the coast, where sweeping cinematic views open over the dunes and surf of Bordeira Beach. This is one of the most celebrated surf beaches in southern Portugal, and from the clifftop gravel tracks above it the scale of the Atlantic feels genuinely humbling. The waves rolling in off the open ocean, the pale arc of sand stretching below, the complete absence of any development: it is the kind of view that stops a ride in its tracks.

Midway through, the route descends into the village of Pedralva for lunch. Once abandoned, Pedralva has been carefully restored with white-washed buildings and colorful tiled roofs, and it now operates as a small rural retreat with a restaurant serving honest, deeply local food. After the stop, gravel tracks continue north and east through the park, eventually delivering riders to Praia do Canal.

The ride departs from Chianti and quickly joins the white gravel roads of the official Strade Bianche route, following the same course the professionals race in spring. Rolling hills carry you south through the Chianti forests before the terrain opens and the distinctive pale clay of the Crete Senesi appears on the horizon.

Siena arrives like a reward. The route weaves through its ancient narrow streets exactly as the race does, the stone buildings rising on either side, the lanes barely wide enough for a loaded gravel bike. A stop at the Piazza del Campo is mandatory. Note that cycling is not permitted in the square itself, so walk your bike and take the time to sit with a coffee and absorb one of the finest medieval piazzas in Europe.

South of Siena, the road turns wild. The Crete Senesi opens into a vast, strange landscape: pale clay hills rolling toward a wide sky, almost treeless, almost silent. It is one of those stretches of road where you stop thinking about effort and simply look. A pause in the shade of an ancient oak forest breaks the southern section before the route arrives in Buonconvento, a compact fortified village that has featured in the race’s defining moments and carries that history in its streets.