McKinley Peak is a 6,214-peak located in the Los Padres Forest. The only way to get there is a forest service road that requires a high clearance 4-wheel drive vehicle, or by hiking, or on a Mt. bike. In many places the road is both extremely steep, and it is in terrible condition. When you get near 5,000 feet, altitude can become a problem.
I tried to ride a bike to the top in Feb of 2014. It is 10 miles to the top, and at 7 miles I gave up and quit. In Oct of 2014, I made it to the top by hiking. The 20-mile round trip took all day. A very tough day of hiking.
On May 5, of 2022 I made it to the top, using the E-bike I recently built. It was over 7 hours of effort. The difference between being 67 years old and 75 years old is significant. LOL The E-Bike took away a lot of the biking effort, but the condition of the road meant there were many places where you had to push the bike.
One reason for the ride was to test its capabilities for something called “Bikepacking”, which is similar to backpacking, but a bike is used to carry the heavy loads. We actually met two guys who were doing exactly that. They had ridden their bikes in, and spent 2 days hiking the Las Padres Forest. Two really great guys that were a pleasure to discuss biking with.
We finally made it to the top of the road, and then hiked the final ½ mile up a steep grade to the actual top. From there you can see a long way.
There were dangerous spots on the road and the peak. Coming down the mountain was more dangerous than going up. I made it through all the bad spots; - and then less than 1 mile from the end, I crashed my bike TWICE. Ended up with minor “Road Rash” but nothing serious.
I took pictures at the top, but not many along the way up. In the really bad spots, there is no way to park the bike, or hold the bike in order to take pictures.