Cycling Adventures with Brian Toone

Birmingham ridges, part ii

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My bike at the Cahaba Beach road bridge. You have to hoist your bike over the barricade and carefully ride the planks to make it over to Cahaba Beach road. Watch out for the holes straight through to the river!

A post about climbing the ridges in Birmingham wouldn’t be complete without my favorite ridges southeast of town – especially the two high ridges on Double Oak Mountain. I rode out there today armed with my camera and ended up taking more than 50 photos. I picked out the best ones and created a topocreator map to highlight the ridges southeast of Birmingham.

Two screenshots merged to form a complete ride profile (10 mile, 250ft scale). The numbered ridges and creeks are labeled on the topocreator map below.
Topocreator map of the ridges southeast of Birmingham out to Double Oak (click to enlarge) or download the hi-res version (6.5MB)

Comments

3 responses to “Birmingham ridges, part ii”

  1. Robert Montgomery Avatar
    Robert Montgomery

    Hey Brian I see you have been up Kings Crest before, how does that compare to Double Oak Way? Is DOW a private road or can I get my bike up it anyway?

    Reply
    1. kartoone Avatar
      kartoone

      Double Oak Way is public until the gate about halfway up the first steep part, at that point its status becomes a bit more questionable. Is the road itself included in the “no trespassing” signs or are you trespassing only if you step off of the road? The entire ridge line is owned by EBSCO, which uses the property for hunting, so I don’t think there is a problem biking on the road during other parts of the year outside hunting season. Watch out for service vehicles that regularly visit the towers at the top. As far as a comparison to Kings Crest, the steep section of Double Oak is steeper than Kings Crest. The entire Double Oak way climb to the radio towers, though, is much more rolling with several downhills.

      Reply
      1. Robert Montgomery Avatar
        Robert Montgomery

        I’ll have to check that out. You should check out High Crest Dr on the other side of Hwy 11 from Kings Crest. It is a nice climb that is also a private Rd, but you can go through the gate without a problem.

        Reply

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