Virginia Gravel Road map (Loudon County)
- This topic has 11 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 12 months ago by
.
-
Topic
-
So I’ve noticed on a few rides that some of the backroads in Loudon County, VA are in fact gravel. And unless you have google maps street view, they’re impossible to identify ahead of time, and even then sometimes you fail because they usually pave the first 50 yards, then it turns to gravel. Does anyone know of a good resource that shows where gravel roads are?? I haven’t found one. Not even the Loudon County Government site shows it. http://logis.loudoun.gov/weblogis/
This past Friday I rode about 7 miles of gravel between Ashburn and Middleburg. A few miles of it weren’t so bad (flattish), but Oatlands Road was particularly annoying. It was steep up and down for which I had to go slow both directions and a road grader had spread more gravel around making for a tougher ride on a bike. It seriously slowed me down and if I didn’t have a tough touring bike I probably would have had to turn around.
-
Don’t trust Google Maps, is the answer
Many of the gravel roads are in fact on Google Street view however if you zoom in close enough. Sometimes you can tell whether the road is paved or not that way.
The Loudoun Dirt Road data base is very accurate. I have checked 99% of the roads myself. There are still some dead end roads I have not listed since they just dead end. The data base was put together for people to make loops. I generally will not add dead end roads at this point. I set it up so people could not edit it because things to get messy with mistakes if you make it public. If you do happen to find a mistake then just PM me and I will make the change. I have been working on this for a few years now and think it a great resource for those who seek out gravel/dirt roads.
BTW, Oatlands rd is a great gravel road. One the nicest in Loudoun.
Along with Old Waterford rd. It is worth it to plan a ride to do both those roads.Just a comment about using google maps or any mapping software for mapping a route in Loudoun. If the road is not a State or County route (example: Oatlands Rd. State route 650) it is 99.9% of the time a private road. Unless it is in a town like Leesburg.
Google Earth can be a great tool used in finding out if a road is paved or not.
Definitely seek out the dirt roads and have fun on them.
DKEG’s resource is a great way to go find ’em.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.