Lafayette Road Climb
- long (10.7 km)
- 6.6 mi
- long (10.7 km)
- of climbing (426 m)
- 1,398 ft
- of climbing (426 m)
- average grade
- 4%
- average grade
- steepest 500 m
- 11.8%
- steepest 500 m
Elevation profile
From 4,337 ft at the bottom to 5,735 ft at the top. Grades are averaged over each half kilometre, from USGS elevation data, so short ramps can be steeper than they show.
Weather at the top of Lafayette Road this week
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Is it safe to bike up Lafayette Road?
We don't rate roads as safe or unsafe: crash counts can't say how risky a ride is, and roads people like to ride draw more riders, so they see more crashes. What the records show: no bike crashes were reported along the climb from 2021–2025.
Common questions about Lafayette Road
- How long and steep is the Lafayette Road climb?
- 6.6 miles (10.7 km) at 4% on average, climbing 1,398 ft (426 m) from 4,337 ft to 5,735 ft. The steepest half kilometre averages 11.8%. That makes it a Category 2 climb.
- Where does the climb start and finish?
- It starts at 39.45313, -120.85336, and tops out at Henness Pass Road at 39.49876, -120.77699.
- Is Lafayette Road paved?
- Mostly: OpenStreetMap tags 84% of the climb as paved, and the rest as dirt or gravel.
- How is the category worked out?
- From the climb's shape only: length in metres × average grade (%) of 16,000 or more for Cat 3, 32,000 for Cat 2, 64,000 for Cat 1 and 80,000 for HC. It describes how hard the climb is, not traffic or crashes.
- Where does this data come from?
- The climb is found from OpenStreetMap roads and USGS 3DEP elevation (every climb, not a list of famous ones). Access is from OpenStreetMap tags; gates and closures change, so obey posted signs. Crash counts are police reports in the California Crash Reporting System (CCRS) on data.ca.gov, counted where their map location is within 100 ft of the climb. The forecast is from the National Weather Service.
Other climbs nearby
- Ridge Road from Main StreetCat 3 · 2.6 mi at 3.9% · 538 ft · starts 0.9 mi away
- Plumbago RoadCat 3 · 1.0 mi at 17% · 925 ft · starts 1.1 mi away
- Pliocene Ridge RoadCat 3 · 3.2 mi at 3.2% · 531 ft · starts 1.7 mi away
- Henness Pass Road from Mountain House RoadCat 2 · 4.7 mi at 4.3% · 1,073 ft · starts 3.6 mi away
- Miller Ranch Road from Oregon Creek RoadCat 3 · 2.4 mi at 7.4% · 948 ft · starts 4.1 mi away
- Goodyear Creek RoadCat 3 · 2.7 mi at 6.1% · 886 ft · starts 6.8 mi away
- North Bloomfield-Graniteville Road near Nevada CityCat 1 · dirt · 8.8 mi at 4.7% · 2,175 ft · starts 7.0 mi away
- Washington RoadCat 2 · 5.9 mi at 5.5% · 1,716 ft · starts 7.1 mi away
Places to ride to nearby
Found from OpenStreetMap roads and USGS 3DEP elevation; ranked on shape only. Category 2: length in metres × average grade (%) of 16,000 or more for Cat 3, 32,000 for Cat 2, 64,000 for Cat 1 and 80,000 for HC. It describes how hard the climb is, not traffic or crashes. Crashes: bike crashes reported within 100 ft of the climb, 2021–2025, from the California Crash Reporting System (CCRS), counted only where the report has map coordinates. Weather: National Weather Service. Access from OpenStreetMap tags; obey posted signs. How the data works.