No-drop in spirit, choose-your-own-adventure in practice — you ride as far up as you've got, then turn around. Some folks are gunning for the top; others are just here for a good climb and good company on a weeknight.
The Sandia Crest road earns its reputation. You're grinding up through pinyon and juniper that gives way to ponderosa pine and eventually spruce and fir as the elevation stacks up, the city sprawling out behind you in the Rio Grande valley far below. It's one of the better after-work rides in the state, full stop.
This one runs weekly April through October, weather willing — Steve Strohl and Patrick Roddy have been holding it down as a casual mid-week ritual, not a formal event with a bib number in sight.