Ride to Big Sur

 

I've long had a couple of local ride fantasies.

1. Ride 'over the hill' to Santa Cruz
2. Ride the Cabrillo Highway through Big Sur.

The first has long looked pretty viable, except I really didn't want to do the distance to the coast over the mountain and have to turn around and do it again coming home. That makes for a very long day. The second is, of course, a fairly long distance from home. A bonus for doing it now is that a landslide has Hwy 1 closed not far past Big Sur which should make for a more peaceful ride along the coast south of Carmel.

What if we combine the two and make a multi-day adventure of it?

That could be the ticket. I figured that two, 100km days would get me there. Conveniently, Sunset State Beach next to Pajaro Dunes (where I spent many weekends as a kid, not to mention Scout overnights at Sunset Beach itself) has a 'hike+bike" camping facility. This is a no-reservations, show up and pay for your $5 camping spot that is available at some state parks. Similarly, there is another at Pfeiffer Big Sur. 

But, how to not just have to come back the same way? Isn't there a train? Well, there is indeed. The Coast Starlight stops in Salinas, and the northbound run comes through conveniently at 6:15pm. And it allows bikes on board (as baggage). Bummer that between the fare (for one stop) and bike surcharge, it's a $50 ticket (ugh). But that's still better for money and the environment than talking someone into picking me up. So that's the plan.

Day 1: Menlo Park to Sunset State Beach

Once again, I start a trip on a hot day. It was accurately forecast to be ~90F from Los Gatos and up the mountain. But it is a joy to start a trip right out of the driveway.  Across the Valley was a known and fine route. Easy peasy. A quick lunch stop in Los Gatos... and then... it begins. I've ridden Los Gatos Creek Trail from Los Gatos into San Jose and it's a great resource. But uphill toward Lexington is a bit different. First off it is gravel. Fine, I've got 38mm tires on. But it also gets really steep to get over the dam. Walking steep in places. At least for someone with 40lbs of bags on a steel touring bike. 

And, while the road looping around the lake seems kinda flat, it really isn't. Up and down and up and down around all of the lake's fingers before reaching the real climb after Alma Bridge to go up Old Santa Cruz Rd. This is going to be a ~4000 foot climbing day.

Eventually, I reached Summit Road for the first bit of heavy, high-speed traffic on the way over to Soquel-San Jose Road. But what goes up, does eventually have to go down. The descent into Soquel is a delight. 

And the weather on the Pacific side is notably different. Grey and gloomy and 20 degrees cooler.

Then ride through afternoon traffic in Soquel and Aptos before the Pacific Coast Bike Route crosses Hwy 1 into the farmland near the beach.

And 61 miles after leaving home, I rolled into Sunset State Beach to spend the night

Day 2: Sunset State Beach to Pfeiffer Big Sur

The second day started out with cool, grey weather like the first day ended. Mostly riding through quiet farmland near Watsonville.

Then came the decision point. The main Pacific Coast Bike Route gets onto Highway 1 here to go through Moss Landing. This segment is very busy with a lot of traffic and noise. I'd read many reports of it being unpleasant. There is an option to pass east of Elkhorn Slough Ecological Reserve. But it adds ~5 miles to what was already planned to be a 65 mile day. I decided to go for the shorter route and see how it goes.

It mostly lived up to its reputation. It is not a pleasant segment. But it also isn't that scary. Most of the stretch has reasonable shoulders to stay out of the flow. Just lots of noise and whoosh whoosh whoosh.

While going through Moss Landing, I got to see a rather unusual sight. They were pulling a large, derelict sailboat out of the water with giant mobile cranes.

Eventually, the route turns through Castroville (Self-proclaimed Artichoke Capital of the world) and calms down.

And right after that, it picks up a proper bike trail.

This trail meanders through fields, finding abandoned train lines.

From there, it joins the Monterey Coastal Trail all the way into Monterey.

A quick stop for lunch in Monterey to refresh before it gets hilly.

Getting out of Monterey reminds a rider that the coast is not flat. Very much not flat. The first climb is a steep one over the hill into Carmel. From there on out, it will be up and down all the way to Big Sur for another ~4000 foot day. But it is also where the classic views begin. (See links at the bottom to galleries from glorious weather prior trips)

The unfortunate part is that the rumors of a quiet Highway 1 due to the dead-end ahead, were not true.

There was an amazing amount of traffic for a remote highway on a weekday. And so much of the road has something in between a tiny shoulder and none. And scary drop-offs from the pavement onto the dirt and even more so in places to the ocean. 

I'd say 9 of 10 drivers behave by leaving safe margins as they pass. Some even a lot of room. But then you get the 10th. Total, careless assholes. Screaming by, inches from my elbow. One mistake and we have a very bad situation. And there are a lot of cars. So 10% is a lot of close passes for hours on end. 

I ride in traffic all the time. I'm relatively comfortable with it. And yet this was giving me some form of PTSD. 

Is it worth riding this segment? Yeah. It is a bucket list item. The views, even on a grey, cloudy day are amazing. But it is type-2 fun that I probably won't do again.

The traffic levels did get better the further south I got. The combination of just getting further from develoment along with it getting toward sunset made it better.

After 66 miles, I did finally roll in to Pfeiffer Big Sur campground to chill in the woods by a creek for the night.

Day 3: Big Sur to Salinas

The return trip started much more peacefully. 8am emerging from the woods I found relatively quiet roads for the first hour or so.

And there were cows.

And stunning views. This day had the sun and clouds battling each other for time which makes for moody, cool views. (For some really stunning views of this area, see my photo albums linked below from prior trips)

This segment is, of course, the reverse up and down and up and down it was southbound before eventually hitting the final climb back from Carmel into Monterey and riding along the coastal trail again.

After a few miles of unpleasantness along a stroad in Marina, the route drops down into the Salinas Valley farmlands for a fast, flat finish into Salinas. From there, an Amtrak train to San Jose and Caltrain home.

In total:

• Three days
• Two nights camping
• 182 miles
• 11,027 feet of climbing (woof)

Links to more

• Full gallery from the trip
• Big Sur June 2018 (including medium format film shots)
• Previous photo trip to Big Sur 2017
• Ride with GPS routes