Several months ago, our fearless leader at 3DR recommended I find a beautiful girl and take her down to Nepenthe near Pfeiffer State Park in Big Sur. It is a legendary restaurant that overlooks a picturesque, rocky Central Coast bay that sits a couple hundred miles south of San Francisco. Naturally, it became the destination of a 200 mile or so, three day bicycle tour.
While I didn’t know any beautiful girls that were willing to endure three days of my company and ride bicycles down to Big Sur, my adventure partner Benoit Landry was up for the challenge. That said, neither one of us had ever toured by bicycle.
Fortunately, the stars aligned and, despite having to buy panniers at the last minute, not realizing that Amtrak trains do not typically carry bicycles, having no campsite reservations for Memorial Day weekend, we had a grand old time. I would highly recommend this quick, three-day itinerary to any moderately fit cyclist in SF interested in exploring the California coastline.
The route is approximately as represented above. We took the train from San Francisco to Palo Alto. Rode from Palo Alto to Highway 1 over Old La Honda Road, which is one of the most classic South Bay climbs, and took almost exclusively the 1 all the way to Nepenthe.
We both had no idea what we were doing, but here we are setting off for Palo Alto on Caltrain.
The bikes are all loaded up in Palo Alto. Riding a road bike designed for racing with 40 pounds of gear on a seatpost rack is not for the faint of heart.
Old La Honda Road west of Palo Alto is one of the most incredible I have ridden. It is right up there with the La Sal Mountain Loop in Moab, my previous favorite.
After a nice ride over the hills west of Palo Alto, we made it to Highway 1. Thanks to prevailing winds, we cruised this section at over 20 mph without breaking a sweat.
Some say that finding a campsite in Santa Cruz over Memorial Day weekend is hard. Those some are correct. Luckily, Bob’s Pine Campground saved the day and for a cool $25 or so, we staked out this nice patch of earth.
While the ride from Palo Alto to Santa Cruz is euphoric, Santa Cruz to Big Sur is slightly less pleasant. The path around Monterey Bay is a flat, windy, and fairly featureless zig-zag through artichoke fields.
The breathtaking Big Sur scenery starts to emerge south of Monterey.
You might also think that it is challenging to get a campsite in Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park over Memorial Day weekend when reservations typically get scooped up in February. You would be right if it weren’t through the Park Service’s brilliant idea to reserve an area for hikers and bikers. If you walk or ride in, you get a spot in the most primo area in the park for $5/night. Sweet! For some reason, this is not widely advertised, but is prevalent in a number of Cal State Parks.
The hike/bike campground is accessed by a beautiful arched bridge. This picture doesn’t do it justice.
Nice and sunny leaving Big Sur in the morning. Nepenthe is only a few miles south!
After a hard climb out of the park, we made it to Nepenthe. Having ridden 70 miles the first day, 80 hard, windy, hilly miles the second, and just conquered a substantial climb, we were ready for some breakfast.
The view from the Nepethe deck is legendary. Unfortunately, the kind sun that graced our departure from Big Sur did not continue to smile upon us. Remarkably, on the last foggy day, we only experienced the sun within a few miles of Big Sur.
Flowers and fog overlooking the Big Sur cliffs.
The Big Sur coastline isn’t half bad.
I insisted Benoit take this little detour off of the Highway to get this shot of him climbing with the Bixby Creek Bridge in the background, made famous by Death Cab For Cutie.
It’s not every day one rides bicycles to an airport. We intended to continue south from Nepenthe and take the train back from Paso Robles, but learned at the last minute that that particular Amtrak does not carry bicycles. The quick substitute was to turn around, ride back to the Monterey airport, rent a car, and drive back to SFO.
After dropping the car off at SFO, I still had to transport by tired body back to the Marina. I rode the BART from SFO to Embarcadero and encountered a ferocious, biting headwind from there to my humble abode. That may well have been the toughest leg of the trip, but it was all worth it in the end. If you get a quick three days off and want to experiment with bike touring, this is a great itinerary to follow.