SoFloGirl68

My daughter is doing an internship in South California starting mid-May and she wants to do a bike tour with me of around 2 weeks. She wanted to go to Washington and Oregon originally but we were advised it would be cold and rainy so we switched to California. A lot of the ones I see published will probably be too much elevation as we are from Florida but I don't know what we can handle or not. Then I thought maybe we can rent a car with bike racks and just drive around and do daily rides in places or not, if we get tired. However, I'm not sure that the rental places have a bike rack option. In short, I'm sort of all over the place with no real plan or even an idea of how to start. She has never toured and I've only done two overnighters. She wants to do hotels but I'd like to camp occasionally so there's that also. We have traveled a lot together (not on bicycles); we are flexible and adventurous. Any advice?

mev

> However, I'm not sure that the rental places have a bike rack option.
A basic trunk mounted bike rack may not be too difficult or expensive to find. I've occasionally done this when the price of a larger rental that held my bike inside was enough higher than a basic sedan. I then ended up donating or leaving behind the rack after the trip. For example, I've bought a rack in Fairbanks at Walmart, left one behind in Abilene at Hertz and another in Loveland, CO with friends. So if this is what you want to do, this could give you some flexibility on where you go.

jamawani 

SFG -

Not entirely clear about some things.
I'm guessing that if your daughter starts in mid May, you'd ride in late April/early May.
Also, the "68" in your username is probably not your preference for '68 car models.
Guessing from your bikes that you are experienced. Camping, motels??
Also, the Coast Highway south of Monterey is closed.

Given those pieces, plus your Florida elevation ...
The Sierra foothills are gorgeous in late April/early May.
You could start at the Golden Gate Bridge - -
Ride along the Bay Trail in San Fran - -
Then take the ferry to Vallejo - -
Ride the Carquinez Strait Trail (some hills) - -
Hop Amtrak to get out of the Metro - -
(Roll-on, roll-off service)
Then from Pittsburg take the high bridge to the Delta - -
Ride Florida-flat Delta roads - -
Cut over thru wine & almond orchards via Lodi - -
Hit the Sierra foothills - -
Ride down to Fresno or Bakersfield on quiet county roads.
Or a portion of the above.

<<<>>>

Or you can ride from the Golden Gate Bridge along the coast -
Down past Santa Cruz (much busier traffic, but shoulders) -
Then cut inland to San Juan Bautista and Pinnacles National Park -
Coming out at San Luis Obispo & Morro Bay.
This would be a hillier ride.

pdlamb

If you're going to do a combination car/bike tour, you could still get in the Big Sur portion of the PCH. Camp at Pfeiffer and do a couple out-and-back trips, one down to the landslide and back, another up to Carmel and back. Drive around the washout (spend half a day in Monterrey on the way), find a B&B or motel near Cambria. Next day a down and back to Morro Bay (stop for lunch!), and the next day up and back to the washout. The weather should be just about perfect in early May, and with luck, you'll beat the summer kids-out-of-school traffic.

SoFloGirl68

That sounds lovely - thanks for the ideas!! To clear up your questions, we would be traveling the first two weeks of May. The '68 is my birth year.

Tourist in MSN

Some but not all state parks in Oregon and California have hiker biker sites, instead of renting a full campsite they charge per person. This is limited to non-motorized travel, so with a car you could not use them. The state park websites would list which have hiker biker sites. When I did Paciifc Coast, we tried to always stay in state park hiker biker sites. There were none in Eureka area, there we stayed in a motel 6 one night in Eureka.

My trip was in 2014, so my information on that is quite dated, but if you want to see some of my comments, they are at this link:
https://www.bikeforums.net/16933424-post61.html

They have changed the software for this forum a few times since I wrote that, some of the graphics that I refer to have disappeared.

It is best to go towards the south, tailwinds.

If you could figure out how to take Amtrak towards the north to a point where you could then ride south, that may be ideal. When I was there, we rode a shuttle bus from Fishermans Whart to an Amtrak station in Emeryville. It was an Amtrak shuttle.

Many hills were 8 percent grade, whomever designed the highways appeared to have used that as the default value for the steepness on the steeper ones.

SoFloGirl68

Thank you Tourist in MSN! I was just talking to her this morning and we hatched a new plan. She was planning to purchase a car in California as she will continue on with this company. So the plan is to purchase the vehicle at the beginning of the trip and add a bicycle rack and then drive / cycle down the coast depending on where we can find nice routes that won't kill us (like that 8 percent grade you mentioned).

jpjuggler

Wow, great Suggestions! I'll be trying some of these myself. . I'll add for a much shorter loop. Park the car in Tiburon, take the tiburon Ferry to SF . Ride to and across the Golden Gate Bridge. Lunch in Sauasalito, or Mill Valley, and then back to tiburon. to extend, do a loop around Paradise Drive in Tiburon.

djb

Re the golden gate bridge, I have to say that even though I did the west coast trip well over 25 years ago, one of my coolest memories is when we rode across the bridge arriving to SF. Being Canadian and never being to California before, going over this iconic bridge seen only in movies and tv shows was pretty darn neat.

the giant redwood area is not something to miss. Really really cool to ride through.
good luck sorting out things

Fuji1986

I would put aside elevation and camping questions for the moment and do some hard research into what services will actually be open. Last I heard, CA was turning into a basketcase due to pandemic shutdowns--they are trying to recall the governor there for that reason.

Classtime 

Don't let the fear of heights cause you to miss some of the beauty out here. You have a couple of months: do some causeway repeats a couple times a week😇

timdow

CA coast does have a lot of elevation gain. What many consider to be the best part (Monterey to Big Sur) is very hilly. Ah, and should probably mention that there was just another landslide at Big Sur, which has a long stretch of HWY 1 closed. You will want to take that into account if you are intending to visit there.

During my tour of Colorado on the Great Divide route, we had to get from Pueblo to Albuquerque to catch the train. We ended up renting a mini-van, which was a lot less that renting a pickup. Bonus: You could lock the bikes up outside and sleep in the van in a campground.


I cancelled my Pacific Coast tour last year and have watching for services to reopen. From what I have seen, I do not think that there are many if any hiker/biker sites open now. Even if campground's are open, CA has closed all of the "group" sites, including hiker/biker. Hopefully they will reopen by May, but who knows.

Tourist in MSN

Yeah, best to check the website to see what is open and what is not.

When I did Pacific Coast, we used a guidebook and to make sure that we were up to date, I check the websites to make sure we knew which parks had hiker biker sites that were open. I put all of their locations along our route as way points in my tablet on the Maps.Me app, that way we could check the map on my tablet every night to plan out our next few days of destinations.

California has had some homeless problems in some of their parks, best to keep a watch out.

timdow

Yea before COVID, I stayed at a couple of pretty sketchy hike/bike sites around Ventura. At mcGrath SB, the camp host said he had a bike stolen! I locked my bike to the picnic table, then put half of it under my rain fly.

On another note, I have found that the CA State Parks website before COVID was at times is not always up to date and accurate. During COVID, even more so! The CG's phone number is listed on their website. Maybe best to call.