hendrick81

I am going to ride from san luis obispo, to santa barbara, and i am wondering how the freeway stretch from gaviota to goleta is as far as road conditions, width of bike lane, and is it pretty bike friendly, or is it a scary stretch of freeway to ride on. any info would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

travelmama

It is VERY easy. You should not have any problems as the shoulder is wide enough to ride side by side.

prathmann

It's been a few years since I've been on that stretch. Almost all of it had a nice wide and smooth shoulder. But there was one overcrossing where the pavement narrowed and there was essentially no shoulder at all. A little scary when there's some morning fog and you're not sure who might be coming from behind. But with decent weather we could time it for a long opening in traffic and get across quickly.
I hope they've improved that section in the meantime but GoogleEarth 'Street View' still shows it with concrete barriers on both sides of the traffic lanes.

jmechy

I ride that stretch quite often, is one of the best places to get in longer intervals since there is no stopping. Sure, its not the best stretch of road imaginable, but its not half bad for a freeway. The bike lane is fairly wide and there are only a few exits that you need to cross (which almost never have cars on them).

hendrick81

Thanks for the info guys. I have driven on that stretch of road hundreds of times, but never paid attention to the bike lane.

LCI_Brian

When I did it quite a few years back, there was one shoulderless bridge. But it was short enough that I could look back and wait for a big gap in traffic before crossing the bridge.

There was one spot where you could take the bike path between two beaches rather than the freeway shoulder. I'm not normally a path person, but it did help to break up about 20 miles of freeway shoulder riding.