California · Big Sur Highway 1 Dream Section · short arc

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Bixby Creek Bridge

   Everybody photographs this bridge, and there is a reason. Bixby Creek Bridge is a concrete arch that leaps across a deep canyon on California's Big Sur coast, and it has been the signature view of Highway 1 since it opened in 1932. It stands roughly eighty-five metres above the creek, and its single span, pale against dark green hills and a steel-blue ocean, looks almost too neat to be real. It was built partly to replace an older, winding road that dipped inland round the canyon, and in its day it was a feat of engineering in a place where nothing came easily.

   Read the complete Bixby Creek Bridge write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Bixby Creek Bridge is where the day begins. Next is Big Sur village food.

2. 2. Big Sur village food

   Big Sur village is not a village in the usual sense, but a scattering of inns, cafes, galleries and a post office strung out along Highway 1 in the green valley of the Big Sur River. The coast mountains rise steeply behind, covered in redwood, oak and madrone, and the river runs clear over granite boulders beneath the trees. It is a very different feel from the cliffs to the north: sheltered, cool and shaded, with the smell of redwood duff and woodsmoke. The valley has been settled since the 1860s, when the Pfeiffer family took up a homestead here, and the state park that bears their name now covers much of the valley floor.

   Read the complete Big Sur village food write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Big Sur village food is where this day stops to eat. Next is Pfeiffer coast.

3. 3. Pfeiffer coast

   Further south, the Big Sur coast changes its character. The highway leaves the high bare headlands behind and drops into forest, where the Big Sur River winds through groves of coast redwood and the light under the trees is green and dim. This is the Pfeiffer country, named for a pioneer family who homesteaded here in the 1860s, and the state park that bears their name is one of the best places on the coast to leave the bike and walk among the big trees.

   Read the complete Pfeiffer coast write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 21 km into the recorded legs you reach Pfeiffer coast. Next is Ragged Point.

4. 4. Ragged Point

   Ragged Point is the last act of the southern approach to Big Sur, or the first, depending on which way you are going. The mountains of the Santa Lucia range come down to meet the Pacific here in a line of steep, grassy cliffs, and Highway 1 follows them in a ribbon cut into the slope, with a long, long drop on one side and rock on the other. The village itself, a cliff-top cluster of an inn, restaurant and viewpoint, serves as a gateway marking the end of the open coastal flats near San Simeon.

   Read the complete Ragged Point write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ragged Point closes the day.