Why this ride
Out of San Luis Obispo, one way: 774 km, roughly 12 h 54 in the saddle. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Highway 101: San Luis Obispo to San Francisco
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 774 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 12 h 54
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. San Luis Obispo
San Luis Obispo is a small city of about forty-seven thousand people, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and for riders on the coast it is a natural place to rest. It lies in a valley of the Santa Lucia foothills, a short way inland from the Pacific, with hills of oak and grass rising on all sides. Franciscan friar Junipero Serra founded Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa here in 1772, and the mission church still stands on the central plaza, next to a creek that runs through the downtown.
Read the complete San Luis Obispo write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
San Luis Obispo is where the day begins. Next is Salinas.
2. Salinas
John Steinbeck was born in Salinas in 1902, and the town has never quite decided whether to be proud or embarrassed about it. His novels, from Of Mice and Men to East of Eden, drew on the valley and its farm workers, and some locals were angry at how he portrayed them. Today the National Steinbeck Center in the old downtown tells his story with exhibits, a replica of a boxcar and a reconstruction of the writer's fishing boat. His childhood home, a Victorian house, has been turned into a restaurant, and his grave lies in the town cemetery.
Read the complete Salinas write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Salinas comes up about 435 km into the recorded legs. Next is San Francisco.
3. San Francisco
San Francisco hits you with its hills first. The city sits on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific and the bay, and the streets climb and drop at angles that make a fully laden motorcycle feel like a mountain goat. The Golden Gate Bridge, completed in 1937, spans the mouth of the bay in International Orange paint, and when the fog rolls in from the Pacific, as it often does in summer, the towers rise out of the white like something from a dream.
Read the complete San Francisco write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 774 km.
Leg by leg
San Luis Obispo to Salinas
San Luis Obispo → Salinas is 435 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Salinas to San Francisco
Salinas → San Francisco is 339 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.