Why this ride
280 km from San Francisco to Fort Bragg, about 4 h 25 of riding. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Pacific Coast Highway: San Francisco to Mendocino
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 280 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 25
- 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: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. 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
San Francisco is where the day begins. Next is Point Reyes Station.
2. Point Reyes Station
Point Reyes Station is a single street of low wooden buildings in a green valley north of San Francisco, and it has more good food per metre than most cities. It sits on the Pacific side of Marin County, at the southern end of Tomales Bay, beside Highway 1, with dairy farms and cattle ranches stretching away toward the hills. The town has a bakery that draws queues on weekend mornings, a famous creamery that makes cheese from local milk, an old-fashioned feed store and a bookshop, and the pace is slow and friendly.
Read the complete Point Reyes Station write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Point Reyes Station comes up about 63 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mendocino.
3. Mendocino
Mendocino looks like a New England fishing village that was picked up and dropped on a California headland, and that is more or less what happened. Lumbermen from Maine built the town in the 1850s, shipping redwood from the forests along the coast, and the wooden houses with their water towers and picket fences still stand on the bluff above the Pacific. It was so convincing that television used it as the setting for a fictional Maine town in a long-running detective series. Today it is a haven for artists and weekend visitors from the Bay Area.
Read the complete Mendocino 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 280 km.
Leg by leg
San Francisco to Point Reyes Station
San Francisco → Point Reyes Station is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Point Reyes Station to Mendocino
Point Reyes Station → Mendocino is 217 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.