Why this ride
842 km from Fairview to Richmond, about 14 h 18 of riding. The stops in between: Winters, in Kenwood, Bolinas and Daly City. The climbs: near Portola Valley and in Ashland.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Marin Headlands and Point Reyes + Big Sur Pacific Coast Day
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 842 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 14 h 18
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
Scenic road chapters
Back to Marin Headlands → Big Sur Pacific Coast Day fuel gate
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 57 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 57 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Fuel stop near Fairview
The hills behind Hayward rise steeply from the flat bay plain, and Fairview sits right on top of them, a semi-rural community of ranches, winding lanes and houses with long views across San Francisco Bay. On a clear day, you can see the bridges, the city skyline and the Peninsula hills beyond. It is a peaceful spot above one of the busiest urban areas in the country.
Read the complete Fuel stop near Fairview write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Marin Headlands and Point Reyes is where the day begins. Next is San Francisco Bay Area return.
2. Near Winters, on the way back
West of Winters, the Sacramento Valley ends abruptly at the Vaca Mountains, and Putah Creek cuts a narrow canyon through them up to Monticello Dam and Lake Berryessa. This spot lies in that rugged, dry country a short way above Winters, where the valley floor of orchards and fields gives way to steep hills of oak, grey pine and golden grass, burned brown by summer and green after the winter rains.
Read the complete Near Winters, on the way back write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
San Francisco Bay Area return comes up 55 km in. Next is Food stop in Kenwood.
3. Food stop in Kenwood
Kenwood sits in the Valley of the Moon, the name Jack London gave to the Sonoma Valley, where he built his ranch and his ill-fated dream house, Wolf House, which burned before he could move in. The ruins and his grave lie in Jack London State Historic Park in nearby Glen Ellen, and the valley around them remains one of the most beautiful in California, with vineyards, oak woodland and the Mayacamas Mountains rising to the east.
Read the complete Food stop in Kenwood write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
A break here. Next is Marin Headlands and Point Reyes photo pull-off.
4. Bolinas
Bolinas does not want to be found, and it has made that clear for decades. Locals have a long tradition of removing the road sign that points to the town from Highway 1, so you may have to watch for the unmarked turnoff at the end of Bolinas Lagoon. The reward is a small, eccentric, salt-weathered village at the tip of a mesa on the Marin coast, with a few streets of old wooden buildings, a beach, surfers and an atmosphere that feels decades removed from the Bay Area just over the hill.
Read the complete Bolinas write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Marin Headlands and Point Reyes photo pull-off, early in the day. Next is Marin Headlands and Point Reyes checkpoint 8.
5. Near Daly City
South of San Francisco's city limits, the land runs out abruptly. Daly City's houses, the ones with the colourful matching boxes that inspired the song Little Boxes, cover the hills right up to the edge of high, crumbling sea cliffs, and below them the Pacific pounds a long empty beach.
Read the complete Near Daly City write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Finish at Marin Headlands and Point Reyes checkpoint 8. That is the ride. Next is Marin Headlands and Point Reyes scenic road.
6. Half Moon Bay
Half Moon Bay is where the Peninsula's mountains finally meet the Pacific. The town sits on a wide coastal plain, backed by the green flank of the Santa Cruz Mountains and fronted by a long crescent of sand, and it feels like a different state from the busy bay side only twenty minutes away over Highway 92. Fog arrives most summer afternoons, so mornings are your best bet for sun.
Read the complete Half Moon Bay write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Marin Headlands and Point Reyes scenic road comes up 276 km in. Next is High point near Portola Valley.
7. High point near Portola Valley
Planning note
You top out here; the road stops climbing. Next is Back to Marin Headlands.
8. Back to Marin Headlands
That tells you something about how this ride ends: after a long day on the coast the route finishes on the far side of the water, among the suburbs that fill the shelf between the bay and the dry brown ridges behind. Fairview and Castro Valley are a few minutes away, Hayward a little further, and the whole district sits directly on the Hayward Fault, which is a fact most locals have made peace with.
Read the complete Marin Headlands write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Finish at Back to Marin Headlands. That is the ride. Next is Big Sur Pacific Coast Day.
9. Fuel stop in Richmond
Planning note
Next is Scenic stretch near Orinda.
10. Scenic stretch near Orinda
Planning note
Scenic stretch near Orinda comes up 497 km in. Next is High point in Ashland.
11. High point in Ashland
Planning note
High point in Ashland is the summit of this stretch. Next is Photo stop near Half Moon Bay.
12. Photo stop near Half Moon Bay
Half Moon Bay is where the Peninsula's mountains finally meet the Pacific. The town sits on a wide coastal plain, backed by the green flank of the Santa Cruz Mountains and fronted by a long crescent of sand, and it feels like a different state from the busy bay side only twenty minutes away over Highway 92. Fog arrives most summer afternoons, so mornings are your best bet for sun.
Read the complete Half Moon Bay write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Photo stop near Half Moon Bay, late in the day. Next is Big Sur Pacific Coast Day checkpoint 8.
13. South San Francisco
High on the side of San Bruno Mountain, giant white letters spell out "South San Francisco The Industrial City", a hillside sign put up in the 1920s and still the first thing most people notice when they arrive. It tells you the town's story: this was a place of meatpacking, steel, shipyards and factories, the working neighbour to the grand city to the north, and it has kept that practical, unpretentious feel even as its industries have changed.
Read the complete South San Francisco write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Big Sur Pacific Coast Day checkpoint 8 closes the day. Next is Big Sur Pacific Coast Day food stop.
14. Montara
For years, the stretch of Highway 1 just north of Montara was the road everyone worried about. Devil's Slide, a crumbling headland of rock above the Pacific, kept sliding into the sea and closing the highway, sometimes for months. Since 2013 the traffic has passed through a pair of tunnels bored through San Pedro Mountain, and the old road along the cliff has become a walking and cycling trail with some of the wildest views on the San Mateo coast. If you have twenty minutes, walk a piece of it.
Read the complete Montara write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Big Sur Pacific Coast Day food stop is where this day stops to eat. Next is San Francisco Bay Area return.
15. Near Lagunitas-Forest Knolls, on the way back
The San Geronimo Valley runs west from Fairfax towards the coast, a narrow green valley of meadows, oaks and redwood groves, with small communities like Woodacre, Forest Knolls and Lagunitas strung along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. It feels much further from San Francisco than it really is, and in the evening, when the fog creeps in from the ocean and the light goes soft and silver, it is magical.
Read the complete Near Lagunitas-Forest Knolls, on the way back write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
774 km in you reach San Francisco Bay Area return. Next is Back to Big.
16. Back to Big
Richmond is the East Bay city that built ships for a war. Between 1941 and 1945 the Kaiser shipyards on the waterfront produced 747 vessels, more than anywhere else in the country, and tens of thousands of workers arrived from across the United States, many of them women and many of them Black, to fill jobs in the yards. The Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park, at the old Ford assembly plant and along the shoreline, tells that story with museum displays and restored buildings, and it is a surprisingly affecting place to spend an hour.
Read the complete Big write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back to Big closes the day.
Leg by leg
Fuel stop near Fairview to Near Winters, on the way back
Fuel stop near Fairview → Near Winters, on the way back is 117 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Food stop in Kenwood to Bolinas
Food stop in Kenwood → Bolinas is 76 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
High point near Portola Valley to Back to Marin Headlands
High point near Portola Valley → Back to Marin Headlands is 63 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Back to Marin Headlands to Fuel stop in Richmond
Back to Marin Headlands → Fuel stop in Richmond is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuel stop in Richmond to Scenic stretch near Orinda
Fuel stop in Richmond → Scenic stretch near Orinda is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Scenic stretch near Orinda to High point in Ashland
Scenic stretch near Orinda → High point in Ashland is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
High point in Ashland to Photo stop near Half Moon Bay
High point in Ashland → Photo stop near Half Moon Bay is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Photo stop near Half Moon Bay to South San Francisco
Photo stop near Half Moon Bay → South San Francisco is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.