CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
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.
A rider’s loop: clean exit, memorable middle, calm return. Out of Pacifica and back again: 304 km, roughly 4 h 53 in the saddle. On the way it passes Tamalpais Valley, Black Point-Green Point and near American Canyon. Montara is the high point.
For decades the most nervous stretch of Highway 1 south of San Francisco was Devil's Slide, a ledge carved into crumbling cliffs above the Pacific between Pacifica and Montara, which slid into the ocean so often that the road was closed for months at a time. In 2013 twin tunnels finally bypassed it, and the old road became a walking and cycling trail where you can stand on the cliff edge and see what the engineers were up against. Pacifica sits at the northern end of that story, a string of beach neighbourhoods tucked into coves and valleys between the coastal hills and the surf.
Read the complete Near Pacifica write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Next is Yosemite Tioga Overnight high point.
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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
You top out here; the road stops climbing. Next is Yosemite Tioga Overnight checkpoint 8.
Tamalpais Valley is the first green fold north of the Golden Gate, a neighbourhood of wooden houses tucked into a narrow valley below the slopes of Mount Tamalpais, where Highway 1 leaves Highway 101 and starts its long, twisting journey up the coast. Mill Valley, with its redwoods and its old railroad depot turned bookshop and café, is just next door, and San Francisco is ten minutes away across the bridge.
Read the complete Near Tamalpais Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 349 km. Next is Yosemite Tioga Overnight scenic road.
Where the Petaluma River slides out into San Pablo Bay, the land goes flat and wide: salt marsh, tidal sloughs, hayfields and long levees, with the brown hills of Marin and Sonoma rising behind and the bay stretching away grey-blue to the east. Black Point and Green Point are two small communities on the edge of this marsh, at the north-eastern corner of Novato, a few hundred houses among oaks and eucalyptus, with water on three sides.
Read the complete Black Point-Green Point write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yosemite Tioga Overnight scenic road, about halfway. Next is Photo stop near American Canyon.
Photo stop near American Canyon sits at 199 km, about halfway. Next is San Francisco Bay Area return.
Charlie Chaplin made The Tramp in 1915 in Niles, a small town at the western end of Niles Canyon, where the Essanay studio briefly turned out silent films. The canyon road, Highway 84, still winds along Alameda Creek between steep, oak-covered hills, with a heritage railway running alongside, and it is one of the classic rides of the East Bay.
Read the complete Near Pleasanton, on the way back write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
San Francisco Bay Area return comes up about 208 km into the recorded legs. Next is Food stop near Mountain View.
A break here. Next is Back to Yosemite Tioga.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Near Pacifica write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Back to Yosemite Tioga. That is the ride.
Photo stop near American Canyon → Near Pleasanton, on the way back can flow quickly, but only if you keep village limits and junction sightlines sacred. Fast connectors are where rides get untidy when fatigue creeps in.
Food stop near Mountain View → Back to Pacifica is the logistics leg. Watch junctions, villages and speed changes, then let the roadbook do its job: move you out of the clutter without spending your best attention too early.