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 one-way ride of 637 km, Belmont to Alamo - roughly 11 h 05 in the saddle. On the way it passes Alice’s Restaurant rider stop, Pescadero coast view, Half Moon Bay water stop and Skyline Boulevard ridge. near Stanford is the high point. It keeps close to the shore for long stretches.
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 26 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Skyline Boulevard runs along the spine of the Santa Cruz Mountains, high above the cities of the San Francisco Peninsula, and its ridge has a character quite unlike the coast or the bay. The road, also known as State Route 35, follows the crest through redwood and Douglas fir forest, with the fog of the Pacific on one side and the sunny, hazy bay on the other. Climbing from Belmont, about four kilometres away, you leave the suburbs behind within minutes and find yourself in cool, shaded woodland that smells of damp bark and bay laurel.
Read the complete Skyline Boulevard ridge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Skyline Boulevard ridge is where the day begins. Next is Alice’s Restaurant rider stop.
Alice's has a second life as a rider stop, and it is worth saying a bit about the culture that has grown up around it rather than just the road. On weekends, the lot at the Skyline and Highway 84 crossing becomes a kind of open-air club, with riders from San Francisco, San Jose and the East Bay meeting for breakfast, comparing notes and drifting off in small groups. Nobody is in a hurry, and a sense of unspoken etiquette keeps things civil: park tidily, keep engines low when you leave, and wave at the locals.
Read the complete Alice’s Restaurant rider stop write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Alice’s Restaurant rider stop is where this day stops to eat. Next is Pescadero coast view.
On the coast south of Half Moon Bay, the Pacific shows a rougher, more private face than around San Francisco, and the viewpoints here are among the best on the entire Highway 1 run. The land is a narrow marine terrace of grassland and farm fields cut by steep gullies, with sea cliffs of crumbling sandstone and long, empty beaches below. Pescadero State Beach and Bean Hollow lie a few minutes away, with tide pools full of anemones and crabs, and sea stacks standing off the shore like a row of broken teeth.
Read the complete Pescadero coast view write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 59 km into the recorded legs you reach Pescadero coast view. Next is Half Moon Bay water stop.
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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Half Moon Bay water stop, early in the day. Next is back to Skyline Boulevard ridge.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Skyline Boulevard ridge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at back to Skyline Boulevard ridge. That is the ride. Next is Mount Hamilton and Mines Road.
Mount Hamilton and Mines Road is the fuel stop for this leg. Next is San Francisco Bay Area return.
This is wine country in its quieter, older form, with small family vineyards on the lower slopes, oak savanna on the hills and old stone wineries, and it is far less crowded than neighbouring Napa. Sonoma itself, the historic town at the southern end, has a Spanish plaza, an old mission and an easy, unhurried feel.
Read the complete Near Boyes Hot Springs, on the way back write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 292 km into the recorded legs you reach San Francisco Bay Area return. Next is Food stop near Inverness.
The San Andreas Fault runs straight up Tomales Bay, and in the 1906 earthquake the land on the western side lurched several metres north in a matter of seconds. Inverness sits on that western side, on the shore of the bay, a small village of wooden houses among the trees, at the gateway to the Point Reyes peninsula. It is a quiet, slightly eccentric place, with a general store, a few restaurants and a lot of bird-watchers.
Read the complete Inverness write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Somewhere to get off the bike, about 378 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mount Hamilton and Mines Road photo pull-off.
Moss Beach clings to a low bluff above the Pacific, a scatter of houses, cypress trees and fields on the San Mateo coast between Montara and Half Moon Bay. It is a small, quiet place, often wrapped in fog, where the sound of the surf is constant and the air smells of salt, seaweed and eucalyptus. For many riders, it is a first taste of the wild coast just south of San Francisco.
Read the complete Moss Beach write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mount Hamilton and Mines Road photo pull-off sits at 427 km, about halfway. Next is Mount Hamilton and Mines Road checkpoint 8.
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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mount Hamilton and Mines Road checkpoint 8 closes the day. Next is High point near Stanford.
High point near Stanford is the summit of this stretch. Next is Scenic stretch near East Palo Alto.
East Palo Alto sits on the flat edge of San Francisco Bay, right where the Dumbarton Bridge launches its long, low span towards Fremont. To the west lies the wealth of Palo Alto and Menlo Park, home of Silicon Valley's giants; to the east, the salt ponds and marshes of the bay. It is a dense, busy corridor, cut by Highway 101, and for riders it is mostly a place to pass through, refuel and plan the escape to the hills.
Read the complete Scenic stretch near East Palo Alto write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Scenic stretch near East Palo Alto, late in the day. Next is Back to Mount Hamilton.
It is not especially high, but because it stands alone above the surrounding plains, the view from the top is among the widest in the world, taking in the Sierra Nevada on a very clear day and, some say, more of the earth's surface than any peak apart from Kilimanjaro. The claim is a local legend, and nobody quite tests it.
Read the complete Mount Hamilton write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back to Mount Hamilton closes the day.
Skyline Boulevard ridge → Alice’s Restaurant rider stop is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Alice’s Restaurant rider stop → Pescadero coast view is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pescadero coast view → Half Moon Bay water stop is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Half Moon Bay water stop → back to Skyline Boulevard ridge is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back to Skyline Boulevard ridge → Fuel stop near Alamo is 86 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuel stop near Alamo → Near Boyes Hot Springs, on the way back is 103 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Food stop near Inverness → Moss Beach is 105 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
High point near Stanford → Scenic stretch near East Palo Alto is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Scenic stretch near East Palo Alto → Back to Mount Hamilton is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.