Why this ride
727 km from Belmont to Woodside, about 11 h 30 of riding. It goes by way of Alice’s Restaurant area, Pescadero coast and Skyline Boulevard ridge. Half Moon Bay is the high point. It keeps close to the shore for long stretches.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Skyline · Alice’s · Pacific Return + Santa Cruz Mountains Flow
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 727 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 11 h 30
- 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
Alice’s Restaurant area → Pescadero coast
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 27 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 23 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Skyline Boulevard ridge
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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Skyline Boulevard ridge is where the day begins. Next is Alice’s Restaurant area.
2. Alice’s Restaurant area
Everybody on a bike in the Bay Area knows Alice's, the roadhouse at the crossing of Skyline Boulevard and Highway 84 above Woodside. It is a low wooden building in a clearing of redwoods and Douglas fir, with a gravel lot that fills with motorcycles on any dry weekend morning and a porch where the whole sport of people-watching takes place. Sports bikes, old Beemers, choppers and the occasional vintage Vincent line up under the trees, and the talk is about which road is open, which has fresh gravel and who just came back from the coast.
Read the complete Alice’s Restaurant area write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Alice’s Restaurant area is where this day stops to eat. Next is Pescadero coast.
3. Pescadero coast
Pescadero is a village on the coast of San Mateo County, about twenty kilometres south of Half Moon Bay by the old road, and it is one of the best-loved small stops for any rider who comes down from the Santa Cruz ridge. Highway 1 runs through here with the Pacific close on one side and farmland on the other, and the sky is usually larger than you expect.
Read the complete Pescadero coast write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
149 km in you reach Pescadero coast. Next is Half Moon Bay.
4. 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
Half Moon Bay, early in the day. Next is back to Skyline Boulevard ridge.
5. back to Skyline Boulevard ridge
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Skyline Boulevard ridge 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 Skyline Boulevard ridge. That is the ride. Next is Santa Cruz Mountains Flow.
6. Fuel stop near Woodside
Planning note
Santa Cruz Mountains Flow is the fuel stop for this leg. Next is Santa Cruz Mountains Flow high point.
7. Half Moon Bay
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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
You top out here; the road stops climbing. Next is Santa Cruz Mountains Flow scenic road.
8. 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
Santa Cruz Mountains Flow scenic road, about halfway. Next is Santa Cruz Mountains Flow photo pull-off.
9. Bodega Bay
Alfred Hitchcock knew a menacing landscape when he saw one, and in 1962 he brought Tippi Hedren and a great many crows and gulls to Bodega Bay to film The Birds. The little harbour town on the Sonoma Coast, about an hour and a half north of the Golden Gate, has been living gently off that fame ever since, and the old schoolhouse that appears in the film still stands a few miles inland in the village of Bodega. But the real show here is the coast itself: a sheltered bay full of fishing boats, a long sandspit, and the granite headland of Bodega Head jutting out into the Pacific.
Read the complete Bodega Bay write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Santa Cruz Mountains Flow photo pull-off sits at 595 km, about halfway. Next is San Francisco Bay Area return.
10. Near Lodi, on the way back
Lodi is flat, hot, and full of grapes. It lies on the eastern edge of the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta in the Central Valley, where the land is so level you can watch weather move across it for an hour before it arrives. This spot sits near Woodbridge, just north of Lodi itself, close to where the Mokelumne River runs west out of the Sierra foothills toward the Delta.
Read the complete Near Lodi, 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 669 km in. Next is Food stop near Lodi.
11. Food stop near Lodi
Planning note
A break here. Next is Santa Cruz Mountains Flow checkpoint 8.
12. 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
The route ends here after 892 km. Next is Back to Santa Cruz.
13. Back to Santa Cruz
That is the kind of place where the Bay Area's tech wealth seems very far away, even though Woodside and Portola Valley, home to some of the most expensive real estate in the country, are only a few kilometres down the hill.
Read the complete Santa Cruz write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back to Santa Cruz closes the day.
Leg by leg
Skyline Boulevard ridge to Alice’s Restaurant area
Skyline Boulevard ridge → Alice’s Restaurant area is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Alice’s Restaurant area to Pescadero coast
Alice’s Restaurant area → Pescadero coast is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pescadero coast to Half Moon Bay
Pescadero coast → Half Moon Bay is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Half Moon Bay to back to Skyline Boulevard ridge
Half Moon Bay → back to Skyline Boulevard ridge is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back to Skyline Boulevard ridge to Fuel stop near Woodside
back to Skyline Boulevard ridge → Fuel stop near Woodside is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuel stop near Woodside to Half Moon Bay
Fuel stop near Woodside → Half Moon Bay is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Half Moon Bay to Bolinas
Half Moon Bay → Bolinas is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Food stop near Lodi to Near Daly City
Food stop near Lodi → Near Daly City is 135 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.