SF ➡️ LA bike trip 🚲

6/21 June - 6/30 June 2020

Joining San Francisco to Los Angeles along the highway 1 in 9 days. After 6 years living in the Bay Area, Matthias and I decided to give it a try, and challenge our recent biking skills! With three bags (20L X2 and 5L) and our motivation, we embarked in this journey on Sunday, June 21st, hoping to arrive in LA by July 1st.

👉🏼Our trip on Google maps

Step 1 🚲 Half Moon Bay

30 miles
Our amazing group of friend came to wish us best luck at 9am in the morning on a Sunday (yes, who does this? 🥰) to see us leave our home. Their energy carried us for the rest of the day! It was a pretty windy day, luckily not too along on the highway 1. It feels good to have the afternoon and full evening to rest and stretch. My neck started hurting a bit already.

Step 2 🚲 Santa Cruz

50miles
Much harder day, this was the first time we had ever biked a long distance 2 days in a row. But we did it! We arrived in sunny Santa Cruz after few short stops on the way. We are thinking of doing real lunch pauses moving forward to get more energy for the afternoon. The exhaustion got us once we arrived and we slept 1h when we arrived 😴 Amazing Hawaiian restaurant for dinner, tried an Iilikoi pie, a delight!😋

🍽Recommended dinner place

Step 3 🚲 Monterey

51miles (83km)
A absolutely beautiful ride with bike lanes almost all the way! These infrastructures made it much easier for us. We crossed many many strawberry fields that smelled deliciously, and even rocky dunes. We felt as if we were in Les Landes (France South-West region). The weather cleared up in the afternoon. well. We both finished our 1.5L of water each. We're thinking of adding extra water if the weather becomes much warmer. We stopped for lunch this time, but probably had a heavier Mexican lunch than we should have 😅. Our stay in Monterrey was dreamy, with a hotel on the beach and most importantly, espectially for our sore muscles, with a private sauna in our room 😱

Step 4 🚲 Big Sur

40miles (65km)
The most amazing ride to date, along the 17-mile drive through Carmel, then along the highway 1 which offered us several incredible ocean views, we were lucky enough to distinguish a whale! The fast cars on the highway are still stressful sometimes, but I'm getting better at keeping my calm even when along cliffs. We crossed the famous bridge at the beginning of Big Sur. We had (a light) lunch in Carmel then, to end, met with a +10% steep hill that lasted for 40min 😅nice way to end Day 4. Glamping in Big Sur in the middle of the redwoods. Super peaceful and quiet. All we need for our day off tomorrow!

Step 5 🚲 Day off Big Sur

40miles (65km)
Waking-up in the middle of the redwoods is something I know I'll miss! Went on a 1h30min hike to see the top of the redwood valley we are in and we ended the day with some some yoga to stretch our muscles and prep for the next day. Mac n cheese & S'mores for dinner around the fire pit 🔥 Can we say we're Americans now? 🇺🇸 ;)

👌🏽Best glamping spot

Step 6 🚲 San Simeon

65m (105km)
Longest step of our trip. We also had a pretty high elevation: +1,500 meters. I had a hard first half due to my recurring shoulder pain and we stopped early for lunch to get extra energy 🥗🍔 The afternoon was filled with a lot of elevation again along the coast which offered us amazing ocean views. One hill lasted for roughly 1 hour, but luckily once that part done, we only had 2hours left. Snack tip: bananas and chocolate = best snack🍌🍫 to help add fiber to your muscles and sugar to boost your energy (and mental health ;)) Hurting: shoulders + right foot. Happy to have arrived 2 hours earlier than what we had initially scheduled. Most beautiful sunset on the ocean, with dolphins jumping out of the water as the pink sun came down... a dream! 🐬

Step 7 🚲 Pismo Beach

54m (86km)
A pretty flat ride. After a light (i.e sad) hotel breakfast we stopped on the way around Los Osos in a real hipster place for a real breakfast. We were truly lacking energy in the morning and it helped power through the day. Arrived in a motel near pismo beach (Grover beach). Pretty boring neighborhood lacking charm but we walked near the beach at sunset and saw people around fire pits. Reminded us of Ocean beach, with less fogg and wind (pretty different then 😂) We're thinking of adding 10miles per day to arrive earlier in LA

Step 8 🚲 Solvang

63miles (101km)
Hardest day to date for me. It started pretty foggy with no particuliar view points but ended, after 5 hours, in breathtaking vineyards in the Wine Valley of Santa Ynez. We had decided the day before to discover this area instead of riding along the coast. It looked so much like Tuscany with cypress everywhere! The sun came out in thr afyernoon, and when it did, for one of the first times, my body didn’t want to carry me any further. I was lacking sugar and energy. In the middle of one additional hill, Matt and I stopped next to the road to eat a piece of muffin and drink. We then finished faster than we thought we would for the last hour and a half. We arrived in this incredible 'Danish capital' of the USA. Doesn't seem too hard to build charming cities! This is definitely a change from RV parks, 7-Eleven and pickups 😂🙏🏼

Step 9 🚲 Ventura

65.2m (105.36km)
Almost equal to the longest ride of our trip. Probably the hardest hill though, with a 4 mile-hill with an elevation of 1000 meter elevation under the SoCal sun 🥵😱 We stopped only once in Santa Barbara for lunch. We rode through the vineyards of Solvang, to the white haciendas of Santa Barbara, to finally riding along the coastal highway. Incredible views. We finally arrived in an old school airstream!

👌🏽Experience the airstream

Step 10 🚲 Santa Monica Final Stop 🏖

61m (100km)
After a first half without much interest, we rode along the coast with a mostly flat road. Riding along the highway 1 with no bikelane for more than an hour was one of the most stressful part of the trip but the arrival in Santa Monica and riding next to the Pier and sunny beach was so worth it. Our friends, Charles, Estelle and their adorable Galiel were there to welcome us! We still cannot believe what we've done! We loved every minute of this trip. Total: 781 km