I've ridden much of the route and enjoyed it. June-July makes me slightly nervous about summer traffic, but we work with what we have available. Here are some fast thoughts, headed in the southerly direction:
- maybe plan a detour at the Lost Coast at Ferndale, a little bit south of Eureka/Arcata. 2 or even 3 day detour well off the beaten path. Research it first -- there were no services when I was there, except for basic campgrounds. As an aside, in case you don't know it, you can find route elevation gain on mapmyride.com. IMO this is a very special detour, and one which very few know to do. - maybe plan a rest day at Avenue of the Giants following the Lost Coast. - the road gets nasty narrow just south of Avenue of the Giants, with trucks. Herd your family well. - in Fort Bragg, once you cross the river, turn down to the river and follow it until you come to Dolphin Isle Marina, get a burger in the sun. - Mendocino would be a nice rest day - there's another possible detour, inland this time, at Sea Ranch to Annapolis then back out to Stewarts Point (or for a more challenging day, head south on Tin Barn Road from Annapolis Road). Lots of vertical, followed by more vertical, but favorite roads of mine… consider the suggestion with suspicion. But they're very pretty roads. - at Bodega Bay you will be about ten miles from my house if you need anything. Unfortunately, the house may be blown up for remodeling, and I may not be able to offer accommodations. - I'm sure you are aware of SP Taylor campground in Marin, beloved of Rivvers. I don't prefer that route, because I like to go south from Point Reyes and then go over Bolinas-Fairfax Road and then Mt. Tam, but that would be ambitious for a family. There's a commercial alternative to SP Taylor, just south of Point Reyes Station, much less pretty but useful if Taylor is full or if you want to go south on 1 instead inland toward SP Taylor. - the youth hostel in San Francisco is in a nice location not too far from the Golden Gate Bridge. - to keep in your back pocket, if things blow up, there's an overnight bus from SF to LA. https://www.ridecabin.com - if you're a Steinbeck fan, stop by the museum in Salinas. They have Rocinante! - it occurs to me that you could leapfrog LA by catching a train in Santa Barbara. There are much worse ideas. I would not consider it cheating. Peter Sebastopol CA On Sunday, October 7, 2018 at 4:57:13 PM UTC-7, Kip Otteson wrote: > > My wife requested that we do a bike tour this upcoming summer. This is a > pretty rare request and when she mentioned it I jumped at the chance. I'm > planning on riding the Pacific Coast route as laid out by Adventure > Cycling. We are not doing the whole trip, but are going to be riding from > Southern Oregon and will be ending up in the OC. The crew will be me, my > wife, and two kids, daughter (12) and son (15). We have ridden a few tours > in SE Asia but nothing this long. Not remotely. I'll be on my Bombadil, > my wife on her Heron, and my son on a Surly Pack Rat, daughter on an 86' > Panasonic Mountain Cat 4500. We plan on being on the road from the 10th of > June till around the middle of July. We are both school teachers so this > is doable as far as work is concerned. Being teachers, we are on a budget > and plan on camping as much as we can. We have used Warm Showers in the > past and are hosts. That is a great deal, for sure. > > I'm looking for any suggestions from folks that have done this. Good > places to camp, words of advice on road conditions, etc. > > Thanks in advance. > > Kip > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
