Maybe a better topic for reddit…
Wife and I are looking at a 7-10 day trip to CA from SLC with bikes. Road or gravel most likely. Ideal destination would be on the coast somewhere and I’m thinking ~socal, partially because I lived in SF and rode bikes around there in the past. We’d stay in an AirBnB etc, partially bc I want to see a friend in LA. Where would you go? if those other conditions did not apply…where is the best cycling destination on the CA coast, in October or so?
There is some info in this thread that might help.
Fun! If you end up in NorCal, then the Tahoe area and the Downieville area are my favorites.
I think bay area road riding, especially in marin and peninsula/south bay, is some of the best in the country. Our gravel is unfortunately more like mountain biking.
Mendocino/Fort Bragg has some good riding on the coast. Check out Jackson Demonstration forest for mtb and gravel riding.
The foothills around Auburn and Tahoe have plenty of great options too.
Awesome! Thanks everybody!
More focused question:
Is the riding in the Santa Monica Mountains/SMMNRA as good as its rumored to be? Is it still nice to visit and ride through after the past 10 years of fire?
Loads of gravel options down south. From Santa Barbara down to San Diego and all in between you can do a lot of exploring. With 7-10 days you can probably do a nice mix of road and gravel especially if you are willing to travel to a couple of different spots.
There’s also the bwr course
SoCal sucks. No places to ride bikes, homeless everywhere, non stop crime, total hellscape. Avoid at all costs, you’ll likely die.
I would ride all the way down the coast to San Diego from LA myself.
Mostly the northern part of the Santa Monica Mountains were impacted by the fires. Even if the trails are open, best to avoid for the long term health of the trails / hillside.
LA has some great riding if you know the area, but the better road riding is out in Thousand Oaks / Conejo Valley.
there’s great gravel riding around Bishop / Mammoth, CA, and Mammoth has awesome MTB - they used to hold world championships on the mountain in the 80s. Just a note Mammoth is at elevation: base of the mountain is ~9K
I’m out riding right now. I have died multiple times already. Crazy huh? People keep telling me how bad this place is, I believe them!
Not to hyjack the thread but just learned I might (hopefully not) have a work thing in late October in Palm Springs. Any good riding around there that is worth bringing the bike for?
I think San Diego city/metro is fairly terrible for riding, to be honest. You can get out east a little bit more into the rural areas, the NA lands and territories and you can find some good stuff. But as far as staying someplace fun in San Diego AND riding your bike, the two are kinda mutually exclusive. Lots of bike paths and such here, but a lot of them are truthfully pretty boring, poorly laid out and/or overcrowded, and better for commuters.
So good riding in San Diego County, yes. Metro area? Not really.
That said, if you end up down here (San Diego County, south of Camp Pendleton) send me a DM here and I’ll fill you in on group rides and/or routes that are worthwhile.
There’s quite a bit of decent gravel and tons of MTB trails in the county.
There is the tour de Palm Springs routes plus some info on this web site
This is perfect advise and thanks for the offer!
Rad, I would love to do a trip to Palm Springs/J Tree…
Thank you! Assuming there’s plenty of paved roads in the SM mountains…Bishop/Mammoth would be very cool.
