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Notes from the Road: Bicycling from Portland to San Francisco

To set off on this 800 mile bike trip from Portland to San Francisco you have to be a bit mad, maybe crazy, maybe escaping the toxic modern world, but probably you may just want to see the world on two wheels. It is an awesome adventure with a variety of geography and topography: coastal ranges, ocean views, beaches, redwoods, rivers, open fields and marshes. I did the trip June 3-19, 2026. With all told three rest days it took a little over two weeks. Riding Amtrak From San Francisco you can reserve a seat in coach, reserve a spot for you bike ($20) and take the Amtrak Coast Starlight to Portland. The train gets into Portland around 4pm so you can get a hotel for the first night and follow the route outlined on https://www.bestcoastbiking.com/portland-to-san-francisco. Some of the details of this route are getting out of date (there are no saunas in any of the campgrounds, there is water in all) but the pace of 60 miles per day was good for me. It was a great tool as it has mile markers and information about eateries and stores.

It does seem like at any given time during the summer months there are at least fifty other people riding along the coast. Most of these riders had the exact same idea as you and ride solo. Some are in groups of two or four. The riders are from all over the world with many Europeans. I met a fellow from New Zealand.  I ran into some very cool people along the way and made some new friends. Bicycling from Portland to San Francisco is a great way to see a beautiful part of the country.

Some people ride sixty miles a day, there were others that rode over a hundred. Some take their time and do twenty miles a day and explore the rural towns and sights. Some travel light and stay in hotels. I met people from 18 to 70 years of age. 

Fifteen miles before Crescent City along the road I rode by a run down house in the country. The front door was painted red, white and blue with a message “FU*K JOE BIDEN” and a pretty good mural of a hand giving you the middle finger.  Not sure what the guy had against Joe and was perhaps one of the few signs of this ilk I saw during this ride. I rode on.

At Crescent City – the half way point, I had a great meal at a local pub. That night I got a motel in Crescent City (Front Street Inn) and woke up the next day and did my laundry. You can take the local 3:00 pm bus to Klamath as suggested in my guide and bike to the lovely Elk Prairie Campground in the redwoods. I had the hike-bike spot campsite to myself. The bird songs were incredible and many.

Alder Glen Campground. One of my favorites on the trip. Quiet. Magical.
Alder Glen Campground. One of my favorites on the trip. Quiet. Magical.

Bicycling from Portland to San Francisco you can stay in these hike-bike spots in state and regional campgrounds. No need to make a reservation as these are overflow, drop-in spots. Often the spots are at the edge of campgrounds and so in many ways nice and private. Other times they are close to the gate and showers. In Oregon many had modern charging stations, lockers and bike tool stands. The price for the night varied from $5-10. In California they vary a lot –  make sure you have plenty of quarters for the showers. Always be aware of the raccoons and blue jays as they want your food. In one campground I spied at Blue Jay poking holes in a package of dehydrated chicken fettuccini. She obviously could read as the other option was beef stroganoff. Gualala Regional Park was full of racoons, blue jays and even barred owls.

Oregon Coast
Oregon Coast

Throughout the ride there is very little cell service. This was very refreshing and the only way to keep your phone functioning and battery not draining was to keep it in “airplane mode.”

Unlike the Midwest and East, along the West Coast there are few diners or breakfast spots and morning food options are limited. Most of the time I made oatmeal and coffee in camp. On the road the option was often a drive-through coffee spot with a greasy microwave breakfast sandwich.  These kiosks pop up even in rural areas. Evidently, on the West Coast people do not sit around diners and talk about the weather.

For lunch there are plenty of options. There are many amazing places that make delicious sandwiches and burgers, sometimes with homemade bread. Stewarts Point Store was amazing.  Pizza is often an excellent option. Of course there are Mexican and Chinese options along the way as well.

Eel River
Eel River

While I thought I would have tailwinds for this trip, due to the rain storms for many days the winds came moderately out the south. I did take a much needed rest day along the Eel River. It was eighty degrees and I had the place to myself. Delicious! The last day was a long ride from Bodega Dunes Park to San Francisco.  About eighty-five miles later I was back in the city by the bay.

San Francisco - Golden Gate Bridge
San Francisco – Golden Gate Bridge

If you are considering this trip, I would just say that it is an awesome adventure and I highly recommend it. The ACA maps are surely very good. Not for the those would cannot deal with adversity as you will be going over the coast range and that is always about  a 2000 vertical foot climb.  Also Highway 1 in Sonoma and Marin Counties can be a bit dicey with no shoulder and cars. Lincoln City in Oregon is a bit busy with cars and RVs. But the views are stupendous. The Nestucca River. Southern Oregon south of Port Orford is amazing. The redwoods and north section of Highway 1 are breathtaking. The cliffs around Jenner are sublime.

A big shout out to the “Fearless Four.” You know who you are. Until we meet again.

 

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The Three Crosses – Reflections on a California Journey

This is a follow up essay from my bike trip down to Big Sur last month – The Henry Miller 2025 – Bicycle to Big Sur.

The Bixby Bridge along Highway 1 south of Carmel
The Bixby Bridge along Highway 1 south of Carmel

Recently, I tried to explain to a friend why I like doing these weeklong bike trips, camping out, eating in diners, living the simple life. I explained that what is really valuable is that the trips make me much more aware of the world. When you get done with the trip, you notice things in your everyday surroundings that you did not before you left. You start hearing things that you had somehow ignored. You see things about your city that you never noticed. Trees. Graffiti. People waiting for the bus. It helps to make a person fully alive.

When I was on the ride I discovered an interesting theme – the crucifix. While I was not riding El Camino Real, the road that the first missionaries traveled, I did pass by a number of old churches. In the end, I realized that there were three crosses that told a story of my journey and of the time and geography I had pedaled.

ACT 1: RIP Our Beloved Eurovan

RIP Our Beloved Eurovan 12-4-2001 - 7-27-2023
RIP Our Beloved Eurovan 12-4-2001 – 7-27-2023

You would never see this cross from a car. It is along Skyline Boulevard, about 20 miles outside of Santa Cruz, high on the road, before you make it to Highway 9. If you were in a car you would have zipped by it and never knew it was there. I saw it out of the corner of my eye and had to stop, thinking it was a cross for some poor person who had perished in an automobile accident. I paused and drank some water and took it all in. Fortunately, it was just a van. Obviously, the climb up the coastal range  finally did in the German engineering. The Eurovan surely had a good life and was much loved but maybe overheated and the engine seized? The twentieth century and into the twenty-first was a time when the internal combustion engine became something often more loved than other humans. At some point we are all guilty of this fetish. We all at one point gave our cars names and bathed them on the weekends. Cleaned their hubcaps. Worried about their overdue oil changes. That we anthropomorphize them to the point of an afterlife is a bit strange but it sort of makes sense. This must have been a Christian Eurovan. Surely Catholic.

ACT 2: Mission Carmel Basilica

Of course, Mission Carmel Basilica was the second mission in California, and was one of the places where in California the “saving of souls” all began. In this land where all the manmade things are so new, something that has a bit of history stands out.  I wonder what the first Indians thought of this place and the cross that adorns the top?  The story of the tragic demise of the native peoples and the history is well-known at this point. RIP dear friend. I am sorry you got one of those nasty viruses that came over on the boat. Some day your great, great, great grand daughter will be able to drive a Ford F150 pickup and get vaccines for the diseases that wiped your people out. Let us pray.

ACT 3: Henry Miller Library

Christ on the MacPlus's - Henry Miller Memorial Library
Christ on the MacPlus’s – Henry Miller Memorial Library

The third cross that I came across, that really grabbed my attention, was this sculpture above at the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur. The cross is made out of old Apple MacPlus computers, stacked up so that you do not realize what you are looking at. Jesus, is but a twist of wiry vines, dried and dead.  Is this a statement on the futility of progress and the modern life? Is it a complex diagram of our soulless world that has been usurped by technology, where even Christ gets eaten up by the mayhem of technology and becomes but a tangled mess? Is it a battle between the inorganic and the organic, where the machines always win and both sides die in a tragic death? One obsolete trash. The other just a tangled mess of organic wires impersonating their master? Who’s to say, but it does seem like a tragic omen to our feeble chances of survival.

This genre of art I like to call technomacabre. Along the coast you see it every now and then. Found objects from our recent technological past that are turned into a statement of demise, oppression, humor or even violence. There is no service out here anyway. These things are useless.

Technology, Nailed to the Fence - Mendocino County
Technology, Nailed to the Fence – Mendocino County

There is no ACT 4. There is no coda. That is all.

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The Henry Miller 2025 – Bicycle to Big Sur

“The Henry Miller” is a bike trip that I did solo in late April and early May of 2025. I had always wanted to do this ride and get down to the Henry Miller Library along Highway 1, past Big Sur. The trip was encouraged along by a website page https://www.bestcoastbiking.com/san-francisco-to-big-sur. This website has the maps and itinerary. I followed the maps more of less but instead of Big Basin Redwoods State Park on the first night I stopped by my friend’s place in Boulder Creek. Julie, the sister of a high school buddy and her husband Al were great to get to know and hang out with. Thanks for the awesome dinner!

“The language of society is conformity; the language of the individual is freedom. Life will continue to be hell as long as the people who make up the world shut their eyes to reality. Switching from one ideology to another is a useless game. Each and every one of us is unique, and must be recognized as such. The least we can say about ourselves is that we are American, or French, or whatever the case may be. We are first of all human beings, different from one  another, obliged to live together, to stew in the same pot.”
– Henry Miller from “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird”

Some of the riding highlights are the first day’s climb out of Woodside up the Old Honda Road. This is 2000 feet straight up an old wagon trail through the redwoods. More bikers than cars do this maniacally climb. Once you reach Skyline Blvd you take a sip of water and have to climb another thousand feet. Light traffic and a good route when the coast is fogged in. Very wild with many nature preserves.

Old La Honda Road

The traffic from Boulder Creek to Santa Cruz is a bit nasty no matter what route you go. Highway 9 for a lot of it with a few backroad detours. Once in Santa Cruz the bike paths are many.

New Brighton State Park in Capitola south of Santa Cruz is a very good park for both bikes and campers. Killer bike camp spot. There are some premier ocean-side camp sites on top of the hill. Would some day be nice to reserve that for car camping.

New Brighton State Park

Biking through the farms of Watsonville is fun as you are definitely in farm land. It is interesting to see where the food comes from and take in the climate. Acres and acres of strawberries that go on forever as far as the eye can see. A lot of lettuce and broccoli this time of year. People hard at work picking and farming. One lettuce-picking crew far from the main road flew a huge Mexican flag and were blasting mariachi music out of a converted school bus.

When you hit Moss Landing there is about 10 miles of dreadful highway shoulder riding which is never fun. The highways in this part of Monterey County are pretty bad. Two lane roads where they need four. Traffic gets backed up with people just trying to get to work. It would be brilliant if there was a dedicated bike path all the way from Santa Cruz to Monterey.

In Monterrey I camped in a spot the bestcoastbiking.com recommended, Veteran’s Park which is up a hill from the wharf. It worked out fine but next time I would get a hotel.

Day three headed down the coast. Checked out Carmel Mission Basilica, started up by Captain Gaspar de Portola and Franciscan Father Junípero Serra. Portola and Serra are the names of streets, schools and shopping malls throughout California. Serra spent most of his life in pain from probably an infected insect bite. Thank science for modern medicine and antibiotics.

Carmel Mission Basilica
Carmel Mission Basilica

It is fun to be around a classic place like Carmel Mission Basilica, where the bones have a presence and seem to talk though the floor boards. Cool paintings like Leon Trousset’s 1887 Father Juniper Serra’s First Mass. Everything looks so orderly. The ship in the harbor. Native Indians looking on in the shadows. I then rode down Highway 1 to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park with strong tail winds. The further you rode, the less the cars.

Leon Trousset's 1887 Father Juniper Serra's First Mass
Leon Trousset’s 1887 Father Juniper Serra’s First Mass

Day four had a fun ride to the The Henry Miller Memorial Library and hung out with the locals while the foot traffic rolled in, stopped for five minutes then got back in their cars and moved on. In our family are a few Henry Miller classics, one, a signed version of the banned “Tropic of Cancer.” The book was printed in Mexico to avoid the authorities. The books where definitely my father’s. Henry Miller was a great writer and thinker and lived an amazing life. One of the inspirations for the ride is that Henry Miller liked to ride bicycles. He did not care for cars. In his late fifties he moved to Big Sur.

“After a time, habituated to so many hours a day on my bike, I became less and less interested in my friends. My wheel had now become my one and only friend. I could rely on it, which is more than I could say about my buddies.”
– Henry Miller from “My Bike and Other Friends”

Julia Pfeiffer State Park (let’s just call it Julia) is an 11 mile ride down the coast from the other Pfeiffer Park. At one time there were many Pfeiffer’s down this way and according to the bulletins the women obviously kept things together. Ranching and massive honey farms. Julia has great trails and waterfalls where the fallen redwoods wrap around other redwoods by streams in an obscene orgy of interactions. Much to explore.

Big Sur

On a Monday morning I left early and headed north. The traffic was light. There were clear skies and no wind. To Carmel, then along the coast to Monterey. Up a coast bikeway that runs along the beach, golf courses and opulent ocean mansions and then over to the scrappy Salinas Amtrak Station. The northbound Coast Starlight leaves every day at six-thirteen pm. I caught the train right on time.

Also see:

Bike Packing Gear Essentials – My Set Up