If you're coming into San Francisco & going south from there, weather should be good in December. The further north of the Bay Area, the more problematic the weather. I like the hostel in Ft Mason as a jumping off point (Do Not stay in the one downtown; crummy location for biking). The Adventure Cycling maps thru San Francisco are a bit fiddly. An easier routing from the hostel is just head west & hook up with the Great Highway heading south. Daly City may be one of the boring bits mentioned by others but you're not in it that long.
Big Sur of course is the highlight of this trip. Plenty of lodging and camping opportunities. Big Sur to San Simeon is IIRC 65 miles with 4,500' of climbing. It can be done in a day but it's a pretty long day, esp with a load. There are a couple of campgrounds along the way so you can break it up, take it easy, & enjoy the scenery. SLO is the start point for the Amtrak Surfliner that goes all the way to San Diego (Amtrak's Coast Starlight also goes thru but fewer trains). However, there is still good riding south of SLO. You'll have to look at a decent map but inland from Ventura is a cool little town called Ojai. Both lodging & camping options there. From Ojai, head east to Santa Paula then continue to Moorpark. Pick up the Amtrak or Metrolink (LA commuter rail). Terminal is downtown LA Union Station. From there, Metrorail (light rail) has two lines that go west toward LAX. The Expo line goes to Santa Monica and the Green Line goes to Redondo Beach. The Green Line follows a freeway that skirts the south edge of LAX, BUT the rail line makes a turn & heads south before it gets to the airport. There is a stop from where you can actually see the airport. There is a bus service from there to the airport but I don't know about carrying bikes on it. You'd have to check that out. Most of the published routes follow SR 1 (aka PCH) all the way from Ventura to Santa Monica. It's always billed as "scenic drive thru the Malibu, home to the stars, surfers," etc. It's also crazy busy, with the most entitled people in the SoCal blasting down the road. I've done it once & lived to tell about it, but that's enough. And I grew up in LA so I'm used to crazy drivers. After Point Dume, it's solid houses on the coastal side so there's nothing to see and you're too busy trying to survive to enjoy it anyway. On Monday, September 9, 2019 at 12:28:21 PM UTC-7, Jim S. wrote: > > Hi all, > > I may have a bit of time off in December, and I was thinking about a San > Francisco to Los Angeles bicycle tour. I know there are many sources of > information regarding this, but I'd value any insights from the group on > the advisability of such a tour at that time of year (weather and daylight > may work against me), and any advice on the route generally. I could camp, > stay in motels, or both. > > Thanks in advance for any advice. > > Jim S. > > > > > -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/0f1e5847-96d9-4ad5-88c4-e5db59f904a5%40googlegroups.com.
