Distance: 48-mile loop
Elevation gain: 1620 ft
The network of roads in Marin County between Highway 1 and Highway 101 may be the most heavily ridden cycling roads in rural California, but that’s just because they’re easily accessible from the population centers clustered around the Golden Gate Bridge. They aren’t the best riding in California. They’re fine. They’re nice. And they’re all the same—moderate rollers through dairy farm land on good road surfaces. So there is no best route. Feel free to ride on any road that catches your fancy, with two caveats: 1) try to minimize your time on the obvious main arteries—Pt. Reyes Petaluma Rd., Tomales Petaluma Rd., Sir Francis Drake Blvd.—and 2) be sure to include Chileno Valley Rd., which is a cut above the rest.
One of the charms of this area is the unpretentiousness of it all. There are few if any multi-million-dollar mansions or grand wrought-iron gates on this route, and the farm houses are real—old, family-owned, working dairy farms. The oyster restaurants along Hwy 1 are housed in shacks.
Like all grassy hills in California, these are burned brown during the dry months, so the scenery is prettier in spring and fall after the rains return.
The century that covers this area is the Marin Century, and, since the roads are all about the same, it’s a perfectly fine introduction to the area, if you want to ride 100 miles of it, which I don’t.
For those of us who want to do fewer miles, here’s a representative loop that covers a lot of the best stuff, including a very sweet (though crowded) stretch of Hwy 1, and the food is fantastic—artisan cheese, great delis, killer bakeries, and the best bread in the world. So bring money.
I actually don’t ride this route as mapped any more. I like a good hill, so I do the 34-mile Marshall Wall option described in Adding Miles, but I have to give up Pt. Reyes Station to do it.
There is something very wrong with Mapmyride’s elevation total. There are no killer climbs, but all that rolling adds up, and I’m willing to guarantee you’ll get a workout. The Marshall-Petaluma Rd loop has 3000 ft of gain, which isn’t nasty but is far from flat.