Distance: 18-mile loop
Elevation gain: 2520 ft

(A Best of the Best ride)

This ride visits a National Monument (Muir Woods), so if you plan to visit it and have an annual pass or senior card, be sure to pack it and photo ID.

This is another lovely romp through the coastal forests of Marin, and it overlaps our Mt. Tam ride for a few miles but going the other way. It’s basically a square, and each of the four sides has its own character—Hwy 1 ocean vistas, climbing up through the forest, riding the spine of the Marin coastal ridge, and a thrilling, Best of Bestrides descent. It’s not a lot of miles and you can knock it out in a couple of hours, but the elevation gain is substantial (well over our 100 ft/mile benchmark) so it felt like a day’s ride to me. With the exception of a few miles through a built-up stretch of the Panoramic Highway, every mile is great riding—wonderful scenery, varied and challenging road contour, and, 95% of the time, great road surface. I normally hate Hwy 1 riding, but this route is the only ride in Bestrides where its stretch of Hwy 1 is so good that I once drove 2 hours to ride just it.

All of these roads are popular routes for Bay Area recreational motorists, and that’s a problem. Perhaps more than with any other ride in Bestrides, avoiding car traffic is tricky and essential here. This stretch of Hwy 1 is a main route for SF vacationers heading for Stinson Beach and coastal points north. Muir Woods Rd. is the route used by 99% of visitors to the hugely popular Muir Woods National Monument (hereafter referred to as a “park”). And Panoramic Highway, two sides of our square, is the Bay Area’s main route to Mt. Tamalpais and the other main route to Hwy 1 and the northern coast. To make matters worse, all the roads that make up our route lack shoulders worth mentioning and are narrow and winding enough to make passing difficult for cars.

So you want to do this ride when car traffic is at a minimum, but it’s hard to know when that is, since for half the route you’re riding toward the megalopolis and half the route away from it. I suggest (as always) a weekday early in the morning. I did it starting about 8:30 am on a Wednesday and was happy with the results. Hwy 1 is still quiet then, you’re riding against traffic on Muir Woods Rd., and you’ll have company on the Panoramic Highway descent but you’ll be faster than they are. That leaves the built-up section of PH, which is hectic any time of day and just has to be endured.

If you’re cycling to the route, you’ll probably be coming from Hwy 101. There is no route I can heartily endorse. Many cyclists ride Hwy 1 to Panoramic Highway and up PH. This route is very busy. The popular alternative is to ride from Miller up Throckmorton to Cascade to Marion to Edgewood to Sequoia Valley Rd. These roads are largely car-free, and often quite pretty, but they’re steep, and they’re very narrow, so any traffic at all is treacherous. In either case you’ll meet the loop at the PH/Muir Woods Rd/Sequoia Valley Rd. intersection (“The Four Corners” in local parlance).

Our usual warning about Norcal coastal riding is in effect here: be prepared for the possibility of cold, foggy, wet, windy conditions near the coast on any day of the year, no matter what the weather inland is like.

You can start this loop anywhere—just decide at what stage of the ride you want to do a ripping descent. Our mapped route starts at Stinson Beach, so you get the descent last and can do the Hwy 1 leg first thing, before the traffic picks up. These 6 miles are all vigorously up and down, and when it’s over you’ll have climbed 820 ft, much more than 100 ft/mile. But it’s a wonderful stretch of road, with a lovely contour and awesome views to north and south. Most of the traffic should be against you any time before noon.

A half-mile into the ride, there’s a large turn-out where water is running out of two pipes set in the rock wall on the inland side of the road. People will probably be filling water jugs. Consider dumping your water and refilling there.

Just before you intersect with Frank Valley Rd, you pass the turn-off to the Muir Beach Overlook, which you must check out. A hair-raising (but totally safe—see photo) little walk on the knife-edge of a ridgelet takes you to a vista point where you can (on a good day) see Pt. Reyes to the north and the Gold Gate (the bay entrance, not the bridge) to the south. There’s also historical interest there—the lookouts whose remnants remain figured prominently in World War 2 coastal defenses.

Also consider checking out Muir Beach, which is a very short ride beyond the Frank Valley turn-off on Hwy 1. It’s a small and very pretty beach, fairly developed and popular with locals, that is connected to its parking lot by a 450-ft bridge over a wetlands. You can ride all the .2 miles to the beach if no one is looking.

Both Muir Beach Overlook and Muir Beach have basic toilets.

Turn L (or R if you’re returning from Muir Beach) onto Frank Valley Rd. This is your only break from work on the ride until the descent—FVR is nearly flat, and runs through a valley so narrow I’d call it a canyon. It’s pleasant and quiet, since 90% of the traffic to Muir Woods comes from the other direction. The road becomes Muir Woods Rd. at a little stone bridge just before you hit the park (the name change is signed), though some maps (and RidewithGPS) call the road Muir Woods Road from the Hwy 1 turnoff.

Muir Woods itself is usually very crowded any time after about 10 am, and road signs keep telling you that you need a parking reservation, but of course cyclists don’t. There are no reservations for entrance to the park. There is the standard national park entrance fee—$15, or free if you have an annual pass or senior card. Bring a lock if you intend to stroll. It’s a small place, and if you’ve done old-growth redwoods before you’ve seen it, but it’s pretty. The main loop is entirely on boardwalks, pavement, or hard-packed dirt so you could conceivably walk it without shoes. Simple sandals would be better.

At the park the road becomes much steeper and the forest denser and prettier. The leg from the park to Panoramic Highway is 1.5 miles, and you might like to note your mileage total when you start so you can chart your progress. It’s all up, much of it steep enough to make you notice (10%-ish). Googlemaps says it will take you 24 minutes, which is about 3.5 mph. I think you can beat that time, but bring your legs. It’s beautiful, about half dense woods and half open panoramic vistas.

Turn L onto Panoramic Highway. The steep stuff continues for another mile or so—then it’s flat, nearly flat, or gentle climbing to the summit at Pantoll Rd. The entire leg is part of the Mt. Tam ride, where’s it’s going in the opposite direction. The first couple of miles, until you enter Mt. Tam State Park, is built up and busy—the only miles of the loop I don’t enjoy. Once in the park, you should have the roads largely to yourself, if it’s before 10 am. From the park sign almost to your car, the woods are famously beautiful.

At the intersection with Pantoll Rd., there’s an unmissable summit where you leave our Mt. Tam ride loop (which enters from the R and goes back the way you came) and go straight. You now plummet 4 miles to Hwy 1. It’s a great descent, in our Best Descents list. The road surface (until the last mile) is perfect, the curves are nicely shaped, the woods are glorious, and you’re probably faster than the car traffic so they won’t bother you. Near the bottom you come out of the trees, you get great vistas of the ocean and Stinson Beach to the north, and the road surface goes to hell, enough to seriously impact your joy.

Shortening the route: That’s difficult to do if you’re here for the descent. If you’re not, Hwy 1 and Frank Valley Rd. would make a mellow out and back.

Adding miles: Everything around you is good. For a few miles you’re on the route of the Mt. Tamalpais ride, and it’s easy to do both rides as one giant loop, omitting the Pantoll-to-Four-Corners leg. The Adding Miles section of the Tam ride talks about riding north on Hwy 1 from our starting point and climbing Fairfax Bolinas Rd. Locals like to ride a loop that goes down Muir Woods/Frank Valley and back up Hwy 1 to the southeast, but that stretch of Hwy 1 is one long steep climb, it’s busy, and it has no room, so I’m not a fan of it in that direction.

Ryan below suggests going the other way at the top of Muir Woods Road and descending that same stretch of Hwy 1 between the Panoramic Highway and Muir Beach I just damned as a climb. As a descent it’s a delicious stretch of road, with perfect pavement, well-shaped corners, and a pitch that lets you bomb with a lot of speed but minimal braking. Traffic is usually not a problem because you’re as fast as the cars. Compared to our Descent of the PH, it has only two problems: it’s shorter (only 2 miles of descending), and it’s much more exposed to the wind. I did it during a blustery on-shore breeze and got blown around. On a windless day, it would be a dream. If you loop Muir Woods Road and the Hwy 1 descent, it’s only 8 miles (though a very dramatic 8), so you could actually do it 2 or 3 times. If you’ve done the loop once and are looking for a bit more work and aren’t into repeating yourself, ride north on Hwy 1 from Frank Valley Road to the Muir Beach Overlook—it’s a mere 0.9 miles, but it climbs 430 heart-pounding feet, so it’s an absolute ripper coming back down.

It’s easy to ride our route plus the Hwy 1 descent, as a figure-eight. You have to ride the Frank Valley Road/Muir Woods Road leg twice, but that isn’t a hardship.

Distance: 18 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 2400 ft

(A Best of the Best ride)

The ride to the lighthouse is the iconic ride in Pt. Reyes National Seashore. Deservedly. But it’s not the only good ride, and Limantour Road has a lot to recommend it. In fact, it may be the better ride, depending on your taste and mood.

Let’s compare the pros and cons. Both have excellent road surfaces, resurfaced in the last couple of years (as of 2022). The lighthouse ride is longer—over twice as long if you start from Pt. Reyes Station. It has a lighthouse with a great little museum, historic dairy farms, a great short hike out to Chimney Rock, and world-class wildflowers in the spring. But, except for one small hill, it’s all small rollers through open, fairly barren country. Limantour is one big hill—all up, then all down. It’s short, but it’s enough climbing to be a workout—harder than the lighthouse ride because it has more elevation gain per mile (the lighthouse is about 3500 ft in 40 miles; Limantour is 2400 ft in 18 miles) and more steep stuff. The terrain is prettier and more varied than the lighthouse ride—lush woods, coastal canyons, esteros, sand dunes. It’s got a Best of the Best descent on the return ride. It’s got a great Visitor Center (if you start at Bear Valley). The Visitor Center has a splendid bathroom, worth checking out even if you don’t need one. At the turn-around Limantour has a grand beach you can easily walk your bike to and enjoy in bare feet. And it’s much less crowded—whereas on the lighthouse ride you might easily see 40-50 bikes, on Limantour I typically see 2 or 3. Likewise for car traffic and people.

Time for the standard Northern California coastal weather warning. Do not choose your clothing according to the weather at Bear Valley Visitor Center, Pt. Reyes Station, or anywhere else at all inland. On any day of the year, the weather at the summit or the shoreline can be cold, windy, and foggy. Wear as much as you can comfortably, then pack at least one complete additional clothing layer. Take the glove liners, the leggings, and the skullcap. Don’t argue with me.

Start at the Bear Valley Visitor Center, because it’s a great place, it has a great bathroom, it has lots of parking, and there’s a lovely meadow across the road from the parking lot dotted with big shade trees and picnic tables for relaxing under after the ride. Ride out of the Center and turn L on Bear Valley Road. Take the first L, onto Limantour Road (clearly signed).

After a brief spell of flat, climb for 4 miles through consistently gorgeous woods. The contour is varied and the pitches are never daunting—a lovely little climb. You’ll work a little in the last half-mile.

At the summit you break out into the open, the road rolls for a while, you may well hit fog, and the road may become drippy.

The descent is considerably steeper than the climb up, too steep to be much fun, and often very windy, so it’s not a favorite of mine, and the climb back out after the turnaround is tough, so decide before descending if you want to turn around now. There’s a road sign a short way down the descent telling you to prepare for 17% pitches, which is an exaggeration, but it’s steep. That said, the views on the descent are great. You’re in coastal canyons, and soon you’re riding the spine of one of them, with views of Drake’s Bay and Limantour Estero opening up before you.

Halfway down the descent you hit an unexpected fork, and it’s easy to get confused. Stay R and follow the minimal signage to Limantour Beach, named for Joseph Limantour, a trader and sea captain who achieved some notoriety by totaling his schooner nearby.

The road doesn’t actually take you to the beach; instead it takes you to something ecologically more interesting, the Limantour Estero, where the bay waters and fresh waters from Marin mix in the tidal stew and wonderful environmental things happen. It’s important, it’s pretty, and there are informational placards to help you understand what’s going on.

From the primitive parking lot at the end of the road you have a 1/5-mile hike through the Estero, over the dunes, and down to the beach. It’s easy walking, even barefoot, so you don’t need shoes. You can ride the first bit of it by taking the side road to the visible dumpsters to the east of the parking lot (the portapotties are there as well, hiding behind the shrubs), and in fact you can ride almost to the dunes, if you don’t mind a bit of sand riding. I didn’t see signs saying not to.

As I said, the ride home is much harder than the ride out. The RWGPS elevation profile doesn’t agree—it says the ride in and the ride out are about the same. Hogwash. There’s no comparison. Be prepared for a mile or so of 11-13% stuff that’s truly taxing.

The descent on the east side is pure joy, especially in the second half—a Best of the Best descent. It’s very fast, with big, sweeping corners where you can sustain 35 mph without risk, in part thanks to the outstanding traction provided by the new road surface.

Shortening the Ride: Ride from the Visitor Center to the summit and return. You’ll get the ride’s best ascent and the best descent, but of course you’ll miss the beach.

Adding Miles: Our route passes within a couple of miles of the Pt. Reyes Lighthouse ride, and our Chileno Valley Road/Tomales Bay Loop ride goes through Pt. Reyes Station, about 3 miles away.

You can ride the rest of Bear Valley Road, which is quite pleasant, but it’s very short.

See the Adding Miles section of the Pt. Reyes Lighthouse ride for other possibilities.

Distance: 48-mile loop
Elevation gain: 2600 ft

(A Best of the Best ride…in late winter or spring)

First, a word about when to do this ride: This ride, like all rides in Marin, varies with the seasons. In summer, fall, or mid-winter, when the grassy hills are burned brown, the riding is merely good. In late winter or spring, when the hills are gloriously green, the riding is marvelous. Hence the qualifier on the Best of the Best rating above.

The network of roads in Marin County between Highway 1 and Highway 101 may be the most heavily ridden cycling roads in rural California, because they’re easily accessible from the population centers clustered around the Golden Gate Bridge.   The roads are mostly all the same—moderate rollers through grassy dairy farm land on pretty good road surfaces.  It’s all very delightfully unpretentious—not a hint of Wine Country snobbery.  There are few if any grand mansions or ostentatious wrought-iron gates along these roads, and the farm houses are real—old, family-owned, working dairy farms.  The oyster restaurants along Hwy 1 are housed in shacks.  Feel free to wander and ride on any road that catches your fancy, with our usual caveat: minimize your time on the obvious main arteries—Pt. Reyes Petaluma Rd., Tomales Petaluma Rd., Sir Francis Drake Blvd.

The century that covers this area is the Marin Century, and, since the roads are much of a muchness, it’s a perfectly fine introduction to the area, if you want to ride 100 miles of it, which I don’t.

Among all this sameness, one route stands out, a cycling masterpiece and one of Bestrides’ premier rides—this one.

But first, a confession: I actually don’t ride this route as mapped any more.  I ride the Marshall Wall version, mapped in Shortening the Route below. I think it’s a much better ride—it has more varied landscapes and riding conditions. The Marshall version is shorter and has more climbing and more dramatic terrain; the Point Reyes Station version has the Model Bakery but has many more miles of rolling hilly sameness. Your choice.

This ride (Marshall version) manages to combine three distinct and delightful kinds of terrain: 1) Chileno Valley Rd., which is the very best of the roads through rolling dairy farm country; 2) Marshall-Petaluma Rd., which provides nice climbing and descending, dramatic riding through draws and canyons, and some sweet vistas of the hills to the east and Bodega Bay to the west; and 3) Hwy 1 along the Tomales Bay shoreline, constant rollers through cypress canopies and past quaint oyster farms, with views of the Bay waters. Each leg in its own way is as good as cycling gets.

This ride has non-riding rewards as well. Depending on your route, you may pass two communities of surpassing charm—Tomales and Pt. Reyes Station—and four culinary destinations—Route One Bakery and Kitchen in Tomales, Tomales Deli and Cafe next door, the famous Bovine Bakery in Pt. Reyes Station, and the Cheese Factory, the place that taught California that it could make cheese back when that was an unthinkable thought. It’s a foodie paradise, for sure, but a word of caution: rural eateries tend to have odd hours, close early, not open at all, or go out of business at the drop of a hat. So google any of those places if they’re important to you. The last time I did this ride I planned the route to leave me having lunch and croissant in Tomales, and when I got there the deli was closed for refurbishment and the bakery was closed because it was Tuesday.

Whichever route you choose, expect to work harder than a casual glance at the profile suggests.  There are no extended climbs on the Station route, and only one on the Marshall route, but the terrain is never flat and all that rolling adds up  The Marshall-Petaluma Rd version has 3000 ft of gain, which isn’t nasty but is far from flat.

As with all riding along the California coast, predicting the weather on the Hwy 1 leg can be tricky. On any day of the year it can be foggy or breezy, so bring some layers. I once did this ride in August, it was flirting with 100 degrees inland and the temperature on Hwy 1 was 61 degrees at 1 pm.

I’ve always ridden this route counterclockwise, though I see no reason why you have to.  You can begin it anywhere.  There is a strong argument to be made for starting the ride in one of our two towns, so you can eat sweets before riding and lunch after. I started the route at the point you reach first if you’re approaching from the south.

Start at the intersection of Nicasio Valley Rd. and Pt. Reyes Petaluma Rd (aka Petaluma Pt. Reyes Rd.). Go NNE (which Northern Californians call “east”) toward Petaluma.  The traffic here is the worst you’ll see until Hwy 1.  Soon on your left you pass the Cheese Factory, with good bathrooms and free cheese samples.  Note the “No lifeguard on duty” sign on the bathrooms. 

Take the first L onto Hicks Valley Rd. (clearly signed, though my Marin Bicycle Map inexplicably labels it “Wilson Hill Rd.”), then the first R onto the real Wilson Hill Rd.  The “hill” of Wilson Hill Road is probably the longest climb you’ll do all day, unless you take the Marshall Wall option below.  Take the first L onto Chileno Valley Rd. 

If you’re out for a shortish, mellow day, when Chileno Valley Road ends at Tomales Petaluma Road you can turn R instead of L and ride down to Spring Hill Road and loop back to the beginning of Chileno. SHR used to be an absolute no-no, because the road surface was comically awful, but according to Friend of Bestrides Brian it’s been recently repaved and is now glass, and the terrain is nearly as charming as Chileno itself.

Assuming you’re in for the full Monty, at the end of Chileno turn L at the T onto Tomales Petaluma Rd. and ride to Hwy 1—five miles of mostly climbing on a straight road with pretty constant traffic but a nice, big shoulder.  It’s the only leg of the ride that approaches mere OK-ness. If you want to avoid traffic, there’s a nice detour around most of TPR detailed by MacKenzie in the comments below: Alexander Rd. to Fallon Two Rock/Whitacker Bluff Rd. to Valley Ford Franklin School Rd. to Tomales. It adds a few miles but ups the scenic/solitude factor.

If you stayed on TPR, at the intersection with Hwy 1 turn R and ride the ¼ mile to the tiny, doll-like town of Tomales.  If you didn’t start here, try to plan your ride so you can stop for lunch, because the sandwiches at the deli next to the bakery at the only downtown intersection are great.  Note the building with the formal “Not a Bank” sign across the street.  It’s not a bank.  The baked goods at the corner deli are very good—some say better than those at the Bovine Bakery in 20 miles.

Go south on Hwy 1, retracing your last 1/4 mile, and continue on Hwy 1 all the way to Pt. Reyes Station (or to Marshall Petaluma Rd, if you’re taking my advice).   This is one of the few rides in Bestrides that features extended Hwy 1 riding, and it may or may not be to your taste.  It can be heavily trafficked, especially on weekends, because you’re riding through some prime oyster dining territory, and it’s skinny with no shoulder, so the riding can be fairly hairy.  But the road is absolutely gorgeous, with a wonderful, constantly meandering contour and grand views as you roll along the edge of Tomales Bay.  

Halfway from Tomales to Pt. Reyes Station you pass (well-signed) Marshall Petaluma Rd. and you face your big choice: climbing or Bovine Bakery? Are you here to ride or eat? Do you want drama (Marshall) or miles of rolling pleasantness (PRS)?

If you go Marshall, the road will take you back to your starting place. if you go for Pt. Reyes Station, it’s one of Northern California’s best villages and a prime cycling destination, so there should be stacks of bikes propped up by Bovine.  There are also several good restaurants and classy public bathrooms. Bovine closes early, so check its hours and plan your ride to get there when it’s open.

Don’t continue down Hwy 1—ride out the east side of town up the little hill and take the immediate R onto Pt. Reyes Petaluma Rd.  Stay on it back to your car.

Shortening the route: The Marshall option cuts the mileage down from 48 to 35, but you won’t save work because you’re substituting serious climbing for rolling. I’ve mapped it here:

Adding miles:  There is endless good riding in all directions off this route.  Pt. Reyes Station is the starting point for our Point Reyes Lighthouse ride.  

Most cyclists are coming from the southern population centers, so they ride to our loop via Lucas Valley Rd. or Sir Francis Drake Blvd., both with beautiful densely wooded terrain, great road contour, a lot of traffic and no shoulder.  Both roads deposit you on Nicasio Valley Rd, a slightly busier, straighter, and wider road than our loop but nothing to dread.  Lucas Valley Rd is a beautiful climb and descent, in either direction, if you can catch it early in the morning before the traffic, and it has the perk of taking you past Skywalker Ranch, George Lucas’s research facility (the valley was not named after George).   There’s nothing to see but a driveway and a gate, but you can tell your friends.   At the summit of LVR there’s a big rock, and you’ll wonder if it has a name.  It’s called Big Rock, and it marks the trailhead for the popular Big Rock Trail.

All the smaller roads immediately north of Tomales (Dillon Beach, Middle, Valley Ford-Franklin School, Whittaker Bluff) are good as well, and the good riding just keeps on as you go northward through Sonoma County and toward our Wine Country rides.

From Point Reyes Station you can make a longer loop by continuing south on Hwy 1 and turning L at Olema onto Sir Francis Drake Blvd.   This route will take you through the prettiest and most treacherous stretch of Sir Francis Drake, past the stunning Samuel P. Taylor State Park trees.  The road is scarily narrow, the traffic is pitiless, and the shoulder non-existent, but the previously-dreadful road surface has now been repaved (in 2014).   And wow, those trees…  Stop off at the State Park to stroll, get water, or spend the night if you’re touring.  Turn L on Nicasio Valley Rd. to get back to your car.

Distance: 38-mile loop with out and back spur
Elevation gain: 4400 ft

(A Best of the Best ride)

The first half of this route is covered thoroughly in words and pictures at toughascent.com.  It’s referred to by locals as “the Alpine Dam ride,” to distinguish it from other ways of approaching Mt. Tam, and it does cross that most unprepossessing of landmarks.

Once in the weeks before I went to Italy on a cycling vacation, I took a friend who knew Europe well on this ride.  As we were passing over one of the more spectacular legs, he turned to me and said, “I hope you aren’t going to Europe to find better riding than this, because there isn’t any.”   I second that emotion.  Mt. Tam is a Bucket List ride if there ever was one, one of the 5 best rides in Bestrides, and the best ride in our list for grand vistas.  (Remember to click on the following photos to see them full-screen.)  If someone were to say to me, “I have one day to do any ride in California—which should it be?”, I’d say this one.  It’s a lot of climbing, but there are only two serious pitches: right off the bat, and just past Alpine Lake.

This is a pretty complicated route in the half after the summit.  It wends its way through several busy Marin communities.  So you’ll want to have a Garmin with the route loaded or carry your Marin Bicycle Map (see the section Introduction).  And, because it goes through the most popular recreation area in the Bay Area, you’ll see a lot of cars.   But two things will save you: all the traffic is on one side of the mountain (the south side), so for the first half of the ride you’re nearly alone, and all that traffic is coming toward the mountain when you’re leaving it (assuming you started in the morning), so it’s almost all on the other side of the road.   But if the traffic or the urban navigating puts you off, in Alternate Routes below I’ll show you two ways to ride the mountain that avoid both.

Take footgear to walk in—you’ll want to explore the summit on foot.

Begin in Fairfax, another one of those extremely attractive Marin enclaves that seem to combine the best features of city and town.  It’s a lovely place to hang out.  There’s a good artisanal ice cream shop a few feet from your starting point, good bike shops to your left and right, and one of my favorite taco shops ¼ mile down your route on the L.  There is also the Marin Museum of Cycling and the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame (same building), well worth a visit. There’s free parking for just long enough for you to do the ride comfortably, in a parking lot smack in the divider in the middle of main street.  If it’s full, riders park in the Whole Earth parking lot down the street to the south.

Head down Fairfax-Bolinas Rd. (signed “Bolinas Rd.”).    Immediately you do the longest, hardest climb on the route.   Because of this, I always used to do twenty minutes riding the flat side streets heading south out of Fairfax to warm up first.   But it’s easier to start in Ross and ride to Fairfax, which accomplishes the same thing but means you don’t end up in Fairfax—there goes the ice cream.

When you see the golf course,  the worst of the climbing is over and the bulk of the traffic you’ve been fighting should be history (you shouldn’t see more than 1-4 cars between the golf course and Ridgecrest Blvd.)), but the climbing continues at a milder pitch for some time.  You summit, then give most of the elevation gain back via some nice descending curves, then roll up and down and back and forth through very pretty woods to Alpine Lake Dam.  If you like dense, shadowy forest and roller-coaster contour, this will be your favorite part of the ride.  There are some big surprises in the way of broken pavement and launch ramps in the road surface through here, and the occasional car, so have a care.  The Authorities have recently repaved most of the worst pavement breaks, but there are still enough to warrant your attention.

As you cross the dam, there is currently a great sign reading in its entirety “Next 6 miles.”  At the far end of the dam there’s a sudden R turn and you’re onto the second most demanding climb of the ride.   It’s something over 2 miles of serpentining through lovely woods, so it’s never a grind.   The surface is poor, not poor enough to disturb the climb but poor enough to spoil the descent, which is one reason why I don’t recommend returning by this route.  When you reach the T at the obvious summit, turn L onto West Ridgecrest Blvd. (there is a sign).   Bolinas-Fairfax Rd. goes off at 1 o’clock and drops down to the ocean (more on that in Adding Miles).   Ride past a massive gate that may be closed (to keep out cars, not you) in fire danger season or during the filming of car ads.

Ride W. Ridgecrest along the Marin spine separating the ocean from the rest of Marin.  From here to the Tamalpais summit is one of the scenic high points of your cycling career (if the weather is clear—see below).  Take your time, stopping often to drink it all in.  You’ve actually seen the ridge road before, because it has appeared in more TV car ads than any other road on earth.  I seem to encounter film crews about every other time I’m riding there.  You’re riding a ridge road, so there are views on both sides, and it’s all big, fairly steep rollers (the so-called Seven Sisters), so it’s much more work than you expect—there’s about 570 ft of gain from end to end going this direction.  It makes the return ride easy, if you come back this way.

At the Y at the unmissable intersection/parking lot, which is called Rock Springs (there is an unobtrusive sign), go L onto East Ridgecrest Blvd. and ride to East Peak, the end of the road and the summit of Mt. Tam.  Don’t skip this leg because you’re tired.  The climb up East Ridgecrest is a moderately steep 3 miles, but they pass quickly because the views from East Peak are a memory to be hoarded, as Breaker Morant put it.   So go.  Don’t just slog to the summit with your head down—as you climb, the views of Marin, San Francisco, and the coast to the south are ever-changing and magical, so stop often to drink them in.

At East Peak you’ll find a nice bathroom, water, a Visitor Center which may or may not be open, one picnic table, a lookout (locked up) on the actual summit just above you that’s reached via a surprisingly nasty footpath (but hike it anyway), and a paved circular path around the base of the lookout that’s closed to bikes (but walk it anyway).    Take time to let what you’re seeing sink in.  It’s one of the best views on earth.

You are now about to begin one of the great descents on the west coast—11 miles of mostly uninterrupted, glassy-smooth, perfectly slalomed and banked curves, sweet 20-35-mph stuff.   I ache to think of it.   This stretch is why you don’t want to ride this route clockwise and or as an out-and-back from Fairfax.  It’s a very busy auto route, but as I said, assuming you’re riding it before 3 pm, almost all the traffic is going the other way, north, up the mountain or up the coast.  The last time I did it, it was 2 pm on a beautiful fall Saturday, and I met one car—one—going my direction in those 11 miles.

Ride from the summit back to Rock Springs and go straight ahead onto Pantoll Rd. at the Y.  This is a busy leg for cars, so try to catch a lull in the traffic so you don’t get stuck behind some slow-moving vehicle.  Pantoll ends at Panoramic Highway, where you go L.  Now you will need a map or a Garmin.  You’re going to get an back-door introduction to the great Marin communities—Mill Valley, Larkspur, Kentfield, Ross, San Anselmo, and Fairfax.  There’s a reason why two-bedroom cottages in these places cost millions.  It’s because these places are dang cool.

At the first big, unmissable intersection (what locals call the Four Corners), go L onto Sequoia Valley Rd (note the sign some wag has altered to read “Chill Valley” marking the turn).  Panoramic actually makes a L turn immediately before the intersection, so you’re riding into a T.  Take a moment to reflect on the fact that “sequoia” is a seven-letter word that contains all the vowels.  Navigation from here on in requires constant vigilance, and I’ll just lay it out and you can find it on your map:

1. Sequoia Valley Rd. (which becomes Edgewood Ave.) to Miller Ave (with several stop signs and slight turns—just keep going down).
2. R on Miller to Camino Alto
3. L on Camino Alto
4. Camino Alto becomes Corte Madera Ave., which becomes Magnolia Ave., which becomes College
5. L on Kent Ave. (where College forks—if you miss it, you’ll T into Sir Francis Drake in 1/4 mile), which becomes Poplar, to Shady Lane, to San Anselmo Ave., which runs into Fairfax and your car.

Just when you think everything after the Mt. Tam summit is either down or flat, you discover that Camino Alto is a fairly long, steady, mellow-to-moderate climb followed by a short, sweet descent.  Hey, I thought we were in the middle of a city!  If you’ve burned all your matches on Mt. Tam, it can kill you.

Starting with Ross, a lot of this route is through charming shopping districts with boutique restaurants.  Feel free to stop and poke around. From Ross to Fairfax, you can take large main arteries back to Fairfax if you’re tired of navigating, but the side streets that parallel those arteries are fun and I’ve mapped it via them.  If you’re an urbanophobe who dreads riding in traffic, let me tell you that a Bestrides fan who felt similarly did the ride and wrote, “The ride from Mill Valley back to Fairfax ended up being one of my favorite parts—great bike lanes, courteous drivers, and beautiful little towns.”

If you do this ride on a weekday, the traffic around Mt. Tam is cut by 3/4, but the payback is that the traffic in the towns is  worse.  From San Anselmo Ave on, things can get positively harrowing.  There are a number of intersections where you’ll be keeping an eye on cars coming from 5 different directions.

Alternate routes:  I promised you two ways to avoid the traffic and the navigating.  One way is to ride the route to the summit as an out-and-back.  The merits of going back the way you came are obvious:  1) you get to see West Ridgecrest again, this time in the easy direction: 2) the rest of the ride is good, familiar stuff; 3) you miss the traffic, the urban streets, and the navigation headaches.   The two drawbacks are 1) the big descent from West Ridgecrest to Alpine Lake is too steep to be fun, with lots of blind corners forcing you to go slow so the one car that’s inevitably driving up this road for no reason doesn’t kill you, and the road surface is rough enough to spoil what fun there is; and 2) you miss the 11-mile slalom on the other side.

The other way is to begin the ride from the ocean side.  Instead of starting in Fairfax, start in Bolinas, a town that has become a part of California mythology.  The story goes that the citizens of Bolinas wanted to be left alone, so when the State put up a sign on Highway 1 marking the turn-off, they stole it.  So the State replaced it.  And they stole the replacement.  And this went on, until the State gave up and didn’t replace the sign, and I believe to this day there is no sign marking the turn-off to Bolinas on Hwy 1.  Despite all that, Bolinas is a friendly, open, charming little tie-dyed coastal village where you’ll find B and B’s, lots of easy parking, and inexpensive, unpretentious places to eat.   Ride back to Hwy 1 and angle slightly to the R and straight across Hwy 1 and up Bolinas-Fairfax Rd.  It’s the same road you took out of Fairfax, where it was called the Fairfax-Bolinas Rd.  I don’t have to explain that, do I?  Anyway, the road may look closed, and it may even be signed as closed, and it may be a bit full of debris, but it’s good for bikes, and it’s a fine, challenging climb up to the same intersection with West Ridgecrest we rode through on our old loop.  From there ride to East Peak, same as before, and return to Bolinas the way you came.

If you like the idea of climbing up from the ocean but you want a loop instead of an out-and-back, when you return from the top of Tam to Rock Springs, ride back on Pantoll Rd., same as our mapped route, but now go R on Panoramic Highway instead of L and descend to the T at Hwy 1, a wonderful descent featured in our Muir Woods Loop ride .  Go R on 1 to the (no sign, remember?) turn-off to Bolinas and your car.  Panoramic and Hwy 1 can be hairy with traffic, now going your way, and there is no shoulder or easy passing.  There may be some white-knuckling.  But the rewards of this route are substantial.  Hwy 1 goes through some fascinating topography in here, especially if you like birds and tidal habitats.   As you ride along Bolinas Lagoon checking out the shore birds, you pass the Audubon Canyon Ranch, the birding society’s research center, open to the public.  Great white herons used to nest there by the hundreds, but apparently they’ve moved somewhere else.

Shortening the ride:  I hate to give up any of this one, but if one must, one should think about what aspects of the ride are unmissable.  For me, that’s riding Ridgecrest to the summit, and descending the Panoramic Highway.  So I’d suggest 1) driving to Ridgecrest and riding Ridgecrest to the summit and back, or 2) starting in Mill Valley and riding to the summit and back backwards along our route.  Schedule carefully to avoid traffic on the latter.

Riding from Fairfax to the Alpine Lake Dam and back is a less grand but lovely ride beloved of locals, and it will still give you a workout.

Adding miles: If the mileage in our loop isn’t enough for you (and chapeau to you if that’s true), you can add on about 14 miles by going R instead of L at the intersection of Pantoll Rd. and Panoramic Hwy and following our Muir Woods Loop route to Sequoia Valley Rd.

I’m no fan of bike paths, but Marin has a world-class one (or so it used to be—a reader tells me the surface is now poor).  It’s called the Mill Valley-Sausalito Bike Path.  It’s on the Marin Bicycle Map and you can google the route.   When you’re on the Camino Alto leg of our loop, it’s running right beside you.  It will take you all the way into Sausalito with no traffic except other cyclists and joggers, and it goes through some very interesting marshy country—this isn’t one of those bike paths that runs along the back of the local Pick and Pull.  It’s a leg of our Golden Gate Bridge Loop ride.

Fairfax is a few miles south down Sir Francis Drake Blvd. from endless fine riding in the Marin dairy country, represented in Bestrides.org by the Chileno Valley Road ride.

If you’re into mountain biking, Fairfax is the base for the famous Tamarancho mtb loop.  Go to Sunshine Bicycle Center downtown to pay a modest trail use fee and get directions.

Afterthoughts: We’re doing this ride to see the astounding views of San Francisco, the ocean, and the Bay laid out at our feet along the route and at the summit.  Without those views, it’s just another really good ride.  So I’d wait for a day when the weather over the Bay is clear.  Ocean fog isn’t a problem—the views to the west are still spectacular when the fog blanket is present, just in a different way.

I cannot over-stress how extreme the weather changes can be on this ride.  It can be damp and 45 degrees in Bolinas when it’s sunny and 90 degrees on Ridgecrest Blvd.  It can be sunny and warm in Fairfax and white-out fog, with puddles on the road, and 55 degrees on Ridgecrest.  I did this ride once where there was a 20-degree difference between one end of Ridgecrest and the other, with one end in cold drizzle and the other in hot sun.

Re: ttmetro’s comment below: the road from Fairfax to Ridgecrest Rd. is frequently under construction or suffering road damage, and at such times you’ll encounter signs marking the road as closed to all, including bikes.  I’ve always ignored such signs (here and everywhere else) and have never been challenged for riding through them.  Once a construction foreman actually laughed at me for taking the “no bicycles” sign seriously—”That’s just liability bullshit,” he said.

Distance:  40 miles out and back
Elevation gain: 3066 ft

If you’re only going to do one ride in the Pt. Reyes area, read this report and the Limantour Rd. report to decide which one better suits your tastes.

Point Reyes gets in your blood.  The first time I went there, it seemed barren, cold, featureless, and generally uninviting.  Now I love it.  It isn’t obviously dramatic—it’s not Yosemite.  It’s open, gently rolling wild grassland, and it’s often windy and frigid.  But give it time.  It will work its magic.

This ride comes with a bevy of caveats.  First, I’d try to do it in winter or a shoulder season, but not in summer, and I wouldn’t go anywhere near it on a summer weekend—the traffic is like two-for-one day at Walmart.  Second, the weather can be windy, cold, and damp on any day of the year.  Don’t judge by the weather in Point Reyes Station or Inverness, don’t trust the weather report, and don’t assume summer means warm.  Pack at least one layer more than you think you’ll need.  The last time I did this ride, in early June, it was 68 degrees, still, and sunny in Inverness and 52 degrees, very windy, and heavily fogged out by the lighthouse.  Third, it’s more work that meets the eye.  The land looks relatively flat, but it is in fact constant rollers, many of them steep.  10% pitches are common.  I once started to count the substantial rollers in one direction and gave up after twenty. Fourth, I’d avoid the ride if the wind is howling.  The prevailing wind direction is out of the northwest, which means the wind is either in your face on the ride home, which makes those steep little climbs that much harder, or it’s on your beam, which makes all the descents dicey.

The road surface used to be bad, sometimes dangerously so.  But it’s been repaved (4/21)  and is now glass from the Pierce Point Rd. fork to the lighthouse.

Ride south on Hwy 1 from Pt. Reyes Station, whose virtues (and food choices) are sung in the Chileno Valley Road ride description (if you don’t care about food, you can start in Inverness).   A stone’s throw down the road, go R onto Sir Francis Drake Blvd. and stay on it to the lighthouse at the end of the road.   The stretch of road from Inverness Park to just past Inverness is narrow and busy.   The hectic traffic in and around both places, combined with the lack of shoulder and poor road surface, makes the riding sketchy and stressful.

Once the road leaves Tomales Bay there are at least sightlines so cars can pass safely.   Climb a substantial little hill to a saddle, go down the other side, and roll up and down ceaselessly to the lighthouse.  The further you go, the more up and down the ride profile becomes.  The little hill from the parking lot to the lighthouse complex at the end is a steep little stinker.

Check out the Visitor’s Center.  Learn why they built the lighthouse halfway down the cliff face.  Ask about lighthouse keeper suicide rates.  Hike down to the lighthouse if you’ve got the legs.   Gaze out to sea in hopes of glimpsing passing whales.  Ride back.  Watch for wildflowers, cows, deer, raptors.  Let all the crap that we accumulate in our lives melt away.

There are bathrooms and water at the lighthouse complex, but nothing between Inverness and there.

Shortening the ride: Starting in Inverness will save you a few miles.  I’m not sure that parking on the shoulder is allowed on Point Reyes National Seashore land.

Adding miles: The other great ride at Pt. Reyes is our Limantour Road ride, which passes within about a mile of the Pt. Reyes Lighthouse route.

All other pavement in the Regional Seashore is more of the same good riding.  The north road, to McClure Beach, is especially isolated, so ride it if the traffic on Sir Francis Drake disturbs your tranquility or you want to see the elk herds that populate the hillsides.   Mt. Vision Road is a short (gated off at the turn-around), steep little sweetie with expansive views—you should have it to yourself.

Pt. Reyes Station is on our Chileno Valley Road/Tomales Bay Loop route, so all the riding discussed there is available to you.  If you have big tires you could ride the smooth dirt of Bear Valley Trail from the Bear Valley Visitor Center to Arch Rock, a wonderful trail with a postcard coastal arch at its end.   Bring walking shoes—the last leg of the trail is closed to bikes, but you can ride the bulk of it, lock your bike to the bike rack thoughtfully provided, and walk the remainder.

I know this is a bike site, but off the bike there is a vast amount of hiking and on-foot exploring to do in this area, so you might want to bring some walking shoes, a lock, and a backpack.   First among equals is the hike to Chimney Rock, which takes you to a dramatic rock formation amid coastal cliffs—do it at the right time in the spring and the wildflowers are world-famous.   Native plant enthusiasts come long distances to see them, and the Rangers give free wildflower tours.   Second is the Bear Valley Trail (see above).   While you’re there don’t miss the Bear Valley Visitor Center, which is extensive and state-of-the-art.  The outhouse across the parking lot from the main building must have cost more than my house.  I’m also fond of the hiking in Tomales Bay State Park, which lies within Pt. Reyes National Seashore.