PCH question

[calscrazy]

I will be in santa cruz in august. I have two days to ride. I was told taking the pch north is much better than going south. Then someone told me there were better roads. I thought of taking 9 north to 236 back to 9 to 35 north up to SF then coming back down the pch to the hotel. Are those roads good? Paved? Any better ideas?

Thanks

[sofadriver]

You need to go to Pashnit.com

It's a pure rider's forum (they don't care what you ride) and the focus is on North Central California.

It's awesome!

[mostrobelle]

How much time do you plan on riding those two days?  If you just keep heading north, the roads are pretty good.  All of the ones you listed are great, but that's just in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  You can kill a day there easy, and then you get to say you've ridden the "Isle of 9".  If you really want some good riding you head up PCH for a couple of hours, head over Mt. Tam via Panoramic, take a right at Stinson Beach, go along Tomales bay a while, and then head north again--and just keep going north.  Pretty much any right hand turn off of PCH will take you down some awesome road.  One of the "famous" routes is Skaggs.  It's like some civil engineer's wet dream---they put in a huge, beautifully paved highway on the side of some mountain.  It's heavily patrolled and there are lots of riders, but if they haven't put in the "speed bumps" that I keep hearing about, it's worth a little jaunt.  That's a haul from S. Cruz.  Probably more of an overnight trip for you, unless you're bad-ass-hardcore. 

[sugarcrook]

Make sure you write down where you plan on riding and let someone else know. 

[calscrazy]

loading bike's gps and wife's gps in truck with routes. looking more like 250-300 miles a day. probably just do the route i listed one day and see if there might be a nice one coming south out of santa cruz. we will be there 5 days so i dont think she will allow me to get to crazy with my routes.

[MendoDave]

How much time do you plan on riding those two days?  If you just keep heading north, the roads are pretty good.  All of the ones you listed are great, but that's just in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  You can kill a day there easy, and then you get to say you've ridden the "Isle of 9".  If you really want some good riding you head up PCH for a couple of hours, head over Mt. Tam via Panoramic, take a right at Stinson Beach, go along Tomales bay a while, and then head north again--and just keep going north.  Pretty much any right hand turn off of PCH will take you down some awesome road.  One of the "famous" routes is Skaggs.  It's like some civil engineer's wet dream---they put in a huge, beautifully paved highway on the side of some mountain.  It's heavily patrolled and there are lots of riders, but if they haven't put in the "speed bumps" that I keep hearing about, it's worth a little jaunt.  That's a haul from S. Cruz.  Probably more of an overnight trip for you, unless you're bad-ass-hardcore. 

Speed bumps? 

[mostrobelle]

Not sure if the bumps were actually executed or not.  It was a rumor that may or may not have been executed.