Ride Report: Coast to Purisima Creek

Living in San Francisco, it’s really easy to default to a ride across the Golden Gate Bridge and up Mount Tam or into the Marin Headlands. It’s amazing riding, and its proximity to a big ol’ city is pretty special. That riding is pretty steep, though, and I’ve been looking for ways to put in some more chill miles while I get ready to ride Mid South in a month or two. This led me to start looking south of the city.

A couple of years ago, my pals Irving and Brian put together a ride they called the “Fauxvet” that went along the coast through the little beach town of Pacifica, up and over an old highway route aptly dubbed “Planet of the Apes,” along more coastline, and then finally popping up and over the formidable Purisima Creek before dropping down one of the most fun road descents I’ve ever done—King’s Mountain Road. My plan was to modify this route a bit: skip some of the coastal singletrack in favor of highway miles to make things go a little quicker, take Tunitas Creek up to Skyline, and then ride that road back to a BART (that is, the train) station, training the last 10 junk miles back into the city.

I planned to head out before 10, but finally made it out the door at 11 and cruised through Golden Gate Park down to Ocean Beach. Riding along the water on the new Sunset Dunes Park is pretty sweet and car-free before heading up into the neighborhoods south of the city. I love looking at all the colorful houses out there—so much good bike color inspiration. Someone once told me the “ticky-tacky little boxes” song was written about that area, but I haven’t confirmed it.

From there, I dropped down to Pacifica. The sourgrass was in full bloom. While this bright yellow flower is invasive, it sure is pretty, and the whole coastline was glowing yellow with sourgrass flowers. From Pacifica, I wiggled up to Planet of the Apes, a familiar route that takes you up to some fun mountain biking. The road was built in 1914 as Highway 57, and while there are still remnants of asphalt, it doesn’t really feel like a car could make it up there anymore. Still, it’s a really nice climb, and the descent down the other side is super fun.

I took out my “all-road” bike – a titanium thing I built myself a few years ago, kitted out with 32mm road tires. The back side of Planet of the Apes was a little rougher than I remembered, but it had me thinking about the huge tires we’re running these days and all the old guys who are always saying, “We used to ride that stuff on 28s!” I had fun picking my way down broken asphalt and loose, sandy gravel on road tires. Underbiking is underrated. Plus, when you do get back on the road, it’s pretty fun to be on a road bike.

Anyway, it’s a great and amazingly beautiful descent. You’re pretty much looking over a cliff at the Pacific Ocean the whole time, and there’s just something about biking next to water that feels special. From there, I cruised along the coast through cute beach towns. It was beautiful and quaint – such a different style of California than I’ve experienced in my time here, and all just a bike ride away from my front door. I connected different sections of neighborhood trails right on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean before bailing off to the highway. It had taken longer than I expected to get there, and I was losing daylight.

headed up the hill toward Tunitas Creek and was treated to a dreamy pavement climb through gently rolling hills. I couldn’t help but think about my time in Montana. While I can’t see myself ever going back there, there are certainly days when I miss all those rolling hills, and this bucolic zone scratched that itch a little. As I got farther along, things started to look familiar, and an “uh oh” crossed my mind. It turned out I had routed myself not up paved Tunitas Creek, but up the loamy (and much steeper) Purisima Creek. Oh well. It was getting darker, and maybe a more direct route was better. It’s incredibly beautiful on that road, but it is one heck of a climb.

When I finally reached the top, I decided to head down King’s Mountain Road to the Redwood City Cal Train instead of turning left and another 30 miles to the Berryessa BART station. That was the right call; King’s Mountain is such a fun descent. So fast and curvy and smooth. It could make you like road biking.

I made it to the train station a few minutes before an express train and headed back into the city and the sun just dipping over the ridge I had been riding a few minutes before. Perfect timing.

What a day! So cool to be able to ride somewhere so unbelievably beautiful so close to home and also to leverage public transit to make a route come together.

I wanted to share about this ride because no matter where you live, there is surely a ton of riding right under your nose. The bike is such a great way to explore and connect with where you live. Whether you are doing it with friends or getting some alone time out there, bikes are great connection machines. Hope you get to find something out there soon.

Here is the route I intended to do: LINK
And here is more or less the route I did: LINK