San Francisco to Los Padres National Forest down Pacific Coast Highway

A Truly Epic Adventure!

Hi everyone! Have a story to tell you about my first time taking a motorcycle out on the road. A truly epic adventure!

I got my motorcycle license during the summer of 2013, but did not know anyone with a Motorcycle so never got a chance to really get any practice in. Budget wise there was always something that prevented me from pulling the trigger and actually getting my own bike. I only rode once that year when visiting my cousin in Florida who let me take his bike for a ride around the neighborhood for half an hour. A year later at the end of July, 2014 I had a business trip to San Francisco and decided to get there early and rent a motorcycle for the weekend, it would probably be my only chance to get to know this great city and what better way than on a motorcycle. I started looking up areas to ride and fell in love with the idea of riding down the pacific coast highway. It felt a bit crazy as this would be my first ride on main roads. But I was determined to do it.

I arrived in San Francisco on a Saturday Morning, dropped off my bags at the hotel and taking only my wallet and a light jacket, picked up a few sandwiches and a few sports drinks and walked over to the rental shop I had found online prior to my trip. I rented a Honda Shadow Phantom 750 from Dubbelju in the Mission District .

I can't recommend them highly enough. Bobby the owner was great, I told him that I really had no plan other than just ride as far as I could and asked him if he had any recommendations. It was a beautiful day and he told me that unless I called ahead and arranged for accommodations the probability of finding lodging last min would be really hard unless I was willing to pay up and get something really expensive. He asked if I was willing to camp out, that sounded like an awesome idea to me. So he showed me a map and told me to ride down PCH until I got to the Los Padres National Park. There he told me I would find a road called Nacimiento-Fergusson Rd. He said just go up that road and find a place to camp. I rented a helmet, jacket and gloves and with that I found the closest REI store and I bought myself a small hammock, and a sleeping bag and set off, it was about 1pm when I started.

Being that this was the first time I had taken a bike out I took about 20 min just getting used to riding in traffic and handling the bike around. The Phantom is a really easy bike and I felt like an expert in no time. I enjoyed a few sights within the city as I headed towards Route 1 (Pacific Coast Highway). This road is amazing its not a very fast road, and with all of the tourists traveling down, there was plenty of traffic which I soon learned I could filter through after seeing several bikes passing me and showing me how its done.

I passed half moon bay:

Crossed over several Bridges and awesome twisting roads before arriving in Santa Cruz exploring a bit and then heading down to Monterrey.

I stopped to eat in Monterrey, tanked up and set off to find this road in the middle of the forest. Once I arrived in Big Sur I stopped at a restaurant to charge my cell phone ordered some dinner and topped off the gas tank. I still had no idea where this mystery road was. I asked someone at the gas station about it and he basically looked at me like I was absolutely nuts. Apparently there was a mountain lion sighting in the area and there was a high alert watch. He told me to find some official camp grounds and no way should I go out and just camp out in the middle of the forest. This of course but some major doubts in my head as to what I should do. He recommended that I go back to Monterrey because the reality of finding an available campsite this late (it was already 8pm) was not going to be easy. The road back to Monterrey was not that attractive as I would be faced with the same dilemma of trying to find accommodations. I decided to continue forward, I was bound to find it.

Half an hour later I still was not finding this road, I started contemplating just stopping on the side of the road close to the beach and camping out there. But as it was getting dark and the fog was starting to roll in, it got noticeable colder and there was no way I was going to be comfortable all night. Finally around 9pm I saw it. It was a road which climbed the mountain and in a few short min I was above the fog line and it became much warmer my spirits picked up and now I was in search of a place to hang my hammock. To my surprise this road was actually full of people hanging out along the side of the road either in small RVs, or just in cars and tents. No longer was I worried that I would be alone out there with a mountain lion to worry about!

Of course all of the good spots were already taken and I was left looking for two trees that were close enough to just hang my hammock on. It took me about an hour to finally find a spot since it was dark and I really only got a good view of the trees during curves where my headlights could shine and show me what was out there. I set up and used the sleeping bag as a cover, I was so exhausted since I had been up since 5am East Cost time this was already way past midnight for me. The next morning I woke up around 6am and got an early start to my trip back.

The trip back was much more relaxed since I got such an early start I had the entire day to explore and enjoy the sights. It was still early and the Fog was still in but slowly began to move out to sea as the sun rose in the sky.

One of the places I made sure I stopped at was McWay Falls, its a beautiful cove with a small waterfall that someone recommended I should definitely see.

The rest of the trip was just amazing. I rode a total of about 400+ miles that weekend before bringing the bike back. I stopped at a few beaches, picked up some fresh fruit along the way and just relaxed on the rocks along the coastline taking in the magnificence of this landscape and the fact that I had initiated my love of Motorcycle riding with an epic bucket list item checked off.

My own Shadow!

Of course this Honda Shadow now holds a very special place in my heart. As soon as I returned home I began my search for this bike and found a great deal on craigslist. Within a month I was the proud owner of my very own Shadow. I have been commuting on it to work every day ever since, only putting it away when the temperatures dip below 35.

If you want to check out more pictures of the road trip, check out my Google+ page:

Pictures of trip on Google+

Thanks for reading.

Juan