Customer Reviews

Bicycling the Pacific Coast: A Complete Route Guide, Canada to Mexico

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This guide is a must have for anyone wanting to ride the Pacific Coast. I just used it to for a solo ride from San Francisco to the Mexican border. The guide provides turn by turn instructions to navigate through unfamiliar territory and can even provide some surprises in areas that you may know pretty well. It was very helpful in daily planning for stops for food, water, etc. and for some unplanned needs like bike shops for repairs. The elevation guide was also very helpful in gauging when to take a break or when a big climb is over. The guide provides recommended daily rides which I altered as necessary to stop and visit friends. Obtaining a good tourist guide from AAA would provide a nice supplement to the book for other sight seeing opportunities if you have the time. This leg of my journey was 600 miles and I am looking forward to using the guide next summer on a 1200 mile ride from Vancouver, BC to San Francisco.

This route guide is one of the best I've seen out in the market place. It has all the details that a long distance biker on a budget would need including: road map, elevation map, descriptions of interesting sites, road conditions, traffic conditions, mileage, camping sites with levels of amenities (esp important shower), and where to get food and other supplies/services. I also liked the fact that it wasn't trying to be everything to everyone by not including detailed information on hotels, motels, restaurants, etc except for the fact that they exist or don't exist in a particular town or area.

So why did I not give them 5 stars?

1) Internal inconsistancy - there are a significant amount of these. Mostly it is where the mileage of the description doesn't match with the mileage of the elevation map. Here's an example. In the Oregon Border to Elk Prairie Campground the written route description indicates that the first summit of the Crescent City hills is at mile 34.6 but the elevation map shows that summit at 28 miles. Am I cutting hairs? You decide. But depending on your ride pace a 6-7 mile difference can be 1/2 hour, not so much of an issue in the middle of the day but it might be at the end of the day.

2) Updated content - I have a suspicion that the guide hasn't been updated even though the 4th edition came out just recently. For the most part, the guide was written in a timeless manner that prevents it from showing much age. For example, it doesn't recommend particular restaurants. But things do change. For example on the Elk Prarie Campground to Eureka KOA day the recommended route is on Hwy 101. It's very busy and a couple of nice smaller roads are recommended (Patrick's Point and Little River St Beach). But the Hammond Trail, that takes you from Clam Beach County Park, just north of McKinleyville, South for 13 miles mostly on car free paved path, isn't mentioned. I suspect the trail didn't exist when this guide was written. The authors generally go to lengths to help you avoid nasty highway riding so I suspect that this wasn't a conscious oversight.

3) Out of scale road maps with little detail - It would have been nice if they sprang for some real maps. For example in the Nehalem Bay State Park to Cape Lookout day, the written mileage shows that Cape Meares State Park to Netarts is 4.5 miles and that Netars to Cape Lookout is 6 miles. Which seems about right after biking this portion. But on the road map the distance from Netarts to Cape Lookout appears to be 5 to 6 times further.

Overall, if you are biking down the coast, absolutely get this book but suppliment it with other resources such as AAA roadmaps, Adventure Cycling's bike maps, or the Oregon Dept of Transportation "Oregon Coast Bike Route" (found at the Oregon Tourist offices).

I've ridden parts of the coast, Santa Cruz to the border and Aberdeen to Eureka and look forward to filling in the gaps. Some advice: 1) Go "off season", much of the ride is basically on heavily traveled highways. I didn't know so many RVs existed. 2) Go out of your way to meet your fellow bike tourists. I met people from all over Europe, Asia and even Americans. All with cool stories. 3) Get your bike in top notch shape, before your ride. Let's just say I toured most of the bike shops in Oregon over a four day period. Not fun. 4) Don't ride everyday and don't forget to relax.

I biked the entire Pacific coast in September 2005, and used this book to help plan my trip. Were I to do it again knowing what I know now, I wouldn't buy the book.

Don't get me wrong, this is a good book - I read it ahead of time and it helped me figure out relative distances and times, which helped in planning. In general it seemed very thorough and well put-together, and I met people on my trip that used it.

It's main drawback is that it's a BOOK. It's not convenient to refer to on the road, and the directions, while nicely detailed, are too verbose for real reference. In addition, because it's fundamentally a linear narrative of how to get from here to there, it's not very convenient if you need or want to get off of their path for any reason.

I mailed this book home after I discovered that my Adventure Cycling maps (adv-cycling dot org) fulfilled all of my needs - directions, detail in cities, where to shower, sleep & eat (including phone #s), elevation, and distances. Besides that, they are small, waterproof, and easy to refer to while riding or pull out at a stop-sign.

In general I'm a more visual/map guy than a directions/narative guy, so your mileage may vary. If you want a book to tell you how to bike the Pacific coast, this is the one. If any of what I said sounds like you it applies to you, feel free to skip the book.

I bought this book from Amazon in 2002 and used it during a ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles in August 2003.

It's a very good guide. The directions for their main route were quite detailed and usually clear. I got lost a couple of times, but never badly and it may not have been the book's fault. Milage totals were usually pretty close, although there were a couple of segments that were off somewhat. The guide is much more useful if you photocopy the pages with directions. Then you can use them as daily route slips. The book can be kept in a pannier during the trip to be brought out in the evening to get an overview of the next day's route and stuff you might see along the way.

I also enjoy the overall feeling that it was written by dyed-in-the-wool cyclists for dyed-in-the-wool cyclists. This authenticity comes out sometimes in little asides, such as the authors' comment that a northbound tunnel near Gaviota (CA) is like riding through a high-suction vacuum hose. If you've ridden a bicycle through that tunnel, you'd know how dead-on that description is.

I didn't give the book 5 stars (although I would have given it 4.5 if there was an option) because it doesn't provide much for the bicycle tourist who prefers hotels and hostels to camping. An appendix with a listing of youth hostels and a selection of cyclist-friendly hotels on the route would make the guide more complete. It would be especially helpful if the authors did this for the more remote regions on the route. The authors also might want to add a little more commentary and detail to the alternate routes they sometimes suggest. For example, the authors suggest an inland route along US101 as an alternate to Highway 1 through Big Sur when the road is closed (which happens fairly often) or during the height of the tourist season. Well, if you're going to suggest a 100-mile detour, do more than just put a shaded line on a not-very-detailed map. (By the way, I don't completely agree with the authors' assertion that Hwy 1 through Big Sur is too trafficy to comfortably ride during the tourist season. Maybe it is on weekends, but I went through on a Monday and traffic was only moderate and not particularly hard to deal with.)

Overall, though, this book is well worth the money.

I've used this guide twice to ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles (different editions through the years) and found it to be accurate and helpful...definately written by people who understand cycling. The route takes you off the highway at busy cities where bikes must exit the main road, and provides good descriptions and a safe route to get through town and back to the main road at the other end. for example, you exit Pacific Coast Hwy through Santa Cruz and Monterey and Santa Barbara.
We usually go through and type out a "quick sheet" to carry on the bike, eliminating the descriptions and side trips that we don't need to reference while riding, but the descriptions can be great to help you avoid getting lost. I recommend highly.

My friend and I used this book (previous edition) to cycle/camp from San Fransisco to Los Angeles. Although the milage/elevation was slightly off the book was indespensable. We meet a guy from Amsterdam who was riding from Seattle to Los Angeles (without a helmet?!?) who was very excited when he saw our book had campsites his maps didn't. 508 miles in 7 days without a hitch, a big thanks to the authors. I also used the book on a ride around the San Juan islands (north of Seattle) it was amazing, I believe these rides are not in the current edition hence the 4 out of 5 stars.

We just completed a coastal ride from San Francisco to Mexico. I bought this book prior to the trip hoping it would shed some light on what to expect, tips, training, etc. I was initially disappointed.

But..as we started our trip we found the maps were very valuable (the rest of the book..so/so). The altitude scales were okay, but good enough to set some level of expectations. They didn't always reflect the map in the right scale, but it worked well enough. We initially thought we could ride route 1 the whole way, but found we couldn't in many of the bigger cities, which is where the book came in handy. The maps showed which side streets to take. You can also follow bike signs or bike lanes along the way, but they're not always around when needed. We usually ripped the page out of the book and only carried the small map vs a bunch of maps. You will be surprised how many different maps you would need to carry. Use the book and maps as a general guide, but don't be afraid to wing it. In a few areas like Santa Cruz, South LA, La Jolla and South San Diego (near the boarder) we couldn't find the streets on the map. We got lost, but usually found our way via other streets using general navigation.

Other tips the book doesn't give...wear bright colors, in SF and LA you will be on busy streets with cars zipping by. I hear going in April or Sept are best to avoid tourists and still have really good weather. We used Yahoo Yellow Pages to print out high level city maps with all the hotels listed with contact info and pre-plotted on the map. This was very handy when trying to find a motel in the evening. I also recommend buying the toughest tires you can find (i.e. Specialized Armadillos). Normal road tires are too soft and get too many holes. Between the two of us we had 6 flats and a tire slash in the first day leaving SF..very discouraging. We bought heavy duty tires at a bike shop in Santa Cruz and never got another one the whole trip! We avg. about 78 miles per day with an avg. speed of 15.5 miles per hour, allowing us to get from SF to Mexico in 8 days. Make sure you know how your bike fits you and your body reacts to long days, esp multiple days. I started to ice my knee and quads every night, which made me feel much better the next day. All in all...it was a lot of fun!

From someone who had never toured on a bike before, this book was my "bible". Having now toured many times in many different places, this book is the most complete, most accurate and most detailed I have ever seen. While riding down the coast, I photocopied the second half of the book to give to a German man who was floundering with his cycling association maps. He loved the review of the day's elevation climbs the most of all. On my second trip down the California coastline, I gave the book away to another couple. It's just that good, a must have book for the Pacific Coast.

This book should really be titled, "Touring the Pacific Coast By Bicycle" because it really isn't about the cycling. Following the route in this book pretty much takes you on the most direct route down the coast and misses some great riding roads. Might be OK if you are pulling a trailer or carrying too much stuff but if you are travelling light and like riding, I'd suggest the Adventure Cycling and Krebs Maps as better routes. It does suggest some nice parks to stay at but I found it not worth the weight and ended up leaving it at a friends halfway through my trip.

This book proved to be our bible during a 6 week ride from Vancouver to San Diego (we just crossed the Mexican border and back again). A lot of other cyclists we met also had the book on them. We didn't camp - we stayed in motels so a motel guide would have been useful (but they were easy enough to find). The elevation diagrams were REALLY useful and allowed us to plan better. Occasionally the book would suggest that places had tourist facilities (i.e. places to stay) when, in fact, they didn't (e.g. Stewarts Point CA) but overall it was a massive help.