Whether you’re a mountain biker or prefer keeping to the road, California is a mecca for two-wheeled explorers. It’s rolling backroads, vineyard covered hills, long stretches of road and trail that run along the jagged coast, and the mountain ranges of the Sierra Nevada and coast provide all of the right ingredients for a bicycling dream.
Take to the streets of San Francisco, cycle the Pacific Coast Highway with its glorious panoramas, or tour the Napa Valley wine country. San Luis Obispo County – a big biking favourite – offers flat roads, gentle climbs, and extinct volcanoes, while the Valencia Peak out of Montana de Oro State Park has magnificent views of the ocean, coast, Morro Bay and Chorro Valley. And there’s an extensive trail network in Mammoth Mountain in California’s Eastern Sierras. In summer months, many ski resorts, especially Mammoth, open themselves up to mountain biking.
What greater pleasure can you imagine than seeing deer, hawks, dolphins, and whales on the same bike ride? Welcome to California’s varied landscape, where the same 30-mile loop takes you along the ocean and through the forest. Small wonder that California is a cyclist’s paradise. Like dirt? Not to name-drop, but Marin’s Mt. Tamalpais gave birth to mountain biking. Check out the state’s other knobby-tire nirvanas— Downieville, Mt. Shasta, Death Valley, and Mammoth Mountain’s Bike Park, with its gondola ride to the mountain summit and 90-plus miles of trails. Heaven can be discovered just as easily on the road. Pedal by the wine grapes coveted the world over, within view of towering snowcapped peaks, or on a certain famous bridge alongside the sparkling Pacific. The world’s top professionals in California’s prestigious Amgen Tour of California have to ride by them all, but you can pick and choose. And you can stop to enjoy breakfast, shop at a farmers’ market, or even wonder at a passing deer or a whale.
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