This past weekend I did a bikepacking trip I organized out to Coast Campground, which is in Point Reyes Nat'l Seashore. It's sort of a famous spot, since it's close to the bay but also feels pretty remote. It's hard to book, I had to stalk the reservations site a bit to get the date I wanted.

cow on Bolinas Ridge overlooking Tomales Bay

The motivation here was (1) to get some good riding in (I never have enough time for epic day rides that reach all the way out there) and (2) to do a shakedown ride for a week-long trip I'm planning with a friend in Feb. I haven't done any cyclotouring in a long time, and I need to test the new bags and such.

Anyway, I told my buddy Ryan (who I've done some moto trips with) that I was planning this and he immediately asked if he could come and also invite his girlfriend and two other friends. So a bit of a group started to form.

So we met up Saturday in Mill Valley around 8:30am. I rode over from the city, it was nice and sunny and the weather for the day looked perfect, clear, no wind and in the low 60s.

the bay from West Point Inn

The route I had planned to be interesting but not particularly challenging for an experienced rider. The basic shape was, up Old Railroad, down Old Stage to Pantoll, up to Ridgecrest, continue north on Bolinas Ridge all the way to Olema, then Limantour over the ridge to Coast. About 35mi from Mill Valley, with a nice mix of dirt and scenic pavement.

green season

The group was pretty mixed in ability. Everyone had camped before and had some level of riding experience, but two days of loaded riding on some reasonably technical dirt was new. Two were on MTBs, and two were on flat bar commuter bikes. These two were pretty overgeared for most of the ride.

I was on my XC hardtail on some fairly fast 2.2" tires, which for me is the perfect bike for this sort of thing. Some people want drop bars for long days but IMO they're just not creative enough with hand positions.

another cow

I won't tell the whole story of the day, it was thankfully fairly uneventful save for some cursing and complaining. We made it to camp by around 6:30pm. It was pretty slow going but we did have a great dinner at Due West in Olema which made getting to camp after dark feel less bad. Also the sunset from the ridge over the marine layer was pretty sick.

sunset over the marine layer

The biggest surprise of the trip was how cold it was overnight. I was cold in my 20F bag, which doesn't happen very often around here. Ryan reported there was frost in his water when he went out to pee around 3am. I was expecting low 40s.

The next morning after a pretty poor night of sleep I had to get up early and hoof it back to the city to relieve my wife of kid duty so she should make it to an appointment. Luckily Ryan had brought his Aeropress so I had a good cup of coffee beforehand.

I felt bad leaving everyone (as I was sort of the defacto trip leader), but it was nice to get a solid riding block in after the stop-and-go of Saturday. I rolled out of camp a little after 8 and was in Corte Madera around 11 after a brief stop for more coffee and cake in Olema. It was cool and grey and the eastbound traffic on Sir Francis Drake hadn't gotten too busy yet.

I decided to call in the wife to come pick me up, since I knew I needed to eat something and I didn't want to cut it too close. There's a decent taco stand by the Trader Joe's that I stopped at for a burrito.

Overall the trip went well - no game ending mechanicals or crashes in the group. Ryan at least wants to do it again, with lower gears this time.