Highway 9 Copout
3 hours, steady climbs
So I’ve realized that riding Highway 9 on a weekend is just asking for trouble. I tried it today, and my planned route to Santa Cruz became just a ride around Big Basin, and then finally just a ride around Silicon Valley. The number of cars on the road and the type of drivers that filled them (those hell-bent for Santa Cruz beaches) were a bad match for cycling today, so I chose a calmer route on smaller roads. Santa Cruz will have to wait for a weekday ride, which I fortunately have many of.
In the end, this ride would work better backwards, up 84 and Alpine, down 9. But this was pretty as well, and I got to climb Redwood Gulch again, which is always a pleasure.
- South on Shoreline
- Left on Foothill
- Right on Stevens Creek Rd.
- Left on Redwood Gulch steep
- Right on Highway 9 busy
- Right on Skyline
- Left on Alpine/Page Mill steep down
- Right on Pescadero
- Right on Redwood Drive (parallels 84)
- Left on Entrada
- Right on Highway 84
- Right on Old La Honda
- Left on Skyline
- Right on Highway 84
- Right on Portola Road (at bottom)
- Left on Sandhill
- Right on Alameda de las Pulgas
- Left on Foothill/Junipero Serra
- Left on El Monte
- Left on El Monte
- Right on El Camino Real
- Left on Shoreline
