Pacific Coast Bike Tour

The "LA to LA" ride: Los Altos to Los Angeles.

Day 2 · Sunday, September 6

Santa Cruz → Monterey

Distance
47.7mi76.8km
Elevation gain
1640ft500m
Elevation loss
1440ft439m
Max elevation
289ft88m
Santa Cruz → Monterey Switch basemap (elevation / vegetation / plain) top-right; click any point for Google Maps, Apple Maps or Street View.
Download GPX — Day 2 Open in Ride with GPS

Google Maps Apple Maps Neither opens this route — they take only a start and an end over a link, so each draws its own way between Santa Cruz and Monterey. Use them for the lie of the land; the GPX and Ride with GPS have the line we ride.

The day at a glance

The Pajaro Valley behind Watsonville is one of the largest strawberry and cane-berry districts in the country; the low ground either side of the road is berries under plastic for much of the year. Nearer the coast it turns to artichokes and brussels sprouts, and at Moss Landing the route passes Elkhorn Slough, a tidal estuary and one of the better bird sites on this coast.

Worth looking up for

  • Flat coastal day along Monterey Bay, the gentlest climbing of the trip at 1,640 ft.
  • Moss Landing sits right on the route at roughly halfway — a good lunch stop.

What to watch for

  • Nothing steeper than 4.7% anywhere on the route — the least climbing of the whole trip at 1,640 ft.

Towns along the way

  1. 0 Santa Cruz 0.6 mi off
  2. 5 Capitola 0.9 mi off
  3. 8 Seacliff
  4. 12 Aptos Hills-Larkin Valley 1.2 mi off
  5. 15 Ellicott
  6. 21 Pajaro Dunes 1.1 mi off
  7. 27 Moss Landing
  8. 32 Morocojo 0.7 mi off
  9. 43 Sand City
  10. 46 Monterey

Stops along the way

Mapped in OpenStreetMap and carried in the GPX as waypoints, so they show on a head unit too. Distances are miles from the start. Tap a name for Google Maps, or the arrow for Apple Maps. Not verified on the ground — opening hours and whether a tap actually runs are anyone’s guess. Water and restrooms are not listed here, because they are long lists you find on the road rather than plan around — but they are in the GPX, so a head unit still shows them. A marks a stop somebody picked by hand and vouched for, rather than one the OpenStreetMap query happened to return. Everything else here is within a quarter mile of the line; the few that are further say how far.

Shops & markets 8

Food & drink 9

Worth a look 7

Restaurants in Monterey

Places to eat at the end of the day, gathered by hand rather than from OpenStreetMap, so these are not the same as the stops above and are not in the GPX. Most are a short walk from the hotel; where one is not, the address says so. Nobody has eaten at them. Opening hours are deliberately not listed — they change, and a stale hour on a page is worse than none — so tap through before you set out. A name with no link had none to hand.