Pacific Coast Bike Tour

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

Day 4 · Tuesday, September 8

King City → Paso Robles

Distance
57.6mi92.7km
Elevation gain
1294ft394m
Elevation loss
906ft276m
Max elevation
736ft224m
King City → Paso Robles Switch basemap (elevation / vegetation / plain) top-right; click any point for Google Maps, Apple Maps or Street View.
Download GPX — Day 4 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 King City and Paso Robles. Use them for the lie of the land; the GPX and Ride with GPS have the line we ride.

The day at a glance

Follows the Salinas Valley floor south from King City — the same farmed valley day 3 comes down, though south of King City the irrigated row crops give way to drier ground, vineyards and cattle range. San Miguel, near the end, grew up around its 1797 mission, one of the least altered in the chain. The last few miles cross into the Paso Robles AVA that day 5 then starts in.

Worth looking up for

  • The easiest day of the trip for climbing — 57.6 mi and 1,294 ft, with nothing steeper than a short 6.3% pitch at mi 47.
  • Runs the Salinas Valley south through San Lucas, San Ardo and Bradley to San Miguel, where Mission San Miguel Arcángel sits at mi 46.6.

What to watch for

  • Parts of this day are ridden on the US-101 freeway shoulder. OpenStreetMap records the stretches around mi 21.9–24.1 and mi 28.0–32.9 as motorway with a shoulder and bicycles permitted, and in several places there is no other road within half a mile. Nobody has checked on the ground whether the shoulder is continuous or how the on- and off-ramps ride — this is the thing to confirm before the day is ridden.
  • 38.9 mi between water points: the first water on the route is at mi 39.0, just before Bradley. The one stop in between is the San Lucas Pitstop at mi 9.6. Carry accordingly, or plan to meet the car.
  • Effectively unshaded — no mapped tree cover anywhere on the route, and no terrain high enough to block the afternoon sun.
  • This route replaced the Jolon and Nacimiento backcountry line, which had 4,013 ft of climbing and a 16% pitch at mi 12. That track is kept in gpx/unused/. The old day's SAG water plan does not apply here and has been removed; if this day needs one, it has to be built against the new route.

Towns along the way

  1. 1 King City
  2. 4 Welby
  3. 10 San Lucas
  4. 20 San Ardo
  5. 28 Wunpost
  6. 35 Bradley
  7. 42 Nacimiento 0.8 mi off
  8. 47 San Miguel
  9. 57 Paso Robles

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 5

Food & drink 2

Worth a look 3

Restaurants in Paso Robles

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.