Pacific Coast Bike Tour Day 25: Manchester to Bodega Bay
Don’t miss: Pacific Coast Bike Tour Day 24: MacKerricher to Manchester!
Packing up and hitting the road…
Today’s ride from Manchester to Bodega Dunes Campground in Bodega Bay, CA was our longest day of the trip so far at 68.9 mi! The first 20 miles of the morning was beautiful rolling hills.
We stopped off at one of the many vista points along the coast to take a short break and ended up witnessing a whale in the distance. Although we couldn’t actually capture a photo of it, we did take a photo of the vista point where we saw it from.
My knee felt a little weak during the early morning hours but after warming up I was feeling no pain. Once we hit the 40 mile marker we passed Salt Point State Park, a recommended campground on the coast for hiker/biker camping.
We stopped to take a quick water break out front of the park and decided that we had enough energy in our tanks to bang out at least another 20 miles.
Will (left) taking in the scenery of the Pacific Coast
We climbed until we couldn’t climb anymore. The long windy coastal roads were not only the most scenic but they also were some of the steepest cliffs we have seen so far on the coast.
We rode some of the funnest downhills of the trip. There’s nothing like riding switchbacks down the coast after all that climbing!
We got to Jenner and has no idea where we would camp for the night. We stopped and at a market and asked a guy about campgrounds in the area. He told us that Weights Beach was only 4 mi down the road. We climbed some more, passed by Weights Beach, and the town of Jenner, CA. Another 5 or 6 miles south we found Bodega Dunes campground.
The place is deserted like most of the California State Parks and campgrounds we’ve stayed at. The showers are warm and free I might add! We had dinner and set up our tent next to two cycle touring couples with the same exact tent. Interesting!
San Francisco is right around the corner!
Today’s Mileage: 68.9 mi
