Issue #16: Rhythms of the road

SF to LA: Chasing FKT

By Zachary Morvant

Scene: Morvant family group chat, March 18, 11:52am

Me: Yo fam! I might be able to squeeze in a little solo trip April 1 to 3 or 4. Y’all around for some hangs if I can make it work?

Mom: Yes, I can!! Not sure about Luke?

Brother: Funny story, supposedly I’m getting this reconstructive surgery that we’ve been trying to do for almost two years, my latest appt date is April fools 😆

However I’ve been bumped for emergencies and by my own strep throat last time so we’ll see if it even happens!!! If not I will be free, if so I will be a vegetable for a day or two while recovering 😂

Me: Damn okay! Well keep me posted either way, maybe I can be around to help during recovery

End scene.

If your social feed is anything like mine, it’s been festooned with your friends’ two-wheeled journeys from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The reasons for this are twofold:

1. After over three years of trying to fall into the ocean, Highway 1 near Big Sur is fully open for business, and
2. This ride is frigging awesome. A bucket lister for those who haven’t done it, and home to some truly stunning scenery.

As someone who fondly looked forward to The Coast Ride back in its day, I’d been itching for this stretch of road to reopen. I started planning a solo trip to visit my family in LA following the King Ridge Grasshopper weekend, intending to journey by bike and return via Amtrak’s Coast Starlight line.

After texting with my family, my mission took on a sense of urgency: if I left San Francisco as soon as I could on Monday morning, could I make it to my brother’s place in LA by Tuesday night?

Ready to depart the San Francisco Ferry Building. Photo: Zachary Morvant / @zmorvant

A plan comes together

Because something inside me is broken, I often think that anything worth riding is worth riding as quickly as I can. For additional motivation and glory, I had to see if there was a FKT (Fastest Known Time) from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Dear reader, behold cyclingfkt.com: an online destination for others who suffer from my record-chasing compulsion. Bay Area cycling collective AFAIC (As Far As I’m Concerned) had ridden the route as a team in 41 hours, 7 minutes, and 16 seconds in June 2022.

Game on.

Mile -3: San Francisco, 6:50am, Monday

I ride the few miles from my house to the Ferry Building. The slow rhythm of the early morning commute churns along, humans emerging from the terminal into the hum of a San Francisco Monday. The wind is low, the temperature mild. Nature hasn’t had its coffee yet.

It’s an ideal beginning to a journey like this. Pedaling through the city is a low-stress affair. The weight of the upcoming distance and its required effort is far away; traffic is sluggish and agape with exploitable spaces to slip my wheels between.

Before I know it my legs have carried me through the Panhandle, to Golden Gate Park, to the ocean. An armada of soft gray clouds smothers the sunrise to a washed-out orange as I sail through the salty air of Sunset Dunes. Familiarity raises its head, says: I’ve done this ride down the coast many times before. This particular segment, hundreds. Novelty retorts: not all the way to Los Angeles. And not in one go, you fool.

Experience teaches us many things. One of them is not to underestimate the difficulty of the paths we’ve tread before.

Your humble author somewhere along Highway 1.

From San Francisco to Santa Cruz, I think about all the people I’ve been through all the years I’ve ridden this route. Single, married; childless, expecting a second; student, bartender, corporate creative, coach, marketing mercenary. So many stories, a cuvee of mistakes and triumphs. Roles alone can’t capture the breadth of transformation, but they provide some sort of clumsy yardstick. If roads could feel, would they feel similarly? Gauging their own evolution by the shifting demographics of the people who float along them? Speeding, stopping, littering? Does Highway 1 recognize the pressure of my tires, the signature of my pedalstroke, and go “ah, this dingus again”?

I don’t speak Asphalt, and Babbel doesn’t offer it as a course. I’ll never know.

What I do know is the journey from Pacifica to Santa Cruz has smooth pavement, sweeping coastal views, spring wildflowers in full glorious effect, and the meditative groove one finds on intimately known terrain.

I stop in Capitola to fill my bottles and eat lunch. There’s a 7-11 with a truck serving tacos birria in the parking lot. I pull up a seat at a plastic table. It is perfect.

Mile 86.7: Capitola, 12:04pm

Long ride amnesia. I always forget how much of a drag this part is. From Santa Cruz to Monterey is a mixture of crosswind-blown farm roads, sketchy highway riding, and moments of questionable direction. (Especially so in this edition as one of the bike paths is under construction, demanding a detour.)

What can I say: Nostalgia is an asshole. And Expectation is her rude cousin.

Carmel is a part of this ride I always look forward to. Usually it’s day two of The Coast Ride; there’s an early morning slog up a bumpy bike path followed by a crisp, high-speed highway descent to coastal California bliss, the stuff of photo shoots and HBO show intros. I hadn’t anticipated how different it might be at 3pm on a Monday afternoon, apparently smack in the middle of spring break, the road clogged with cars, the shoulders bristling with jutting automobile butts and phone-fixed lookyloos. (Me, in court: “Your honor, do everyday people still say lookyloos or just the old queens in my gym’s sauna?” Judge: “I’ll allow it.”)

The going is slow. The situation is less than ideal. I’m trying not to get annoyed. I’m failing.

At last the choke of traffic releases its grasp; the road breathes and so do I. I’m in the immaculate winding gorgeous-tree-and-secret-billionaire-estate-lined main artery of Carmel Highlands now, my nostrils huffing big whiffs of Big Sur. The unmistakably alluring aroma of Monterey Pines and marketable bohemianism.

I catch sight of the Bixby Bridge — in all its #ICONIC beauty — about the same time my front wheel catches a crosswind. And not a gentle tap, dear reader, but a full-body shove. My handlebars cry out for a good wrasslin’. (That’s “wrestling” for you folks who’ve never known a Southerner, or a Texan, as sometimes the two disavow each other.) For the sake of my skin, I oblige.

Looking back at the Bixby Bridge. Photo: Zachary Morvant / @zmorvant

It doesn’t stop there. Every eastward curve of the road rockets me along, every transition threatens to blow me into oncoming traffic, and each westward turn greets me with a headbutt.

Eventually I’m in Big Sur proper. I see the General Store. I know from my research that service availability for the next 80-100 miles is questionable, so I do the prudent thing and stop to fill my bottles. Might as well eat a snack too. When it comes to carbohydrate intake on these sorts of adventures, you’re best off saying “screw it, one for here and one to go.”

While I’m pillaging the aisles like a lycra-clad raccoon, a fella walks up to me. “Hey!” he says. “Where ya ridin’?” I look up and quickly recognize that he is a So Cal Crit Racer-Coded Dad. He must have clocked my bike outside and gotten curious.

“LA.”

I hate to seem like I’m “casually deliberate” with my response but it’s too late. I can’t help it. Anyway, he asked.

“Wow! From where?” and then I just barf all the details because he’s going to run down that line of questioning like he’s at the combine anyway (we’re mixing sports analogies here, dangerous territory, an actual red zone if you will). Might as well get it over with. But, you know, casually and deliberately.

Another wow. Some friendly chatter and a goodbye. I say a silent prayer for his family, who will likely have to suffer a bit of excited talk about me on the drive to their next destination.

Mile 165: Big Sur, 5:50pm

I feel bad about not feeling better earlier. The previous 50 miles are, in my opinion, part of the scenic crown jewels of the California coast. I’m upset at myself for not being in the right state of mind for it. There are a lot of things I can blame that on, and in the grand scheme of things none of them matter.

There’s a long way to go.

This part is blessedly pure glory. The trees protect me from the worst of the winds as I wind my way down the coast, every undulation begging for a kid-on-a-roller-coaster “wheeeee” as I pass Lucia, Plaskett, Ragged Point, the sky gradually changing its robes from muted sunset gradients to a blue-black number with a hazy lunar pearl.

The town of Cambria is the logistical fork in the road: Morro Bay isn’t far away and has the biggest bouquet of motels until San Luis Obispo. I stop at the one open gas station to resupply and reconsider.

I could push through the night. But the Grasshopper weekend of work+race+family+lots of driving has me residually weary. Sitting on a wooden bench outside the store, backlit by fluorescents, I pull out my phone and quickly find a deal on a Motel 6 a few miles away. Let’s treat ourselves to what ultra racers call a “full reset.”

Check-in is a corporately-mandated breeze. A shower and 3 hours being horizontal in clean sheets is like an Indian Springs spa treatment at this point. Breakfast is protein powder, an Oatmeal Raisin Clif Bar (a strong contender for premier breakfast flavor, though Peanut Butter is my usual go-to), and the back half of a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. Onward into the dark.

The Big Sur General Store is a great place to resupply. Photo: Zachary Morvant / @zmorvant

Mile 257.9: Morro Bay, 4:09am, Tuesday

Note to self: this is probably the best time to ride a highway.

It’s just me and the occasional truck driver giving me a wide berth on Highway 101. I’m here for it. And literally nothing else I suppose?

San Luis Obispo at 5am is a slink through inky sleepy darkness. A few miles out of town, the route I’m taking diverges from the “traditional” Coast Ride route; I head a bit more inland and 20 miles of side roads deposit me in the agricultural villa of Nipomo. I’ll be honest: I only took note of it because I saw it had a bounty of services, in particular McDonald’s.

For the weary long-distance rider, the Golden Arches™ are the modern day oasis. Where else can you get a meal prepared exactly as you expect it, quickly and relatively (because everything is expensive now) cheaply, access a clean functional bathroom, and 9 times out of 10 be able to bring your bike inside? You now know the answer.

Like any good oasis, I linger too long, ordering two breakfasts while I sip an egregiously sized steaming cup of coffee. By the time I am finished, at least an hour has turned to chronological vapor. Glancing outside, I see the air is misty, the ground slick. Ultra Lesson No. Whatever reinforced: Always pack a rain jacket.

I depart the embassy, mix with lifted trucks along the main road, and rumble along the rough gravel of the Santa Maria River Levee Trail as the sun slowly vanquishes its own sleep.

Mile 340: Los Olivos, 9:50am

Satan, thy number is 154.

It’s my fault. I hadn’t looked at this route closely enough. The typical coastal route goes along or close to Highway 101 from Morro Bay to Santa Barbara — but this way instead takes CA-154, a scenic highway passing Lake Cachuma and eventually climbing through the Santa Ynez Mountains. On paper, very pretty. In practice, very stressful; the shoulder of the road shrugs its way in and out of existence as 50+ mph traffic speeds past with an equal amount of care. (Read: not much.)

I set my rear light to flash, don my high-vis San Francisco Randonneurs vest, and say my prayers as best as a lapsed Catholic can. No spoilers here: I make it through, but am eager for respite when I reach the next convenient gas station in Santa Barbara proper. For my sins I am blessed with one of the better breakfast burritos I’ve had at such an establishment.

Now with less than 90 miles to go — and no major climbs — one would think the going would be easy. And yet “easy” has a nasty way of being relative (see: previous references to amnesia). The previous 370 miles fail to diminish the remainder.

Nevertheless, we pedal — into another gray day, the cloud cover matching my dampened morale.

Mile 415.3: Port Hueneme, 3:19pm

Ventura is a mess. Suburban stroads and their signature unnecessarily swollen vehicles tickle the nervous system until it erupts with cortisol. I can’t wait to be done with this part.

Before I know it I round Point Mugu and bathe in the legendary, undeniable embrace of Southern California surf nostalgia. The savory breeze, the gentle waves; PCH in all its glory — and multiple beachside bathrooms, which is perfect since the aforementioned gas station burrito wasn’t as primo as I previously thought.

After a quick stop I’m rolling through Malibu. Malibu! Wasn’t I in San Francisco just yesterday morning? No matter how many times I ride long distances, I’m surprised by my ability to amaze myself. Enthusiasm ticks up.

The beaches are a beautiful sight. Almost enough to make one ignore the current state of the road: a bumpy, pothole-ridden work-in-progress, dotted (or rather triangled) by neon orange construction signs for miles and miles.

One great thing about touristy icons is the abundance of photographers.

Mile 458.9: Santa Monica, 5:38pm

This bike path is breaking my tired brain. I didn’t expect this many steep curvy climbs up narrow, twisting infrastructure. But it’s almost over.

At 5:51pm — exactly 34 hours, 45 minutes, and 58 seconds after starting in San Francisco — I arrive at the Santa Monica Pier. A new FKT by a healthy margin.

Of course I have to ask a tourist to take my picture, while casually mentioning the silly thing I’ve just done as the reason for my request. The resulting look of confusion is appropriate. I pedal off to grab a chocolate milk and a beer from a nearby liquor store, roll up to the LA Metro station, and board a train bound for my brother’s place. I’ll have time to treat him to a hearty meal before his surgery tomorrow morning.