Big Sur Road Bike Tour

A highly influential, early 20th century watercolorist and muralist, Francis McComas defined California’s Central Coast Big Sur as “the greatest meeting of land sea.”

With that visionary exactness as our guide, we shaped a virtuoso velo interpretation of the Golden State’s Central Coast: animated as much by sea cliffs and rolling wine country, iconic Highway One to Redwoods, breaching Gray whales to far more furtive sea otters. The same confluence of unique, wild character lured Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, The Beats, if not an untold number of artists, such as the aforementioned McComas.

From the burly rawness of Big Sur to the Mediterranean-like aesthetic seen in Santa Barbara’s coastline—aka the American Riviera—our big brushstrokes in the saddle sweep past ranch, farmland if not great spans of ocean. At the same time, a dreamy, viscous, essentially California-quality light outlines each successive landscape.

Each day’s epic resolves into equally sublime soft-notes and local-regional qualities. From clam chowder in Pismo Beach to Pinot Noir in Monterrey, groves of wind-sculpted Cypress on 17-Mile Drive, historic lighthouses to Hearst Castle.

Closing out on a different type of replenishment, at every setting we contemplate and savor superb regional cuisine shaped by a fulsome farm-to-table ethos.