This is a short road ride. (Short by road ride standards.) It loops over some of the most scenic roads you'll find along the Marin ocean coast.

The first of these is Ridgecrest Boulevard. This road is scenic for not only what you can see from the road, but also for what the road itself looks like. It playfully meanders through grass-covered rolling hills that descend to the coast on one side. This is the darling of car commercials. If you see a curvy road through rolling green hills with the view of the sea in any car commercial on TV in the US, I would claim that there's something like a 30% chance that it was filmed on this road. It's that common. When you see it (unless you have already), you'll understand why. Riding or driving on it makes you feel like you're in a made-up landscape, designed just to be pretty.

The other scenic road that you ride along on this loop is the stretch of Highway 1 that follows the coast of Bolinas Lagoon. For most of this stretch of Higway 1, the water's edge is only a few feet away from the side of the road. Expect to see a variety of sea birds.

The ride also takes you through Stinson Beach. So, if you feel like it, this will provide you with a good opportunity to stop at one of the cafes or restaurants there, if not for lazing on the beach for a little while.

In its original state, the route you see on this page starts at the Pantoll Ranger station and completes this loop in the clockwise direction. I'm convinced that the better way of doing it is the other way around. The reason is that it's better to be gradually descending Ridgecrest Boulevard while enjoying its views rather than climbing it, and that a counter-clockwise loop would also put you on the water's side of Highway 1 along the edge of Bolinas Lagoon, which should give you a more up-close view of the critters in the water. I believe I originally did the loop this way because climbing Bolinas-Fairfax Road is marginally easier than climbing Panoramic Highway (something like 6.5% average grade rather than 7%-ish) and because the climb up Panoramic Highway is unbroken for a little while longer (up to the Rock Springs area), but the difference is not worth it. Start from Stinson Beach if you like climbing before you descend, or start from the Rock Springs parking lot (at the intersection of Ridgecrest Boulevard and Pan Toll Road) if you want to leave the climbing to the end. (I've still left the parking suggestion on this page as the Pantoll Station, so as to agree with the GPS track.)