Pacific Coast Washington to Central California

[Guest Boomer.1]

Hi all..My wife and i are leaving the Edmonton,Alberta area in early September and would like to drive the coast highway from northern Washington to approximately San Francisco...we were curious about the typical weather that time of year...traffic...availabilty of moderate motels...etc. any advise would be appreciated...we are newbies to touring...

 

Randy.

[Condor]

Hi all..My wife and i are leaving the Edmonton,Alberta area in early September and would like to drive the coast highway from northern Washington to approximately San Francisco...we were curious about the typical weather that time of year...traffic...availabilty of moderate motels...etc. any advise would be appreciated...we are newbies to touring...

 

Randy.

 

• Plan on cool weather all the way down... I'd stop before going into SF....
  

[bald josh]

as condor says, be ready for anything, but it should be really nice! 101 is a really great road. ive got no suggestions other than to take your time and enjoy the scenery. oh yeah and Manzanita OR is a realy cool little town that is about 100 yards off the road but if you didnt know to stop there you would miss out. and the redwoods, and newport, historic newport, oh yeah and Astoria, such a cool spot, and crecent city and tokeland and tillamook and......its all fantastic! the west is the best! but other than that ....oh yeah i almost forgot about pelican bay brewery and newport WA-surfing, i could go on and on

[LilBeaver]

I cannot comment on the weather in September, however, a few days ago I pretty much did that ride. There was a lot of traffic and lots of slow downs through the little towns, but if your plan is to take a few days to make the ride, then you'll be fine. Down that stretch I had a temperature range of 45 F to ~90F or so, in the same day (again, just a few days ago) - so being ready for anything is probably a good way to go.

 

I'll be posting some pictures that I took along the way sometime in the next few days, but I need to filter through all of them first.

 

Beautiful ride, but I gave up before I got to the OR/CA border because I was tired of the

'stupid' traffic. Meaning folks that either didn't know how to drive their RVs or just weren't paying attention, cars that didn't stay on their side of the double yellow, etc. The point of my trip was not to drive down the coast, but was mainly to sortof take a survey of the area while I was 'riding through' and see if it would be worth going back. If I lived closer to that area, I would probably ride sections of those roads on a routine basis - especially if I knew when the least amount of traffic would be on it.

 

As for hotels and places to stay, there are many of the big chains all along there, but there were also several 'mom and pop' type places. The 'big' chains (including Motel 6 and super 8) seemed to go for quite a bit more - but since they are right on/near the ocean front and there is a lot of tourist demand, it is probably 'reasonable' for them to charge that. But, I drove inland by about 50 miles and got a place at 1/2 the price AND got to ride an awesome highway though the mountains.

 

If you want any more specific information, or whatever, just let me know -- if you post here and I don't get back to you just PM me and I'll get on and check. I'll be quite busy the next week or two and my not catch all of the new posts on here because of it.

 

Good luck, have fun, and take your time!

 

[Guest Boomer.1]

Thx to all who replied....we were hoping maybe September would see a slow-down in the traffic some...and yes we heard the weather can be funky along the coast...thx again....

 

Randy:322:

[cb1313]

I lived outside the Tacoma/Seattle for 20 years and Interstate I 5 is one long expressway from Vancourer, Canada to Tacoma, Wa. Even the bypass (405) can be a mess.

I would suggest staying inland untill you get south of Tacoma or taking a ferry from Vancourer Island to western Washington.

Highway 101 along the coast is a great ride but also a tourist road. Tons of views, places to stay but all traffic travels the same road. It is a wonderful ride.

 

Be safe Cb

[GeorgeS]

This highway is basicly the Local Service road, in addition to being a heavly traveled tourist highway. It is a 2 lane highway almost the entire distance from the border all the way to San Franscisco.

 

Its a great M/C ride, but be carefull, and as others have said here, be ready for anything. Also expect a lot of local Truck traffic

 

It is a well maintained road, however expect sections of tight winding curves along the coast in many places.

 

Also expect to hit unexpected wet spots around blind corners, due to coastal weather conditions.

 

Also, its a slow road, expect to only average about 40 miles per hour of driveing time.

In places you will cover more distance, and in some cases less.

 

If you want to do sight seeing, and etc etc. I would allow twice as many days of travel time as compared to makeing the trip on I-5.

 

Be sure to take your electric vests if you have them !!! And Heavy gloves for early morning hours.

[Guest Boomer.1]

We made the trip from Ft.Saskatchewan,Alberta to the Redwoods and home in one piece. We had a wonderful trip from Aug.31 to September 12/10. The trip south had us using mostly secondaries meeting up with 101. The people we came across were nothing short of wonderful stateside and once they figured we were touring on a bike...there were no shortages of suggestions for us to see things and places to eat and stay.

The posts here about the weather and traffic were spot on...thinking maybe Texas next spring...we were over 6000 kms in about 13 days...

 

Thx again to all

 

Randy/Patty