My wife and I are going to the San Francisco peninsula over the weekend of Oct13-15. I'll be in the T/A and plan to catch the 1 out of San Luis Obispo, and take that all the way to Santa Cruz. I prefer to not drive on freeways as much as possible. I retired last May & freeways are just too close to commuting! What are some good back roads to take from Santa Cruz to San Carlos? When I was a kid in high school, I used to ride my motorcycle on Woodside Road, and then at Skyline Road I could continue on to the beach or turn South and take Skyline to Santa Cruz. The last time I was on the peninsula was probably about 1976. I would imagine many of my favorite back roads are now freeways!

 

San Carlos... my neck of the woods.

From Santa Cruz you can either continue on Hwy 1 to Half Moon Bay and then east on 92 to the Ralston exit and down into Belmont/San Carlos.

The other option (that I prefer if traffic is light) is to get on 17/35 to Los Gatos. At Los Gatos, get on I-280 to San Fran. You'll see the 92 exit off 280 about 15-20 miles once on 280. Take 92 east for less than a half mile and get off on Ralston. Follow Ralston all the way down to El Camino and take a right into San Carlos.

The ride on 17 over the mountain is a lotta fun with a torquey car but the traffic usually sucks. There are also a few back woods roads you mentioned but if you don't wanna waste any time, these two routes will be the fastest.

Hope this helps...

 

Thanks, I knew about those routes, but am not interested in fastest. Driving on winding back roads is not wasting time. Wasting time is what I do after I get where I'm going. I did get a response on an Alfa board reccomending taking 1 to San Gregorio and then going up to Skyline on 84, and down the other side on La Honda Road. That was one of my favorrite routes back in High School on my motorcycle, but I couldn't remember the street names. I don't think the road from San Gregorio had a particular name back then or it was just a continuation of La Honda Road. Is Skyline from Santa Cruz to La Honday road still a winding mountain two lane road, or has it been turned into a freeway?

 

Alrighty, I get ya.

Skyline is still a windy road on the ridge but I don't know what it is like south of El Corte Madera. The only roads I know that come into the Belmont/San Carlos area are really around Woodside, Edgewood, Old La Honda, and Kings Mountain. With one exception, these roads are in dire need of paving.

Maybe you should stay on 1 until you get to Pescadero. From there, head east into town and then left on Stage Road. Take Stage road out of Pescadero, wave "hi" to the 20 foot, metal skeleton with an M60 MG, and then turn right on 84 when you get to San Gregorio. From there, it's really Woodside Drive to the top of the ridge and over. Before you know it, you are in San Carlos.

That's all I got.

 

Thanks for the info Cadillac. It is now printed out and saved as a possible route to take. The 20 foot skeletin with an MG sounds interesting! My brother and brother in law are both british car enthusiasts.

 

This is right at the end of tree covered part of Stage Road coming from Pescadero where the road does a 90* left turn:



There's another one that is about 6 feet tall too in front of a door riddled with bullets. The sign under it says "welcome".

 

My mistake, I thought the skeleton with a mg was somehow holding a 1960 MGA, I didn't think of a machine gun. That's cool!