Best driving roads in the SF bay area?

[cheesy9]

I'm aggregating the results here (see individual posts for detailed descriptions)

• Half moon bay and around to La Honda (92 -> 1 -> 84)
  
• Los Gatos -> Santa Cruz
  
• Calaveras Road
  
• Route 130
  
• Highway 130 to Observatory
• Redwood Road
• Skyline
• Page Mill Road
• Highway 36
• Tunitas creek
• Empire grade
• Stage road
  

[pmccut]

I'm in the same boat as you cheesy..no m yet. Only been in the bay area about 2 months so you'll likely know better.

1. Half moon bay and around to La Honda (92 -> 1 -> 84

2. Los Gatos -> Santa Cruz ain't bad.

I've basically enjoyed every piece of the CA-1 thus far.

[radiantm3]

Calaveras Road - Lots of Cyclists on the weekends so I recommend mid day drives on the weekdays. It's a very narrow 2 lane road (with no divider lines) so you do have to be careful on a lot of blind corners. If you can catch a day with no cars and cyclists, it's a blast.

Here's a 2 part video of me going northbound (in my 135i):

Then there's Route 130 which is a lot like calaveras, but longer and a little bit safer as there aren't really any huge drop offs to go plummeting to your death. It takes you all the way up the mountains to the Lick Observatory. You can view Silicon Valley from the top. Supposedly you can keep going east all the way to highway 5, but I've never gone past the Observatory. I'd love for anyone who has gone the full route to chime in. Is it worth it? Be warned that there's about 2-3 or so miles where the roads get pretty bad. Not potholes, but there are a lot of lumps in the road and you do need to slow down. A mild annoyance in what results in a great drive overall.

Here's a video of me going back down from the observatory (again in my 135i):

[scheiny]

My favorite driving roads are the same ones that I like to ride my motorcycle on. I do highway 9 pretty often, up from saratoga, down the backside, etc.

That "dirty 130" to the observatory is a good drive, but the real fun starts on the backside. It's probably 4 hours of driving, all good times. Take highway 130 to the junction, right at del purto valley road, and gas up at highway 5. Turn around, this time when you get back to the junction of del puerto and 130 stop and grab lunch and instead of going left to return to mt hamilton, go right towards mines road. Be careful on mines as there can be gravel and it gets a bit narrow in places, but tons of fun. If you search the forum for mt hamilton you will see some members go up there. I've been meaning to hit it up soon. From mines I usually slab it back home to san jose via 680.

The site is a pay site ($20/year) but has every good driving road listed, see here: http://www.pashnit.com/motoroads.htm If you know how the site: function works at google you can access directly into the site. For example, I search page mill but only show me results from that site with this search at google: page mill site:www.pashnit.com and it takes me here: http://www.pashnit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20719 I see lots of good roads just on that thread, skaggs is fun, bodega bay, hunter ligget, you name it. There's some pics about 3/4 way down that page that show the junction, highway 130, etc. You can also search youtube for videos once you know the roads. I've done them all many times on my bikes, but would be interested in trying more out in the new bim. If anyone wants to go, shoot me an email; small caveat, I've got a lead foot and know the roads pretty well

Other good ones are redwood road, skyline, page mill, highway 36, tunitas creek, empire grade, stage road, etc.

Hope this helps.
-scheiny

[m3soupy]

Laguna Seca and Infineon Raceway are my favorites

[cheesy9]

Originally Posted by radiantm3

Here's a video of me going back down from the observatory (again in my 135i):

Nice video, how did you shoot it?

I'm thinking about getting a suction mount but I'm a little nervous about strapping a $2000 camera to my front bumper...

[cheesy9]

I've started aggregating the roads in my original post. If someone wants to fill Google map routes for the ones that are missing that would be great.

[iveman89]

wow that calaveras rd looks awesome!! we should organize a drive or something unfortunately im in socal but going home this weekend and was planning on takin out the lady for a spin haha

[radiantm3]

Originally Posted by cheesy9

Nice video, how did you shoot it?

I'm thinking about getting a suction mount but I'm a little nervous about strapping a $2000 camera to my front bumper...

Get a GoPro HD Motorsports Hero. It records 1080p at 30fps and 720p at 60fps. Not the best quality video in the world, but it's tiny, has lots of mounting options and is very rugged.

[mexicanmike]

^^^^^^
I try to do that drive once a week for fun. I continue over to uvas then take watsonville road, as there is a nice little back country straight away on watsonville rd.

They repaved these roads pretty recently as well

[Ben Choad]

Been looking for this information for a while. Appreciate you putting the list together.

[pmccut]

Found a new all time favorite tonight - Page Mill just south of the 280. Many hairpin turns and the roads were quite smooth. Sadly there was a cop hiding in what looked like someones driveway behind a large tree - so might not be the best road to push your luck.

http://goo.gl/maps/FCQs

[CaliChris]

Mount Umunhum Rd. in Los Gatos was quite fun. Drove it hard in the am a few times. Need to watch out for Cyclists and occasional water running across the road. These just add to the charm of it all.