By Teresa Mariani

The sky was blue. So was the water. The sand was wide and warm. In short, just another day in paradise - Avila Beach.

Avila has always been my favorite beach. I've been going there for years, since I went to college at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. The second day of classes, I climbed in a dorm-mate's old VW bug and we headed to the beach to suntan and (supposedly) study.

Ah, I thought, this is the life.

That was then. This is now: nearly 20 years later. Through jobs and marriages and kids, I still keep coming back to Avila, just like a lot of people. And I still love the beach. But I've discovered a lot more to Avila than sun, surf and sand - it's also one of the greatest places around for non-cyclists to bike.

The Bob Jones City to See Bike Trail is perfect for families.

Photo by Tony Hertz
	The Bob Jones City to See Bike Trail is perfect for families.

I define non-cyclist as anyone who does not cycle often enough - or rapidly enough - to regularly wear a helmet. While you will want to wear a helmet when you bicycle the backroads of Avila, you don't have to wear spandex. Or have a racing bike. In fact - the fatter the tires and softer the seat, the better - you'll be more inclined to take in the sights that way.

A word on trip planning: San Luis Bay Drive and Avila Beach Drive, the main arteries from Highway 101 to the beach, can be full of cars on weekends, while everyone is going to or from the beach. Since there's no true "bike path" lane on much of those roads, you'll be sharing them with cars. (They're not rides for children - for family rides, stick to the City to Sea bike trail - more on that later.) Pick a weekday morning for a cruise down Avila Beach Drive and Ontario Road, and you'll have a quieter, more "country" flavored ride.

Beach to Barn

On the aforementioned blue-sky, blue water day, the Inn at Avila Beach was my base camp. Completely renovated in the style of a Mexican beach house since new owner Micheal Kidd took over in 1997, it sits at the end of Front Street overlooking the beach and bay. With the door to my deck open, I could hear the surf wash against the sand. But it was 10 in the morning in the middle of week - a perfect time for a bike ride. Normally, the easiest route would be to coast down Front Street to San Miguel Street and then out of town. But construction work on Avila's downtown, being rebuilt by Unocal in a project expected to be done by summer 2001, blocked my path.

So I walked my mountain bike uphill on San Antonio Street (a pretty steep climb not fit for non-Olympic cyclists) until I could hop on. I turned east on Second Street and headed downhill through Avila's residential section, and then pedaled east on Avila Beach Drive. Avila Beach Drive winds along San Luis Obispo Creek. Across the creek is the Avila Beach Resort and Golf Course, and the no-hill bike path that's the secret (or not so secret) route back.

As the golfers in white caps teed off across the street, I peddled past Cave Landing Road. I'd never try the super-steep climb on a bike, but it's the route to a beautiful clifftop lookout point. It's also the route to Pirate's Cove - someplace I've never been daring enough to visit, because it's the a nude beach. Even the multi-million dollar homes sitting on top of the bluffs now haven't stopped the all-over tanners from heading there. Just the mere mention of the name makes local teen-agers giggle. Although nude bathing isn't technically legal, the beach at Pirate's Cove is small and accessible only by a steep dirt path down from the blufftop. You pretty much have to mean to go there - and aside from the voyeurs who fall off the cliffs every four years or so, binoculars in hand, Pirate's Cove generally stays out of the news, as do the brave souls who do go there.

No, I was headed for a much tamer spot - the Avila Valley Barn, to pick up some fresh apple cider. Once I rounded the curve at the end of the Golf Course, I was pedaling through a thicket of trees - lush oaks lining the steep hill on one side, thick black willow trees and sycamores along the creek on the other.

The trees arch over the road and the sun is dappled over much of the road, until the riverbed widens out into orchards and fields.

The fertile river bottom soil is home to orchards aplenty - apple and cherry, along with rows of ollalieberries and pumpkin fields. It's the farm - just part of the farm-for the Avila Valley Barn. (Open May to December, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily; 805-595-2810. Call for exact opening and closing dates; these vary yearly.)

The barn is really a barn, surrounded by corrals with ponies, donkeys, pigs, goats, sheep and more barnyard animals that are a hit with small children. School field trips come here during the week, for a tour of the fields and a hayride out into the orchards and berry patch. On weekends, families and fruit lovers can take a hayride too, and come back with an armload of fresh berries.

Inside, the Avila Valley Barn opens up into one of the most delicious farmers markets around, stocked with produce, jams, jellies, country crafts and baked goods. Depending on the time of year you're there, you'll find cherries, berries, peppers, tomatoes, corn, mushrooms, pears, squash, pumpkins, cilantro, parsley, basil, melons, and apples. Especially apples.

Fresh from the tree Braeburn apples on the way to the Avila Valley Barn from the orchards in See Canyon.

Photo by Tony Hertz
Fresh from the tree Braeburn apples on the way to the Avila Valley Barn from the orchards in See Canyon

Blessed by a microclimate filled with sunshine and warm days as well as temperatures that dip down into the chilly zone at night, the Avila Valley is a hidden apple belt. It produces fresh, crunchy apples of pale gold and green and red - the kid of apples that kids actually eat and ask for; the kind of apples that bring back memories with the first bite.

I stopped at the Avila Valley Barn for a bottle of water and a bottle of apple cider. Since it was late spring, the first of the cherries were in. Shiny red and better than candy, they made a great snack. Backpack a little heavier, it was time to pedal down Avila Beach Road to Ontario Road.

Ontario Road runs north, paralleling Highway 101. I turned onto it, pedaling past the entry to the Buddhist Temple, home to the Wisteria Festival in May. Its congregation includes many in the area's Japanese-American community, and the Wisteria festival is a chance to share some Japanese culture: drumming, dancing, martial arts, and Japanese food. I remind myself to bring the kids back for this year's fest.

Just beyond is what I'm headed for: the trailhead for the Bob Jones City to Sea Bike Trail. The trail is a relatively new county bike path, added on to as Avila Valley grows. On weekends, the trailhead parking lot is the spot where families park and pull out bikes with streamers and little pink wheels from mini-vans, right alongside Real Cyclists - the ones with screaming neon yellow nylon mesh shirts, spandex shorts and helmets that look like alien skulls.

But I am a non-cyclist - just out for fun. So I loop onto the City to Sea trail, and pedal along next to San Luis Obispo creek. It's a pleasant, flat ride, peppered with benches. A grandma in a cap and denim shirt is resting on one. I always ride slowly on the trail - you can never tell when you'll meet with walkers, kids still on training wheels out ahead of moms pushing strollers, or college kids on rollerblades.

The trail meanders along San Luis Obispo Creek, across from the Avila Valley Barn fields. I pass the back side of Bellevue-Santa Fe Charter School and enjoy the fields and sycamores and the sounds of flowing water and frogs. It's just another morning in paradise - only a few minutes from the beach scene.

The one hitch is crossing San Luis Bay Drive. The bike trail can be so serene, you can forget to stop and look out for cars. On weekends, there are cars aplenty. Remember to rein in children when you see the trail stop sign and San Luis Bay Drive.

Once safely across San Luis Bay Drive, the trail wanders creekside past the tennis courts of San Luis Bay Estates and a new set of Mediterranean-style mini villas. Then it crosses a bridge over the creek and winds along the steep rocky hills at the back of the Avila Beach Resort and Golf Club grounds. Once on the grounds proper, it turns into the resort's Blue Heron Drive.

The less traveled part of the trail soon smoothes out again near the manicured, green links of the golf course. Sharing the way with golf carts, I cycle down to another bridge across the creek, this one popping me out on Avila Beach Drive across the road from San Miguel Street.

It's another place to stop and check for traffic - and then make a quick hop across the road and back into Avila Beach proper. The whole jaunt takes less than an hour through the May morning sunshine - and then I'm walking my bike again, dismounting at the Avila Beach fire station and walking uphill, through a block of new beach houses to San Antonio Street. I decide to hop back on for a last, steep daredevil ride down the final block back to the Inn at Avila Beach.

The blue water is still there. So are the sand and the sun. It's time to change into my suit, grab my towel, and head back to the beach, 20 years after college.

It's just another day in paradise - and just like old times.

More Rides for Real Cyclists

What if you're a real cyclist? You do own spandex, an alien helmet and a lemon-colored mesh shirt? Avila offers plenty of places to ride. Just remember you'll be sharing winding country roads with cars; pick off-peak traffic hours for the most fun.

Each of these routes are also wonderful for photographers (in cars or on bikes) looking for some good country shots in fall, summer or spring, or painters looking for the same thing. The roads are narrow, so if you do stop to shoot or paint, make sure you've picked a safe place and your car is completely off the road. Stay on the side of the road, though, and out of fields and farms. A few suggested routes:

See Canyon: Some 13 miles of narrow paved See Canyon Road wind back into a sunny, tree-lined canyon that is the buckle of the Avila apple belt. The first five miles or so offer a gradual steady climb from San Luis Bay Drive. But See Canyon Road does make a steep climb to the top of the coastal hills at the back of the canyon, becoming unpaved at the top and eventually linking up with the unpaved portion of Prefumo Canyon Road, which loops back down into San Luis Obispo.

A ride down See Canyon Road to the Lamb Cattle Company, about 5 or so miles back into the canyon, takes you past many of the valley's historic apple orchards. You can stop and buy cider and apples there in summer and fall if you're so inclined. Climbing roses spray over the orchard gates. Along See Canyon Road, oak, pine, sycamore and even redwood trees grow, along with lupine, poppies, blackberry vines, buttercups - and plenty of healthy poison oak. You may even spot a peacock strutting slowly along in the middle of the road - really.

Advantage: it's downhill coming back. Disadvantage: local cars on the road travel surprisingly fast; watch out for traffic.

It's a great family ride in a car, too, during apple season. Bring a camera for some country snapshots and money for some apples. You'll want them both.

Monte Road: There are two versions of this ride; one for normal people and one for spandex people. Normal (but definitely in-shape) people can take Avila Beach Drive all the way to Highway 101, and cross under to Monte Road on the east side. Monte Road runs downhill through fields and scattered houses to meet up with San Luis Bay Drive. You can catch San Luis Bay Drive and loop around, uphill over Highway 101 and then down a fantastic downhill ride back to Avila Beach Road and Avila Beach proper. Or you can cruise north, past San Luis Bay Drive up Monte Road past more apple orchards, enjoying the scenery before cruising back to cross the freeway on San Luis Bay Drive. This is a sunny farming and living area with no official rest stops, but it is pretty. Again, you're sharing the road with cars, not using a protected bike path, so plan for off-traffic hours.

Squire Canyon: For very, very fit people, or people in cars. Squire Canyon Road is on the east side of Highway 101, off Monte Road. After an initial climb, Squire Canyon Road wanders at the base of the canyon, along creeks and past old and new houses and green fields. It's gorgeous in the springtime when the poppies and lupine are blooming.

But then the road takes a punishing climb uphill. Choose to turn onto narrow, steep treacherously winding Indian Knob Road only if you really want to be a masochist; it's not really a bike ride road. Neither Squire Canyon or Indian Knob roads has a bike path and local traffic can travel fast, so plan for off-traffic (during school and "work") hours for the safest ride.

Once you're done, you can head back to the Inn at Avila Beach, reward your muscles by soaking in an in-room jacuzzi tub, iced tea in hand, while gazing out over the bay. It makes for a very pleasant end to any ride.

Click Here for a map of the bike trails.

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