41 miles

 

EastLake to the bay

I head west toward the bay on Olympic Parkway to Brandywine, a quarter mile east of Interstate 805 and old Chula Vista. I ride over a hill and down to Main Street, where I encounter mile after mile of ugly industrial landscape, failed garages and self-serve warehouses, finally across the I-5 bridge to the end of Bay Boulevard at Swiss Park (run by actual Swiss people; read about them in my colleague Patricia Santana's excellent coming-of-age-in-the-South-Bay novel Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquility).

 

 

Around the south end of the bay and up to Coronado

From the foot of Main Street, a brand-new bike path traces the old railroad right-of-way skirting the north shore of Imperial Beach and joins the old path up the Silver Strand and into Coronado. This path is a treasure, relieving cyclists of any automotive competition for the entire eight-mile ride along what has to be among the more beautiful stretches of Pacific scenery.

Hot cycling tip

Don't try the Coronado-to-EastLake ride at night unless you have either a death wish or a really good floodlight.