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This route follows the ACA Pacific Coast route, with some minor revisions around Santa Monica and Venice to avoid the crowds on the beach path (note to those unfamiliar with this: riding on the strand loses most of its enjoyment when you're sharing it with 150,000 of your closest personal friends). The section south of Santa Barbara is pretty enough to bear a repeat ride, and as someone who basically lives on the PCH route I feel like I have some ownership of it.

The section north of that, especially the area around Lompoc and the 8.5-mile Harris Grade, offers new scenery and new challenges to test my mettle as I plan and train for my ever-longer rides. Even without the Pacific Ocean for company, it's new territory with new experiences, and as such worth seeing firsthand. Harris Grade Road and the long rise south of Lompoc have an average grade of only 1%-2%, so despite their length I should be able to whip them easily enough.

Malibu turned out to be hillier than I had expected, but it's the traffic that is the hassle there, not the terrain. If I think of it as no more than a necessary evil I should be able to tolerate it.

I'd love to camp every night of the 7-day journey, so I've tentatively planned daily stops at Pismo State Beach (a 15-mile afternoon jaunt after the 8-hour train ride), Lompoc River Park (mile 62), Carpinteria State Beach (132), Leo Carrillo State Beach (180), Seal Beach Naval Station (248), and San Onofre (294). The last two are on military facilities and available to me as an Army retiree. I don't want to feel the pressure of being at a certain place by a certain time, so I'll adjust my plans and find other lodging should I decide to ride farther or crap out earlier on a given stretch. Vandenberg AFB near Lompoc and the Pt. Mugu Naval Station, available to me as a military retiree, offer comfortable and affordable alternatives.