Day 4: King City to Paso Robles — Pacific Coast Bike Tour

Day 4 · Tuesday, September 8

King City → Paso Robles

Distance: 62.6mi100.7km

Elevation gain: 4005ft1221m

Elevation loss: 3539ft1079m

Max elevation: 1526ft465m

King City → Paso Robles Switch basemap (elevation / vegetation / plain) top-right; click any point for Google Maps, Apple Maps or Street View.

Download GPX — Day 4 Open in Google Maps Open in Apple Maps

Elevation profile

Climbed 4005ft1221m Descended 3539ft1079m

Vertical scale exaggerated ~20× for readability.

Notable climbs

mi 10.0–11.5km 16.1–18.5 603ft184m 7.7% avg
mi 31.32–32.25km 50.4–51.9 214ft65m 4.4% avg
mi 33.37–33.74km 53.7–54.3 135ft41m 6.8% avg
mi 37.97–38.65km 61.1–62.2 165ft50m 4.6% avg
mi 42.19–43.81km 67.9–70.5 639ft195m 7.5% avg
mi 46.98–48.22km 75.6–77.6 314ft96m 4.8% avg
mi 50.89–51.2km 81.9–82.4 83ft25m 5.0% avg
mi 51.51–51.88km 82.9–83.5 101ft31m 5.1% avg
mi 52.82–53.25km 85.0–85.7 113ft34m 4.9% avg
mi 56.73–57.23km 91.3–92.1 191ft58m 7.3% avg
mi 59.4–60.46km 95.6–97.3 198ft60m 3.6% avg

Afternoon shade

Measured at 15:00 on Tuesday, September 8, with the sun 49.2° above the horizon.

Tree cover: 4% of the route
Blocked by terrain: 0% of the route

Terrain shades nothing at this hour — the sun is still too high for a ridge to block it. Tree cover is the only shade on offer while you are riding.

Effectively an unshaded day. Start early and carry more water than the distance suggests.

Tree cover from OpenStreetMap, within 30 m of the road; terrain from a horizon-angle test against elevation data. Both are estimates — unmapped woodland reads as no shade.

Conditions

Near Paso Robles, where the day ends.

Air quality

AirNow smoke map

Weather

NWS forecast

The day at a glance

Leaves the irrigated valley floor almost immediately. Most of the day is oak savanna and cattle ranching through Jolon and the Fort Hunter Liggett country — dry-farmed and thinly settled, which is why there is so little on the route. Vineyards reappear on the approach to Paso Robles.

Worth looking up for

Remote oak country through Jolon and the Nacimiento backcountry, with no highway miles at all.
Lake Nacimiento appears on the descent toward Paso Robles.

What to watch for

The hardest day: 62.6 mi, 4,005 ft, and only 4% shade. Start as early as you can.
No mapped water anywhere on the route, and effectively nothing between mile 1 and mile 48. This is the day the SAG car matters most.
Steepest sustained pitch of the trip at mi 42.2–43.8, 639 ft at 7.5% — and it comes late.

Towns along the way

1 King City 1.0 mi off
19 Jolon
25 Lockwood 0.5 mi off
41 Bee Rock
49 Heritage Ranch 0.8 mi off
62 Paso Robles 0.9 mi off

Stops along the way

Mapped in OpenStreetMap and carried in the GPX as waypoints, so they show on a head unit too. Distances are miles from the start. Tap a name for Google Maps, or the arrow for Apple Maps. Not verified on the ground — opening hours and whether a tap actually runs are anyone’s guess.

Shops & markets 3