Happy Bike-to-Work, Bike-to-School Day! Celebrate National Bike Month – 16th Annual Monterey County Bike Week

Happy Bike-to-Work and Bike-to-School Day, Monterey County!

Who says there’s no such thing as a free breakfast?  There is for cyclists!  One of the Bike Week activities:  a free breakfast at various locations countywide today, Thursday, May 13.

One of these extra bike-friendly spots is the Haute Enchilada Cafe, a Bike Week host for 11 years now, and a HER Helmet Thursdays charter participant, too!  Thirty cyclists biked to Moss Landing for the Haute Enchilada’s free breakfast this morning.

And to make Bike-to-Work/School Day even more special, cyclists are also being greeted with discounts from HER Helmet Thursdays participants all over the county, since it’s a Thursday.  Put on that magic helmet (your evidence of cycling) and show up with your bike at any of these places morning, noon, or night to get your Thursday discount.

For lodging discounts, no helmet required.  Just BYOB (bring your own bike) or present a bike rental/receipt agreement from any Monterey County shop.

Want to bike to the Haute Enchilada? Or perhaps take your bike on the MST bus there, then bike the return trip?   Directions are provided in the cafe’s HER Helmet Thursdays detailed listing. They are also included at the end of this post.

Other Monterey County Bike Month activities…

Check out details at the Transportation Agency of Monterey County (TAMC) site’s Bike Week section re:

• May 3-28, 2010 – Team Bike Challenge, countywide
• Wed, May 5 – Bike to Pacific Grove City Council
• Tues, May 11 – Bike vs Car Challenge (Cyclists won!  Congrats to cyclists Ernie Gallardo & Jose Hernandez.)
• Tues, May 11 – Bike to Salinas City Council
• Wed, May 12 – Twilight Ride at Mazda Raceway, Laguna Seca
• Thurs, May 13 – Bike to School and Bike to Work, countywide
• Sun, May 16 – Morning ride with Velo Club, Monterey

Bike safety checks in Monterey County:

Have your bike ready to ride?  If not, take advantage of the special discounted bike safety check/minor tuneup offered for $10 at participating local shops through May 16, 2010.

Year-long for cyclists in Monterey County:

Thurs, May 6, May 13, May 20, and May 27…and all year long, be part of the ecology-economy partnership,  of HER Helmet Thursdays throughout Monterey County.

Take a look at the businesses and organizations offering discounts every Thursday, just because you bike here.  Participating communities already include:  Big Sur, Carmel, Carmel Valley, Castroville, Del Rey Oaks, Gonzales, Greenfield, Marina, Monterey, Moss Landing, Pacific Grove, Salinas, San Ardo, Seaside, and Soledad! Share a HER Helmet Thursdays participants poster as of 4-12-10 at your workplace, school, or other location.

Share the news with other cyclists on the bikeways!

Want an easy way to share info on HER Helmet Thursdays (and Tips for Tourists and others bicycling Monterey County) with other cyclists out on the bikeways?  Print this PDF and you’ll have four little 4.25 x 5.5 notes to share with others :  4 to a page announcement re Tips for Tourists and HER Helmet Thursdays

There are also 8.5 x 11 posters available:

HER Helmet Thursdays participants poster as of 4-12-10

Tips for Tourists Bicycling MoCo and HER Helmet Thursdays

Tips for Tourists Bicycling Monterey County (This one is especially appropriate for H-E-R venues not yet in HER Helmet Thursdays.)

Elsewhere in the region?

Monterey Bay region activities are scheduled in San Benito and Santa Cruz counties too.

Elsewhere in the U.S.?

Check out National Bike Month (May) activities in your area.  You might start with the League of American Bicyclists website. This is the official sponsor of Bike Month, and they keep track of many related activities.  But don’t stop there–Monterey County’s activities aren’t listed on that site.  Google “bike week,” “bike month,” and so on, along with the name of your community.

Happy biking!

Bike-there direx for Haute Enchilada Cafe, Moss Landing

Haute Enchilada Café & Gallery, Moss Landing – 10% -Haute Enchilada may be the only place in Monterey County where you can get a delicious tofu scramble, the breakfast dish more commonly found in metropolitan areas. The café’s fish tacos and eggplant Moroccan salad are also very popular. The warm, friendly service and exotic décor—inside and out—make this an especially fun, and delicious, cycling stop. Dine indoors, or outside in their warmed courtyard. And don’t miss the eclectic gallery! Sunset magazine says, “Nowhere is the cadence of seaside life more fully celebrated” than in Moss Landing. And the choice of the Haute Enchilada for a meeting place when the imagineers of Santa Cruz, San Benito, and Monterey counties gather for their Imagination Coast breakfasts is another affirmation of not only this community but of this unique café.

Bike tips:  Provided below is (1) a bike-there route, with two options (1a, 1b) once you reach Castroville.  Also provided is (2) a bike-and-bus combo route.  

1.Bike there!  Cyclists coming NORTH from the Monterey Peninsula, cycle the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail bike path through Marina, and continuing on where it will merge with Del Monte Boulevard. Follow Del Monte Blvd until—just before H’way 1—Del Monte Blvd reaches Del Monte Road. Turn right onto Del Monte Road. Follow it until it T-s into Nashua Road. Take a left onto Nashua; approx 500 ft from there, the bike path resumes on the right-hand side. Watch for the green “bike route” signs. Follow bike path into Castroville. Then choose either option 1a or 1b.

(1a) Make a left turn onto Merritt Road/Highway 183 to get to Cabrillo Highway 1. Take a right onto H’way 1 (which has heavy traffic, though a wide shoulder; wear hi-visibility clothing and exercise extra caution; you’ll likely be against wind). Follow H’way 1 approx 2.5 miles to Whole Enchilada, then make a left just after Whole Enchilada and another left to Haute Enchilada, which will be on your right a little way down the street.

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(1b) To avoid H’way 1, when you reach Merritt Road/H’way 183 in Castroville, take a left and then an immediate right onto Highway 156 East for about a half-mile (busy h’way, but good shoulder; exercise caution). Then take a left onto Castroville Blvd, which will take you past North County High. Look for the bike path on right-hand side of Castroville Blvd. When you come to T-intersection, make a left onto Dolan Road. When you come to next T-intersection, you’ll be at H’way 1 by the Moss Landing power plant. From there, turn left onto H’way 1 . (Note: at the power plant, you have to cross H’way 1 to make that left turn, which can be daunting. If you want to walk you bike on the northbound side of Hwy 1 a ways, you can cross more safely where the road has some divider lines between the northbound and southbound lanes.) Once you’re on H’way 1, go south about a half-mile or so. Turn right just before Whole Enchilada and then make a left to reach Haute Enchilada, which will be on your right a little way down the street.

(2) Bike-bus combo!  Travelers coming NORTH from the Monterey Peninsula may want to combine a bus trip with cycling. If so, take the MST 27 from Marina Transit Station, leaves Northbound to Watsonville at 9:18, 11:18 and 1:18 [at time of this posting; confirm schedule before planning trip]. The bus passes closeby and directly parallel to the restaurant; get off bus on Highway 1 at Dolan Road. For return trip, to get in a long bike ride on the return (since it is easier to bike SOUTH rather than NORTH on Highway 1, because of the afternoon winds), leave Moss Landing on Highway 1 going south. (There’s a good shoulder there, just check your rear-view mirror for cars; you do have a rear-view bike mirror, don’t you?!) Turn RIGHT onto Molera Road (by the fruit stand). From there it is 2.5 miles, with little or no traffic, on a paved road that passes through artichoke fields. It then goes OVER Highway 1 and joins Nashua Road. You’ll pass another fruit stand and turn RIGHT onto Monte Road (little or no shoulder, not too much traffic; DO watch out for trucks!). Continue on that road for two miles; then it links up with the separate bike lane that parallels Del Monte Avenue. This trip may be comfortably made from Moss Landing to downtown Monterey in 2 to 2.5 hours, though could be completed more quickly by expert cyclists.