Humboldt Randonneurs is excited to announce its first 1200km Grande Randonée to be offered July 19-22, 2025! Building on its successful 1000 km randonee EP1K Coastal, Humboldt Randonneurs will offer an extraordinarily beautiful and challenging 1,200km point-to-point RM starting in Eugene, OR and finishing in Petaluma, CA. With total elevation gain is over 14,000 m (45,000 ft), this is truly a Humboldt route!

RWGPS draft here: Humboldt Coast 1200

The route will follow minor county roads over Oregon’s Coast Range out to the coast and then follow the Pacific Coast bikeway south to the first overnight in Coos Bay. The route continues south down the Oregon coast into California, skirts around Crescent City to visit old growth Redwoods of Jedediah-Smith State Park, then continues down the rocky cliffs of the Northern California coast and the coastal Redwoods through Trinidad and on to Arcata. The route departs from the Pacific Coast bikeway at Ferndale and follows Humboldt County roads over very steep, challenging and remote region of the Lost Coast, continuing up the Matole River through Petrolia and Honeydew before a big climb 3000′ over Panther Gap with an amazing descent back into the Giant Redwoods of Rockefeller Forest and up the Avenue of the Giants to Garberville and on up to Legget before turning west on CA-1 for another climb followed by a favorite descent to the coast. With the third day indicated 15,500 ft elevation gain, riders will find this third day quite challenging, rewarding and awesomely beautiful. Rest will be well found in Ft Bragg before the final day down the Mendocino and Sonoma coast, turning inland at Jenner heading up the Russian River to finish in Santa Rosa, CA.

Update: Humboldt Randonneurs are diligently working on route finalization as well as route logistics and securing volunteers to support the grande randonnee at controls.

1. Update: This is a Humboldt route, exquisitely beautiful and extremely difficult. There are some short unpaved sections generally a few hundred yards but one section through the Jededhia Smith Redwoods of a few miles of unpaved hard pack dirt road. There are long sections of very rough roads; there are very big, very long, very steep climbs, especially on the third day. The route total is about 14,000 m (46,000 ft) of climbing along the most beautiful sections of Oregon and California coast. Expect +300 km each of the first 3 days with the second being the longest and the third being the most difficult, the fourth and final day will be the shortest and easiest at about 130 miles and 8,100 ft.
2. We will be finishing in Santa Rosa not Petaluma. There is an airport and light rail in Santa Rosa for return trips, and there is a convention that has every hotel booked in Petaluma!
3. We have key volunteers in place to support about 20 riders with additional riders waitlisted – we currently have a rider interest list at least twice that. If you know anyone interested in helping you can secure a spot by sending them my way!
4. We will secure reservation blocks at the start and finish hotels which riders can book themselves. We are considering the option of organizer booked on-course hotels that will be double queen and assigned, and an option for riders to book their own rooms on-course. We expect registration to open Feb-1 and will notify the interest list. We will provide registered riders with a group list for logistics coordination.

Looking forward to a great ride! Keep the rubber side down!

Eric Larsen, RBA

Humboldt Randonneurs

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Note: we currently have rider interest that exceeds our volunteer capacity. If you know someone who can help along the route, please send them our way! Ride limit will be based on volunteer capacity, so if you have riden with Humboldt Randonneurs and want to support or know someone who does, please fill out the interest form. Registration will be open in Feburary.