Yosemite and Lake Tahoe Motorcycle Tour

Three days, around 640 miles, and two of California’s most famous places. This short loop out of San Francisco goes straight for Yosemite, crosses the Sierra Nevada at Tioga Pass and comes back by way of Lake Tahoe.

The days are long for a weekend, 190 to 235 miles, and deliberately so: the point is to reach real mountains rather than potter about near the coast. Day one runs inland to El Portal at the edge of Yosemite Valley, arriving in time to ride up into the park and see Half Dome and El Capitan in the evening light.

The second day is the best of the three. Tioga Pass climbs out of Yosemite to just under 10,000 feet, past the meadows and granite domes of the high country, then drops to Mono Lake, an ancient saline lake fringed with strange calcified towers of tufa, before continuing north to South Lake Tahoe. The final day returns west over the Sierra and finishes across the Golden Gate Bridge.

EAGLERIDER supplies the motorcycle and books both nights, with Harley-Davidson touring models alongside Triumph and BMW sport machines, and provides the route notes so no time is lost navigating. Fuel, meals and insurance are arranged separately. One thing to plan around: Tioga Pass is seasonal and closes with the first serious snow, so this is a trip for the warmer half of the year rather than a winter weekend. For riders based in San Francisco, or visiting with a weekend spare, it reaches the high Sierra and gets back in three days.