Southern California - Good Rides starting from West SF Valley?

Greetings all. I just moved out here and wonder if anyone can recommend some good rides starting out in the West SF Valley (Woodland Hills to be exact). I'd like to ride on more rural roads (if there is such a thing out here) perhaps towards Calabasas/Thousand Oaks (preferably where my risk of being run of the road by a car are low-if that's possible). I will hope to attend a SVFBC ride in the not too distant future, but meanwhile just wondered if anyone could recommend something. Thanks in advance for any advice.

You'll want to talk to Steve ("Cassave" on here), who will hopefully respond to this thread shortly.

The good news is that you are at the back door of the Santa Monica Mts, which have numerous outstanding canyon roads. As an example, here is our typical route on Wednesdays:

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Wed-Ride-Calabasas-Malibu

And welcome! Hope to see you soon on some SFVBC and BF rides.

Mukluk;

Woodland Hills is a perfect start point for any rides into the Santa Monicas. Mulholland Highway is the main corridor through the SMMs with plenty of intersecting pass roads. Just to get a feel for the area, I'd start by heading north on Mulholland. Take Topanga Cyn. south from Ventura Blvd, turn right onto Mulholland at the light.
At the top of the first steep hill west of Calabasas see Dry Cyn/ Cold Creek road (also known as 7 minute hill).
Turn right onto it and follow it down till it rejoins with Mulholland (about 1.5 mi.)

As you follow Mulholland you'll see;

Stunt road: A fairly stiff climb of 1600' in 3 1/4 miles. The top of Stunt connects Saddle Peak and Scheuren roads. Any direction from there is down.
Las Virgenes: Malibu Pass, lots of traffic
Cornell: south takes you around Lake Malibou, north connects with Agoura Road.
Kanan Dume: Traffic. South to Latigo Cyn road or keep going to PCH, north to Agoura again
Encinal Cyn: Great road, fantastic smooth descent to the beach.
Decker Cyn: Steep twisty descent to PCH. Or North to Westlake Village.
Little Sycamore Cyn: Twisty little climbing road heading north from Mulholland, rough surface.

Stay on Mulholland and eventually it reaches PCH at Leo Carillo beach at about 28 miles from your
start point at Topanga Cyn.

If you like to climb you're in right place. Most of the smaller roads are light traffic but watch out for Moto GP types, they like to play up there too.
Both SFVBC groups and BF have remote start rides from the Calabasas Commons on a sporadic basis.

When Vance says we have outstanding canyon roads he's spot on. The Santa Monicas have been a longtime Pro team training ground from Eddie B. long ago to US Postal (and Disco), RaboBank and others.

Thanks so much for the info! I greatly appreciate t. I used to do a fair amount of climbing when I lived in the Sierras but that was a long time ago. I just moved back from a part of Ohio that is flat as a pancake so will have to start from square one with regaining my climbing skills. My bike does have a granny gear (laugh all you want)- don't know if I'll need it out here but would eventually like to ride from death valley to the Mt. Whitney Portal and could come in handy then. I'm excited to check out these rides!

As an example, here is our typical route on Wednesdays:

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Wed-Ride-Calabasas-Malibu

Wow! How long is this ride? Looks impressive- Don't think I have enough endurance yet but would love to work up to it.

On closer inspection it says 57.9 miles. My longest ride back in Ohio was 40 miles on flats. So this is a good challenge to work up to.

You'll want to talk to Steve ("Cassave" on here), who will hopefully respond to this thread shortly.

The good news is that you are at the back door of the Santa Monica Mts, which have numerous outstanding canyon roads. As an example, here is our typical route on Wednesdays:

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Wed-Ride-Calabasas-Malibu

And welcome! Hope to see you soon on some SFVBC and BF rides.

not like you show up ;)