Southern California - Help a visitor to the SFV (Northridge) find a good route

Hi, all--

I'm going to be Northridge for a couple of weeks, and I need to find a good way to get between Porter Valley Drive/Rinaldi and Topanga Canyon/Lassen. I've been scouring online maps, and this is what I've come up with. Please let me know what you think.

West on Rinaldi
South on Mason
West on Devonshire
South on Topanga Canyon Blvd. to Lassen

Reverse it for the ride back.

What do you think? Safe? Hilly? I'm going to need to make this ride almost daily. Thanks for any help you can provide.

I'm not too fond of riding on Devonshire or Topanga Canyon with the high traffic and no bike lanes. Instead of Devonshire, I recommend Chatsworth. Avoiding Topanga Canyon is a little more tricky. You'd want to go past it on Chatsworth and turn left into the Chatsworth Park parking lot to the other side. Make a quick left/right out of the parking lot onto Valley Circle and take that to Lassen where you turn left to get back to Topanga Canyon.

You're route is fine. To avoid a 2 mile detour from up above just keep going south on Mason then turn right on Lassen to Topanga. None of these streets are bad anytime of the day for biking.

I'd go with socalcycing's directions.
As for hills, aside from some small rollers on Rinaldi, it is flat.

skip topanga and go up to valley circle...nice rollers, awesome shoulder, lower traffic, and better views..once yer heading up topanga from devonshire, make a right on plummer. this will turn into chatsworth lake manor and then to a left on valley circle....good times

Thanks a lot, guys!

I have another alternative. I'm not sure how it is for cycling because this is part of my drive to school everyday...
West on Rinaldi
South on Mason
West on Chatsworth
South on Canoga until you hit Lassen
This way you avoid traffic on Topanga. The whole route is pretty light on traffic, but I'm not completely sure how good canoga is for cycling.

^ That's actually a good one. The section of Canoga isn't the best pavement, but it's not terrible. It's in an industrial area (watch for debris) but it is pretty light on traffic. Also, I believe that section has a bike lane. Not sure.

Yeah, I think there is a bike lane, if not there's a pretty big shoulder.

Did the ride today. I stayed on Mason until Lassen. It was a really smooth ride. However, the way back was a bit of a struggle. The South-North part was all uphill into a strong headwind. Any way to go around the hill just south of Rinaldi? I'm a wuss, I know.