I've ridden around long beach quite often. its weird, some streets have nice bike lanes, others none at all. some streets have bike lanes that just disappear and you get cars honking at you all of sudden because you're taking up "their" lane.
A path to reach the beach I recommend is orange, which changes to alamtios which changes to shoreline drive. takes you right to the beach and back. Just stay on the right at all times. I have gotten honked on here and there, but no one is dumb enough to ram me.
I've ridden that path at night before. Around 8-9. Not so bad, just get some blinking lights. It is pretty desolate, and all the gangsters transformed to skinny jean dressing skateboards, go figure.
I ride a fixie, and i don't recommend you ride brake less in the city that doesn't care for bikes as much as they should.
Tell me a general area you're from and trying to reach, and I could recommend some streets to take.