Taking the tandem down to Long Beach. Route suggestions?
 

Hey All,

Kath and I are taking a trip to SoCal next week and will be taking the daVinci with us. We want to start riding in Long Beach. Any route suggestions? 30 or 40 miles is good.

South down pch to Newport and back is about 40. You can go up Newport Coast Drive and various routes through Irvine and newport depending on whether you want some climbing or not.

Not the best place in socal for a ride, very high traffic and not very scenic.
I would drive down to Dana Point and ride south to Oceanside and back through Camp Pendleton.
You will need your drivers license or ID to get into Camp Pendleton. It's about 56 miles.
If you turn around at the north gate of Camp Pendleton (Las Pulgas Rd) it's about 40 miles.

Watch for the bike route signs going through San Clemente, lots of turns and sometimes its hard to see the signs. Another option is San Clemente to Oceanside and back which would be about 35 miles.

Where in LB are you leaving from. It's not all doom and gloom as previously posted.
We do a flat run from Newport up to LB very often and if you know the roads and what to avoid it really can be a nice ride. Scenic if you consider ocean and wetlands scenic. Which we do.

We have not actually ridden north of Laguna Beach. Have ridden lots between San Diego and Laguna Beach. Don't let my bias stop you from exploring Long Beach / Newport. We really enjoy riding through Camp Pendleton because of no traffic or stop lights, but you would have drive south some to do a 30 - 40 mile ride.

Last October we rode our DaVinci from Balboa Peninsula adjacent to Newport Beach north along the coast up past Huntington Beach. Almost all on a bike/walking trail along the beach. It might make it all the way up to Seal Beach (just south of Long Beach) but we didn't make it that far. This trail is almost entirely off of the road. We went on a weekday. Weekends and summer may be a bit more crowded. Check out biketrails.com/ocbeach.html for more info.
Eric

Beware of the bike route through San Clemente. There are about 30 stop signs over 3 miles...we were ticketed at one of them.

http://www.octa.net/pdf/bwmap_full.pdf

Here's a link to the OC bike routes. You have all kinds of options from Long Beach. You could take the San Gabriel River trail up to Pasadena (though that's probably around 30 miles each way); you can head south down Coast Highway (purple marks off street paths)--you can get to Newport mostly on dedicated beach bike paths; they are not be overly crowded this time of year, though our drivetrain is in a constant battle with the sand. At any rate, Coast Highway is pretty ridable. You're looking at 15 to 20 miles one way to Newport (depending on where you're starting in Long Beach). Throw in a 9 mile loop around the Back Bay ("Upper Newport Ecological Preserve" on the map).

If you're riding on a weekend and want some company, shoot me a note, and we'll see if we can join you for a leg.

I live several hundred miles away so do not get to that area often but:
Anything along the coast is the prettiest. Southward is the most popular (as most above replies tell you) but if you get through the industrial area going northward, around the Palos Verdes peninsula is pretty (if no construction is going on). Continue on if you like people watching on the beach walkway through Redondo Beach, & Manhattan Beach. A ride up the hill to the to the top of Palos Verdes is a workout but the view from the top is stunning. And if you do not like traffic, the whole LA area (as does neighboring Orange County) has miles and miles of bike paths along their flood control channels. Scenery varies between looking into the back lots of industrial yards to going through golf courses. Just hard to find a place to eat. Yes you can exit the path where meets streets but since the path will dip under the street bridge you have to take the exit path to the street and then scan to see if anything is available. One such flood control path starts by the water in Long Beach and travels north paralleling I-710. A short side trip over to the Queen Mary ship is interesting too. I did a quick Google search for Los Angeles Bike paths and came up with: http://www.labikepaths.com/

Thanks to all! We've decided we're goin' south from Long Beach. We're going to ride on Wednesday so we'll to avoid rush hour. We want to be home by dark anyway! Thanks again!