hi,
have to get to Laguna Beach this week end and decided that I ride my bike there. The other week it took me 3hrs + by car because of traffic. LA traffic is the WORST in the world 
I know how to get from my apt. over the Santa Monica Mnts down to PCH. I’m familiar with the route towards the North. Does anybody know if I can ride on PCH from Santa Monica all the way South to Laguna Beach?
thanks,
daniel
from Santa Monica you can ride surface streets through venice and cut through Marina del rey then hug the beach south and for fun ride around not over Palos Verdes . San Pedro and Long beach harbors are kind of strange to ride through, lots of trucks and train tracks but then the ride south from there along the coast is a blast.
No. They’ll be many detours.
Yes you can. But it’s a bit dicey south of Palos Verdes, until you hit Seal Beach. The problem is that individually San Pedro and Long Beach are two of the world’s biggest ports, and together they are a mega port. Things in that area are kind of set up for that. Lots of container trailers etc. PCH will take you through San Pedro and parts of North Long Beach. North Long Beach is not so hot. In fact Tinker got his bike stolen at gunpoint there a couple of day s ago http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2004/jun04/jun23news (scroll to the bottom). Once you get to Seal Beach you are OK. In fact there is a new cool little bike shop on PCH with all kinds cool stuff in it. Sorry I forgot the name. It’s definitely do-able, but at your own risk after Palos Verdes.
You might look into going part way on public transportation and cycling the rest of the way. You should be able to take a train to downtown Long Beach and then take Ocean Blvd south to PCH. As others have said, the port areas not bicycle friendly.
Larry
good to know. so what you are saying is that I have to bring my bullet proof cycling jersey and a machine gun with me. wow that might get interesting… joke aside, thanks for the info. I’ll just make sure I have plenty of water before I get there so I won’t have to stop and i can keep riding.
thanks everybody,
d
Yeah, I’ve got to agree with the others. I’ve done that ride on a trip from Santa Barbara to San Diego and the section north of Long Beach was by far the worst part. We didn’t have any problems, but the roads were filled with debris and the area wasn’t the ~friendliest~. I rode through with a group and like I said, things were fine. I don’t think I’d do it alone though. This is mainly due to traffic issues, I just felt safer in a group that day.