Places to ride – Southern California

It’s hard not to spoil this entry right from the beginning, but I have to do it. Southern California is by far my favorite place to ride bike, period.

It simply has it all, whether you looking for scenic roads with breathtaking views, mountains that can actually take up to 40min to climb or flat coastal road of the PCH, it’s all there.

This all combined with great weather and I mean the best weather I have ever experienced when most of the Europe is under the spell of winter.

Southern California is simply the place to be.

The most convenient starting position would be from Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village or Agoura Hills. All of these places are quiet locations, with perfect infrastructure for riding a bike and sizeable cycling community. It’s around 45min from LAX and you have all the city attractions only half an hour car drive away.

In order to recover from the effects of jetlag, take it easy for couple of days riding towards inland where it’s fairly flat or just rolling roads.

After opening up your legs, it’s time for some serious riding. Every time you ride down to Pacific Coast Highway you will need to come back up with one of the Santa Monica Mountains canyon.

The variety of mountains is wide. If you want to do some long and steady climbing, canyons like Encinal, Yerba Buena or Topanga are the best. Decker, Deer Creek or Tuna are super steep and real leg breakers.

The other option is to take on the Mulholland Highway. Mulholland is always up and down iconic road that connects most of the canyons and climbs.

From there you can get to Stunt Rd climb where after climbing it you will be rewarded by fantastic 360 degrees view to the ‘’Valley’’, LA downtown and Pacific ocean.

All this combined, makes up for almost unlimited possibilities of riding with no need of packing your Thermoroubaix stuff even at this time of the year.

Ride!

Martin