Originally Posted by JimmyNH

I know I’m biased, but I don’t like riding in LA County. The Santa Monica mountains have some of the crappiest roads known to man (as somebody already mentioned) and I’m sure with all the rain, the road conditions haven’t gotten any better. If you can book yourself in a hotel in Orange County (Irvine, Mission Viejo, Lake Forest) you can get a safe, decent 100 km ride going south to Camp Pendleton and back. I would recommend this route: get somehow to Irvine, take Shady Canyon (mostly paved bike trail) to Newport Coast (fairly easy climb), then PCH South to San Clemente and from there you can get all the way to Camp Pendleton on lightly traveled roads (some are campground roads with no traffic). Then go back. The only crappy section is on PCH in Laguna Beach between Laguna Canyon (CA-133) and Crown Valley. You can easily avoid it by going inland on Laguna Canyon and then get back on PCH at Crown Valley. I reckon at least 50% of this route is coastal, with great views of the ocean. That's the route that I do when I want to be a tourist.