Downtown or Little Italy to get to the beaches? (San Diego: 2014, neighborhoods)

[Jackle]

Is there a good bike path or route to get to the beach/ocean front from downtown or little italy? or is driving the best best? Thanks!

[travelin'bones]

did you ever find a good path??

[MsFancyPants]

I live downtown and I don't know of one.

[ranzchic]

From downtown/Little Italy, you can take the harbor drive bike path to get to point loma and shelter island. This right by the water and starts around Grape Street and Harbor Drive, and ends at the first bridge you will encounter, but you can go to the sidewalk or bike lane from there.

To get to OB, you need to get yourself to Old Town first. You can either use Pacific Highway on the bike lanes if you're adventurous the whole through.

If that's too high speed for you, you can take India Street(be careful on the section that goes under the 5, especially look for exiting vehicles merging to India Street). I would avoid it all together and just go to State St, left on Laurel and then right to Columbia and climb up that hill. Then left towards India St.

About two blocks from Washington St,(Chalmers Avenue), you want to merge left towards San Diego Avenue. It's pretty quiet here, so just cruise along all the way to Old Town.

Turn left at Twiggs, then right on Congress St. Turn left at Taylor, and Right on Pacific Highway. Then just before you cross the bridge, you should see a sign for the Ocean Beahc Bike Path. After that, follow the bike path all the way to OB! Yay! This is a really good bike path, completely separate from any auto traffic. It continues on for a good 2-3 miles.

You can also go to Mission Bay, Pacific Beach, and La Jolla from here as there are plenty of bike paths and bike lanes. You just have to plan ahead.

Here is a handy website for bicycle lanes, paths ans shared routes for the county: Bicycle Routes in San Diego County, California

You should download Google Earth or use Google Maps so you could check out the routes from the air and via Street View.

[tstieber]

Let's just say it would be pretty complicated, take a long time, and require you to drive through pretty heavy traffic. By the time you got there, you wouldn't want to return by bike. I would just drive and take the bike to the beach and ride around there.

[ranzchic]

I've done it and it's fun(from Hillcrest to boot). If you're not ill or grossly overweight, you can do it too.

The routes I posted, especially the second one towards OB is on quiet streets and a completely separate bike path. Even the Pacific Highway section(north of Taylor street) you will traverse is almost deserted. I'm not terribly athletic either, or used a special bike. I used those 50 lbs euro city bike.



The best part was I brought my dogs along with me. In fact, today is good beach and biking weather!

[sdurbanite]

From Downtown, you can take the ferry (with your bike) over to Coronado and then take the bike trail to the beach. Part of it is a paved trail and the rest takes you through the beautiful neighborhoods.