Finding cycling routes in San Diego is easy, if you know where to look. Thankfully for you, I have compiled a few resources here to help you begin searching.
SANDAG Bike Map
This is a link to the San Diego Association of Governments’ map of bike infrastructure. This is a powerful bike route planning tool. You’ll notice that some streets on this map are highlighted in different colors which correlate to the the kind of bike infrastructure on that street. The breakdown is as follows:
Orange: Class I Multi-Use Path
Orange designates a multi-use path and are the most protected bikeways in the county. They are paths only accessible to pedestrians and cyclists, no cars allowed. If you want worry free cycling, these are the paths for you. While you must still be mindful of pedestrians, multi-use paths take a lot of stress out of the equation and free you up to plan cycling routes with scenery in mind. An additional benefit of multi-use paths is that they often follow riverbeds, shorelines, canals, and abandoned rail lines. This means they are often flat, unbroken paths in San Diego’s quiet and scenic areas.
Blue: Class II Bike Path
Blue designates bike lanes which are established along streets. They offer no physical barriers from cars aside from lines painted on the street. However, since you have your own lane, it feels rather safe. That being said you have to be careful, you’re on active streets after all, where cars will merge in and out of your lane often. If you’re planning a cycling route, bike lanes will be essential since they are the most common and connective bikeway class in San Diego.
Green: Class III Bike Route
The green lines are known as bike routes. Bike routes designate shared facilities with motorist and are often used to connect bike lanes or provide cycling routes through high demand corridors in San Diego. Bike routes are the least protected type of bikeway on this list. The only infrastructure to accompany bike routes are street signs, there are no physical barriers or lines on the road to separate you from cars. That being said, bike routes are typically on streets with low, slow traffic. Once you get more comfortable with riding your bike on the street, bike routes can be very handy for connecting you to other bike infrastructure.
Purple: Class IV Separated Bikeways and Bike Boulevards
Here we break from convention a bit in that the county of San Diego has two classifications for these types of bikeways whereas the state of California keeps them under one. The purple lines, found almost exclusively in downtown San Diego, designate separated bikeways (light purple) or bike boulevards (dark purple). In the case of a separated bikeways the rider is still on the street but is separated from motorist traffic by some kind of physical barrier like flexible poles, curbs, parked cars, or a combination of the three. They also include their own traffic lights that look like regular traffic lights except the light itself is a little bike, fun! Bike boulevards on the other hand are very similar to separated bikeways except they may not have the same physical barriers. They are on streets with low and slow traffic, have the same lights and intersection styles as separated bikeways, and will have indicators on the road that tell motorists to look out for bicycles. While not protected from traffic with physical barriers, bike boulevards offer cyclists peace of mind knowing they have a piece of road just for them.
Interactivity
Another thing that makes this resource so valuable is the fact that the map is interactive. This means that I can open the map on my mobile device and share my location with the website to show exactly where I am on the map with a blue dot. That dot will move with me so that I can follow the routes precisely. This is especially useful if I just want to freestyle but still want to stay on bike infrastructure.
Strava
Strava is a terrific resource when it comes to finding cycling routes anywhere. It’s the social media of fitness. There is a free version of the app which lets you record and post your rides while offering limited map tools like suggested routes, segments, and a heat map that shows you where others have ridden in the recent past. In the paid version of the app, you pay a monthly subscription fee. In return you get full use of the map and its features as well as access to more of your own data like a personal heat map that shows you everywhere you’ve ridden. You also get more access to the competitive features of Strava where you can compete with other riders in the area on segments.
When you use Strava’s heatmaps with the SANDAG Bike Map you can compare the two and see how much the bike infrastructure actually gets used. For example, there is a bike lane on Mission Gorge Road going south from Highway 52, you may be tempted to take that if you’re just looking at the SANDAG map. However, if you look at the Strava heat map, you’ll see a thick blue line that deviates from Mission Gorge Road called Father Junipero Serra Trail which runs through Mission Trails Regional Park. While it doesn’t say so on the SANDAG map, this would qualify as a class I bikeway, a path shared by pedestrians and cyclists with no cars. It is also far more scenic, following a river through a steep rocky canyon. If you’re not concerned with taking a direct route, Strava can also help get you off large and busy streets by showing you routes through neighborhoods and on minor roads.
Another fun way to use Strava is through Strava art. When you record your ride, a thick orange line overlays the map to show your path. People have used this feature to create drawings or write messages with their path. Once you become a master route planner, you can try to create your own Strava art, or find others people’s paths and recreate them yourself.
One variant of Strava art is called the Long Tiny Loop. The goal is to traverse the longest possible non-self-intersecting loop within the smallest possible region, without revisiting any streets or intersections. This produces some very interesting paths that look more like a brain than a cycling route.
Safety
Got to the Safety Page to learn tips on how to cycle safely in San Diego.