What are the best neighborhoods to have a bicycle in?

The bike path from Venice to Santa Monica is a great place to bike. No hills, just ocean views for miles.

The Palos Verdes Peninsula is one of the most desirable areas in the Southland to ride a bike. Riding along Palos Verdes Drive which circles the Peninsula provides some of the most beautiful ocean and city views anywhere.

I was driving through Santa Monica today, and noticed that there are bike lanes on almost all of the roads. Some look new and freshly painted. Also from Burbank to North Hollywood there is a bike path off of Chandler.

Long Beach is the most Bike friendly area I have lived in LA. Great parks, beaches and access to downtown. Bar crawls via bicycle are ingrained i the LBC's DNA.

Burbank is a great area to have a bike...especially on the West side of the 5. The West side is flatter than the East side (foothills), and the Chandler Bike Path is a safe option for biking with children. It is a 2 mile linear path from Burbank to North Hollywood.

The first thing anyone does when they move to the South Bay is buy a beach cruiser! The Strand which runs along the beach from Redondo Beach up through Santa Monica (with some breaks) offers some of the best casual bike riding around. Enjoy the ocean breezes, the beach scene and the flurry of activity on the Strand. It's a great activity whether you want to enjoy the weather on your own or socialize with friends. (There are some holiday weekends that The Strand becomes jam packed though like Fourth of July ,and you're usually walking your bike through the throngs of people. You will find this mostly in Hermosa and Manhattan. But it's part of the experience too!
If you 're looking for some more serious biking. We have some great trails in Palos Verdes that will come in handy. Check out the trails at the end of Crenshaw Blvd, for one.

Los Angels is a athletes mecca and great Cycling routes are no exception. With mild temperatures and good weather year around Los Angeles offers high intensity road workouts, casual beach cruises or demanding mountain bike trails. Most bike clubs welcome new riders and out of town visitors on the weekly rides.

Venice Beach is a no brainer for a beach cruiser. However, Culver City is pretty great too. You have the Ballona Creek bike path, and the bike path along the new Metro line.

Beach bike paths from Malibu to PV are an amazing ride. Our Hermosa Beach Community has the bike path and you can go as far as your bike experience allows. Our family has gone from training wheels to graphite for Iron man contests and back to beach cruisers.

Leading areas like Long Beach may be ahead of us has; http://www.longbeach.gov/park/recreation/sports/bike_paths.asp

LA is taking bike paths seriously. Its growing and developing all the time, in each city.

My family lives in Hermosa Beach. We bike down to the strand and make an event of it. If the kids are with us we go to the Hermosa Pier and get frozen yogurt. They are 11 and 12 yr old girls and they will go as far north to the smokestacks in El Segundo and as far south as Redondo Beach Pier. When my husband and I bike we like to g up as far North as the Marina. I know there are bike clubs all over for they stop at Marthas at 22nd street and the Strand. When I earned my GREEN designation I did an internship for the City of Long Beach. They have a serious commitment to the Bike experience. We were trying to develop walking loops to bring walking up to the level of bike paths. In the South Bay cities the BLUE ZONES project is working to develop our cities into health awareness. Google any city with the work bike and the area efforts are growing. It is possible to leave Malibu and come all the way down through Palos Verdes, my friends 3 men and one woman did it. They are serious.

Sherman Oaks and Studio City are great! There is a new bike path that runs along the Orange line, so its totally safe and not on public streets. You can ride from Studio City to Woodland Hills!

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West LA is great for bicycling. Lots of students ride their bikes to schools every day. There are many small roads bikers enjoy using to ride their bicycles.

Obviously, the beaches are best. A hidden secret in Los Angeles are the bike paths along the LA River. You'll be surprised what you see. The is an amazing array of ducks, birds and yes, even fisherman !

As you can see already there are a lot of different answers to your question. Some may be what you are looking for although to be more specific you would need to narrow it down a bit to what you want out of your bicycling experience. For instance are you looking for a neighborhood to live in that you can bike to work or are you just looking for somewhere to ride your bike as recreation. Also do you like to ride on flat areas or on hills? There are many options around LA. If you're into mountain biking there are a lot of trails close by as well.

Venice Beach is a great place to ride your bike. The beach bike path runs from Redondo Beach to Pacific Palisades. Most residents get around on their bike on weekends because parking is really difficult near the beach.

I love to bike from Redondo Beach through Hermosa and Manhattan Beach along the coast up into the Marina. Once there stop for a break and a bite then cruise more slowly home -- that's just me! A completely different ride, more through the trees is up along the coast into Palos Verdes ... more challenging too!!

The beach cities (Manhattan, South Torrance, Redondo Beach and Hermosa) are the best for a cruiser. If you want to do some serious cycling Palos Verdes has miles of scenic roads. For mountain biking I would suggest Palos Verdes as well due to all the trails. For more info: www.rtyndall.com

The entire South Bay is wonderful for biking. My husband and I live in South Redondo Beach and we head up to the Palos Verdes Peninsula or North to Marina Del Rey. The Beach Cities are a great playground for biking, walking and exploring!

There are dozens of bicycle clubs in the LA area. We ride all over the South Bay, up to Santa Monica, over to the Hollywood Hills, downtown LA, and the occasional canyon.(Mandeville, Tapanga Canyon, Latigo Canyon to name a few). Riding on the strand is great on a beach cruiser but if you're on a road bike, stay off the Strand-too many people. The Beach Cities all have long range plans to add miles of bike lanes to the existing bike lanes. My favorite ride is South on Narbonne to PV Drive East, up to Mary Mount College, down the switchbacks, over to San Pedro, back around the north side of PV and back down to Redondo.Beach. Check out the Beach Cities Cycling Club for more info.

Santa Monica is one of the most bike friendly cities in the Los Angeles area. They have also added a lot of bike parking recently.

LA is not as bike friendly as a lot of cities--as you probably already know. Lots of Freeways and very spread out.

But as far as places where I like to bike--Santa Monica to Venice, from Will Rogers Park, is a fun ride, though more for recreational biking than for the serious stuff. I am not enough of a biker to tell you where to go for hardcore biking.