So I’ve been biking in the area around the University of San Diego for a while. At the bottom of the hill is Fashion Valley mall, and I tend to keep my bicycling to the West (towards the Ocean) from there. There’s mostly strip malls to the East, so there’s not a lot of point in heading that way, and the only route that direction is taking Friar’s road. Friar’s road has bike lanes, and is great for getting back and forth except where it hits the 163, where it turns into a gigantic mess of entrance and exit ramps, with the bike lane doing it’s usual disappear-and-reappear act all over the place. So I wanted to find away around that. It turns out there are two options: the on-road way and the off-road way.

If you live in San Diego, it’s worth signing up online to receive a free copy of RideLink’s San Diego Bike Map. It’s a big, fold out map showing all the bike paths (there aren’t many), bike lanes (also not many) and “suggested bike routes” around San Diego. I signed up probably in January and they sent me mine just in time for Bike to Work day, a mere five months later. Still, it’s free and a great resource once it does arrive.

Anyhow, here’s the area scanned in from that map:

I added a few things to this map, but see Fashion Valley Mall? The road just above that is Friars, and you can see it turns yellow as it passes over 163. Blue means “bike lane” and yellow means “good luck, you’re on your own.”

To the left of Fashion Valley Mall is a yellow road, named Fashion Valley Rd. If you take this down, just past the bus/tram stop (south side of the southernmost road) there’s a bike path (that’s orange on the map and in reality in the shadow of the elevated tram track (what looks like a railroad on the map)). These are fully separated paths with no cars on them, which sounds great until you get on it and realize they’re not maintained so tree roots have destroyed them. If you’re on a road bike, stick to the road that is next to it, if you stay on the path go slow. It’s really quite torn up. Anyhow, if you look on the map you can see that this bike path continues on the other side of 163, one path on either side of the river. This seems great, but how to get there? There are two options, I added them in pink. The dashed line requires going offroad over dirt and gravel (need at least a hybrid bike) while the solid pink is easy, just a sidewalk that’s actually widened a bit and obviously intended to be bicycle friendly.

You’re best bet is just to the sidewalk, which means heading south for a block on Avenida del Rio (it shows a bike path there, but I didn’t see it). It’s really just a block until the stoplight, so get in the left-hand lane and cross onto the sidewalk on the north side (so you’re turning left without crossing Camino de la Reina and getting on the sidewalk instantly). You go maybe another block and the path splits, if you follow it up to the left then you’re back on the orange bike path. This is a wide sidewalk behind apartments and the concrete slabs are totally off-kilter. You could do this on a road bike, but no matter what bike you have you just have to go slow and get jostled a lot. It sucks. However, it’s the least dangerous way to get over to Mission Center Rd.

The other option is, instead of turning south for a block on Avineda Del Rio, go straight until the bike path behind Fashion Valley ends. Then follow the dirt and gravel road (you’ll have to go down a 2 foot concrete ramp) to the right, and duck under that bridge. Follow the dirt to the left and up hill, and you’ll fairly quickly come upon a cul-de-sac. If you look to your right, there’s the end of the other bike path. This route is much more direct than the other one if you’re going to Mission Center Rd., and since both bike paths are equally torn up it’s kind of handy. There are a number of homeless people here, I passed a group of three just hanging out and then another fellow asleep further on. It’s isolated, and of dubious legality, so I probably wouldn’t do it alone at night.

Either way, if you want to head back up to Friars road, you can Mission Center Rd a few blocks up. Both Mission Center and Friars have bike lanes on them, so it’s relatively easy riding at this point (keep in mind that the speed limit and traffic on Friars is much faster East of Mission Center Rd).

All of these options are kind of a pain. Given how totally messed up the “bike paths” are, I’d be tempted to stay on the roads, head south and just take Camino de la Reina to Mission Center Rd. I think the bike lane is non-existent here, but there are sidewalks if you must and not a ton of traffic so hanging out on the road should be just fine. I may check it out later. If you’re biking at a time where there’s not a lot of traffic, it may be easiest just to suck it up and go across the Friar’s road bridge. Weekends and rush hour turn it into a bit of a madhouse, but any other time it’s not too bad.