First time to PB...can you direct me??? (San Diego, Orange: credit card, how much)

[Lynch]

I live in south Orange County and want to visit PB for the first time- I'm specifically coming down there because I was told the bike path along the beach is a great ride, and that's what I'm looking for! I want to drive to the most northern part of PB and ride my bike south.

Can you suggest where, exactly, I need to go/park in order to do this?
Thanks in advance, I can't wait to check out PB!!

[oddstray]

The place we've had the most luck with parking is at Belmont Park. The parking lot south of the roller coaster almost always has space. Then we ride north on the 'boardwalk' (it's actually concrete).

[cruitr]

My wife and I bike the PB boardwalk almost every weekend. Free parking is extremely hard to find near the beach on weekends. We pay to park behind the building at 4475 Mission Blvd, 92109. The cost is about $5 and is only a few hundred yards to the boardwalk. Use the Diamond parking lot (DPS) and prepay with a credit card. Diamond usually has people who roam their lots if you have any questions. Here's a map:
4475 Mission Blvd, San Diego, California 92109 - Google Maps

The boardwalk can be extremely crowded with walkers, joggers, skate-boarders, surfers with long boards, lots of small kids, etc. We wear helmets but it's not a requirement.

If you get hungry, look for this place:
North Shore Cafe | Restaurants at Mission Beach
You can park you bike right next to your table.

[RD5050]

If your main objective is a great bike ride, I recommend starting your ride by parking in the free public parking lot in the Crown Point section of Mission Bay. It is is located on Crown Point Drive, just east of Ingraham Street in Pacific Beach.

You can view it here at Google Maps:

Crown Point Drive - San Diego

Then ride your bike west along bike path on the bay (which is a very scenic ride) for approximately 2 miles, and make a right turn at San Rafael Ave, go one block, cross Mission Blvd, and you will be at the boardwalk in Mission Beach. Then you can go either right or left on the boardwalk. Right takes you towards Pacific Beach, and left towards Mission Beach.

If you miss the San Rafael Street turn at Mission Bay, there are plenty of other streets past this one to cross over to the beach. These streets will be easy to spot, because you can look to your right down any of these streets, and you will see the beach around 1 block away.

The Crown Point parking lot typically has lots of available spaces on the weekend, so you should have no trouble finding parking.

The 2 mile ride along the bay is extremely nice. I highly recommend it. It is extremely relaxing and one of the most beautiful sections of Mission Bay. I guarantee it will make your PB bike ride even better then just doing the PB boardwalk alone.

[Lynch]

Thanks for all the info! I do want to park close to the beach so that after the ride, we can put the bikes away and get our beach chairs out! I didn't think of that in my original post because I wasn't sure how much time we would have. I don't mind paying for parking, but I just didn't want to waste time driving around aimlessly, it's going to take me an hr. to get there as it is.

It looks like the parking lot on Mission that "cruitr" gave me is pretty far north on the "boardwalk"- that might be perfect, thanks!

And thanks RD5050- we will keep that in mind, this definitely won't be my last time down there and we might be able to do that as well on this visit!

[cruitr]

Lynch...
Let us know how things work out for you. We biked the boardwalk on Saturday and the bay side on Sunday. Since the water temps are up (74 degrees), the beach was packed and the boardwalk was crowded. My sister-in-law biked with us and said she never saw anything as crazy as the boardwalk. If things get too crowded for you, just cutover to the bay side. Look at your map. It's pretty easy. Have fun.