I don't know. I usually wing it with whatever I feel like after a couple of miles. I mostly ride the wind conditions. SoCal has very sharp microclimates at the coast and two overall wind patterns depending on whether the desert or ocean are dominant. I prefer to ride upwind first because ending with a tail wind is emotionally positive.

I will probably ride halfway to my first bike shop job on the route I did for years. That connects the most bike trails to keep me away from cars and on slower side streets overall. There are only a couple of sketchy stretches with cars but I have never been hit along those and only encountered a few crazies and close calls.

I'm nowhere near strong enough now, but one of those stretches was my fastest flat out push behind a city bus that accelerated just right off of a red light for me to draft up to 57 mph before I got dropped.

I usually do that route as a loop. On the return I connect to a bunch of parks and a trail that boarders the back side of the ridge of Laguna Beach before hitting the coast at the south end of Laguna around the Ritz and coming home.

It is either that loop or ride south to the Marine corps base. That can be fun to see the military hardware if they are out training. The bike route gets within a hundred yards of several helicopter landing pads. There is a beach where hovercraft land, and a few armored personal carrier and tank crossings. The bike route is the remnants of old highway 1 beside the 5 freeway where highway 1 was decommissioned in the 1970s. It has all the old infrastructure and some signage still remaining. There is also some really old abandoned building with Edison signage IIRC. I am not sure what it was used for, but may have been an immigration check point or commercial vehicle weigh station. It looks more like unusual electrical infrastructure or maybe even a telegraph station or something.

It may be super hot, so I may go south as that stays on the coast the whole time, but means lots of the most dangerous type of drivers in unfamiliar places.

Maybe my PTSD around cars will be better now that I can actually see over my left shoulder and in less pain.