RSM or Irvine?

Pros and cons with each:

RSM cheaper to live but Irvine is more centrally located. (consider your commute to work)

Weather: cooler in Irvine, RSM gets really hot in summer

Trails: probably more around the RSM area as it is surrounded more by wilderness. Irvine is in more of a developed area but many bike trails and places to run.

Follow up question about the trails in RSM: are they safe enough for my wife to run by herself in? I've heard the trails are great, but very rustic and isolated.

Trabuco Canyon Trail and O'neill Park Trail are close to houses. You just don't always see them. The trails off Coto de Caza can get you more isolated. But there are trails that go basically in canyons between homes but the homes aren't seen easily.

Irvine has more asphalt bike trails but there are plenty of dirt trails there too. It is more central and the area near the Bay is a lot cooler in the summer. You get an ocean breeze that you don't get inland.

Irvine is more expensive. The schools in Irvine are very good.

Where are you going to work?

Traffic can be a bitch in Orange County.

If you have the money, move to Pacific Ridge. Great trails there that are safe for the whole family.

Map of trails of Irvine

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/article_1376985.php

I am a rep, which means I have a home office but need to drive around a lot. Orange County is a good place for me to be for work and to relocate my family. Where is Pacific Ridge?

As far as RSM goes, it sounds like the trails there are safe. I've heard it's a nice community to live in. Is there any specific part of RSM that is best to target if I want to be able to get decent runs without driving there everyday? What about the Irvine area? Where is a good place to target where I can access good trails? Thanks for the input.

If you want to run outside your door in Irvine there are lots of trails throughout the city.

I most prefer the area near UC Irvine -- Turtle Rock, University Town Center, Turtle Ridge, Shady Canyon, or Quail Hill. It is cooler in the summer and the area will likely go up in value over time since UCI continues to grow. UCI is increasing the number of undergraduates from around 24,000 to 30,000 in the coming years. They just got a law school approved, Broadcom (one of the biggest companies in Orange County) just built out a huge area for their home base of operations on the campus, UCI plans to build two 11 story buildings for more office space for other companies and research, and they plan to build a big stem cell research center on the campus. There isn't much more area to develop near the school and college kids and professors will always create an increase in demand for housing. The Irvine company is also bullish on building office space near the Irvine Spectrum and near the airport.

It is an ideal area for training. There is the main flat bike path along the San Diego Creek that people run on all times of the day and night. It is off the road so you don't have to worry about cars and each half mile is marked. Then there is the San Joaquin Reserve for dirt trails and there is a dirt and aspahlt bike trail through Shady Canyon. If you want hills, Turtle Rock has hilly dirt trails that the Sierra Club uses for weekly walks. There is also the Irvine Coast Trail that is dirt goes on the other side of the San Diego Creek down into Newport Beach Back Bay. There are trails on the backside of the UCI campus, but they are going to eventually go away for more student housing. If you get ambitious, you can run up Bommer Canyon into Laguna Wilderness Area and into Crystal Cove State Park to the beach. Or you can run behind UCI and up Arroyo Park into the Port streets of Newport to get to the beach in Corona Del Mar. Or you can run up Newport Coast and then turn off onto a trail that will take you into Laguna Wildeness.

If you want to live in a high rise condo, there are plans to build a bunch in what will be called something like the Jamboree Villege. It is called the Irvine Business Center now but they have a name change proposed. There are some that have just been built on the edge of the San Joaquin Reserve that are pretty nice but the assoiciation fees are very high.

There are lots of good other areas to live around the area too. Irvine has done a great job being bike and run friendly. The area near the Great Park will see a lot of growth in the next 10 years too. After the Great Park area is developed out and Woolbury is built up, there is only one little area left to build out (behind the Verizon theater) and then there is going to be nowhere else to build. That is why they are building up in the Jamboree Villege already.

One more advantage to be near the school is that you will have access to the 73 toll road and the 405 freeway. If you have to travel by plane, it is really easy to get in and out of the airport too.

I can't speak for RSM, but here are some other info about Irvine. I prefer dirt to pavement. There is good access to easily accessible dirt trails on the N-NE side of town. Hicks Canyon is connected to Peters Canyon Wash; from there you can go on the Mountains to Sea Trail into Tustin, and all the way into lower Peter's Canyon and the rest of the park (It's actually easy to park at Marketplace Irvine (Circuit City) and walk easily to dirt (or paved) off-road trails either to Peter's Cyn or Hick's Cyn (Jeffrey). I am assuming more will be built in the new Orchard Hills area north of Portola, too.

(Actually, in OC the City with probably the best access to dirt trails is Fullerton; go to the City website).

Another thing about Irvine is that there are lots of greenbelts and/or pocket parks that you can stitch together along with paved stretches, for decent long runs out your door when you don't feel like heading over to the points listed here (or in the earlier postings).

Surfaced tracks at IHS and UCI are easy to use, too. Beckman High has a beautiful new track surface (used to be dirt), but it looks like they are restricting access right now. Dirt tracks are also at Northwood, Woodbridge, & Uni HS's, San Joaquin and Sierra Vista MS's, and Concordia U. Northwood Park has a 1/2-mile loop "jogging" path (more like 0.48-m).

For Irvine info, these folks would be good to talk to (I'm not a member, but would be if I had the time):

http://www.roadrunners.org/

The answer is.......Encinitas! Barring that, I have to claim my current home, west Irvine, as the best. I'm near Mariner's Church (on Bonita Canyon) and I have EVERYTHING at my disposal---University Hills, Laguna Open Space Preserve, Crystal Cove State Beach, Back Bay, UCI track, CDM track, Concordia track, Shady and Bommer Canyon. I was a little bummed to leave the 760, but I have really learned to appreciate this part of SoCal for some great running, even better MTBing and crowded, crappy surf. Plus, this area doesn't have the Whiskey-Tango (white trash) element that RSM has.

I didn't know RSM had a white trash element. From the posts, it sounds like Irvine is the better place to target.

I used to live in the numbered streets in Newport. I moved to Irvine and have mellowed.

March 17th people are getting together to do a ten mile time trial around Newport Back Bay.

There will be no T-shirt. No water along the course. No throngs of fans cheering you on. There are a couple miles through quiet residential streets and traffic will not be blocked.

There will be marks on the road each half mile.

It is a cheap way to test your fitness with others doing the same.

Having trouble posting, so let me try again:

Taylor and others, thanks for all the detail. Very helpful. We're new to Irvine and renting. We're deciding what to do next and thinking about Turtle Rock or maybe Laguna Beach. How's Laguna Beach for living? Running? We have two small kids, so the draw of the Irvine schools is pretty powerful. Thanks in advance.

I'd have a hard time moving to a town that produced Jason Wahler and Tyler who is the only dude I know who suffers from PMS.

Ok, I'm a little challenged when it comes to pop culture. I take Jason Wahler was on the TV show Laguna Beach. Who is Tyler?

He was Kyndra's boyfriend on Laguna Beach. Something was wrong with that dude.

Seriously, Laguna is a great place to live. Besides property being very expensive, the only other problem would be if you have to travel a lot. It can be a pain in the ass to get to places from Laguna. During weekends and the summer PCH has a lot of traffic. If you have to go to the Spectrum, it isn't so bad since you just shoot up the 133. But if you have to go to other areas, a lot it will make you want to punch the fat rolls off Cami's smirk.