Upper Rio Hondo bike path

Amber and I rode from the San Gabriel trail head in Azusa down to Montebello then onto an unfamiliar bike path called the Upper Rio Hondo. This travels eight miles from Montebello to Arcadia giving us an out and back total of 44 miles.

View from trail head

It's not often I give a thumbs down to a bike path but I don't fancy riding the upper Rio Hondo again. The first problem is that it passes near a shooting range called Triple B Clay. The constant noise of gunfire is very disturbing and the complete antithesis of why I ride. Then the route is very urban, just concrete and graffiti, and lastly near the north end there is a series of difficult-to-navigate gates and then the bike path dumps you out onto Live Oak - a very busy and bike unfriendly road.

The only funny thing about the bike path is where a model aircraft park is next to a rifle range. Painted on the outside wall of the rifle range in 10 foot high red letters is "DO NOT FLY OVER RIFLE RANGE". I can well imagine that low flying model aircraft might make too tempting a target for inbred rednecks to resist.

I finally got to eat at Grand Burgers on Grand in Glendora. It's a typical american food restaurant. We had zucchini fries, chicken sandwich, bacon cheeseburger, and chili fries. It got a bit exciting when an 80 year old woman collapsed in front of the soda machine. She looked pretty chipper when they loaded her onto the gurney so I'm sure she's OK. When they finally wheeled her out, you can bet there was a big rush to get soda!

We're going to need more people!