Turnbull Canyon

I just rode what must have been one of the ten best rides ever. Amber and I met Iria, Elizabeth, and Tracey at Joe's Crab Shack in Seal Beach and rode up the San Gabriel bike path to Turnbull Canyon in Whittier and back. Elizabeth and Tracey were planning on riding only 30 miles and skipping the canyon, but Iria, Amber, and I planned on riding 50 up to the top of the canyon and back.

Turnbull Canyon is a huge surprise. I didn't expect to find a quiet country road with almost no traffic right in the middle of Los Angeles. The road was crawling with cyclists (well it's about a 6% grade for nearly two miles) but I attacked hard and held about 8mph which is pretty good for me.

We are about ten miles from down-town Los Angeles

Amber was trying out her new Topeak MTX rack and bag so I helped her test it by putting my sweater and a large Monster drink in the bag. Obviously she had no trouble keeping up with me, even so. The rack and bag performed well except that they make a lot of noise as the plastic at the base of the bag knocks against the metal of the rack. I think some sticky-backed dense foam strips would help a lot. I'm thinking draft-excluder.

On the way down we saw Elizabeth climbing the canyon. Apparently she had changed her mind. We turned around and re-climbed the canyon with her - much to the surprise of some cyclists that were resting at the top who thought we had just reclimbed the entire canyon. We did nothing to correct their error :-)

Heading down for the second time we met up with Tracey who had been waiting patiently at the bottom and grabbed some breakfast together. Decent, but not as good as Cook's Corner in my opinion.

L-R. Tracey, Amber, Elizabeth, and Iria

Then we ambled back onto the San Gabriel trail for the last 15 miles back. Tracey was struggling so I tried to pull her back to the group but she couldn't stay on. It didn't help that Iria pulled at 22mph into a strong headwind for a while. We felt six drops of rain (California Monsoon!) on the way back to the cars. Iria, Amber, and I took turns pulling into the headwind (we got so screwed by the wind) and we made it back in good time. About two minutes after we finished it started to rain properly. Great timing.

So, bike path, great new road, climbing, good food, some competition, and a great group. All the ingredients of an awesome ride.