Hillbasher

With all the heat we have been having, I was wondering what the earliest starting time anyone uses for GMR this time of year. Started once at 3 AM, only to have to sit for an hour and a half at the top as the local officials pulled a car up the side of the canyon at the top just past the shack. They would not let us past , even on bikes. So we sat. And sat. And sat. We had intended to do up GMR and down to the East Fork and out to highway 39 and up to Dawson Saddle, but with the lost time, we had to be happy with making Crystal Lake before turning around. So what are your early starts?

Did the Village this past Wednesday and getting Beanz to start at 7AM almost took an act of congress.

Mr. Beanz

I'm still trying to recover from those early morning MTB starts with Zsa-Zsa!

bitingduck

Did they explain anything about why they wouldn't let you past? I got turned around by a ranger on the 4th of July weekend who thought the closure was meant to include bikes, but when we called the District Ranger (the one in charge of the area) tuesday morning, she said it was supposed to be open to bikes and he was mistaken, and shouldn't have kept us off the road (the outgoing phone message also said the road was supposed to be open to bikes). She was very apologetic. Apparently there have been some miscommunications to the people working on the road-- when things like that happen it's worth a call to the District Ranger's office to follow up.

I've ridden GMR at night when it was closed to motor traffic a few times, though not recently.

Hillbasher

There was no need to explain. When we got to the top of GMR, the road was blocked by , take your pick of tow trucks,Glendora police cars, CHP cars,L A County Sheriffs cars, fire trucks, search and rescue trucks from numerous local cities, and even a couple vehicles from the L.A. County morgue. There were way over 25 vehicles on the road at all angles, and they just were not about to let a couple of guys on bikes go in between them all while things were still going on. We waited an hour and a half before they let us through.

bitingduck

Ah, it was that day... another friend of mine managed to get through just before they stopped letting people go.

rooftest

Geez - for a wait that long, you could have just turned around and rode over to highway 39 in Duarte to get up.

Hillbasher

True, if we had known it was going to be that long we would have done that. But they kept insisting it was only going to be a "little longer", and that ended up stretching out to almost an hour and a half. It was sort of interesting watching all that was going on anyway. By the time we made Crystal Lake, it was hot enough to want to turn around and enjoy the downhill back down to home.

prrnrngr

130pm....I hate mornings. I'd rather fight the heat than fight my sleep.

Hillbasher

Then you would have had a classic ride today. Way over 100 at the bottom of GMR when we got down. There were 5 or 6 guys just turning off Sierra Madre and heading up as I got to that intersection. Would not have gone back up for anything. Could honestly say it may have even been dangerous to be going up there in that heat. It was brutal.