Cord

Long time lurker, first time poster -

Today was going to be my first attempt at GMR. Perfect opportunity since it was closed to motor traffic but when I got to the gate around 12:30 I was turned away by CHP. I told him my understanding was GMR was open for cyclists and hikers then he went into a long winded speech about how the road is closed to "vehicles" and when a person is on a bike on the roads they are considered "vehicles" and must obey all "vehicular" laws etc etc etc. I didn't argue, really didn't need a citation on the 4th of July.

There definitly seems to be some confusion amongst the governmental agencies that patrol the road.

I hope those involved in the accidents are OK.

I'll make it up GMR sometime.

jmX

Sounds like I had the right idea going up on the night of July 3rd. Had the whole place to myself (and two coworkers that came with me). Rode from 8pm to 10pm under the stars down to camp williams and back. Descending at night is such a thrill, and we kept most of our lights off on the climb so it was a little surreal.

volosong

Dang! I must have got lucky. Had to work in the morning, (satellites don't take holidays off), and didn't get to the gate until around 11:30 or so. The gate was open at that time with two police cars, two forest service trucks, and a fire truck. I waited for the fire truck to get through the gate, and just went on through. Nobody said anything.

I'm pretty slow and wondered why nobody was passing me on the way up. Saw tons of people going down. About 3/4 the way up to the shack, three matching kitted riders did pass me, but that was all. When I got to the shack, the people there said I was nuts to come up at that time of day. Have to agree. It was hot enough that I had to nix going on to the village and just went back down. GMR is really lonely in the afternoons.

jimxyz

We came across the first accident - a few miles past the shack, fire trucks, ambulance etc... We also gave out water and GU to one guy who was sitting on the wide of the road about 7 miles from the village. Came across another wreck on the way back, and a third had fire and police responding up the hill and we went down. Overall it was a great ride - felt like one of the more popular century rides in terms of the crowds. But I cant help but wonder if they will shut it down completely next year to save $$$ on the cost of responding to the accidents. Given the crowds climbing up, it seemed like some folks were descending way too fast.

Lesper4

Found out the guy on GRR had mostly scratches but it looked much worse. The ranger/firetruck/paramedics/ambulance came from the village side. I didn't hear about the other incident. Lots of riders up there and lots of riders who are unfamiliar with the road. The guy who went down was on a fast descent where there is sometimes road debris but not sharp turns, unless he was in the other lane?

Mansram01

I, for one, had a great time seeing so many riders on a closed road. It would be a tragedy to close up GMR completely during the holidays. I had never seen so many riders up there and good ones too. My only complaint was a couple of groups (wish I got there names) that were pacelining and cutting corners on the way up! The first group almost rode me off the right-side of the road and I'm used to riding in close quarters. Keep in mind that the entire road was available. The second group tried doing the exact same thing on a small descending section. This time I sped up and jutted slightly to the left. Think they got the message. 4th of July is not the venue for road race riding... Not cool.

John R

In all my cycling years, I have never seen that many riders on GMR at the same time. I knew the law of percentages meant the increase of riders would mean the chance someone would crash. There is no one to blame here, it just happened. It will be interesting to see if the road is closed next year on the 4th. The police will weigh the cost of placing a officer at the gate vs the cost of 2 emergency responces.

Joe360

Man I hope they don't close it next year. I live in Covina so I can go any day but it was very nice not having cars on the road. I had a very close call myself. While decending into a corner I hit a small patch of sand/dirt which caused my rear tire to slide since I was applying my breaks. I slowly let off the breaks but I was still going too fast which made me over shoot the corner and I ended up riding into a dirt lot and coming to a stop on one of the retaining wall/dirt mound. Very scary situation and although I've ridden GMR dozens of times I have a new respect for it. Just like anything else that involves risk, don't let your guard down.

volosong

Should add that when I got to the gate on the way down, there were no law enforcement cars at the gate stopping people from going up. That was sometime around 2:00. If you wanted a hot, uphill ride in the afternoon, there was nobody stopping you.

The one thing that really disgusted me was all the GU wrappers that were discarded along the side of the road. Surely, nobody on BF threw their GU package on the side of the road after downing the contents. Please, if you see someone discard a GU pack, scold them and tell them to bring a sandwich baggie next time to put the dang thing inside when they're done. I wouldn't be surprised if the forest service says, "screw this, if the cyclist are going to trash GMR, we just won't let them have this special privilege."

diphthong

made it back to the gate at the base of gmr at 1:20pm yesterday and there was no police presence. rode back from the ski lifts and only saw 10-12 riders heading towards the village after noon. big difference from the hundreds headed there from 7:15am-9:00am. it was just too hot on gmr/grr after 11am for the unconditioned/unprepared. if the officer was preventing cyclists from ascending gmr because of the heat, i can understand that. the whole "bike is a vehicle" argument rings pretty hollow when there were hundreds of "vehicles" on the road earlier tho.

diphthong

and started at 7:25am (left san diego at 5:10am) but will try to start at 6am next year. was getting fairly toasted on the way up to the shack even before 8am.
next year, will just ride to village and back and prob descend grr into east fork to the 39 and loop back to sierra madre. the ascent to the lifts is just brutal but the descent is even worse due to the road quality and brake grabbing, especially when compared with gmr/grr.

John R

I know it had to be a little worse than scratches, he was transported by ambulance to the hospital.

hamster

Are they letting cyclists through the gate today?

Forest Service web site says that the road is closed to _motor_ vehicles. https://www.fs.usda.gov/wps/portal/fs...ons-road.shtml Stated reason for the closure is to prevent fires. I'm not sure if it means preventing people from shooting fireworks up on GMR, or preventing people from parking there to watch fireworks and causing accidental fires. In either case, hard to see why bicycle crashes should affect this policy.

bitingduck

He's wrong. If the forest is open then there's no legitimate reason to keep cyclists off the road (mtb riders are allowed on all the fire roads). The forest service orders the closure, and they make an explicit exception for cyclists and hikers. It's posted on their web site: https://www.fs.usda.gov/angeles Print a copy and carry it. Then call the forest service district ranger on monday when the office opens again and explain what happened. We had this happen a few years ago and got a long apology from the district ranger, who told us that the Forest Service LEO who made us descend via baldy road instead of GRR/GMR had the closure information wrong.

bitingduck

They don't do that math anyplace else in the forest, or during the normal open times-- I've been up on GMR on days when there were 5+ motorcycle crashes involving large numbers of rescue people (and 3 helicopters), and they don't restrict motorcycles. They do threaten them with impounding their motos for reckless driving if they get stupid though. And as I posted in the other thread-- we have 400+ rescues every year, plus a few deaths, in Eaton Canyon a few blocks from my house and they don't even put up warning signs. They just have a sheriff's helicopter do laps between the second waterfall and the hospital every saturday morning.

Cord

Good advise. I was pretty sure he had the wrong info and I didn't even think about checking the Angeles Forest page and showing that to him. I did consider showing him the Glendora Mountain Road Blog but I didn't think he'd care about that. Subconsciously I may have welcomed the turn back - I was starting pretty late, it was getting warm and the road looks a steep.

I'll be attempting GMR again very soon. I'm off on Fridays so I'm hoping the road won't be that crowded anyway.

I do think I'll contact the Forest Service on Monday and let them know about the confusion.

bitingduck

Also - if they say it's a county road and the county wants everyone off, you can point to the county website where it says the road closure is controlled by the Forest Service:
https://dpw.lacounty.gov/roadclosures/ who say it's open to bikes and hikers.

volosong

I'm off every other Friday also and since I have so much vacation time saved up, usually take the other Fridays off too. I've been up GMR on a Friday, and you are correct that it isn't very crowded. There are a couple of cars, maybe a motorcycle, and possibly another cyclist or two. Pretty lonely. You'll be on your own.

m2tiguy

For the life of me, I just don't understand this one - it is an embarrassment to all cyclists that we continue to have some knuckleheads that actually think it's ok to litter - - after passing diapers, beer cans, beer cartons and those damn mylar balloons - wake the F UP !!!!!

John R

I totally agree. It only takes a few to wreck a good thing for all!!!

JimmyNH

Man, I'd love the Forest Service to apply this logic when closing GMR to traffic. How about: "screw this, if drivers are going to trash GMR with all these beer and coke cans (and cartons), cigarette boxes, McDonald's paper bags, Burger King's paper cups, broken glass, mayonaise and ketchup wrappers, etc, etc, then we'll close GMR to cars and motorcycles. This will eliminate 99% of the trash and 100% of the air and noise polution".
By the way - I don't use GU.

m2tiguy

another vertical Bob honey convert ???

vertical bob

I totally agree, what kind of selfish person would spread their trash in our mountains. All for a meager 100 calories. I sometimes go up Big and Little T to clean up trash at turnouts and have the following observation. " Gu wrappers and condom wrappers look pretty much the same"

Rick@OCRR

Sorry I missed the last two GMR / GRR 4th of July rides! I was in England on the 4th last year and in Scotland this year. Typing this from Edinburgh on my IPad. No GU wrappers here V.Bob!

After getting used to riding on the left and going through round abouts, it has been fun and pretty much the same weather as SoCal. Lots of small climbs, lots of castles and abbys but no mountains like CA.

Rick / OCRR