So this weekend was the last stage of the Tour of California, so we thought we'd go out and have a look.
The Davis Double and the Heartbreak Double were both on Saturday, and between the two, a lot of my cycling buds and buddettes weren't in town. But this weekend was the last stage of the Tour of California, so Willy, Steve and I decided to go up for a look.
We took a roundabout way, but the good thing about it is that the route basically mapped about 35 miles of the Tour route, so we were pretty much guaranteed to see them. We started in Sunland and headed up Big Tujunga (known as Big T hereabouts) until we got to Clear Creek. There were oodles of cyclists about, and everyone was looking forward to seeing the tour riders fly by.
From there, a climb to Red Box (so called because there is ... in fact ... a red box at the turn out), then a lot of up and down to the top of Lower Big T. The descent from there to Angeles Forest Highway is long and sweet. And from there, we start the climb to Mill Summit. We had hoped to catch the tour riders at the top of the summit, but missed it by only about a tenth of a mile. But we got some great views and good pix.
Its difficult to describe how ridiculously fast these guys descend. Their chase cars have trouble keeping up with them. One chase car (Ford Expedition) took the corner behind us too fast, and got into some pretty serious oversteering. He very nearly lost it (which would have been tragic ... probably a fatal wreck) Holy crap.
When we finally got to the summit, I snagged one of the riders' water bottle. It should make a good memento. And from there, it was a hot, hot hot, chip sealy descent down Aliso Canyon. For lunch. We had a nice chat with a couple of motorcyclists there. One was an Italian guy who knew all about cycle racing. He took our pix.
The area we were riding in is the same area that Spielberg filmed one of his best films (IMHO) ... Duel. I had to go with the theme. This was taken where the bus scene of the full length movie was filmed.
It was super hot and headwindy, but still more downhill to the In-n-Out at Sand Canyon, where we replenished out water for the long climb up Little T. Oy, was that flippin hot. Got a pix of us at Bear Divide. I look too chipper here.
There is some up and down after that, but like any good ride, it had a "happy ending" .. a fun technical descent down Little T.
And here we are at the end. What a great day!
