mel44

Great ride today! Really good to see everyone. Had a great time. Thanks Nacy, Tiff, Paul, Phil, Mike, Jason, and Gene for coming out. Looking forward to seeing Mike, Phil and Paul's pics!!!! We are hungry again....going to go eat more.

merider1

Pics, pretty people? Pics?

jschen

Thanks Matt for organizing a great ride, and thanks to everyone who made it for making it so great. I struggled with the steep sections since I haven't rode much recently. (And for me, the ability to power through steep sections when my cadence starts dropping is always the first thing to go. Happily, it returns pretty quickly, too.) It was probably the most frustrating climb from Baldy village to the ski lift I ever did. Nonetheless, I had a great time. Yes, even during the frustrating 4.6 miles.

I'm hungry again, too. After a bit of relaxing, I'm going to go grab another bite to eat.

spingineer

You're always hungry, yet so thin. Where do you put it all?

jschen

I radiate much of it in heat. My skin is unusually warm, though not as warm as the skin on my sister (not Tracy, another one).

PaulB

Great ride today. Thanks for organizing Matt & Mel. It was a beautiful day to do a bit of climbing. As always, the company was great!! SoCal is producing some strong riders. It was a great day for me as I was able to conquer the the added bonus from the village to the ski lifts for the first time!!!

Bare with me as I will attempt to upload some photos of todays ride.

jpconrad

Have they repaved it, yet?

PaulB

No. there was a lot of gravel on the road. My back tire would skip every once in a while when I was out of the saddle on some of the steeper pitches.

jschen

I wish... I'm sick of "gloving" my front tire to get all the embedded gravel out of it every few dozen feet.

JustMe

Thanx to everyone for the ride today, and to Mat & Mel for putting it up. Had a great time and good company, what I saw of them anyway when I managed to catch everyone at a rest stop. And thanks for the conversation at lunch Tiff while everyone else went up to the lifts.

mateo44

Great ride -- thanks to everyone who came. Lots 'o fun!

Happytime

Pics! I need pics!!!!

Chucklehead

me too. but it doesn't radiate from my skin...

Extort

Overall, the ride was exactly what I needed. A fast group, few regroup points (store below Little GMR, Junction, once on GRR (for pics), Village, and Lifts), and food, glorious food.

Starting out on the 39, I forgot to start the Garmin and ended up about 2 miles short of the overall group total, but I powered through to the store in 58 minutes (15 miles or so) and arrived 8 minutes ahead of Jason who had issues with his water bottle cage. Then we sped up Little GMR to meet up with Tiffanie and Gene at the junction. I averaged a little over 10MPH up that climb and felt great!
On GRR, I stayed with Gene for a bit, and then he told me that he had music to keep him company and that I could leave, so I accelerated and picked of the group one at a time... Everyone is such a great athlete that we all stayed fairly close and arrived at the photo op spot within a few minutes of each other and then headed up to the Village. Arriving there, we rested for a few minutes and then headed out to the lifts where I stopped at Icehouse to take pictures of everyone with the mileage sign and 5000' elevation signs in the background. I then proceeded to climb to the lifts in the only manner I know... use the 39/25 and keep my cadence pretty constant. Paul was the only other crazy person to use a standard double, and was using the entire roadway when I caught him about 1/4 mile before the top.

Mel was up there first, and she has turned out to be an exceptional climber!


We took a group photo (thanks to a hiker) and then headed back to the village for some snacks. Tiffanie and Gene left while we were eating because they had sat around for long enough. After food, I told the group that I was going to leave right away since I knew that they would catch me on the descent, and Paul did just that about two miles before the bottom of GMR...

Evidently, Sierra Madre is completely tore up (from dirt patch to dirt patch) and we used Foothill to slide across town and back to the cars so that we could go to the Green Onion for food.

Additional photos here.

Overall stats for the ride:
71.93 miles (plus a couple that I missed)
5:26 ride time (don't ask about total time)
13.2 Average speed
33.7 Maximum speed
8422' of gain
127 Average HR

voltman

Well done!

Tiffanie

Yep, good ride and great company as always.
Didn't eat until 6:30 but I made up for it by pigging out at Benihana's.

PaulB

I hope this works. Still learning.

Check out photos here:

PaulB

Sorry. Trying to figure this out.

Try this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/3573148...7602051592899/

maddmike

Good riding with everyone as always.

Here's my pics:


Encanto Park


First Stop some where


Extort on GRR



Extort on GRR again


The group on GRR


Jason on GRR


The Group at the top of the Ski Lift parking lot


The group at the Ski Lift sign