38.0 miles, 3,918 ft elevation, 3:03 moving time

On a crisp December morning, the club rode up the backside of GMR. Starting from Sierra Madre, the club picked up a large crew from Encanto Park Duarte, including me. GT changed a flat at the parks while the C group (Haroon) and B group got a head start. We rode up the San Gabriel River Trail bike path into stiff cold head winds. A Group caught us by the first bridge. The dams were still filled with water, but the air is cold and dry. We’re lucky no brush fires are in our area. We rode to East Fork and turned right over the bridge. We re-grouped at the Cafe. The gate closed the Glendora Mountain Road (GMR) to cars. It made for a nice quiet ride. There were several rock slide areas which would have been hazardous if we descended down the backside. The scenery was awesome, we ride in and out of the shade. Although the sun was out, it didn’t warm up much and the descent down the front side of GMR was quite chilly. The gate on the front side was also closed to vehicular traffic. Great day for a ride.

Lynda, Bill, Bjoern, George, Sven, Peter, Hank, Bob, Gregg, Jonathan, Rudy, GT, Jerrit, Tyler, Tiffany, Deanna, Haroon, Julie, and Joe.