Last week, for Labor Day, they closed Glendora Mountain Road to car traffic. Glendora Mountain Road is one of the main routes to go to Mt. Baldy. We were able to take our bikes over the road closed gates, and had the whole road to us … woohoo. This meant not contending with cars, no crotch rocket motorcycles buzzing us, and it also meant skateboarders weren’t descending down the mountain (simply because they had no car/truck to transport them up the hill).
They typically do this when there is a fire danger, and coincidentally it is often occurring during a long holiday weekend. It was weird not having to look back all the time, to determine if there was a car coming up from behind us. I only wish all roads were like this
I was separated, and a couple riders were ahead of me, but the rest of the riders were behind me. One rider, Freddy (known as Freddy the Train Montano on Strava), caught up to me, and we rode together on our way to Baldy Village. Having someone to socialize with up to Baldy Village made the ride that much more enjoyable.
We weren’t sure if we had enough in our legs to make it up to the ski lift, so we decided to just see how far we can go. I had to admit, my legs and back weren’t feeling to spicy, but let’s see how far we can go. I figured I wanted to make it to at least the 5000 foot elevation sign.
Ok, made it to the 5000 foot sign … good time to U-turn back. It was too early to eat at Mt. Baldy Lodge, so I decided to continue on back home.
The descent on GMR was fun … the switchbacks were gentle enough that I hardly had to brake on the turn … and since the road was closed, I had the luxury of leaning towards the middle of the road without having a car beep at me from behind. What a fun Labor Day ride this year.
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