Southern California Weekend Challenge Ride - November 3-4, 2007

Submitted by
Steve Morris , Torrance, California

On November 3 – 4, 2007 members of our chapter experienced a weekend adventure that had far more “twists and turns” than any of us could possibly have imagined!  We are always looking for new places to explore and since we are blessed to be living in Southern California where there is an abundance of scenic roads, we easily managed to find something new.  One of our members, Bob Mostreangelo, found a route sheet originally made in 1995 by the California Pleasure riders, now defunct, for a weekend challenge ride. 

We had planned this ride several months ago to take place in the Fall when the weather would not be too hot in the desert areas and not too cold in the mountains.  We had NOT planned on large parts of San Diego County being consumed by fire. 

We had 13 participants who met at Cycle Gear in Santa Clarita Saturday morning.  The weather was perfect with temps in the 60s as we took off through the canyons north of Los Angeles and climbed into the local San Gabriel Mountains.  We looked forward to riding most of the length of California Highway 2 that starts at the ocean in Santa Monica and ends in the mountains above San Bernardino where the fires in Running Springs and Lake Arrowhead had been doused a few days earlier.  The road surface was remarkably clean and well surfaced which we all chatted about on our Cbs and we noted how little traffic there was considering in was a beautiful Saturday morning.  We saw many bikes driving in the opposite direction but very few cars. (???)  Then we got to the barricade closing the highway 30 miles into the mountain!   There had been a landslide 3 YEARS AGO but none of us had remembered this.  Cal Trans has not fixed it yet!  So we had to back track almost to the start to go around the mountains and approach from the north.  This took us 70 miles out of our way but we ended up on a different incredibly beautiful road that took us along the San Andrea fault line to Wrightwood for gas and snacks.  We were at 6,000 feet elevation and 58 degrees.  Majestic tall pines and scenic mountains surrounded us.

Because of the detour we were behind schedule and would not make it to our motel reservations in Escondido until quite late, we decided to shorten our route from the original 360 miles (430 with the detour).  So we bypassed the San Bernardino mountain section and headed south through Redlands and Beaumont via freeway to the high desert areas of Hemet and Anza.   Then it was on to Temecula and Escondido to our motels and dinner.  We arrived about 6:00 PM and were pleasantly tired.  Well over 50% of the miles were twisty windy roads that required our full attention. 

At dinner we agreed to meet at 7:00 AM in the morning at Denny’s and go over the Sunday ride back north toward Los Angeles.  We were glad to have an extra hour of sleep with the time change! 

We were on the road by 8:00 PM and were curious to find out just what the previously scenic San Diego canyons now looked like.  We saw incredible areas of blackened hillsides that had been brush covered, some scrub oak forests that had only their lower branches blackened, avocado orchards with patchwork patterns of burned sections and, most tragically, home sites with only chimneys standing.  On all the country roads we saw AT&T and SDGE service trucks working hard to get phone and electric service restarted.  In one of the small towns we went through we saw what must have been a large auto repair shop with about 20 car frames totally burned. 

We stopped for lunch near Fallbrook at a roadside biker bar and watched the Chargers lose to the Vikings on TV and headed home by 2:30 PM.  Remarkably little traffic for a Sunday afternoon and we made it home by 4:30 PM.

All in all it was an adventurous weekend with many challenging roads, perfect weather, great friends, mountain scenery and tragic burn areas.  During our lunch stop we planned some upcoming winter rides, including a weekend trip to Tonopah, Nevada in January and a Spring ride to Death Valley.  And of course, our annual Christmas party.