A Somewhat-Hilly Ride
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Gene said that today’s ride would be hilly. And it was. It was fun.
Back in my racing days, when I was out riding it was always a point of honor that I had to be the first one to the top of every hill. And no matter how much it hurt, I almost always did it. That urge has never left me, even though now that I’m 45, I don’t always have the strength to do it. But I still want to.
Today’s ride started out up Altadena Drive. We went up the hill to the mountain front, and then west over to the arroyo, just across from JPL. Then we went down Windsor, passing the house with the two plastic cows in the yard. We took Woodbury across into La Cañada. Then we started climbing. It was about this time that Jon got into the Flat Tire Gallery. This was his second flat of the day, but since the first one was in the parking lot at the start of the ride, I only took pictures of the second one. While we were waiting for John to fix his flat, we met up with another rider. Dan is new to the area, so he decided to join us for the rest of the ride.
A bit farther up the hill, we passed a house that looked like it must belong to a firefighter. The gate was decorated in a very ornate flame motif, and it had a fire extinguisher in the middle of it.
We went up a bunch of different streets to end up at the top of the hill between La Cañada and Glendale. The road up there was closed to traffic, due to a small landslide, but that wasn’t a problem for us. We crested the hill and then went down Mountain Ave into Glendale. At the bottom, we crossed Verdugo and then went up into the Verdugo hills.
We cruised along through the hills for quite a while. We passed one rather interesting-looking house up there before coming down into Burbank and Glenoaks Blvd. Then we went left and headed back into Glendale, where we stopped for a snack at the Paradise Bakery. They have the best chocolate eclairs there. Jon and I both had two each. We also all ate some homemade olive bread that I’d brought along.
After the stop, we headed back across Glendale. We passed by the Harp Center, and then headed up Chevy Chase. After a bit of uphill, we turned on Linda Vista to cross over the hill into Pasadena. At the top, we paused briefly for a souvenier picture, and then headed down the hill to the Rose Bowl.
From the Rose Bowl, we went east across Pasadena on Orange Grove and back to the park.
45 miles.
