Turnbull Canyon and the Buddhist Temple
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Today’s club ride was over Turnbull Canyon into Hacienda Heights, with a stop at the big Buddhist Temple there. Here’s the route: http://www.foothillcycle.org/PDFRouteSheets/turnbull_temple.pdf
It was pretty chilly this morning when we set out from Live Oak Park in Temple City. We rode down the Rio Hondo bike path to Whittier Narrows. Then we went across to the San Gabriel River bike path and rode that down to near Beverly Blvd in Pico Rivera. At that point, a few of us took a little detour to go see Dork St.
When we got back on the route, the group was several minutes ahead of us. I decided that my goal was to catch everyone by the time we got to the top of Turnbull Canyon. I’ve been more ambitious about hill climbing since I beat Newton up that hill.
On the way up the hill, we saw three guys skateboarding down. They had their friends following them in a car. I managed to get a picture of one of them as they went by.
By the time I got to the middle of the climb, I’d passed everyone, or so I thought. But then I did a mental inventory of who I’d passed and realized that I hadn’t seen Silvio. This meant he was still up ahead. So I picked up the pace, and when I got to the last big switchback before the top, I saw him. But I knew he was too far away to catch in the short distance remaining. Oh well.
At the top, there was a nice view of downtown Los Angeles. And on the way down into Hacienda Heights, there was a nice view of the San Gabriel mountains with their new coat of snow from the rain last week.
When we got to the bottom, we rode over to the Hsi Lai Temple and had a look around. It was pretty impressive. Even though I’m half-Chinese, I really don’t know anything about Buddhism. So it was interesting to see.
Leaving the temple, we took Colima Road back up over the hill into Whittier. I got a picture of Silvio hamming it up at the top. Then we rode down into downtown Whittier and stopped at a little pastry shop there. They had a nice courtyard with tables in the middle of the building. It would be very nice in the summer, since it was shady. Fortunately, it had warmed up enough that we weren’t too cold sitting in there.
On the way home, we passed the corner of Citrus and Orange in Whittier. That ranks right up there with the intersection of Summit and Mountain in Pasadena, and the one I saw many years ago: Hatfield and McCoy.
When we were riding through El Monte, we heard a weird noise. Silvio had a flat. The noise was the nail stuck in his tire hitting the bike frame. This marks Silvio’s first appearance in the Flat Tire Gallery.
And that was our ride.
53 miles.
