Hills ‘n’ Heat
 |
 |
 |
 |
Today’s bike club ride was the “Glendale Hills” route. This one goes up and over through La Cañada into Glendale, up into the Verdugo Hills, and then down into Burbank. The snack stop was at Paradise Bakery in Glendale, and the route home was back up and over Chevy Chase and Lida into Pasadena. It was a nice day, albeit a bit on the hot side.
We started out from the park and headed up Altadena Dr to the top, riding across Altadena and then past JPL into La Cañada. Then up the hill into Glendale, where we got a nice view of downtown Los Angeles that showed a low inversion layer trapping the smog at about the 1,500 foot level. Then we went down the somewhat terrifying Mountain St. Crossing Verdugo Blvd, we headed up the other side into the Verdugo Hills. That was where we saw the coyote trotting around on the suburban streets. We rode up and down along the south side of the hills before dropping down and riding into Burbank. We took a quick vote about taking a small detour to see the pirate ship in Burbank. The “Arrr”s won, and we took a short side trip up Angeleo St to see the backyard pirate ship. Then we continued on to Paradise Bakery, where we got eclairs and Gatorade.
The trip back was fairly direct, with just the Chevy Chase/Linda Vista/Lida hill in the way. Then we rode past the Rose Bowl and back to Orange Grove. Then we rode back to the park. Don’s fancy bike computer said that we’d done a total of 3,400 feet of climbing, which is not bad for a ride that didn’t go up into any real mountains.
It was a nice ride.
40 miles.
