San Gabriel River Bike Trail

We joined the Chain Gang for our second to last training ride and it was a good one.  Up until that point, I had been having all kinds of problems.  First, it was cramping on my left calf, which was caused by sciatica.  Then, it was a sharp, consistent pain in my neck and shoulder area, as a result of extreme muscle tightness, possibly caused by bruxism.  Finally, it was pain in my right knee due to riding in stronger-than-usual wind that resulted in a meniscus injury.  Let’s just say training has been hard on me.  It certainly has been harder on me than on Sam. So when we decided to join the Chain Gang ride, I had no idea that it was going to be one of my best rides ever.

Earlier in the week, Sam and I had dropped off our bikes at I.Martin.  Ryan, at their service department, gave us a basic tune-up to make sure the bikes are ready to go for our ride in June.  I also swapped out my saddle with another.  This would be my fourth saddle including the original saddle that came with my bike.  Matt, I.Martin’s sales supervisor, also gave me a quick fitting to make sure everything looked good with me on the bike.  So I was excited to go and test out the tuned-up bike and new saddle.

The route was simple:  ride the full length of the San Gabriel River Bike Trail from north to south and back.  Right from the start, I could tell things felt pretty good.  I was going at a pretty good pace and my knee was doing well.  It helped that the bike trail was paved and flat.  On top of that, there were no stop signs or traffic lights.  That meant we could ride for a long time without stopping.  That sounds nice, right?  It was nice!  Since we had pretty much been riding on the streets, we hadn’t had the opportunity to just ride and not worry about cars or the surroundings, so this felt like a real treat.

The trail starts just north of Azusa and ends in Seal Beach.  The round-trip loop is just under 80 miles – for us, it was 76.08 miles to be exact.  The trail mostly follows the San Gabriel River and the 605 freeway.  We rode past the Santa Fe Dam pretty early on in the day and there were some mini-dams along the way which was cool.  Oh!  There’s  also a horse trail alongside the bike trail, so we saw people riding horses along the way.  We ended up riding the entire way down to Seal Beach without stopping – all 40 miles.  Along the way, we passed Irwindale, Baldwin Park, El Monte, Pico Rivera, Whittier, Downey, Norwalk, Bellflower, Cerritos, Lakewood, Cyrpess and Long Beach.  The way down took just under three hours.  It was the longest I’ve ever ridden without stopping.

The trail ends at River’s End Café in Seal Beach where we had brunch.  It was a yummy brunch.  I guess I was really hungry.  We hung out for an hour or so and then we got on our bikes for the return trip.  During the last 10 miles down, we faced a little bit of headwind, so I was hoping that we would catch some tailwind on the way up.  Sure enough, we got lucky and picked up some incredible speed on the way back – at times, we were riding at 20 miles per hour.  We haven’t had much tailwind this training season, so it was quite a pleasant surprise.  Just like on the ride down to Seal Beach, we did not stop riding on the return trip.  But this time we got back in a little over 2 hours and 15 minutes.  That was the fastest I have ever ridden and it felt so good!  And I did it without any knee pain.  Granted, we pretty much rode on flat ground the whole way, so the route wasn’t going to give me too much trouble.  The true test will be riding on hills, which we won’t be doing anymore until the actual ride in June.  Still, this ride helped boost my confidence and it was a really good – and perfect – way to end our training.

This ride is dedicated to these awesome sponsors: Anonymous; Darrel C.; and Michael O.