Good Food, Glendora Ridge Road, and the Cannonball!

If you’re a gearhead in southern California, the title of this blog entry says it all.  Glendora Ridge Road is oneGlendoraRigeRoad of those secret roads that not too many people know about…mostly because there’s no real reason for it to exist other than to bring lots of smiles to folks who enjoy a twisty mountain trail.  It runs behind the first ridge of the San Gabriel mountains, just out of sight of the Pomona and San Gabriel valleys.   Folks who ride it for the first time are amazed that a road this desolate and this lightly traveled is so close to a major population center.  I’ve been riding it for years, and it is literally minutes away from my front door.  

Steve and everyone else at California Scooter have heard me talking about Glendora Ridge Road for months, and how the CSC bikes would be perfect for a ride through its twisties.  Yesterday, Steve asked Tony to put some gas in a couple of bikes, and he said to me “let’s go ride Glendora Ridge Road.”    He sure didn’t have to ask me twice.  The weather was perfect, and even though the phones are ringing off the hooks with folks calling about buying new Scooters, it’s not a good idea to say no when the boss wants to go for a ride (that’s Steve in the photo to the right).   Come to think of it, it’s not a good idea to say no when anyone wants to go for a motorcycle ride…

Tony fired up the Van Halen bike for Steve (it’s a custom bike designed by Sandy), and I grabbed a brand new black Classic with only 4 miles on the clock. 

We first wound our way up to Padua, which is a very cool little town nestled in the foothills.   Padua has a great dinner theatre, and I had to stop to grab a few photos for you.   This is the black Classic Tony set up for me.  It’s bone stock, and it is a runner!

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Here’s Steve’s Van Halen custom in front of the theatre entrance…

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After Padua, we headed up Shinn Road for the long climb to Mt. Baldy Village.    The single-cylinder CSC engines were earning their pay as we climbed into the San Gabriels.   There are a couple of tunnels the WPA guys cut through the mountains during the Great Depression…here’s a shot I grabbed going through one of them, beeping my horn to hear it reverberate off the tunnel walls…hey, it was a great day and I was on a great bike…why not be a little kid again?

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Steve and I stopped for lunch at the Mt. Baldy Lodge.    Rustic to an exponent, this is a nice place to grab a bite.  We both opted for the tuna melt.   Have you ever noticed that everything tastes better on a motorcycle ride?   The psychologists have a term for it (I think it’s called pleasure transferrance or something), but whatever it is, that sandwich was good!  Maybe it was because I knew we were only a few hundred feet from the start of Glendora Ridge Road, maybe it was because the weather was so nice, or maybe it was because I was on a new California Scooter.  Or maybe it was the nice lady who waited on us.  Whatever was going on, it was all good.  The Mt. Baldy Lodge is where a lot of motorcyclists stop before riding Glendora Ridge Road, and our California Scooters looked right at home parked out front.

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We fired up the Scooters’ 150cc engines, and we were on our way! 

I really like this next photo.   This is what Glendora Ridge Road is all about…the road follows a ridge, and the guys who cut it didn’t try to follow a straight line.  Folks talk about the Dragon back east and how many curves it has…but I’ll bet this road has it beat! 

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Look at those twisties up ahead!  I’ll tell you, it felt like Glendora Ridge Road was designed with California Scooter Company motorcycles in mind.   The bikes’ power and handling match the road perfectly.   Steve can scoot along pretty well, too.  I was in front for a little while, and to borrow a line from my good friend Bob, I told Steve if I was going too fast he could just pass me.  Which he did…

You see all kinds of interesting bikes up on Glendora Ridge Road.   Here’s a guy playing supermoto on a Yamaha…

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And here’s a cool shot of a Honda CBX I grabbed on an earlier visit…these are interesting machines that Honda made from 1979 to 1982.   This one is either a ’79 or an ’80.    The Honda CBX bikes had 6 cylinders, 6 carbs, lots of weight, and tons of complexity.  I had an ’82 that I liked a lot, but it didn’t handle nearly as well as the California Scooters.   I’ve had both machines on this road, and the California Scooter gets through the twisties waaay better.

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Speaking of which, here’s a shot I grabbed of the black Classic (with the San Gabriel mountains as a backdrop) along Glendora Ridge Road…

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And here’s another that Steve shot of me…that smile’s real, folks…this was fun!

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You see a fair amount of bikes of all kinds up on Glendora Ridge Road…here’s a hot dogger on a Honda sports bike…

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Glendora Ridge Road ends way up in the mountains where it intersects with the East Fork Road (which drops down to Azusa) and Glendora Mountain Road (which winds its way down to Glendora).   There’s a wide spot in the road here in the wilderness, and it’s a place where riders stop to chat.   Our California Scooters got a warm reception.    We’re the newest thing, and even guys on high end, liter-class sports bikes came over and wanted to know what these California Scooters are all about…

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I asked one of the liter-bike pilots if I could get a shot of his helmet…this is fancy headgear, guys!

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And this is Natalie, a very nice young lady we met on Glendora Ridge Road.  She asked if she could sit on the Van Halen bike (the California Scooters just have that effect on people).  I told her she could if I could get a smile and a photo, and here’s the result……

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I chatted with Natalie for a while.  It’s part of my job.  Hey, riding motorcycles on Glendora Ridge Road, meeting folks like Natalie, taking pictures…it’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it! 

Steve and I took Glendora Mountain Road back down to the Pomona Valley…and I chased him all the way down trying to get a decent photo…here’s the best I could do…

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We had a great time, and a great ride…but there’s a lot more to come, folks. 

You’re probably wondering…could it get any better?

Well, yes, it can.  

Ever hear of the Cannonball Rally?   The coast-to-coast Cannonball Rally?  Oh, this is gonna be a good one…stayed tuned, Blog Readers, ’cause California Scooter is gonna be in it!

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