Annette and I spent most of the day on Saturday May 19th up on the mountian photographing Stage 7 of the AMGEN Tour of California. The stage route was similar to that of 2011, except that it started in Ontario and like last year, it ended at the Mount Baldy ski lifts. The route took the riders up the Baldy Road to Baldy Village and along the Glendora Ridge Road (GRR) to Glendora Mountain Road (GMR). They followed GMR down into the East Fork of San Gabriel Canyon and continued west to Highway 39 and then down the San Gabriel Canyon into Azusa. A left turn put them eastbound on Sierra Madre Ave which took them over to the base of GMR where they turned north to head back into the mountains. The ride up GMR brought them back to GRR and then back to Baldy Village. They continued on through Baldy Village on their way up to the ski lifts - the steepest part of the stage. Our day on the mountain began at 8:00 AM when we left home, Annette on her bike accompanied by one of our riding friends, Matt and I driving the SAG vehicle with supplies of food, beverages, and various emergency supplies. I parked the car near a road manintenace shed which is about 8.5 miles up GMR and awaited the arrival of Annette and Matt. I had my bike on the car so that we could ride to the spots where we wanted to shoot our pictures from. We shot the race at two points, the first one was about two miles east of the GMR/GRR fork where we caught the riders heading west outboud from Baldy. Then, after all of the riders and the fleet of supprort vehicles had gone by, we rode back over to the shed on GMR which is about 1 mile west of the GMR/GRR fork and caught the riders as they climbed up the final road segment which leads to the shed. |