Turnbull Canyon & Helicopter?

My friend Ivan & I went to ride Turnbull Canyon this past Saturday in the city of Whittier. I again used geoladders to find this route. Even though it’s only a little over 8 miles, it was a great workout that took 1 hour 45 mins (resting time included). Here is the route we took: http://www.geoladders.com/show_route.php?route=1794

Turnbull canyon had a couple of killer hills to tackle, lots of great double track switchback descents and climbs plus sweet singletrack riding to close out the loop. There were some parts where there is nasty exposure while riding the singletrack but the exposure just adds to the challenge of the ride, right?

Turnbull Canyon can be entered in on from different sides: the Whittier side and the Hacienda Heights side. This makes for an interesting mixture of people hiking the trail. Those hiking the Whittier side were mostly of Hispanic/Spanish descent while most of those we encountered on the Hacienda Heights side were of Chinese descent (I heard Chinese being spoken numerous times while riding that side of the hill). I guess this speaks to the popularity of those particular cities with the respective nationalities.

Also of note is that on top of one of the hills is a helicopter landing pad. Although our loop did not pass the helicopter landing pad, we did ride just below it. And yes, a helicopter did land there during our ride. I happened to be right under where the helicopter landing pad was located but because I had just put away my camera after taking a picture of Ivan riding some singletrack, I didn’t get a shot of the helicopter. If I had kept my camera out for 10 more seconds I would have had a picture of the two man helicopter preparing to land right above me. Bummer!

During the ride I got a chance to continue evaluating the Thudbuster seatpost (just a hint: it is a great addition to my ride). And I tried out, for the first time, a new set of pedals the Crank Brothers Smartys. The pedals need some minor adjustments before I am totally comfortable with them but they seem to be a good option to other Crank Brother pedals.

Lastly, I want to thank the hiker who pointed out to me that a 4-inch part of my front tire’s bead had worked its way out of the rim. This was at the top of the highest point of the ride. The next section had us bombing down doubletrack at the highest speeds we reached all ride. If the hiker hadn’t notified me of this, the rest of the tire may have been able to work itself out of wheel and I could have been seariously injured. Thanks dude.