Ride Report "I survived the 5 fwy" and Turnbull

So.... the day starts off with brewmaster and I heading toward whittier to meet up with davidb for a turnbull loop....

Brewmaster is the pilot today, and has a nice yakima hitch rack, that hangs the bikes, and uses rubber straps to hold them in place. All was well.....

So we are flying down the 5 freeway.... about 4-5 miles past the 91, and when he looks in the mirror and says
"OH DUDE. YOUR BIKE IS HANGING! IM NOT KIDDING"!!!

So im yelling PULL OVER!!!

and then
"F**K! There it goes!!!!"

So we hit the shoulder.... the bike has done about 2 sideways flips from tires to handlebars and back. It is lying in a fetal position... scared...wanting its valiant rider to rescue him.

So in my stupidity...AND bright ass yellow shorts from chainlove, and a background in traffic engineering... RUN down the shoulder... flagging cars to merge. Managed to stop a truck and a few cars and rescued the bike without injury. Im not sure how it happened...adrenaline and divine intervention kept me and my bike safe.

So the bike sustained no injuries. Scratched up metal riser bars, a little brake lever scuff.... and some rub marks from the rack. Ironically, this morning i swapped out the carbon flat bars... surely they would have shattered on the bounce.

Silly yakima racks should have a ratchet strap like saris bones racks. It appears one of the 3 rubber straps came undone, overloading the other 2 on a bump.



ANYWAY.....
Onto turnbull we trek. As a turnbull noob, i had no idea what to expect. But the place was awesome. No horrendous climbs, tight flowy singletrack, some nice switchbacks up and down, and some fun terrain features. Nice little workout of 11 miles and bout 2000' of ascent.

I had a great time rolling with sam and david "buy me reba"B.

I think some pics were taken, but overall a scary...and great day.

I definitely need another beer.

 

So that is where David went today.... Happy to hear the bike survived. Must be good Karma:beer:

 

had the same thing happen to me a few years back...but my front wheel hung onto a pedal of my friend's bike and dragged it for a few miles....shaved 1/4 off the side of my seat (weight savings), but was rideable...glad yours is too! also glad you enjoyed Turnbull...throw in another climb/descent for 15+miles and 3k feet of climbing at http://www.geoladders.com/show_route.php?route=1770

 

FYI chewy, we climbed up to the 7th loop. Went down, climbed up, went down rattlesnake, up elevator, over to the water tower, and down the 3 biatches and down A-line singletrack

Glad to show you guys around. A couple more trails out there next time you guys want to go 8)

you got lucky when your bike met the freeway :lol:

 

Some of those racks have speed limits listed on them, like my Saris that says " not designed for travel over 65 mph"

 

Glad to hear the bike was ok. I had almost the same thing with my Yakima rack and the tandem. With the bike hanging a couple of inches past the sides of the truck it gets a little bit of freeway wind. Those rubber chain straps do not do the job. Luckily I not only had the bike attached with the rubber straps but I also had a cable lock on it so it was not able to come off the rack. Now I use the chain straps and secure them with a pedal strap, works like a charm.
Turnbull is a blast. I love the 7th street loop.

 

Carbon is about 10 times stronger then aluminum in tensile strength and three as strong in impact strength.

 

Good times today. I about had a heart attack as I saw Chewy's bike bouncing in the lanes behind us....

I had heard of infamous Turnbull but had no idea what to expect. This place is a blast with lots of options. I especially liked the runs down 7th and A-Line singletrack. Thanks to davidB for being a great host and showing us around.

Here are some pics from the day.

Chewy re-aligning his bars after a freeway bounce


davidB


Approaching one of many switchbacks




Proof that fat kids can fly




Killin the climbs




Turnbull essaaaayyyy!


davidB heading down A-line


Getting buzzed by a copter

 

But scratch it and it's toast. In my incident(*) the Easton bar was badly scratched. I emailed Easton the story and they replaced it for free.

* Friend's truck blew a tire, we spun on the freeway, and the bikes went sailing. Recovered with only scratches.

 

Are you sure is wasn't some failed insurance job? Sounds a little fishy....

Glad to hear that it came out relatively unscathed.

Sorry man, I was up at Monterey all weekend. I didn't get back till 11PM last night.

Next time for sure!

 

Turnbull is fun. Thanks for the RR. Mi Pueblito on Beverly Blvd and Norwalk is a good place to eat after too.

Or the Burger/Mexican place in that center that has the weird Laker's / 49ers wall of fame is worth checking out too.

As far as the hitchrack goes.. 2 words: Bungie Cords.

 

Those hanging Yakimas are crap....I caught my bike hanging on the 10 fwy at Highland, the base of big bear, at 65mph. I was lucky, it never dropped. Those weak rubber straps broke. I used a ratchet tie downs instead of those straps until I finally got a Sportworks and gave the Yakima to my neighbor with a warning.

 

Thanks for the pictures Sam :bang:

next time hand over the camera and we'll get some of you

and what was with the chopper?

 

I dunno what was going on with the chopper. When I was taking that pic of you going down A Line, the chopper was hovering in the canyon. Soon after it flew right over me barely clearing the trees and blowing dust everywhere. Weird indeed.

 

There are always helicopters over that side of Turnbull. I believe there is even a trail called "helicopter" that goes near a helicopter landing pad. Dunno if your helicopter is related to that though :?:

 

turnbull is fun, but hard to do everything when riding solo i normally just climb to the water tower, A line down and back home for food haha

 

I've heard of surfboards flying onto the freeway.. but bikes? Yeesh! Thank goodness nothing happened to your bike. Looks like a super fun ride!

 

I bought this crappy n' cheap rack because it DIDN'T
HAVE RUBBER STRAPS. I also bought the "neckbone"
that you need to use to attach to the rack. One side is for the stem, the other for the seatpost.

Yep, it seems to take hours to screw and unscrew the clamp down knobs that hold down the "neckbone" but it allows you time to think about things usually BEFORE a ride. For instance, when I'm tightening down the "neckbone" I'm thinking, "DAMN! I forgot to fill up the Camebak, or did I pack my knife?":wave:

There's a hole for a padlock on the clampdown, and of course plenty of post for using bungee so the bike doesn't sway. I've had this "performance bike" special for almost 2 years now, getting away from a Thule "strap down", which I also noticed it unbuckles itself on occasion. As far as 70mph
yes it passed the "high speed" test. You don't want a 1, 2, 3, or 4 k dollar bike bouncing across the lanes in your rear view mirror. (if you have a 5k and over bike, it should be inside of your vehicle

 

I miss my truck. No silly racks to fuss with it

 

you are welcome to drive next time.:wave: