Plans are being finalized for the nation’s biggest bicycle race, scheduled to wind around the mountains above Los Angeles basin later this month.
The 575-mile 2017 Amgen Tour of California will stretch from Modesto to Pasadena from May 14-20. Women will race for four days before that, their stages are all in Northnern California.
The race will enter Los Angeles County this year from Santa Barbara and Ojai on its fourth day, Wednesday, May 17. The race will head east on U.S. 101 to Carpinteria, and veer over two mountain passes to swing through Ojai.
It will enter L.A. County on State Route 126, and the Stage 4 finish line will be in Santa Clarita Wednesday afternoon.
Thursday, May 18 will see the riders start next to Ontario International Airport, and head west on Fourth Street to Euclid avenue, then north into Mount Baldy Canyon. Bikers will then face a day of grueling climbs into the San Gabriel Mountains — 12,000 feet in vertical climbs and about half that in speedy descents.
The course climbs west out of Baldy Canyon on Glendora Ridge Road, then plummets back to the San Gabriel Valley floor on Glendora Mountain Road to Glendora.
After a flat jaunt west through suburbia on Sierra Madre Avenue, the racers will head north at Azusa into Azusa Canyon. They will fork right on East Fork Road, and climb back up the summit of Glendora Ridge Road.
After a descent to Mount Baldy Road, the pack will climb through the village, past Ice House Canyon, to the switchbacks up the steep hill to the base of the Mount Baldy Ski Area — Stage 5 finish line.
Racers will make a circuit on Friday, May 19, as Stage 6 starts at the Big Bear Ski Area and loops to Fawnskin, and then back to Big Bear.
And Stage 7, the finale on Saturday. May 20, will be mostly downhill.
It will start near Wrightwood, at the Mountain High Ski Area, and coast down the San Andreas Fault along Big pines Highway and Fort Tejon Road. Racers will then climb up Mount Emma Road and Angeles Forest Highway, then use Big Tujunga and Little Tujunga roads, plus Angeles Crest Highway, to plunge into La Canada-Flintridge.
The course will take a lateral move east on Highland Drive in Altadena, and then riders will then barrel down the downgrade on Los Robles Avenue to the finish line at Green Street in Pasadena.
–City News Service