PCH would be a good place to start, ride down the San Gabriel river trail until PCH, then head south on it for as long as you'd like.

Also, you know you're from the midwest when you call a 2300 ft hill a mountain. ;)

You watch your damn mouth! :p THAT WAS A MOUNTAIN. :)

It was Glendora Mountain Road over there in Glendora. Tough climb but very fun. I just have a TT bike and have never climbed so sticking with those roadies was not easy. I think we averaged like 9.5 mph for that 8 miles. I was happy with that effort!

The problem though with your recommendation for me is that by the time I take the San Gabriel trail to PCH, i'm already 50 miles into the ride and need to be getting back. So really it seems so far that the two trails are my only real options. That or doing Gran Fondo's on my TT bike. :p

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If you want to do some other group rides in the area, pm me and I'll see what I can do to point you in the right direction.

in the aerobars sitting on someone's ass.

Do that all you like - 95% of the time it's the following rider that goes down! :)

Unless the Gran Fondo has a rule banning or against tri/TT bikes then there is no reason why you could not ride your tri bike.

However, if you are going to be doing more of these and more group rides you might want to consider a road bike.

Many triathletes get into triathlon and the first really serious bike they buy is a tri bike. Assuming good fit( BIG assumption), they got the right tool for the job. However, perhaps after a few years of triathlons, they start to realize they bought a one-trick pony, that's not very versatile. It's not uncommon for many triathletes ta this stage to borrow someone's road bike, and take it for a ride. This often a huge Ah-ha moment - they then realize, that having a road bike would be a great addition - there is so much more you can do with it.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

You're so right.

My tri bike was fantastic in Ohio and the week I moved I did my first group ride, it was weird and I was like...huh, I may need a road bike.

Got to cali and did two more group rides and one involved a 2300 foot climb over 8 miles and was like, "yep, totally need a road bike.

The LBS .33 miles from me is awesome though and I talked to them and they let you demo bikes free of charge. So I plan to demo a Giant Defy here soon and pretty sure i'm just gonna buy the 2015 defy when they drop. Plus, I like to bike to work on my bike and a road bike would make that experience much nicer.

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This, right here, is why there needs to be a like button.

Nice call on asking the RD...which is what I did before I signed up a few years ago for the Diabolical Double Gran Fondo. I only have my tri-bike here in Maryland(road is in Oregon) and wanted to prepare for an IM as well. Only at the beginning was there ever a super big crowd so I just stayed on the horns for the first 20 miles or so until it spread out. On the descents, I usually was on the horns as well since every so often a faster rider would go by and it's nice to have the brakes at the ready not knowing the descents.

On the flat sections, I'd be in the aerobars and had numerous roadies tagging along for the free ride.

Have fun...