After plans fell apart for our big hike Saturday, with cancellations and postponements and whatnot, I struck out on my own for a bike ride — only the third of the year, but the combination of high-enough temperature, lack of wind, and desire finally coincided. I had extra motivation, thanks to my interest in finding out more about the Santa Ana River Trail.
The SART, in case you weren’t aware, is a mixed-use trail that will eventually stretch from the San Bernardino Mountains to the ocean, following alongside the Santa Ana River. Portions are already completed, and the rest is either under development or in planning.
While investigating the off-freeway area around the I-10/I-215 interchange (technically in Colton, I believe), I’d been looking for routes over the eponymous terrace in Grand Terrace that didn’t involve the rather intense grades at Barton Rd or Mt Vernon. I’ve cycled the former several times both directions, but sometimes you don’t want to expend that much energy.
On the other side of the 215, there are several dead ends thanks to the Santa Ana, apart from the Mt. Vernon Bridge to the north. I’ve been all around there on two wheels often enough, but hadn’t taken the time to explore much in earnest. Last week, I happened to be passing by in my car and decided to take a few minutes to check things out more closely, concentrating on finding a route that might connect the dead-end Washington with La Cadena, whence I could connect downtown Riverside with San Berdoo, Loma Linda, or Redlands.
Eureka! I found a lovely paved bicycle path going in both directions, which is so funny as it was just hidden from my view on the other side of a large dirt berm/hill from where I had been on my bicycle last year. :) Back in the car, I identified the SART’s dotted line on the road map, and followed the river with my finger to downtown Riverside. Sweet!
Then I had to find out where best to get on the thing around there. After a bit of sleuthing, I tracked down an actual SART “on-ramp” on the south end of the Mt. Vernon bridge over the Santa Ana. If you pull up that area in Google Earth, the imagery is a couple of years out of date, but you can see where the ramps go from the road down to the river.
So on Saturday, with the 8-mile hike cancelled, I decided to take my first nice, long bike ride of the year. I took some photographs that I’ll post another time, along with more details of the area, but suffice to say for now that I’m excited for that future time when I’ll be able to do a Crest-to-Coast Century. :) That’s something I’ve been contemplating for a couple of years now, ever since I initially did some research on the SART for this Celsius1414 page.
Last May, an article in the San Bernardino Sun (no longer available online that I have access to) covered getting the middle part finished. If you head over to the official SART project site and download this PDF map, you’ll get a good sense of the current state of the trail, including the portions I explored on Saturday. Again, more details to come.
The final tally for Saturday:
- 25.16 miles
- 28.9 MPH max
- 10.0 MPH avg
