Thanks to Nigel for leading the Sunday ride over some of the iconic roads in southeast San Diego County. I got to ride on some roads that I've never been on in 27 years in San Diego County. Doing the Great Western "backwards" gave us the opportunity to climb Honey Springs (featured in the 2016 Amgen TOC), descend Lyons Valley, and then climb Skyline Truck, continuing all the way to the junction at Japatul. This was a front-loaded climbing day with 4,000 ft of elev in the first 31 miles and 6,000 ft of elev through 42 miles. That made the final 23 miles a great descent and welcome spin through Alpine, Arnold's Way, Harbison Cyn, Dehesa back to the start where we all wolfed down sandwiches at Jersey Mike's.

This is definitely a keeper that I hope we can introduce more NCCC folks to riding this area on special occasions. Hardly any traffic, only a couple stop signs and signals, scenic and quiet.

Great route, great weather, great group

Karl

Agreed.  Great route. 
And most of the roads we were on are in pretty good shape too.
Looking forward to doing it again in the future.

Thanks guys. Glad I could share some of my riding experience in South San Diego County with you as you have shared with me up North. I love suggestions so anyone out there reading this that would like to make a suggestions on future Sunday rides please let me know. Variety is the spice of life

Nigel, thanks for taking the time and making the effort to add new and fun routes to the Sunday rides. Great roads today and so fun to ride new stuff. Good job on giving us awesome weather.

Agree with the others Nigel.  I've ridden these roads for years and never done that route!  Yesterday the views on the way down were excellent.  Thanks for leading.