lesiz

If you frequent the roads of the Santa Monica Mountains like I do, then you are familiar with the ride up Little Sycamore, a climb up into the more desolate western end of the range. A couple miles up you know when you cross over into Ventrua County, as there is this road sign in the middle of nowhere telling you that Little Sycamore becomes Yerba Buena Rd at this point. If you miss the sign, the surface of the road tells you. Sycamore in recent history has had a good smooth surface, but when you cross into Yerba Buena the road is suddenly riddled with thick cracks, both in the direction of travel and across.

A lot of cyclists complain about this, but I appreciate the chance to engage my skills as a cyclist. And the descents on YB do have to be done with a lot of care. The handlebars feel like a jackhammer on these descents. But I digress...

So last weekend when I turned onto Sycamore I noticed that the road had been re-paved! I sure didn’t think it needed it, but now Sycamore has a new jet-black really-smooth surface. Then, I wondered about YB, which really DOES need resurfacing.

Nope!

So now at the junction of the two roads there is even more of a disparity: Shiny new road merges into riddled-with-cracks road. It’s like LA County is trying to really show-up Ventura.

What IS new on YB is new Bott’s Dots replacing the broken ones, leading me to reason that resurfacing is not planned in the near future. Like Ventura is saying back, “Yeah, and we ain’t gonna fix it either.”

Rumpled

I always find those county line crossings interesting. I have relatives in Kentucky and you can tell whether you are in a dry county or a wet county just by the conditions of the roads. You can guess which type has the better roads. The counties are about the size of postage stamps, so these crossings are frequent.
I don't think many CA counties will spending much $ in the near future.

ANK

LA County's 0.5% increase in sales tax to fix roads and freeways will hopefully lead to nicer roads.

DScott

I wish. Here's a crappy cell phone pic I took of the county line right at that spot:



It'd make a very nice descent, just mind the T-intersection at the bottom.

lesiz

And then if you don't mind ending up on PCH you can turn right at the T and continue on a long descent down Mulholland to where it comes to an end at PCH.

Ben FR

i don't see what the big deal is about yerba buena -- the road quality sucks!

hbsyncro

i'm from orange county, but when ever we camp at leo carillo i take my bike and this last trip i rode yerba buena from pch. nice climb. as i was traversing the ridge and beginning the descent i crossed the line at about 30 mph and was suddenly on the smoothest bike ever. even the county mile markers were nice and new. saw one other rider coming up mulholland as i made my way back to camp.