Just a heads-up. The repaving on Ortega, from the Orange County line over the hill to Elsinore, is completed...and it sucks!

This project started 3 weeks ago on the Elsinore side. I was hoping at that time that they were going to put a top coat on it, but that doesn't appear to be the case. The old pavement was in good shape, but the repave is horrible. It's rough, with voids resembling a very coarse grinding wheel. The surface is hard to read for loose material. There are longitudinal ridges for long stretches that track the front tire through corners, it's bumpy where it wasn't before, and it's going to chew up tires big time. And pot holes are already appearing on the uphill left hander at the campground below the Candy Store.

I've ridden Ortega well over 100 times since I retired 1 1/2 years ago. Sections where I could ride 10/10ths (on my ability scale, not MotoGP), I was only comfortable doing 6 or 7/10ths max.

Shiela, the owner of the Ortega Oaks Candy Store, said a lot of her customers have complained about the surface, including people who live up there. And it wasn't even contracted by a local paving company. It was a Sacramento company. I'm guessing it was a "make work" Stimulus project.

 

thanks for heads up was thinking about going up there saturday, hey vtrsurfer have you checked out ocmoto.com it is pretty much orange county riders

 

jbaxx and I were heading up Ortega for a weekday ride last winter, and we ran into a roadblock at Nichols Institute. A tree had fallen across the road between there and the fire station. There was one other rider waiting, Freddy No Wheelie, a merchant marine who belongs to ocmoto. We talked to him for a while before giving up on Ortega for that day.

I'm not saying it's not doable, just be aware of the new surface starting at the county line (where the new pavement used to end). Also they'd oiled the shoulders and turnouts this morning, a few hours before I got up there. Some cars had tracked it into the lanes in several spots. But that shouldn't be a problem after a few days with all the traffic that goes over during commuter times. I just wouldn't advise going ***** out.

 

they oiled the shoulders on a road does that sound 100% retarded or is that just me

 

I gave up on ortega a while back. jbaxx and I did the joshua tree ride a while back, but my favorite is still the 243/74 ride from beaumont to idyllwild to hemet.

 

I hear you about the 243/74. My wife and I hike up around Idylwild a lot, and we've stayed a couple nights up there a few times with our bikes, just to ride those roads. The first 8 or 9 miles going uphill from Banning is my favorite part on the 243.

We just ride Ortega on weekdays. I went up there the last 3 days, Tuesday and Wednesday I went all the way over. The worst pavement is the bottom 2 miles on the Elsinore side. Today I just went as far as El Cariso. There's a fire NW of there, and I didn't want to get stuck by a road closure and have to come home on the 91.

I stopped and felt the "oil" in a turnout yesterday. It still wasn't dry after 2 days. It's kind of between oil and tar, and it's shiny. It's tracked onto the road in spots, plus on some banked curves the oil has run across the road in rivulets from when they applied it.

The people that live up there are really pissed off about what a s*#ty job they did.

 

gross....there's a lot of activity up there. Hopefully people will get pissed off enough and enough letters will get written to redo it properly