Wheels turn to curb cycling in Pasadena

With a whoosh, the pack of bicyclists bears down on an automobile starting to pull away from the curb in front of the Brookside Golf Club in Pasadena.

"Car!" shouts one of the riders in the front. "Car!" repeats someone deep within the pack.

As one, the 150 cyclists veer slightly to the left and careen past the startled driver. In a flash, they're gone.

Rattled, the motorist peers into his rearview mirror searching for more bicyclists. But there are none.

"A lot of time, people are not used to seeing a bicycle travel at this speed. They misjudge how fast these bicycles will be on you," said racer Fernando Burgos, who has stopped next to Rosemont Avenue to watch his friends zoom past. "They probably think the bikes are going 12 miles an hour, when in fact they're going 25 miles an hour."

Or 35 or 40 miles an hour. That's how fast they ride twice a week around the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

For 60 years bike racers riding handlebar-to-handlebar in packs -- known to bicyclists as a "peloton" -- have trained and conditioned themselves by pedaling laps around the famed football stadium. The tighter the racers group themselves together, the less wind resistance they experience. And the faster they go.

There are occasional mishaps. They can run into cars, sideswipe pedestrians or joggers, and veer into each other. Lately, though, the bicyclists have been on a collision course with Pasadena city leaders.

Officials have set a deadline for peloton riders to help figure out how to coexist with others when they circle the outside of the football stadium.

As many as 150 pack riders turn out each Tuesday and Thursday for Rose Bowl rides. Beginning promptly at 5:55 p.m., bicyclists take 10 laps around a three-mile loop, ending at about 7:05 p.m. The rides are held during summertime months when daylight saving time is in effect.

But the early evening hours are also prime exercise time for thousands of joggers, walkers, skaters and baby-stroller pushers who also enjoy circling the stadium while the sun is setting beyond the arroyo's steep wall.

Bike racers sometimes crash into pedestrians. And clash with motorists, golfers and soccer players.

Complaints involving the encounters prompted an investigation by the Pasadena Police Department, which led to a proposed crackdown on peloton riders at the Rose Bowl and elsewhere in the city.