ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST : Three Missing Bikers Turn Up in Restaurant

Three missing mountain bikers found their own way out of the Angeles National Forest on Monday, drove to breakfast at a restaurant and were surprised to learn that a rescue team had been searching for them, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman said.

The three bikers--Lawrence Martinez, 25, of Pasadena, Saul Mares, 26, of Huntington Park, and Bobby Capps, 22, of Los Angeles, all employees of Century Cable in Eagle Rock--had begun their outing from a trail gate near the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge. Relatives on Monday reported them missing when they failed to return Sunday night.

The Montrose Search and Rescue team began looking for the men at 9 a.m. Monday.

But the three men spent the night in the forest, biked their way out in the morning to a parked car at Red Box, a site near Mt. Wilson, and had breakfast. They returned to the trail gate to retrieve a second parked car, “unaware that we were searching for them,” the spokesman said.

Sheriff’s deputies did not know whether the men had originally planned to spend the night in the forest or whether they had gotten lost.