Scaling … Mt. Hamilton
I’m taking a break from the buttoned-up posts on ICT scaling and write about people that scale, for a change. I want to share the joy of my bicycle ride up to the top of Mt. Hamilton. I had the pleasure to do this (and the many weekend rides that preceded) alongside my long-time friend Enzo. This summit was a first for both.
Mt. Hamilton is one of the great rides in the South Bay, if not the greatest. We left the car at the intersection of Alum Rock and Mt. Hamilton Rd, San Jose, CA. From there, it took us 3 hours to climb to the summit and 1 hour to make it back.
The long, gentle climb helped us to pick up a good rhythm, without any coup de grace lurking at the next turn of the road. The last 4 miles were the toughest ones because legs felt quite tired and heavy by then. After the bridge, I was on the 28t final position cog most of the time (but never ever on the granny gear!), with short stints on the 25t whenever the road eased a little bit. I created this elevation chart compliments of Bike Route Toaster (note: it’s meters on the Y-axis and kilometers on the X-axis).
At the summit, the view is breathtaking. The Lick Observatory is a treat in its own right. We joined a (free) tour of the dome. Very engaging. For sure, the hosts up there know their crowd! Please remove the shoes with cleats before stepping in. Please don’t feed damp bills into the vending machine 
On the way back, we made a few deliberate stops to keep safe and alert. My bike has me pretty low for aerodynamics’ sake, thus I had to shift weights and rest arms and neck every so often. The rustling noise of the wind was so loud that I could not quite hear cars approaching from behind. I had noticed this in preceding trials and bought a rear view mirror that attaches to the drop-down handlebar. The last 3-4 miles before returning to sea level, the road’s pavement turned wonderfully silky smooth on us. It felt as we were welcomed back in style, after a most enjoyable and rewarding ride.
The pictures of this climb are posted here.