California Bound

I am heading out to California this weekend. My family is throwing a baby shower for my wife and I so we get to spend the weekend in Milpitas, just north of San Jose.  This is the area that I grew up in and I have so many memories.  It will be good to spend some downtime with my beautiful wife, see some family and friends, and hopefully get a couple rides in.

I have recently given up on shipping my bike out when I go so I have started using my brother in-law's bike. It is a size smaller but I can manage for a couple of rides.  the ride I am most looking forward to is Mt Hamilton.  The summit is 25 miles away from my house and roughly a 3,500 ft elevation gain. I also rather enjoy (hate, because it is terribly hard) the Sierra rd climb and Calaveras rd out to Sunol.  These are both so close that I almost have to ride around to get warmed up enough to start the climbs. The last time I was out, I drove up to livermore and went up Mt Diablo. Diablo is ten miles long and summits around 3,600 ft.

I have never finished Mt Hamilton. I ride mostly rolling terrain and have zero access to any sustained climbing in Wisconsin. That being said, my first attempt was at the end of the season and in the rain. I submitted and ended up catching a ride down the mountain. I had never done any descending and I did not want to start in the rain, I am not trying to win any races and Strava records are not worth my life.  The second attempt was at early in the season and I made it all the way to the base of the actual Hamilton climb, a mere 7 miles from the summit, and the man with the hammer visited me.  I bonked hard, I could barely stop my bike and stand up, my legs were cramping so bad.  I had to turn around.  I knew I had about 8 miles of climbing to get back out to the final descent of my return trip.

Hopefully, I will be able to tweet a selfie on the summit of Hamilton this time.  A bit better than the gloomy view I got last time.

My other goal on one of trips out there is to get up north of the Golden Gate and do some riding as well as spending some time on the bike in the Santa Cruz Mountains.