Day Three of our race to follow the race started with a two-hour drive from Sebastipol to near San Jose. We parked our car about two miles up Calaveras Road near a golf course and geared up for the long day ahead. We warmed up with a descent down to the valley and
then found our way over to Rt 130 which climbs up to the top of Mt. Hamilton. It is about a 4000 foot elevation change from the valley floor to the top. Turned out to be about a 20 degree change in temperature, too. The climb from the start of Rt. 130 is about 18 miles long. From my reading I knew that in order to bring up all the materials to build the original observatory at the top, they used mules. So, the road was built to accommodate the climbing ability of mules. Mules can not haul much if the slope is greater than 6 to 8%. So, the road at 6 to 8% has to be long, but not steep. Long it is! Most climbing I have done is 8 to 12 miles of hard effort, so it was difficult to judge how hard to go without blowing up before the end. I got into a good rhythm at about a heart rate of 150 and decided I could hold that pace -- about 9 miles per hour, so it would take two hours to do the climb to the top. All these calculations made in the first couple of miles held true. It was great fun to pass and be passed by other riders. Some would pass and then fall back, others I would pass and then they would whirl by, others kept about the same gap behind our ahead of you. No ch
eering crowds on the mountain today, we were climbing what would be the descent of today's race. We needed to get to the top before they closed the road and made us wait on the side. It was close, I got to the Lick Observatory and a large cop standing in the middle of the road said in a deep, calm voice, "your ride is over." I hit my stop watch and it just turned 2 hours! There were a couple dozen other riders off to the side filling their water bottles and now the pressing issues were: keeping warm, when would the racers come.First keeping warm. I saw a road to the right and going up further. It lead up to the very top and was the Lick Observatory. The building was open, heated and had a bathroom. Also, it had a great view of the twisting snake of a road we had just climbed. I spotted Barry making one of the final few hairpin turns, so knew he would be along shortly. I went in and warmed up, filled the water bottle and then someone said the race is five minutes from going through.
Unkown rider keeping warm by laying across the hood of running Forest Ranger truck as Donna and I did at Tour of Georgia several years ago -------->
We were just a couple hundred yards on the descent side of the KOM mark. It was about 10 minutes until the caravan started to come through. Then we spotted three riders, but no motorcycles. It was Tyler Hamilton and two other Rock Racing riders. They were barred from racing due to doping allegations, but were riding the whole Tour race course for training. The crowd cheered and hooted as they recognized Tyler who wore no helmet and was putting on his wind jacket as he went by. Now the race leaders were coming through with the usual gang of motorcycles and team cars - there was enough of a gap on the main peleton to have some team cars up there. When the main group went through it was crazy - they were battling for position on the descent, putting on their jackets and the team cars were passing each other right in front of us taking up more than the width of the road. The last riders huffed and puffed through in the next 15 to 20 minutes as we all got colder and colder.
Now the first priority was to warm up before the long descent. Still no sign of Barry - he had to be up here somewhere. I went back up to the Lick Observatory and you could still see the riders descending down the twisty road. Back into the heated area -- and a bonus, they opened up the other building which had a few radiators pumping out heat like crazy! Off came my shoes and socks to warm and dry. Sitting on the radiator we all talked about what we just watched and how cold the 40 degree air was going to feel screaming down the road at 30 to 40 miles an hour for the first 10 miles. One by one we each left as now it was also a balance of having enough food in you to last until getting back to the car.
One more last look for Barry, but not too long as I wanted to keep the warmth I had accumulated to shield against the cold that was coming. I figured he got stopped just short of the top and now was going down, not having the benefit of the heated buildings. The descent was great and it was not long until the air warmed up. You could get up to 40 MPH but all the turns made it more like 20 to 35 most of the way. Not having my own trusty CAAD 4 bike and wheels, I was cautious taking the turns at high speed. The brakes and tires seemed to hold, as long as my arms could be held steady against the need to shiver. As I warmed up and learned the limits of the Trek 1600, it became easier to take turns at higher speeds. It is not often you can spend an hour on a bike, going 20 to 40 MPH and not have to peddle
- only steer and break. There was more time to see the views as we climbed as opposed to negotiaing the curves on the way down. But on the way up I did not want to stop in order to keep a good rhythm and pace going. So I stopped on the descent several times to take photos and take off the jacket on the last third of the descent.View from Mt Hamilton Road about 1/4 way up looking towards San Jose ---->
Finally, at the base of Rt. 130 I spotted Barry waiting for me. We high-fived and chatted about what we just did and witnessed. It was a fun flat ride over to Calaveras Road, but not before we had to stop and watch the last rider come through the finish circuit. The two-mile climb back to the car was a reminder of what we had done for 18 miles earlier in the day. The day's total was 50 miles and 5500 feet of climbing, and many good memories.
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