Mt. Hamilton Challenge

Bill Bushnell — Saturdray, April 26, 2003

I woke up at 4:30 so as to get a 6a start. Pouring rain. Went back to bed. Woke up again at the reasonable hour of 7:00. Got ready to go and was on the road at 8:45. Riding with haste I took the shortest route to Mt. Hamilton Rd. and was on my way up the first of the three climbs by 9:30.

The weather was cool with a pungent freshness in the air. Puffy clouds could be seen over the mountains, but none looked dark enough to hold rain. All the greenery was damp from the rains of the night before, but the roads were dry. I saw a surprising number of cyclists on the road, many of them on the Challenge or Ascent ride. They must have been late-starters as I was. I paused once to pee and peel, but otherwise I continued to the summit without stopping or getting off the bike. On the way I saw several different kinds of Lupine, a couple of large hawks circling slowly over the middle ridge, but no four-footed wildlife. I arrived at the summit shortly before noon, about three hours from home. Don Bennett was resting against the wall of the post office. He took a picture of me with his digital camera.

I also saw Bill, whom I SAGged on the Low-Key Mr. Bill’s Nightmare ride in 1996. He remembers the occasion better than I, recalling my old 1971 Buick that I have since sold.

I filled up on water, did some stretches, and was on my way down the back side by 12:15. Don Bennett was behind me at the top, but I didn’t see him again until later in the ride. The first half of the backside descent was crap. Another cheap tar and gravel job from the county roads department. No attempt had been made to grade the scooped and washboarded surface of the roadway where autos brake before the hairpins, making these spots particularly hazardous when leaning to turn on a single-track vehicle. I was dragging my brakes all the way down the hill, following most of the way an SUV who passed me before at the top. I was hoping that my tires wouldn’t blow with all the heat I was dumping into the rims.

At the bottom of the hill I kept moving across the Isabel Creek Bridge, almost touching my front wheel to the SUV’s rear bumper until it roared ahead up the next hill. Along this southern-most section of San Antonio Valley Rd. in the rain shadow of Mt. Hamilton where the road passes through treeless, twisted, and tortured hills, reminiscent more of the hills of southern California than of those of the north, I passed Bill and Company and a couple of tandems.

The color of many wildflowers splashed the meadows of Upper and Lower San Antonio Valley.

A few motorists were parked along the road taking pictures. Some had medium format cameras. As I made my way north toward The Junction I began to see the first of the Devil Mtn. Double riders passing in the opposite direction, maybe 10 altogether before The Junction. I continued past The Junction since I hadn’t planned to stop again until Livermore. I could see that the parking lot of the cafe was full of motorcyclists and bicyclists. I saw Craig Robertson about 1/4 mile north of the junction, riding south, alone, and looking grim.

As I crossed a cattle grate just before the first major summit a few miles north of The Junction, I felt the front of the bike go “BANG-BANG-BANG...”. Now, usually, crossing a cattle grate gives a “bump-bump-bump...” sound, but this time it sounded like metal on metal. The front tire looked O.K., but I was worried that it may have been going soft. I dragged the front brake. Fortunately I hadn’t dinged the rim.

At the top of this summit is a nice big turnout, so I pulled off, got out of the bike and checked things over. Turns out both front and rear tires were soft. So, I took out my tools, found a comfortable mound to sit upon, and got to work.

Front tire: looked like a pin prick, probably from glass or a thorn, but I could find neither in the tire. Since it isn’t thorn season, it was probably glass. Rear tire: glass. I found the offending piece in the tire.

While I was working on my flats was able to observe a parade of cyclists passing in both directions. I saw most of the cyclists I had seen earlier in the ride including Don Bennett, Bill and company, Ken Holloway and Paul Guttenburg (going south), Lee Mitchell (driving SAG) going south, and Ken Straub and Lisa Antonino, whom I had not yet seen on the ride, going north, who stopped to chat. They had stopped to eat hot dogs at The Junction cafe. Pictures were taken, GPS coordinates were checked (The nearest item of interest appeared to be a rest stop on I-5.), and cell phones were tested.

As I was struggling to remount my rear tire, a SAG van from the Hamilton Challenge stopped to offer help. Fortunately, I accepted the offer as it took two of us with two VAR tire tools to remount my rear tire. (Avocet City on a Ritchey OCR Comp rim) This was the first flat I had on this tire, and the first since last August or September–I can’t remember how long it had been since I had a flat, and today I get two!

A half-hour later I got back on the road, and after climbing the last bump over Eylar Ridge, I began the long gradual descent into Livermore, crossing two rushing fords on the way down, the first of which seemed deep enough that hitting the water at 30 mph seemed like a Bad Idea.

In Livermore I stopped briefly at the softball field at Wente Rd. and S. Livermore Ave. to refill water and then continued on the direct path through downtown Livermore to Pleasanton. My original plan was to stop at a sandwich shop to eat a proper lunch, but the hour late (15:30), and a sit-down lunch would have killed at least 45 minutes, perhaps more, since riding on real food would have slowed me down, at least for a while. I was still about 3 hours from home. So, I pressed on, noting for the future the location of the Togo’s and Subway sandwich shops.

The gradual downhill on Stanley Blvd was offset by the constant headwind. The road was lightly traveled and the shoulder broad and clean. Even the abandoned track that crosses the boulevard midway between Livermore and Pleasanton, quite hazardous in years past, had been paved so that only the top of the rail was visible. On the nearby railroad tracks to the right, a long UP freight train with 4 or 5 locomotives was grinding slowly toward Livermore and Altamont Pass.

At Bernal Rd. and Pleasanton-Sunol Rd. I regained the official Challenge route and continued on to Sunol. A group of rail workers, probably connected to the tourist train out of Sunol that uses the old SP right-of-way, who were working the track, waved as I rode by. As I passed the small store at Sunol Corner, the idea of enduring the next 15 miles of Calaveras Rd. on naught but energy bars, biker goo, and water seemed unbearable. I needed some real food. So, I turned around, rode back, and bought a V8, a bag of potato chips, and a 20 oz. Sprite.

On Calaveras Rd. I seemed to have fallen in with a different, more intense group of cyclists than I had seen earlier. On the first climb, John Langbein caught up to me, and we chatted for a while. John had seen another cyclist a few miles back on a socked Gold Rush and had thought it was I. One guy wearing a Sun jersey, out of a group of three I had passed earlier, also caught up. For a while the three of us rode together trading positions depending on the terrain. On the downhills I’d get ahead, and then get caught and passed on the uphills. At some point, John dropped off, I think, to take a roadside break. Along this stretch I again saw Lee Mitchell driving SAG for the DMD and Craig Robertson, who appeared to have found a group to ride with and who managed a smile as we passed.

At the southern end of Calaveras Rd. where the land opens up a number of cyclists were passing in both directions. I also saw (for the second time) the same green Subaru driving SAG on the DMD. The driver gave me a thumbs up. Just before the top of the Calaveras Wall I caught up to “Sun jersey”. The descent into Milpitas was furious and short. I braked so hard at the stop sign at Piedmont that I nearly got thrown forward off my seat. I took Calaveras to S. Temple, then to Yosemite, S. Milpitas Blvd, Montague Expressway, Trimble, and Central Expressway. Back in the city motorists rushed to get nowhere important, especially at the freeway on/off ramps. But I only noticed this because motorists had been unusually polite on the rest of the ride.

I arrived home at 18:15, nine and a half hours altogether, 8 hours of riding time for a total of 124.6 miles with 8000 feet of climbing. This was the first time I had taken the bike with the hard fairing up and over Mt. Hamilton, the fully-outfitted (water, food, clothes, etc.) weight of which falls somewhere between 55 and 60 pounds. (I really should weigh it on a good scale one of these days.) In my haste to leave home I had forgotten a windbreaker/jacket, but it turns out I didn’t need it. In fact I was in short sleeves for all but the top of Mt. Hamilton and the backside descent and for my extended flat-fixing break. In all, an excellent ride, with perfect weather, cool with mixed overcast and sun.

©2004, Bill Bushnell

Included photographs taken the same day by Don Bennett.

Please do not publish or distribute for profit without permission.