Today was a club ride that included a climb up Mt. Hamilton. We started at 8:08 am from the school on Kirk.

Shortly myself, David H and Joe F were out in the front. David was particularly pushing the pace hard, so hard at the beginning I almost dropped off. But I thought I was training for the Everest Challenge and needed to hang on. We were moving so quickly up the hill I realized this might be a good chance to set a new PR going up Mt. Hamilton.

I looked over at David’s bike and noticed he was climbing in the Big Chainring!! I suppose I could make it up Mt. Hamilton in the Big Chainring but certainly not at this pace. After awhile Joe dropped off the back (later he told me had had skipped breakfast)! I kept with David for several miles and and as we were nearing the top of the lower Mt. Hamilton climb I did drop back for awhile. I kept pushing myself and eventually I caught back up (probably David slowed down to let me catch up). David was still in his big chainring. I guess he wanted to finsih the entire climb that way.

I went to get a drink and guess what, I had fogotten to put my water bottles on the bike. Fortunately it was cool, in the 60′s. I figured I could make it to the summit without any water. My old PR was 1 hour 40 minutes from the school. As we got within 5 miles from the top my quick calculations showed I could easily do better. The final time was 1 :34:09 from the school. From the base of the Mt. Hamilton road we did it in 1:28:54. I had finally made the climb under one and a half hours. It was kind of the perfect storm, cool weather, less weight due to no filled water bottles, and David pushing the pace so hard. You can see from the chart below my average heart rate during the climb was 158, peaking at 166. We averaged 12.4 mph.

Joe reached the Lick Observatory just as David and I were headed on to go down the back side of Mt. Hamilton. David was kind of enough to let me use one of his water bottles, which I drank down at Isabel Creek and handed back to him since he was turning around at that point. I then biked another 13 miles, with climbing, to reach the junction. There I bought a Gatorade and put that in my water bottle cage.

I waited for awhile for Joe and thought maybe he had headed down Del Puerto Canyon while I was buying some liquid at the Junction cafe. I did not see him on the way down and only saw him on the way back up. I told him I would meet him at the junction where we were going to eat lunch. I measure the grade over the steepest section of Del Puerto Canyon and got 9.5% over 0.4 miles. It was a steeper climb that I remembered it to be. Maybe it was because I had pushed so hard earlier in the ride.

After lunch, Joe and I headed back towards the back side of Mt. Hamilton.

I felt pretty good making the climb. I took several splits and found the steepest was 9.5% over 0.5 miles. Just about the same as Del Puerto Canyon.

After taking on some more water at the top, we headed back down the front side of Mt. Hamilton, getting to the cars around 4 pm. This graph shows the overall day. You can see my heart rate was much higher while climbing the front side to set the new PR. I backed off conisderably after that. (click graph to enlarge)

Final stats were:

Miles: 92.7
Total Climb: 10,279 feet
Average Speed: 14 mph
Total Moving Time: 7:25
Average Heart Rate: 134

Categories: Cycling Group Rides, Training
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