Mt. Hamilton by Moonlight
Piaw, an avid bicyclist at work, led a moonlit bike ride up Mt. Hamilton last Sunday.
It was incredible. We started at 3 AM, so the first part of the climb offered views of the moon high over San Jose. The air was cool, a nice temperature for climbing. After gaining the ridge we left the lights of San Jose behind and rode on through the darkness, past grassy hills and scattered oaks. The road twists through two valleys, and as we dropped into each low spot, we sped through the icy cold air that had settled there, before reaching the warmer air on the other side. The black sky slowly gave way to a dark blue, the moon seemed to get larger as it set over the Santa Cruz mountains. Coming around the last corner before the top we could finally see out to the eastern horizon which was glowing the pre-dawn colors. As the sun came up we watched the light flow out over the sleeping hills below. After eating breakfast with Piaw’s friend (who graciously got up to serve us in her house) we rode back down through the bright sunlight and rapidly warming air.
The ride, as a GPS track (.gpx format)
The ride, by the numbers:
- Start time: 3 AM
- Number of riders: 5 to 9 (some started later)
- Total Distance: 34.8 miles
- Total climbing: 3814 feet
- Time to the top: 3 hours
- Total time (including breakfast): 6 hours
- Number of flat tires: 4
That’s right: 4 flats between the different riders. After about 15 minutes of climbing I stopped to take a picture and when I got back on my bike to catch up to the group, I had a flat tire. This was rather demoralizing, so early in the ride, in the dark, alone. When I finally caught up with them, they were stopped changing another flat, so I didn’t feel so bad. When a third rider got a flat 10 minutes down the road, it started being ridiculous, and by the fourth flat we were counting our spare tubes. We finally got caught by some riders who started later, and they told us that the side of the road where we had parked was covered with goathead thorns. We carefully checked our tires (found 1 thorn in Yana’s tire that hadn’t punctured it yet) and that was the end of the flats.
This ride was easier than we expected. The weekend before the ride, Yana and I weren’t sure we could do it, so we went out and rode Moody/Page Mill. Surprisingly, the longer Mt. Hamilton turned out to be easier. I think this was primarily because Mt. Hamilton has a shallower grade. Page Mill is steep enough that I really had to push to keep moving, while on Mt. Hamilton I was able to keep a comfortable cadence (and lower heart rate).
Lessons learned:
- It is easy to miss thorns in the dark. Double-check your tires before you start, and stay on the pavement.
- Patches don’t take much space, make sure you have lots (in case you miss the thorns in the dark…).
- Helmet-mounted headlamps are very helpful for changing flats in the dark.
- Don’t push on the last mile of climb when there’s still some climbing on the ride back.
- Slope is more important than distance in determining how hard a ride is.
- My eTrex GPS doesn’t save tracks at full resolution, it simplifies them first. I will get a better track by pulling the active log rather than a saved track.