Mt. Hamilton Challenge 2005 Pictures

I started from home, rode to the start in Santa Clara, then did a
slightly modified "Challenge" route, which included a stop for a hot
lunch in Pleasanton. The weather was always at least somewhat overcast,
making for interesting clouds and sky for most of the day. The
wildflowers in San Antonio Valley were surprisingly vivid, although the
color had probably already peaked.

http://tinyurl.com/cduwp

If anyone finds himself in one of these pictures and wants to be
identified in the caption, please let me know.

Questions or comments are welcome.

--
Bill Bushnell
http://pobox.com/~bushnell/

In rec.bicycles.rides Bill Bushnell writes:

I started from home, rode to the start in Santa Clara, then did a
slightly modified "Challenge" route, which included a stop for a hot
lunch in Pleasanton. The weather was always at least somewhat
overcast, making for interesting clouds and sky for most of the day.
The wildflowers in San Antonio Valley were surprisingly vivid,
although the color had probably already peaked.

http://tinyurl.com/cduwp

If anyone finds himself in one of these pictures and wants to be
identified in the caption, please let me know.

Questions or comments are welcome.

1. The Spring on the east side of Mt. Hamilton is at MP3 and is
graciously maintained by Don Axtell, a bikie.

2. The bazaar after the JCT is Ruthie's Emporium, not a junk shop.

Then comes the Blackbird, a ~600ft climb followed by the Double-S a
300ft climb.

Meanwhile I thought it better to ride down the coast to Santa Cruz and
was surprised to find no wind at all and a glassy smooth Pacific Ocean
with spouting whales from Pigeon Pt. to Davenport, after which the road
is no longer at water's edge.

Beautiful surf at Lighthouse Point and lots of beach volleyball made a
lovely spring scene in mild sunny weather with towering cumulus clouds
over Loma Prieta as a backdrop. This back drop was so inviting that
we rode to Aptos, took Valencia Rd., that is passable by bicycle, to
Corralitos and up Eureka Canyon past richly flowing waterfalls to
Ormsby/Buzzard Lagoon JCT where we turned uphill to Summit road.

Here we were in the shade of the clouds we had seen from the beach and
rode to Loma Prieta where we stopped at the gushing spring before
proceeding along the Loma Alma ridge to Mt. Umunhum. Here we
descended steeply to Hicks Rd and took Shannon Rd. and Los Gatos. We
were back in sunshine in the valley and returned to Palo Alto with a
light headwind on mostly downhill Foothill Expy.

In article ,
wrote:

1. The Spring on the east side of Mt. Hamilton is at MP3 and is
graciously maintained by Don Axtell, a bikie.

2. The bazaar after the JCT is Ruthie's Emporium, not a junk shop.

Then comes the Blackbird, a ~600ft climb followed by the Double-S a
300ft climb.

Jobst:

Thanks for the corrections.

I missed seeing the sign "Ruthie's Emporium" that I had seen many times
before. If you look carefully in the photo, you can see a gentleman
bearing a slight resemblance to Santa Claus watching over things from
under the tarp overhang. This same gentleman passed me going up the
Blackbird climb in a small Toyota and turned into a driveway to the left
of the road about 1/2-mile before the summit.

Perhaps the items inside the barn are in better condition, but from the
road most of the stuff looks well-used and rusty.

--
Bill Bushnell
http://pobox.com/~bushnell/