It was Labor Day today so we initially thought about heading to the ocean to escape the heat wave we have been having. But the thought of going where another million people would be going was not too exciting. So we decided instead to labor our way up Mt. Hamilton and climb out of the heat. We started at 9 am on our tandem, the weather was still nice. This was Ann’s inaugural climb up this mountain, which involves 20 miles of biking and over 4,800 feet of climbing.

It was a beautiful day and we were climbing fast. We zipped by several cyclists on the way up. At one point a 20 year old young man was able to catch up with us and chatted for awhile. He is a student UC Irvine and was working at Apple for the summer. He had not been biking a lot lately, which explains why he did not want to try to go ahead of us. We made it to the top at the Lick Observatory in about 2 hours, a good time for someone on a single bike and a very good time for a tandem.

We enjoyed the lunch we had carried up and then Ann tried out the ACTC bench that overlooks the valley.

We were at the top about 45 minutes when some other club members made it up and we chatted with them for awhile, then started the 20 mile descent. We don’t have the drag brake installed on our tandem yet (it is on order) so Franz’s hands got a bit sore braking so much on the way down.

Once back home we had ourselves a BBQ, including Potato salad! It was a very enjoyable Labor Day.

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Categories: Cycling
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