After what seemed like weeks of cooler weather, we finally had a beautiful day today.  We decided to join a club ride that went up Quimby and Mt. Hamilton.  Quimby is a very steep hill, with grades up to 20%  and an average grade of 13% for the upper section.We had never attempted this climb before on the tandem.  It took us a bit under 43 minutes to make the climb.

We took it slow and made it up to the top without any undue difficulty.  After reaching the summit we descended down the backside of Quimby until we reached the road up Mt. Hamilton. We biked another 12 miles to the Lick Observatory, which is at 4,100 feet elevation.  It was sunny and reasonably warm up there, even at that altitude..

After eating a sandwich we had brought along, we headed back down to the valley.  We decided to not go back down Quimby because of the steep grade and instead went further down Mt. Hamilton road to the Clayton road, which we took to the valley floor.  The little rain we have been receiving has been just enough to turn the hills green.

It was about 47 miles of cycling and 5,700 feet of climbing by the time we reached the car.  This chart shows the profile of the entire ride and how high my heart rate went as we were doing the first climb up Quimby (click to enlarge).

Categories: Cycling
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