Copyright 1995 David E. Cortesi
I set off at 6am monday, a national holiday, to ride from my home in Palo Alto, CA, southeast across the Santa Clara Valley -- the valley whose northern end is filled with San Francisco Bay -- and up to the top of 4200' Mount Hamilton, site of historic Lick Observatory and one of the two highest peaks in reach of my home.I decided on this destination the previous evening when, out for a walk along the Bay with my wife, we looked west and saw fog resting on the hilltops like foam on the lip of a beer mug. I had planned to ride to the coast, but that fog meant that almost surely, a morning ride to the west would involve a climb and descent through a cold, wet cloud. To the south, Mt. Hamilton was clear in the sunset. Fine; I would go that way and stay warm.
At 6am on a national holiday the traffic is as light as it can be. I had major arterials to myself. (Detailed route at end.) I rode through the center of downtown San Jose and saw no more than a dozen moving vehicles. I spent two days last week in downtown SJ, attending the Silicon Graphics developer forum. SJ is not a bustling place even on a normal weekday. Although it is clean and pretty -- jacaranda trees in full bloom on the central plaza -- and although it sits in the middle of a huge urban sprawl, SJ somehow manages to feel like a lonely prairie town, like Sasketchewan, maybe, or Lincoln, Nebraska.
No prairie metropolis is this polyglot. The Babel of languages on commercial signs is amazing. Al's Furniture has huge Chinese characters painted in each window. Nearby is a big Carneteria, and the Pho Thuc beauty salon. The alternation of English, Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese goes on for miles along Alum Rock, the street I followed east out of town.
Once I cleared downtown I could see the eastern hills. The overcast here was showing signs of breaking up. Ahead it was clearly higher than the tops of at least the nearer range of hills. So far, so good.
The urban experience ends at the junction of Alum Rock and Mt. Hamilton Road, where a sign says "Lick Observatory 19 mi." It was 7:30am. I had come 22 miles, so the day's total would be short of a century. The altimeter read 280' here at the edge of the valley (and it read 280' when I came back down to this point hours later, which speaks well of the consistency of the Avocet altimeter).
Mt. Hamilton Road climbs steadily, south across the face of this range. Houses and farms are scattered along it. Other than birdsong, there was almost no sign of life. Once a sleepy watchdog got my scent well after I'd passed his yard, and let out a couple of woofs.
These west-facing hills are covered with grass that has just turned from green to yellow. The air was fragrant, and cool enough that I didn't take off my jacket until I'd climbed for a mile. There are frequent views down into the sea of suburban housing that laps the hills. The air was full of moisture and I couldn't see as far as SJ in the middle of the valley, let alone seeing the western range or the Bay.
At 1730' the road crests the ridge and turns east through woods. It drops 200' (which I resent; I hate to give up altitude when I know it has to be regained) into a pleasant valley of pastures and oak thickets. Here the grass was still green. Along this stretch I saw two flocks of quail and a flicker.
In this valley is Grant Ranch County Park, an old cattle ranch converted to a park. A couple of years ago, we spent a hot July night in the campground here, watching the Perseid meteor shower. Now I stopped to refill the one water bottle I'd emptied, and to call home.
From Grant Park the road ascends almost nonstop for 11 miles to the observatory. Mount Hamilton has a high "wow" factor with noncyclists. "You rode all the way up there? Wow!" Well, it's no Alp, but it ain't Alpo, either. However, what the smart cyclist never lets on to his admirers is that the road was built for use by teams of horses pulling heavy wagons of construction material to build the observatory at the turn of the century. (Hey, do you realize we soon will not be able to say "the turn of the century" with that meaning any more?) A road designed for autos would be half as long and a much stiffer challenge for cyclists. As it is, you switch to your small ring and just pedal, alternating among the bottom 2 or 3 gears, for a bit under 2 hours and there you are.
Nevertheless, my hat is off to those horses or mules or whatever they were; as well as to the chap I saw later, pedalling toward the top towing a fairly robust toddler in a Burley trailer.
There had been burts of sun at Grant Park but the overcast was still thick around the mountain. Halfway up, I entered it, but it wasn't the soggy drippy fog of the Coast range; just a cool mist that cut off all the views. There are places where the road drops off into steep canyons, with no shoulder or guardrail. Today you couldn't see down: just endless gray mist that began at the edge of the pavement.
for the first time (it was nearing 10am) I began to see other cyclists -- two couples on tandems, three guys hammering, two on fancy carbon frames, and others. All of them came up from behind, said "good morning," and pedalled on into the mist. I couldn't even stay with the tandems, sigh. Oh, well. The rest of the traffic was mainly motorcycles, one or two every few minutes. I'd hear them revving up and down for minutes before they appeared.
Near the top a breeze started and the clouds began to break up. Suddenly I looked ahead and up and saw an observatory dome, backlit by the sun, draped in blowing sheets of fog.
At the summit the altimeter read exactly 4000'. (The map says 4230. I can account for part of the difference: when I got home the altimeter read -70.) I had accumulated 4750' of climbing. It was 10:30am, and cold! Not surprisingly, it was colder on top of even a small mountain; and a brisk wind was shoving the clouds around. As long as I stayed in the sunshine I could enjoy the scenery, which consists of range upon range of steep hills covered with oak, grass, and "members of the chapparal community." I used to know what those were. Madrona, greasewood, and...?
On the map it's a puzzle how there can be such huge tracts of unpopulated, roadless land so near to the teeming Bay Area. From this summit the explanation is obvious: all that land is turned up on edge, and there's no water in it. Good; I'm glad there is so much space that hawks can use and developers cannot.
The descent is fun but all too short. Alas, there was no motorcycle going down, I would have enjoyed trying to keep up. Instead I noisily coached myself to be smoother and more focussed. "Don't touch those brakes! Get your butt off the seat! Get your weight back! Watch that pothole!" and so on.
Just by the Grand Park entrance I stopped to take off my jacket (it was now much warmer and full sun). As I started off I realized the rear tire was flat. This was my first flat in 2 years, the first ever on the Rock Lobster. It was not a puncture; the tube had failed on a seam. Why there? Or rather, why not when grooving a curve, 5 minutes earlier?
Down to Alum Rock ave. at the edge of suburbia, auto traffic had picked up to typical Sunday midday levels. I faced a 20 mile ride home directly into the usual spanking NW breeze that makes sailing on the Bay such fun (I'm told). I plotted a route that avoided downtown SJ, instead going through industrial parks, passing the offices of the Silicon Valley heavy hitters -- Samsung, Novell, and Cisco Systems were names I saw.
At one point between "research parks," between a muddy tidal creek and a huge apartment complex, there was a field of strawberries. For thirty seconds I rode immersed in the powerful aroma of ripe berries.
middlefield - central expwy - coleman - market - santa clara - alum rock - mt hamilton rd - alum rock - central - trade zone blvd - n. 1st st. - tasman - fair oaks - central expwy - middlefield.