Day 1…San Jose to Patterson
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I gave the cats on last pat on the head and kissed Sarah goodbye at 7:45 this morning, heading off to Jerry’s house. We got going a bit late as Jerry’s gps didn’t want to show him the detailed maps he had downloaded the other night, so he did it all again and we were off for a beautiful ride over Mt. Hamilton.
For those not familiar with Hamilton, it is a reletively easy grade for 19 miles. The elevation gain is about 4,600 feet, although we will end up with ~6,100 feet for the day.
At the end of the first decent into Grant Ranch Park, a couple racers prepping for this weekends race up Mt. Hamilton pulled alongside and chatted for awhile. This is not something racers often take the time for, but the RH Villa rider, Jamil, had done a cross country ride in high school. They left me at the park entrance while I waited for Jerry and Dick.
A tourist from England pulled up to our regroup and asked if he had passed the Lick Observatory. We told him he had about 12 miles to go. He inquired about our trip and, upon hearing we were riding to Denver, proclaimed us to be “quite fit” and compared us to Lance Armstrong. Fit, we may be, but Lance we are not! I saw him on his decent and he told me he had just retired and was on “the vacation of a lifetime” in California. I thanked him for visiting our great state and wished him many more “vacations of a lifetime”.
Wildlife sightings were extraordinary today. I passed withing 6 inches of a Flicker that was drinking water from a pothole in the road. Obviously he didn’t hear me coming. But the sighting of the day was a red tail hawk that was in a stoop dive at the observatory. I heard him diving before I saw him…the rush of air whistled about 20 feet over my right shoulder. He dived into a tree about 150 directly below me and I got a unique glimpse of watching this raptor from above rather than our usual, very human viewpoint below. Wildflowers were good, but not great, with lots of Sticky Monkey Flower, Wally Baskets, Penstamon and Lupins that were just beginning to erupt.
Up at the top I spoke with Ken Holland, the postman for Mt. Hamilton. He told me that the post office there was the oldest existing postal contract (he is not a USPS employee) in the nation. It began in 1882. He also verified the number of curves between San Jose and The Junction…365, one for each day of the year.
We desended the backside of Hamilton carefully, enjoyed a wonderful day in the 70’s with little wind. The decent down Del Puerto Canyon was great, particularly at the end where I hit some 35+ mph speeds. We saw the biggest ox! It’s horns must have had a circumfirence of 12 inches, and a length of 3 feet! I think I remember ox like this plowing rice fields in Southeast Asia…at least that is what I saw on TV!
Altogether we logged about 73 miles. Everyone is feeling good and having fun!
Tomorrow we are in the flats…only 750 feet of vertical in 84 miles.
Thanks for the comments coming in on the blog…keep them coming! We will try to keep everyone up to date as we reach computer access. Please excuse any typing errors…I can’t find the spellcheck on the blog site.
Rick