February has come and gone and I only rode twice: once on a short-but-steep ride up to Mt. Hamilton and yesterday, a cold, wet, windy ride to check out the only other part of Tierra Bella I had yet to experience.
My friend Steve got an idea stuck in his head that he wanted to ride all three of the major peaks in the Bay Area: Mt. Diablo, Mt. Tam and Mt. Hamilton. I missed the Mt. Diablo ride and Mt. Tam had to be rescheduled due to rain. But Mt. Hamilton is close enough to my house that I thought about riding there, so I couldn’t miss that one.
It wasn’t my fastest time up to the top, but still a decent effort.
Having slacked off last weekend in favor of a 9-mile run with Paulie, I got back on the bike Saturday and headed for Gilroy. I wanted to check out Coyote Lake and the climb up to the Gilroy Hot Springs. The Tierra Bella route climbs this road and circles southward again to Hwy. 152 — a busy, two-lane road that links Hwy 101 and I-5 — so I knew I didn’t want to ride that part by myself. But I figured that doing the climb would be good enough. Also, I needed a long day in the saddle, not too much climbing. So, going up to Coyote Lake and turning around would give me a little over 70 miles with only about 2000′ of elevation gain.
The weather forecast called for a 50% chance of rain, so I wore my new rain jacket. I was concerned about overheating, so I didn’t wear leg warmers. Little did I know that that would be the least of my worries!
The ride down to Gilroy and up to Coyote Lake was fine. Sunny at times, but mostly overcast and still. When I got to the turnaround point, the clouds started getting a little more ominous.
On the descent, the skies got a little darker and the air, a little colder. The wind had started up, but I figured that was par for the course in this area. I pedaled onward feeling pretty good about my 14 MPH average pace. I started getting sprinkled on, but aside from that, my ride was uneventful up to the base of Anderson Lake.
I took a break there and that’s when I heard thunder. I also saw some lightning in the distance. I did remember to bring long-fingered gloves, so I put those on, but other than that, I was dressed for 55-65 degree weather. I had my summer skull cap on, which isn’t insulated, and just regular bike shorts. I didn’t even have my toe warmers!
Because of the lightning, and the fact that there were a few stretches along the bike path that are totally exposed, I considered packing it in and figuring out some other way to get home. I didn’t want to get struck by lightning! But I decided that the lightning was only in the hills, so I pressed on.
Within a mile or two of that bathroom break, the rain started coming down. Hard at times, but steady for at least an hour. I was miserable and seriously concerned about hypothermia. There was one point where I needed to slow down for a sharp, downhill turn and I almost crashed because I couldn’t feel my hands and my glove got stuck in the brake lever.
About halfway between Anderson Lake park and home, I took another break at a park near the trail. That almost turned out to be a mistake because I needed to work really hard to keep my body temperature up and in the five minutes or so that it took to pee, eat some GU and refill my water bottle, I started shivering. I had also been dealing with minor cramping since the start of the climb, and that also limited how hard I could push myself.
Sensing the trouble ahead, I hopped back on the bike, pushed through the intermittent cramp in my left leg and made it home in record time. I normally stick to the 15-MPH speed limit on the trail, but I was all by myself in the rain and did not have time to mess around with speed limits.
Thankfull, I made it home safely. I immediately shed every stitch of clothing and hopped in the shower, taking care to warm up slowly. Still, I have some lingering numbness in my left thumb and index finger. It’s getting better, but I hope it goes away completely. It would be hard to play guitar that way!