Steep Hills

New Steep Climb

Did Aztec Ridge today, Blackberry Hills, Harwood/Santa Rosa and Hicks. Met a guy out on the road who told us of a way to do a very direct route of BlackBerry Hill directly from Kenndy by hanging a right up Big Basin way into Teresita and then past a bunch of "Do Not Enter" signs to Ravina Way and then Paseo Camino before hitting BlackBerry Hill. You end up climbing 1300 feet in 1.88 miles for a ride 13.09%. This is steeper than anything on Western Wheelers by a mile. I did analysis of all the Billy Goats and nothing comes remotely close to climbing 1300 feet in 1.88 miles. However, Summit Springs does in fact pass this, but its much shorter, dropping it in the pain factor.

Analysis of Goats sorted by Percentage of Climb.

The trick with this ride is that you would never dream of connecting to BlackBerry from Kennedy unless you talked to the owner of the house with the "Do Not Trespass" signs like we did today. Luckily the guy was cool as hell and said he does not mind bicycles using this route. I dont mind putting this here as the 5 people who read this most likely wont spread the word to the masses ;) The only other issue is that once on BlackBerry hill, one needs to not notice the two do not trespass signs that are actually pretty easy to miss. I missed the first one. The guy we met said one of the guys up there is not friendly to bikers, but we had no issue at all today. Your mileage may vary. I would consider this the toughest climb around, but it being shorter than Bohlman, still does not quite put it in that class in my mind.

Fun stuff though. After this climb, Hicks was a nice little cool down.

Old Priest Grade climbs 1500 feet in two miles which is a tad over 14%. I did this on the famous Mountain View to Yosemite ride in 2006 training for the Furnace Creek 508. Its good to know this ride was close to that, but not passing it as that was truly mind blowingly hard after 135 miles when your climbing in 90 Degree heat.

38 Miles
5500 feet of Climbing
11 MPH


DMD Update Since March 1st:
Miles 513/621 82.66%
Climb 33520/55000 60.40%

Comments

mthead said…
those look like public roads, how come there are DND signs on them?
thanks for the tip I'll share with my readers... wait you already did!
Chris O'Keefe said…
Heh... They are pretty much public roads with informal blocks on them. I recommend this ride. You will question your reason to live as you suffer like a dog....