If I bring my bike with me to Tucson, there is no way I'm gonna try climbing aforementioned Mt. Lemmon. I climbed Mt. Hamilton near San Jose today, and on a day of "summer-like temperatures", it was pretty chilly at the top at near 4000ft. Mt. Lemmon peaks at somewhere over 9000ft. My ghost ain't about to travel to Tucson to be friggin' cold.

Mt. Hamilton, home of Lick Observatory, is the Bay Area's highest peak, but not the steepest climb. So although certainly not easy at this point in the season, it was wiser to tackle this than Mt. Tamalpais or Mt. Diablo. I have to admit that reaching the summit was a bit anti-climactic. What did you expect? Cheering crowds? Well, yea, cheering crowds wouldn't have been bad, but I could've used a banner and a trophy. Instead, it was like reaching the top, holding your arms up in victory and . . . crickets.

After climbing to 3960ft., you'd think the descent would be a breeze, but I'm not much for downhills, and the numerous switchbacks that made the climb relatively easy, also made the descent pretty technical for me, and I was averaging less than 20mph (slow) going down.

After I was down to about 1500ft., and there was only one small climb before the final descent, I ran into a young cyclist who races on the college circuit and was home for Spring Break from UC Santa Barbara. We chatted it up the climb, and then he led out for the descent and I followed, and just that was a great learning experience because, as with anything maybe, I don't know what I can do or how to do it. Following this guy down that last descent, a very non-technical one though, I didn't have to think of anything, how tight this turn is or whether I can make it, what's coming up next, how fast should I be going, or what my line should be. All I had to do is follow and do what he did. It was great. He turned off onto the road where his parents lived before we reached the end and we waved each other off at 25mph.