# Mt Hamilton Saturday morning 7/25/2009



## ukbloke (Sep 1, 2007)

Does anyone want to go ride up Mt Hamilton Saturday morning? It is not exactly Mt Ventoux, but the closest big hill around here! I haven't done any fast hill climbs in a while, but I want to see how close I can get to the 90 minute mark.


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## Leopold Porkstacker (Jul 15, 2005)

Damn! Would love to, but my son’s soccer classes are on Saturday mornings.


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## Dr_John (Oct 11, 2005)

What start time? I'd really like to, but I'm pretty beat from the week.


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## ukbloke (Sep 1, 2007)

The default plan is to roll out from my house in Santa Clara around 9:15am. We're going to a BBQ at lunch-time so I don't have a lot of wiggle room I'm afraid.


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## ratpick (Jul 31, 2008)

Ooh.. I'd be in but since I've got to make an appearance in Concord Sat morning I figured I'd say hi then climb Mt Diablo.. I'll wave at you mountain-top to mountain-top


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## Dr_John (Oct 11, 2005)

Never mind me. Would really love to be able to do it, but just can't tomorrow. Good luck. I suspect you'll make 90 minutes. If you're using your power meter, would love to see all your data when you're done.


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## ukbloke (Sep 1, 2007)

Dr_John said:


> Never mind me. Would really love to be able to do it, but just can't tomorrow. Good luck. I suspect you'll make 90 minutes. If you're using your power meter, would love to see all your data when you're done.


1 hour, 29 minutes and 9 seconds! :23:

This was the hardest effort I've made in a long time, if not the hardest ever. Next time I might just ask Dr_John to predict my time (with his usual accuracy and generosity), and then I'll just stay at home and have a cold beer. More later including some data.


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## fast ferd (Jan 30, 2009)

Excellent time. Standing start from Alum Rock Ave, right? My best time ever was around 1:35. But I was about fifteen and it was a zillion years ago!

That's a brutal climb. I always liked the dip into Halls Valley and the one into Smiths Creek. The last 7 miles hurt lots, as I recall. Good on ya!


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## ukbloke (Sep 1, 2007)

fast ferd said:


> Excellent time. Standing start from Alum Rock Ave, right? My best time ever was around 1:35. But I was about fifteen and it was a zillion years ago!


Yes, I started the clock at Alum Rock Ave and Mt Hamilton Road. However, it was a rolling start so feel free to dock me a handful of seconds  Actually, my stop point is more questionable since I stopped the clock at the point where Mt Hamilton Road turns into San Antonio Valley Road. My thinking was that one wouldn't necessarily divert to Lick Observatory if one was doing the class Hamilton/Mines Loop. Also, the Mt Hamilton Classic and the Tour of CA stages cycle straight over the top too. And the access road up to the Lick Observatory is technically a private road I think.

But thinking about it some more I imagine everyone times up to Lick Observatory for a proper mountain finish. I guess the stop line before the parking lot is the obvious point? In that case I probably would have been just outside of the 90 mins.

By the way, I can't believe you were doing that at 15. Very cool!



> That's a brutal climb. I always liked the dip into Halls Valley and the one into Smiths Creek. The last 7 miles hurt lots, as I recall. Good on ya!


Yes, specifically the last 5 miles of climbing was hard. I recollect seeing 30 minutes to go and signs saying 5 miles, and thinking that 10mph on those 6-7% grades shouldn't be too hard ... but it did really really hurt.


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## ukbloke (Sep 1, 2007)

Here's the power data that Dr John asked for. I tried to merge the Garmin Edge 305 data with the PowerTap data using SportTracks. It turns out that there's some time skew between the 2 logs which the merge process didn't fix. I think part of this is the different sampling rate between the 2 devices, but another part is the device's different approach to pause/resume. I think the only way to merge the data is by timestamps and interpolation, but the absolute timestamps get lost in the PowerTap CSV file. Anyway the climb is delineated by marker 1 and 2, and the power data has to be shifted slightly to the right. The power data is heavily smoothed to overcome its stochastic nature.

The drop in power output close to the end of the climb is when my calf muscles started to cramp up about a mile from the end. I had to completely back off the power and slowly build up again to release the muscle, but was able to raise my power for the final effort. I ran really low on water and sports drink which was partly responsible for the cramping. Next time I will refill before hitting the base of the climb. I was also really surprised at how much I had to eat during the climb to avoid bonking.

Summary data for the climb:

Average speed of 12.3mph, cadence of 86
Heart rate: 170 average, 184 max
Power: 254W average, 673W max (threshold set at 275W though this is a guess)
90% of the time spent in the threshold power zone or higher!
96% of the time spent in the threshold heart-rate zone or higher!


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## ratpick (Jul 31, 2008)

Holy power-tap Batman.. I'm not sure what impresses me more - 170 average HR (for a 17 miles climb) or 12.3 mph average or an average cadence of 86 (I assume you did this on your Tarmac.. doubly impressive).

I climbed Mt Diablo today with an average HR of 163 and cadence of about 75 and speed of 8.4 mph.. I would have been too far behind you to even eat your dust  Admittedly, any time I did would have been my PB since it was my first time climbing Diablo!

But I did set a new PB on OLH yesterday.. pathetically 5 seconds faster than my previous PB. Will be in the 22s soon  Only about a year's training and I might approach 1 ukbloke


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## ukbloke (Sep 1, 2007)

ratpick said:


> Holy power-tap Batman.. I'm not sure what impresses me more - 170 average HR (for a 17 miles climb) or 12.3 mph average or an average cadence of 86 (I assume you did this on your Tarmac.. doubly impressive).


Thanks! In fact, the Tarmac has plenty of gears for the gentle slopes of Mt Hamilton. I rarely went any lower than 34/21. I only dumped it into the lowest gear of 34/25 once when my legs seized up approaching the last mile. My average cadence used to be much closer to yours. I trained myself to spin faster by doing all my junk miles in the small chain-ring on my commuter (a 39) including 25mph runs down Central Expressway with the wind at my back!



> I climbed Mt Diablo today with an average HR of 163 and cadence of about 75 and speed of 8.4 mph.. I would have been too far behind you to even eat your dust  Admittedly, any time I did would have been my PB since it was my first time climbing Diablo!


I've not climbed Mt Diablo yet. The south side, which I presume you did, has a pretty similar overall grade to Hamilton if you exclude the dips on Hamilton. But whereas Hamilton's grade is relentlessly constant, Diablo has some significant walls to overcome. I think this makes Diablo a harder climb overall.



> But I did set a new PB on OLH yesterday.. pathetically 5 seconds faster than my previous PB. Will be in the 22s soon  Only about a year's training and I might approach 1 ukbloke


Nice work - good luck with the 22s!


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## Dr_John (Oct 11, 2005)

> Holy power-tap Batman..


 +1 Wow. Nicely done, and nice data.



> Thanks! In fact, the Tarmac has plenty of gears for the gentle slopes of Mt Hamilton. I rarely went any lower than 34/21. I only dumped it into the lowest gear of 34/25 once when my legs seized up approaching the last mile. My average cadence used to be much closer to yours. I trained myself to spin faster by doing all my junk miles in the small chain-ring on my commuter (a 39) including 25mph runs down Central Expressway with the wind at my back!


 Right. While I've only done Mt Hamilton once, it's very do-able on a standard crank. My only recent conquest was doing Page Mill on a standard crank. That was tough for me, but rewarding. Regarding you're junk miles comment - I've got to get better work-outs on my 18 mile each way commute. I now wear my HRM 3 days a week and went back to using a cadence counter. I was worried I was slacking on cadence since I'm on a standard crank, but that's not a problem. My average cadence on my commute is 95, so that's good.


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