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Mt Tam Hill Climb
Wed, 08/15/2007 - 9:22am
I live out of the district (now), but was considering going to the Bay Area and riding Mt Tam on 9/15. I need to deal with airline tickets, hotel and rental car soon, but haven't seen the link activated on ncnca.org as yet.
I will assume that it is still on (on 9/15) with similar categories and race announcement "data" as in the past?? Will the start time still be roughly 8AM? How's the condition of the road now a days?
Post race, is there a good route (by bike) back down the mountain to the downtown San Rafael area? Panoramic Highway doesn't appear to be it, but I could be wrong.
Jim L
AZebra wrote:I live out of the district (now), but was considering going to the Bay Area and riding Mt Tam on 9/15. I need to deal with airline tickets, hotel and rental car soon, but haven't seen the link activated on ncnca.org as yet.
Hi Jim-
Hope you can make it, so far you'd get the farthest-traveled award (last year it was Oregon I think). Yes the race is on, we'll fire up the web site and online registration once all the permits are final, prize sponsors committed, etc. Hopefully next week. The schedule is very close to last year's.
As Chris said we always have the risk of fire closure on the course and this has been a dry year. So far it's never happened but it's something to keep in mind if it will be an expensive trip (there'd be plenty of places to ride if that happens, but no race).
From the finish at Rock Spring you could backtrack on Ridgecrest to Bolinas-Fairfax road and go right, instead of back down to Stinson. Then ride "alpine loop" to Fairfax, it's a really nice ride with a bit of climbing. In Fairfax take Sir Francis Drake to Red Hill, which takes you right into San Rafael. If you don't like riding in traffic as much as I do there are secondary roads running parallel to both of those roads, most are marked with green "Bike Route" signs I believe. If you pull up the course in Google or Google Earth you'll see the route back, it's pretty obvious.
Race site - topo/etc are already there from last year:
http://www.californiaroadclub.org/tam
Feel free to contact us by email: contact@californiaroadclub.org if you have more Q's.
Best,
-Tad
CRC
Co-director, Golden Gate Velo
As far as I know, unless it gets cancelled due to fire danger it's still on, but even that would be a last minute thing. Tad Borak could better answer that question.
I rode the course with my team last night. Everything is in very good condition except that there are some bad sections of pavement in the first 4 miles on the flat Hwy 1 section.
The climb section of the course is in great shape and there are even marks every kilo from the summit (except for 2k to go?). The cattle grate at the top of the climb has been paved over with asphalt, so that's one less thing to worry about.
I saw a bobcat (cougar?) there a couple weeks ago running across the road with a squirrel in its mouth, pretty cool (except for the squirrel)
What's wrong with riding back to San Rafael on Panoramic Hwy? That road is smooth and lots of fun!
Chris
http://twitter.com/cpbike
http://www.californiaroadclub.org/tam/