Mount Hamilton - from Grant Ranch

Mount Hamilton is a classic Bay Area road ride: at +4200 feet it’s one of the higher peaks of the Diablo Range, and the paved road that leads to its summit offers a twisty and curvy challenge, both up – a long, strenuous climb – and down – hordes of potholes, bumps and gravel infested corners to negotiate. The road is usually not too busy, though weekends see a lot of both two wheeled traffic (bicyclist and motorcyclists) and cars filled with visitors for the Lick Observatory at the summit. Unfortunately, some of the latter feature notoriously bad drivers so be on the idiot-lookout on those narrow blind corners.

At the summit, you can enjoy the amazing views (fall, spring and clear winter days are the best) or visit the nice museum in the Observatory and check out the telescopes.

The ride from the bottom (at Alum Rock) is about 20 miles one way – the route featured here however starts from the parking lot at Grant Ranch park, about 9 miles along the way, as we started rather late on a sunday evening in fall – Grant Ranch is by the way a popular mountain bike destination.