Old La Honda Road?
494
Member
1691 days
trainDaBrain posted 2 years ago.
Oh yes. Great ride. Straight up.
If you take the main highway down, back around to Woodside, just watch out for cars. They're not especially friendly towards bikes in that area.
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555
Member
1183 days
CAcyclingFAN posted 2 years ago.
I grew up down the road from OLH. It is a good climb. If you have time time do Page Mill Road (about 10 miles south of OLH) It is 8 miles to the top and about twice the climb. Another great climb just around the corner from OLH is Kings Mountain Road. Decending on OLH is not recommended. It has a poor surface. Go back down either Hwy 84 or Kings. Both are fun decents.
I find the drivers in the area pretty good at looking out for bikes but they do expect you to at least slow down at stop signs and fully stop at lights. There are a few local hillbillies that might cause a problem but it's rare. As Brian mentioned you do have to watch for them during your decents. Those roads are narrow and the turns are sharp. Don't go blind around the corner too close to the yellow line.
When it's time to die, let us not discover that we have never lived. - Thoreau
Has anyone here done the Old La Honda Road climb in Palo Alto?
http://felixwong.com/news/2002/09/old-la-honda-bicycle-climb/
I consider climbing my strong suit, and I would love to test myself on this hill. It's 3.37 miles long and has parts that are 7.2% to 15% I plan to try it next month when I am out in SF for Alcatraz.
Rumor has that former Olympic speed skater Eric Heiden has the record. The locals have a rating system for it:
Category A: total novice
Category B: it takes the cyclist 40-60 minutes to go up Old La Honda
Category C: 30-40 minutes
Category D: 25-30 minutes
Category E: 20-25 minutes
Category F: under 20 minutes
Speed hurts; how fast do you want to go?