Grizzly Peak Pinehurst Loop (38 miles)

For today's ride I wanted something that would give me a nice climbing workout without having to travel too far. Luckily I've got the east bay hills pretty much at my doorstep, so I decided to do a ride that would provide a kind of hill interval workout. This ride is similar to the East Bay Hills Ramble Lite, except instead of entering Tilden via Spruce Avenue in Berkeley, you take Old Tunnel Road up to Grizzly Peak and then follow Grizzly Peak to Tilden.

The weather was in the mid-40s, so it was bearable out if not exactly what I would call comfortable. The only time I felt really, really cold was on the final descent down Old Tunnel Road back into Oakland. By that point my feet were numb (even with my half-booties over my shoes) and I was questioning my sanity a bit. Once I had a cactus burrito in my belly, I felt better.

The basic profile of the ride is:

1. Old Tunnel Road to Skyline: an easy-to-moderate climb averaging 4-5% grade over 3 miles.
2. 1st part of Grizzly Peak: flattish for about 2 miles as you cruise along the ridge
3. Climb to Tilden: a short, moderate climb up to the boundary of Tilden Park
4. 2nd part of Grizzly Peak: flat again for a couple of miles
5. into Tilden: flat to rolling through the park
6. Wildcat Canyon descent
7. Moraga Way: an easy gradual ascent, probably 2-3%, over 3 miles
8. 1st part of Pinehurst: flat to rolling, gradual ascent, 3-4%?
9. 2nd part of Pinehurst: moderate climb with a steep finish
10. Old Tunnel descent back to town

So there's a good variety of climbs interspersed with rest periods. You can check out the elevation profile for the route as well, but I've noticed lately that the elevation functionality on Bikely seems to be crapping out more and more. Like on this profile it looks like I drop off a cliff around mile 15 then spring back up to 500 feet around mile 20. Odd.

Animules: none; hibernation?
Total Distance: 38 miles
Elevation gain: about 4500 feet
Time in the Saddle: 3 hours 45 minutes
Route (bikely.com): Grizzly Peak Pinehurst Loop