Today is the day we climb Mt. Lemmon. It's a 26 mile, 7100' climb to nearly 9000' We got local knowledge and parked at Le Buzz cafe for some coffee and food. But before we got there, Bill and I headed out @ 8am for a run. Ran the Octillo Golf Course loop (5.5), about two minutes faster than the previous time earlier in the week. Made breakfest of chocolate waffles...damn good. We packed the bikes and headed to Tuscan. 90mins later we arrived @ Le Buzz.
It was getting pretty warm already in Tuscan. High 70's for sure. Altitude at the start was just above 2000' and the actual climb started @ 2400' We warmed up with a 5 mile ride to the base. The plans were to work this into a 4 hour ride, but having to climb for 2.5 hours to the top with an average pace of 10mph sounded like we didn't need much more riding. As it worked out, we were over...
Let the climbing begin! The grade averaged between 5-8% to the top. There were about 2 spots that leveled out before we hit 8000' @ mile 20. From there it went down again and back up to 8000' before we turned off to go to Ski Valley, the highest part. I figure we topped out at 8500' There are 7 climate zones we rode through. The best being when we got high enough, 6000' or so, to where the evergreens began to grow. Looked alot like Central Oregon at that point. Just before that, the rock formations were really cool as well.
We tried to eat at the lodge, but they were bitches and were closed to feed a film crew up there. We went down the the Cookie Cabin instead and got a HUGE cookie, Coke and pizza. It was a bit cold so we sat around the fire that was outside, nice.
Once fueled, we started back down. Coming up there was a head wind around almost every bend. So, coming down was a bit dodgy at times flying around a corner at 40mp+ (sometimes 50mph) and into a cross/head wind. It was still fun all the same. The snow banks on the side of the road made for cold wind while coming up and going down! Bill and I stopped a few more times on the way down to get photos and shoot some video. I'll post up to Youtube and get a link soon.
In the end, it was a 4 hour 20 minute day, 62 miles with 8000' of climbing (7100' in a row). We averaged 11 mph up, 40mph+ down. Jumped in the car, back to Phoenix and some Deep Dish Old Chicago pizza and some Belgian beers! Tomorrow is the last day...sad.
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