Mt Tam curse

Two years ago, Mt Tam Hillclimb canceled due to the fabricated state budget crisis. Last year: I was traveling in Italy. Tomorrow: Ready to go! But then Mt Tam canceled again (this time due to forest fire risk from forecast dry lightning).

I'm stunned.

I'd updated my racing license ($60), paid my $35 entry fee, refrained from running this week, done a shake-down OLH on the Fuji on Wed, and even eaten pasta tonight.... all for naught. Except perhaps for Fremont Peak on Sunday.

Last year I posted a profile for the Fremont Peak Hillclimb, which this year is the day after Mt Tam's scheduled date... a new back-to-back schedule for two rare hillclimbs on the NCNCA schedule. I don't know if I'll make it, but a comment on that profile:


Fremont Peak from San Juan Baptista (Motionbased:mooseman)


And again here's the grade extracted from that profile, which I've convolved with a Gaussian of standard deviation 100 meters, to keep the numbers significant:

grade
Fremont Peak from San Juan Baptista (Motionbased:mooseman)


Sometimes too much knowledge is a bad thing, and last year I was waiting for that little sting in the tail at the end of the profile only to discover since the Park Service had denied access to the race (Park Service is generally uncooperative to cycling events: ask the promoters of the recent professional stage race in Colorado, who were denied access to park land, as was the Tour of California) it wasn't part of the course. So I was ready to jam it there when I hit the finish line just behind the rider ahead of me. Whoops...

I defined a Strava segment for that race, avoiding the start line which contaminated the segments of me and some other riders:



It's a fun race and hopefully I can make it down there on Sunday.

But I'd really been looking forward to Mt Tam tomorrow. No insult to the Fremont Peak crew, but Tam is a classic.

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