⚠️All ride participants (members and non-members) must register online and agree to the liability waiver.⚠️

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Name of Ride: Brisk Bunch - Penitencia Creek Park, San Jose, to Mt Hamilton Summit Type: Brisk with regroups. No swee p. 4B

When:  9:30 AM Rolling

Starting/ending location: Penitencia Creek Park, San Jose

Estimated mileage:43.7 miles

Elevation gain: 5,102 f t

Ride Details

This is a friendly ride, however there will not be a designated sweep.  We will have regroups, and we will all look after one another.  If you leave the ride, please text the ride host when you end your ride, or if you need assistance.

E-Bikes are encouraged because they allow riders to participate in rides that otherwise couldn't. E-bikes must be pedal assist only.

All participants must register online on the VSBC website or via the Wild Apricot app.  You do not need to be a VSBC member, but we’d appreciate your support and you’ll appreciate the many benefits in being a member.

Not sure if you can make it? Register now and you can unregistered before the rolling time by going to the ride calendar event, clicking on “already registered”, and then clicking on “cancel registration”.  Or, on the Wild Apricot app go to your event ticket and click “cancel”.

Ride Hosts:  Randy Simpson and Mark Dedon

Cell Phone: ‭925-980-9304

Mt Hamilton History Nuggets

• Mt Hamilton was named for Reverend Laurentine Hamilton after he won a race to the summit with a botanist named Wiliam Brewery from the CA Geological Survey in 1861.

• Mt Hamilton is part of the Mt Diablo Mountain Range in which our own Mt Diablo is at the northernmost end.

• The observatory was constructed between 1876 and 1887, from a bequest from James Lick (1796 – 1876) of $700,000.  Lick, originally a carpenter and piano maker, chose the site atop Mount Hamilton and was buried there in 1887 under the future site of the telescope, with a brass tablet bearing the inscription, "Here lies the body of James Lick”.  When he died he was the wealthiest Californian.

• All of the construction materials had to be brought to the site by horse and mule-drawn wagons, which could not negotiate a steep grade. To keep the grade below 6.5%, the road had to take a very winding and sinuous path.  Tradition has it that the road has exactly 365 turns.

• The observatory was established in 1888.  It has been managed by the University of California since its inception.

• The first new moon of Jupiter to be identified since the time of Galileo was discovered at this observatory in 1892; Amalthea, the planet's fifth moon.

• The asteroid 452 Hamiltonia, discovered in 1899, is named after the mountain.

• In 1950, the California State legislature appropriated funds for a 120-inch (300-centimeter) reflector telescope, which was completed in 1959.

• Claire Max, of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, led the team that built the adaptive optic system and sodium laser guide star for Lick Observatory.

Link to the ride ‘turn by turn’ instructions (RidewithGPS)

CLICK HERE FOR ROUTE