Mill Creek Road Mountain Challenge

Mill Creek Road Mountain Challenge

In preparation for our June 6th Ride around Tahoe, Barb and I Set out to do some hill training to get ready for the climb to Emerald Bay AND Spooner Summit. We left home with the intent to find and climb Mill Creek Road. Thats the same road we see when we are hiking Mission Peak. On the back side of the climb, there are beautiful rancheros and homes along this little one lane road. Our goal was to find it and climb it. Not knowing how long or how tough it would be. We left the house and headed towards Mission Blvd. Passed Quarry Lakes and Historic Niles. Then did the gradual one mile climb up Mission towards Ohlone College. After a wrong turn and getting a little lost, we found Mill Creek Road and started to climb. It was a four mile uphill with some pretty steep parts along the way. Barb lost her chain once climbing up but other than that it was a good, ballbusting ride. Shady, tree covered road with Mill Creek running along side. BEAUTIFUL!! Reminded me of our Felton ride a few weekends ago. The road itself was a one-laner that is not the well maintained for road bikes. Lots of rough pavement. That was more of an issue going down than going up. We made it to the end of the road and took a well deserved break. Shared a banana, drank some Gatorade, took a couple of pictures and headed for home. The ride down was not that fun. The rough pavement, sharp downgrade and hairpin turns made it less fun than it should have been. My hands hurt from riding the brake all the way down. The one mile down hill on Mission Blvd was pretty fun even though we did hit a few stop lights along the way. Turned into a 30 miler by the time we got back home. Not bad for a Sunday ride. BRING ON TAHOE!!