Sunday’s ride was an eco-friendly peak bagging trip. Eco-friendly because (almost) no gas was burnt for this trip, as we took off from the Ayatola’s house. And peak bagging because we intended to reach and follow the ridge of the Santa Cruz mountains, and summit Borel Hill in Russian Ridge as well as the Black Mountain in Monte Bello preserve.

This implied though climbing Table Mountain followed by Charcoal road, aka the Highway from Hell. Once on the ridge the knowledge that we had a looong descent waiting for us at the very end was rather comforting.

Mileage turned out to be 39.9… we didn’t feel the need to round it off this time; 5600 feet of climbing or so. I’m now wondering now whether a 10K variation of this route is possible, at least with a minimum of added road miles – we’d need to hit all trails up there, and also include the Fremont Older stuff, that could do the job…