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Three Bears
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 Between the Bears (Brandon Smith Photo) |
| results? | Right here! |
| profile |
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| distance | 1.78 miles (2.86 km) |
| climbing | 636 ft (194 m) |
| grade | 6.8% |
| where? | see below |
| when? | 05-06 Nov 2022 |
| what time | Anytime from 6 a.m. Saturday to 6 p.m. Sunday. |
| how? |  |
| how much? | free! |
| why? | Ask not why; just do! |
| coordinator |  |
| weather |
 Bay area winds |
| deja-vu? | New! |
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The three bears loop is not only a bay area classic bike route, but the home of the long running Berkeley Hills Road Race. In typical Low Key tradition, our take on this classic will be to offer up a chance to tackle the climbing portion of the bears while the time between will not count.
First up will be Mama bear which is a steady 6%, .7mi, 234ft climb. After a few rolling hills and short descent you will then tackle Papa bear which is also the finishing stretch of the aforementioned Berkeley Hills Road Race. Papa is slightly tougher, coming in at 6.7%, .8mi, and 311ft of climbing. Last but not least after a descent you will hit the Baby bear which is a short but steep climb (9%, .2mi, 93ft).
We will aggregate the cumulative time of all three bear segments as your total time for this week. While you do not need to rush between the segments, we require that you do keep moving between the segments without taking any rest in excess of one minute. Feel free to slow pedal or take a brief break to make adjustments, but any extended rest will lead to a disqualification. Your best time up each bear will count in the case that there are multiple attempts, however you must ride the entire course again for it to count (you cannot turn around and try another bear again without continuing on to finish that attempt). So, as an example, you could ride the course three times and end up using one bear from each of those three attempts.
We will be meeting at 10:00 on Saturday at the corner of Bear Creek Road and Alhambra Road. We’ll casually ride to the start of Mama bear and tackle the course. Parking is available around the start area, but many enjoy parking near the San Pablo reservoir or Tilden regional park to turn this into a loop.
Rule 1 is be safe and stay healthy!
Join the Strava Low-Key Hillclimbers Club to get your time recorded "automatically". Or message/email your time to Brandon, or post it on Facebook LKHC group.
The Facebook LKHC group is also a good place to get the latest announcements and discussions.
Sorry, folks! We require all riders wear helmets during the climb, and we follow the USA Cycling rule against ear buds or other head phones. Rock to tunes before the climb, perhaps, but we need riders to pay attention to what's happening during the climb...
Low-Key is all about a group of friends riding up a hill together. It's like any other informal group ride, except we time you to the top and report the results on our web site. But we have no road closures, no lead vehicle, no follow vehicle. We are traffic, sharing the roads with other traffic, following the laws and courtesy which applies to traffic. This includes riding to the right of the road when practicable, and not crossing double yellows to pass riders or to get through corners faster. We're each responsible for our own actions out there, on and off the bike, both as users of the road as as courteous visitors to the neighborhoods we pass through. "Ceci n'est pas un race".