Hill Climb

     When my friend Dale called to see if I wanted to go to a hill climb, I fired up the bike and headed out. The event was held at an off road RV park in Carnegie, California. Carnegie is located east of Livermore, off of Hwy 580, and about 100 miles from home.

     The first thing you need for a hill climb is a hill. The hill never looks very steep when looking up from the bottom. However that is an illusion, the hill is very steep. Occasionally one of the course workers will slip, then slide 10 or 20 yards down the hill. You can tell how far they slide by the yard markers along the course.

      Next you need some bikes to blast up the hill. There are many different classes, from stock to highly modified. There were a couple of nicely prepared Harleys.

Some bikes use knobbies, some paddle track tires and some used chains, a lot like snow chains. Some used paddle track tires and chains.

There were all kinds of engines allowed in the different classes. Some large engines like the Harleys and some multi cylinder engines and some classes ran regular dirt bike engines.

To have a hill climb you have to have people. Not just racers but spectators. This is the heart of the sport. It's as much fun to people watch as it is to watch the races blasting up the hill.

This could be the happiest kid in the world.

I really enjoyed the day. I sat in the crowd and oohed and aahed with everyone as the racers blasted up the hill, sometimes making it to the top and sometimes not. I wandered around the pits looking at the machinery, I people watched, I got sunburned, it was a great day.