Mount San Bruno, Price to summit

Pen Velo's annual New Years Day San Bruno Hillclimb climbs San Bruno mountain from the east side. The climb has two sections, one up Guadalupe Canyon Road, then there's a loop down and under that road onto Radio Road, then the final, steeper climb to the summit. I did a profile of that road awhile ago, to describe that race:

San Bruno (E)

But there's multiple ways up the mountain, 3 (at present) completely paved, perhaps a fourth to kick in when an unfortunate housing development marring the north side of the mountain is completed (Mount San Bruno, except for the very top, has failed to enjoy the general level of protection of development Bay area mountainsides have received). The two major approaches are the two sides of Guadalupe Canyon Road, the other side being the west side, from Daly City. This climb begins in earnest at Price Road.

An advantage of the western approach is freedom from traffic lights. The eastern side has a traffic light at Carter Road. Additionally the western approach avoids the descent to pass under Guadalupe Canyon. You get on Radio Tower Road by passing through a gate on the side of the road. With an event permit, hopefully that gate could be opened.

Here's the profile of the western approach. The top portion of the climb, Radio Road, is shared. In this profile I drew the grade for Radio Road as an average over a longer stretch, rather than as a tangential peak grade:

San Bruno (W)

My climb rating rewards continuous climbing, so this side gets a benefit versus the eastern side for the lack of the intermediate descent. But net climbing is less, and there's some steeper grades on the eastern side of Guadalupe Canyon, so the eastern approach comes out ahead in climb rating.

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