I did that climb last July after "Biking the Bridge". I'll always remember it as we hired a tandem and it had the worst saddle I have ever had the misfortune to sit on, ever. It had the cheek (pardon the pun) to be called a comfort saddle. It had so much padding on it that by the end of the ride I thought it was trying to split my bum apart (sorry TMI, but it really really hurt). Once we had come back from the bridge we then cycled up Lombard Street (that was hard work) then joined the queue of traffic down the switchback side, which was fun. We couldn't believe the amount of cars going down it, especially as we had walked down it at about 9am and there was not a soul around.

I'm quite jealous of all the fantastic hills you can ride in the San Francisco area, we don't tend to have any really long climbs round here, just very steep ones.