Red - great story! and Velocivixen, congrats on your zoo ride and hills.

My DH is not on his road bike yet after his accident but can ride his mountain bike and joined me for a climb up the lower part of Mt. Lemmon. We did 20 miles total, including about 2000 feet of climbing from the base. Almost everyone passes us.... but we get there. I was tempted to go higher but I wanted to avoid the wind that was supposed to pick up after 8 am. The descent, as always, was a lot of fun. We started at 6 am, and there was almost no traffic (cars or bikes) but there were a lot of groups riding up as we headed down.