Ok, I made mention about this a while back and wanted to follow up. I have me a goal to work on. Near my house is a place called the White Tank Proving grounds or otherwise known as the Catipillar Proving Grounds. Around the Phoenix area there are many “Proving” grounds for various auto makers. They like the desert to test their cars in the extreme heat, and before the surge in population growth, due to this area being so remote (at the time), Phoenix also offered these manufacturers a bit of privacy to test their secret cars before they released them to the public. Catipillar was one of those companies that had a Proving ground, but in addition to the heat, they wanted a steep grade to run their vehicles up for testing. It is reported that their very famous Cat D9 was tested here. This test road is what you see in the picture below from Interstate 10. Catipillar pulled out long ago before the urban sprawl approached it leaving behind only building pads and this road. Today at the base of the road, housing developments began to put in the water lines, house pads and the streets before the housing market crashed in 2004ish. It's pretty much abandoned right now. I guess when things get better they will pick up again with building, but I digress. It's been one of my goals to ride up this road without stopping. The elevation gain is apx 610 ft in about 1mile with grades from 8% to 16% before reaching the top. I attempted this once before but almost made it all the way up before I had to throw in the towel, I just couldn’t go any further.So not wanting any hill to get the best of me, I vowed to return some day to gain braging rights. Anyway, I will post my progress toward this goal here. Not quite ready....but real soon.



My last attempt, this is where I stopped, looking down



Looking up from the same location, I didnt have all that far to go.