2018 SMR 23

Started off a little windy, then got very pleasant.

Wildlife Encounter:  young deer below Diablo Ranch

I felt good, but low energy for some reason.  JB says he thinks it's because I'm getting old now... I didn't think anyone was noticing.

Not as many Death Ride folks training today - but there were a lot of cars.

I didn't notice right away that my camera mount had slipped,
giving me this great shot of my shifter cables and front tire!

2018 WNR 08

Well I did NOT do well in the heat this afternoon.  I was actually looking forward to my first hot WNR, but I just felt drained the whole way up - like it was everything I could do just to keep the pedals going around.  I concluded that I ate too much lunch and didn't drink enough water.

No one showed up at The Church, so I was alone too. 

Roadkill Report: a vulture eating a squirrel or something.  The road was so hot the squirrel was barbecued.

Passed'em-Passed'me ratio:  0-4  not a lot of folks riding in this heat.

32°C at Junction... seemed hotter than that though.

These were the first two to pass me - they were smooth.

These were the second two to pass me - Cal Jersey Autoblog

Turns out the first two and the second two were part of the same group.  The tall guy in the orange jersey was Dutch, and I impressed him with a half-dozen Dutch phrases from my repertoire.  They were talking about work, which sounded like a refinery.

At The Junction JB rode up - I wasn't expecting him.  He said Charlie was coming too, so I waited a bit and then we exchanged stories about heat before going down.

2018 SMR 22

Today's weather - thick wet fog, but not too cold.

This guy was hiking to The Summit but didn't want to use the trails because SNAKES!  He asked if we were familiar with The Mountain, and if we knew where Camel Rock was - I was surprised I never heard of it and wondered if he were on the right mountain.  Checked at home and didn't find any photos, but apparently it's somewhere on the Burma trail.

Proud Gobbler

Fog doesn't keep the Death Ride trainers off The Mountain -  I had more than 90 Strava Fly-Bys.

OK, cool story time.  For no particular reason, I decided to wear my Sriracha socks today, and then fortuitously we catch up with this guy who's wearing a Sriracha jersey!  We bro-bonded over our mutual love of the rooster.

2018 WNR 07

OMFG WINDY!

Me, Kevin, Justin, and Donna today.

I forgot my water bottle and had to turn around.

Everyone attacked me from THE CHURCH... AYFKM?

 I chased them all down one by one, but didn't have a good result because WIND!

2018 SMR 21

The wind today had me in my Summit Wall gear for most of Summit Road.

Lots of riders, including an apparent organized event of some kind.  Also, welcome to Cycle Folsom - a club of friendly folks, and good riders.

Roadkill Report:  two big snakes.

This guy was uber serious - passed me kind of close on the way up.

Then uber serious guy passed me even closer on the way down.  Almost caught his Pactimo's on my brake lever.

Here is his Strava ride:     STRAVA




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2018 SMR 20

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Can you believe it's already SMR 20??  WHERE, does the time go?

JB and I arrived at The Gate at the same time, evaluated the weather, and only one of us kept his jacket on.

Started out kind of foggy, then got F*ing foggy, then trees were dripping condensation on us.  It was glorious.

Things finally cleared and a beautiful blue sky presented itself to us after about The Elbow.

Special treat for today's blog:  reverse seatstay cam!

2018 WNR 06

Just past The Gate, I find somebody's wallet.  I looked inside and it had some stuff in it so I put it in my pocket and figured I'd try to find the owner later.  Didn't see a ranger and there wasn't a phone number inside, so I took it home to investigate.

Me and Colin decided it was too windy to ride too hard so we helped Justin do a good time - and he got PB for the year, not best ever.

Since I wasn't going anaerobic, I decided to work on power - big gears, slow cadence.

The sky was dramatic looking - I think I even saw a little lightening.

   

2018 SMR 19

Last week it was supposed to be 50mph winds, but it was beautiful.

This week it was supposed to be hot, but it was cold and windy.

I can hardly wait to see what they're wrong about next week.

No JB today.  At some point shortly after I got out of my driveway, I decided it would probably be a Junction Day.

Some kind of trail run was going on but it hadn't started yet... just set up people.

This guy didn't need any help.

Saturday Morning Regular Bharat:  we chatted about action cameras and SD cards.

"Scott, do you still do your blog?"

These guys didn't feel it necessary to say I was looking good or anything as they passed..

2018 WNR 05

Me, Colin, and Kevin tonight.

Me and Colin hit it hard from the line and I stayed with him until about the 2,000-foot rocks when he pulled away.  A fast guy passed me and I stayed with him for a while and almost caught back up to Colin, but then Colin got on his wheel and rode away from me again.

My stopwatch didn't start at the line so I wasn't really sure how I was doing for time; when we got to the beginning of Split 4 I knew we were about half way for time and elevation so I started the stopwatch then.  Did Split 4 in just under 7 minutes, but that's kind of an easy one.  At the end of Split 5 we were at 15 minutes, so we were averaging 7m30s per split.  I said to Colin - this feels like a 46, and he agreed.

So I still didn't know what my time was until I got back to my truck and uploaded the Strava:  46m10s...five seconds slower than last week.  Heart rate graph provided for your amusement... how long ago was it that I could hold 165 for an hour?