2013 SMR 37

Tights and windbreaker, light gloves.  Really quiet day on The Mountain - didn't see another rider going up or down until Junction and only one car.

Wildlife Encounter:  deer at the vineyard

Wildlife Encounter:  coyote above the Zigzag

Wildlife Encounter:  turkeys at the Upper Ranch

Work is progressing on fire cleanup and repair.  Lots of burned trees near power lines have been cleared away, lots of burned rubble has been cleared away, and there's a new picnic table at Grapevine.  Also the Lower Summit work has re-commenced with concrete and paving nearly done.

Lots and lots of people coming up while I was descending - big groups of people... maybe everybody just decided to sleep in today.

Dudley Driveby... about the same place as last week.

Pain face going up the wall.

2013 SMR 36

Nice weather today after a very windy week.  I was expecting to see a lot of fallen tree branches but the road was clean.

JB still hasn't fixed his bottom bracket - it's become a running joke.

JB started up to the Summit with me but then his knee started hurting so he turned around at Toyon.

Warmer and windy up past Blue Oak.
 I unzipped my windbreaker and it flapped around in the wind,
giving my shadow the appearance of a superhero with a cape.

Bianchi Boy passed me twice but stopped at picnic areas
after each time, and I don't think he did The Summit.

Camera check - sat.

Dudley Drive-by above Juniper.

Clear, clean, blue sky: tastes like November in NorCal.

Triple Crown guy and his friend Pannier Guy.

Wildlife Encounter:  Coyote at Diablo Ranch on the descent.

Wildlife Encounter:  Jackrabbit below the Gate on the descent.

Deed of Chivalry:  Saw a little loose dog starting to cross busy Walnut Avenue so I warned the traffic behind me and then stopped to rescue him.  He was a friendly little fellow and came right up to me.  One of the drivers also stopped and we tried to call the number on his tag but it had been disconnected   ;-(    Driver offered to accept responsibility for finding the owner so I continued on home.

2013 SMR 35

Tire was flat last night so I fixed it then instead of this morning.

Eight at the Gate.

Sun is looking us right in the eye as we go up NGR.

What's JB smiling about?

Friendly Bianchi girl chats us up.
She said she came from Palo Alto to ride
Diablo with her dad who hadn't yet arrived at Junction...
she DROPPED her DAD!!

I was hoping for a cool shot of a rider descending
with this burned up terrain in the background...
but it didn't happen.

I thought of the coolest caption while I was riding up The Wall -
but then the blood supply to my memory banks was interrupted.

Excursion to the newly-finished observation deck... looks nice.

I've never done this hike... maybe someday.

Looking toward Central Valley

 

This shapely rider carved the corners like an artist, but
she didn't have much for top-end speed

Two dudes, abiding.

2013 SMR 34

First ride of Daylight Wasting Time.  Still pretty cold on the ride out though so I went with full tights.  I need to think about getting some new winter gloves soon.

Me and JB got to The Gate at about the same time.

This morning my rear tire was completely flat - this is the tire that I changed after I had the gash last weekend so that's pretty strange.  I pumped it up and hoped it would hold for the day, but I should've checked it last night.  Anyway, it's still fully pressurized in the late afternoon so who knows what happened?

Eleven summits in the last 14 weeks - only missed for 1) fire closure,  2) Veteran's Century, and 3) Foxy's Fall Century.

This guy spotted my camera and put on his pain face.

In a still shot, you can't tell who's passing whom.

Lower Summit parking lot is freshly re-paved.

Hey, the observation deck is open again!

I just liked the perspective on this one.

2013 SMR 33

Cooler than last week, but not by much.

Last ride of Pacific Daylight Time - we were staring into the sun for a good bit of the trip... that'll be different next week.

JB was a little late to the Gate, but I wasn't in a hurry.  We had an enjoyable journey.

Wildlife Encounter:  A HAWK!  You can't always tell if a hawk's a hawk in the air, but when they're perched on a naked tree branch they have that distinctive profile and you're sure.

The Mountain abides, and life fights back from the fire damage.

About three miles from home I had a blowout - didn't think I ran over anything but something made a big gash out of my rear tire.  I wasn't sure a boot would hold but I stuck a dollar bill in there and only enough pressure in the new tube to be rideable and made it home OK.  Put on my last reserve tire this afternoon - time to re-stock the rubber.

2013 SMR 32

First ride of the season in tights and a light jacket.  Pretty cool on the way out, but it warmed up nicely.

JB's first ride since returning from Europe - he hadn't seen the fire damage.

One more week before Daylight Wasting Time begins - when it's light earlier in the morning maybe it won't be so cold at the start.

Hey - they patched Wounded Knee!

Gratuitous photo of biker chicks.

Here's an angle you don't see very often - on The Wall

Foxy's Fall Century - 50km Family Route

Fun day on the tandem with Diablo Daughter and her friend from the neighborhood on his MTB.

Nice weather, great folks.

2013 Foxy's Fall Century - 50km Family Ride from Diablo Scott on Vimeo.

2013 Veteran's Victory Velo - Devil Mountain Century

A wonderful ride put on by an organization that trains and educates wounded veterans to re-integrate into society and the workforce. 

I didn't think the battery on my Android phone would record Strava for the whole 100-miles, so I got this little back-up thingy... works great, doubles your phone life.

Bonus points if you can identify the mountain on my home screen.

First 50 miles went great - paced myself well over Diablo and up Morgan Territory.  Then played it safe going down the Plunge but soon realized I couldn't shift into my big chainring.  Turned out to be a cable housing split that I couldn't fix.  I was stuck in my little ring for the remainder of the ride so after the lunch stop in Livermore I decided to skip the Foothill Road section and take a shortcut back to the finish - saved me about 9 miles.

Wildlife Encounters: turkeys, hawks, and a peacock!

Really Diablo-riffic video to click on:

2013 Veteran's Victory Velo from Diablo Scott on Vimeo.

2013 Diablo Challenge Volunteer

Today I give back to the Diablo cycling community by volunteering for the Diablo Challenge and Save Mount Diablo.

My task was to load the backpacks and gear up in my truck and drive to the Summit where riders collected them after finishing.  Brought along Diablo Daughter and her boyfriend and they were a big help.

Local legend Nate English dusted everyone to no one's surprise, but didn't beat the time of the top Amgen Tour of California pro's.

Among the other riders was blog reader Curtis, who says a lot of the traffic to his BLOG comes from people clicking through from mine, so go check it out, read his inspirational story, see the Scott&Curtis selfie, and leave him a nice comment.

Rick rode with his Kovarus team and had a superb end to his racing season - I'll see him again next week for the veteran's century.

Low-production video of the events below:

Challenge from Diablo Scott on Vimeo.

2013 SMR 31

After 17,000 miles on my Klein, the brakes finally needed to be replaced.  It was easier than I thought and a very satisfying procedure.

No sense skimping on such a critical item... get the good stuff.

The pads have a little allen screw to hold them
in the holder thing.  Check out how much I've
been missing.

Old pad on the left, new pad on the right.  Had to loosen my
cable up to get the new shoes over the tire.

Wear indicators worn out.  Also, little bits of metal, and the rubber
is kind of hard making for sub-optimal performance.

Pad comparison.  That little screw nub doesn't appear
to have any function at all.

A little screw to hold the pad in the shoe, a bigger
screw to hold the shoe on the caliper, and a functionless
nub... pretty simple.

So new brakes installed and I had a luxurious braking experience today.

Diablo Shoutout to Ranger Carl

Burned manzanita (?) patch.

Diablo Shoutout to blog-reader Keith

Three porta-potties for 1,000 riders on tomorrow's Diablo Challenge.
Plan ahead challengers.

Some kind of running event on The Mountain this morning as well.

AnotherWallVideo from Diablo Scott on Vimeo.

2013 SMR 30

Seven Summit Saturdays in 8 weeks... only missed the fire day.

Tarantula Tally:  two crawlers

Lower Summit parking lot is usually packed
on Challenge day, wonder what they're going to do?

Wildlife Encounter:  turkeys at the Ranch, deer at Chainbuster

Enjoyable solo ride today.  The burn damage was more stark without all the fog.  There were crews working on cutting down the burned trees near power lines.

Rear tire went soft near the Grapevine Picnic area - I didn't find any sharp thingy so I was a little worried it was still in there and my repair wouldn't last either, but it held up fine.

Fixin the flat at anti-gravity corner

I don't know if I've adequately described the Lower Lot situation - view my Diablo Fly By video.

Mount Diablo Summit Lower Lot 2013-09-28 from Diablo Scott on Vimeo.



So many people riding this morning that I quit trying to pass them all and just went with the flow.


Missed the Jump from Diablo Scott on Vimeo.