Diablo Bump de Bump - 37 miles

Well it's Memorial Day and the plan was to meet JB at the gate at 8, ride to the Junction and then down the South Gate to meet up with Rick and Nicole and then come back up and over. Well JB didn't show up so I rode North Gate Road by myself - didn't think I was doing a super effort but I did 41'28" which is definitely a decent time. There were a lot of riders on the mountain, a few joggers and hikers also, but almost no cars. A lot of the riders seemed to be first timers and I passed quite a few on the way up and gave them all friendly encouragements. Up around chainbuster turn I caught a guy on an Air Friday - a folding bike with a Softride type of seat suspension - interesting bike. I waited around the Junction until 9 o'clock thinking JB might shop up but he didn't.

Nicole said she and Rick would be at the Athenian School at the bottom of South Gate Road by 9:30 so I rode down to meet them. About halfway down I saw a guy coming up on a unicycle - there are a couple of these guys who do that for the Diablo Challenge in October so I suspect he was one of them. At the school I waited around until 9:40 and decided Rick and Nicole weren't going to come either so I went back up by myself. A couple fast guys passed me toward the bottom but I still held a pretty good pace at 39:28 from the lower gate. Then I rolled right on through the Junction without stopping and continued down the other side on my way home. There were even more riders coming up North Gate Road by this time (and lots more cars too) and I noticed quite a few weren't wearing helmets. That kind of bothered me because helmets have been so in the news recently. Some of them were obviously beginners who probably hadn't ever considered helmet use, some were more experienced riders who had their helmets strapped to their handlebars (ostensibly to use on the way back down), and at least a couple of them were excellent riders who eschewed helmet usage for some unknown reason… it's so rare to see a helmetless rider anymore and to see so many of them on one day, like I said, kind of bothered me. Other than that it was a great day on the bike - as a bonus, I clicked over 500 miles on my Flight Deck's odometer which of course equals the total mileage on my Klein.

mailto: diabloscott@terra.es