Wednesday June, 25 2003 Diablo Junction 36 miles.

Sorry for the late post, BLOGGER.COM was unavailable on Wednesday for editing.

While flipping through my bike notebook on Tuesday night I noticed something that really shocked me: the tooth progression on my cassette was not what I thought it was! I've got a 9-speed 12x27 and I thought that the four lowest gears were 21-23-25-27 but it turns out they're 19-21-24-27. That means that most of the time I've been riding one gear higher than I thought I was! When I climbed up the bump (10%) on Diablo in a 23, I was really in a 21! Suddenly I feel much more studly. We'll see how this new knowledge affects what gears I actually use now. So anyway Tuesday night I re-programmed my Flight Deck to show the correct gears.

Usually on Wednesdays I drive to work with my bike on the roof but today was a "Spare the Air" day so I decided to ride in on my Klein. As the day heated up I started to imagine how hot it was going to get in the afternoon on the mountain. JB left early and went home before starting the ride and Nicole was going to wait until 6 hoping it would start to cool off by then. I had two bananas, a Powerbar, and a Clif Bar for lunch, another Powerbar at 3:30, and a Clif Shot at 5 o'clock. I skipped the Coke today because I thought it was giving me a stomach ache. Turns out I got one anyway on the ride so that's good - I can go back to drinking a can before my ride now.

As I got to North Gate Road I saw all the Diablo Cyclists gathering at the church. I rode on up to the gate where JB and Sarkis were chatting. We decided not to wait and began our ride at a pace appropriate for the heat. Sarkis told me he's getting serious about buying a new bike and I think he's pretty much sold on a Calfee. He's such a great climber on his heavy old steel Colnago that he's truly worthy of something as nice as a Calfee. JB had a BBQ to go to after the ride so he dropped Sarkis and me at the ranches. Sarkis kept looking back for the big pack of DCers to pass us up but it never came - they were all being ultra careful with the heat also. Finally at Chainbuster a group of 4 guys including Ron and the tall guy with the new Romulus caught up with us and I picked up my speed to stay with them until the Junction. Training Note: Seems like that was about the right amount of lunch to have.

JB turned around pretty quick to get to his party and I went down South Gate to the kiosk where I turned around and filled up my water bottle. South Gate Road was much shadier and even pleasantly cool in spots. I could tell though that my muscles were starting to rebel because they pretty much did what they wanted to and didn't pay much attention when I tried to accelerate. I saw all the DCers coming down as I was on my way back up and then I finally found Nicole about a mile below the Junction on North Gate Road. She had stopped a couple times to rest in the shade and didn't make it all the way so we both went back down. I then rode back to the office to get my backpack and then home for a 36 mile day. Looks like I'll have better than 400 miles for the month (with no centuries!) and way over 1800 for the year before July 1. I think my next century will be the Marin Century on August 3; I did this once 10 years ago on the back of a tandem with JB on the hottest day in history. Hopefully this time will be a little less life-threatening.

e-mail me if you're doing Marin!
diabloscott@terra.es