Wednesday - Mt. Diablo to Muir picnic area, 22 miles.

Seems like forever since we've had good riding weather on a Wednesday after work ride. Today it was in the mid 90's. Adam's friend Leif was planning on joining us today - Adam said he is a time trial specialist. Also Nicole's bike was damaged in transit coming back from the Seattle to Portland ride so she was going to ride her mountain bike. I had my two bottles of Cytomax perfectly frozen as I left work and I planned on getting a little bit of a head start to maybe play rabbit for Adam and Leif.

I started out pretty fast thinking I could do a pretty good time despite the heat but by the time I got to Clavicle Cracker turn I had to reduce my speed some to not overheat. I kept looking for the dogs to chase me down but I didn't see anybody until Leif passed me up around Son of Chainbuster; I hadn't met him before but he had a Davis Bicycle Club jersey on and he looked like a time trialer so I said "You must be Leif" and he said he was and kept on going. I took a time check and figured that he was doing about 2 minutes per mile faster than me! When I was about 200 meters from the Junction I turned around and saw Adam coming up fast so I threw my best sprint at him and managed to hold him off until the last 50 meters when I gave up and he came around me easily. JB showed up a few minutes later. Leif's time was 30m20s, Adam's was 32+, JB's was 37+, and mine was 43m48s. The frozen Cytomax plan worked really well with the melting rate just a little faster than the drinking rate so I still had nice cold fluids at the end of the climb.

Adam, Leif, and JB started up to the summit pretty quickly but I needed more time to recover from the heat so I hung around for a while. I told them I'd cover any attacks from the rear and one of the other guys there thought that was pretty funny. The Diablo Cyclists started showing up pretty soon after that and a lot of them had done the Death Ride last weekend so there were some good stories. Apparently the weather was perfect and that's unusual in Markleville.

I finally started up Summit Road about 10 minutes after the other three guys and rode an easy pace up to the Muir picnic area where I met JB coming down so I turned around and came down with him. We met up with Nicole at the top of the bump where she had finished her mountain bike ride and we all (including Adam and Leif) regrouped at her car and then split up for the evening.

Sent in my check for the Marin Century this week. Sarkis is going too but we haven't convinced JB to do it yet. Rick is interested but hasn't committed so far. E-mail me if you're doing it! DiabloScott@Terra.es