Diablo Junction 26 miles

I was first to the Gate this morning, JB showed up a few minutes later. The Devil Mountain Double was today too so there were lots of double century riders coming down from the Summit in groups of three and four at mile 30 of their epic and grueling journey. We expected Rick and Nicole to show up a little late so JB and I did a warm up ride to the Double Dips and back. At 8:10 I called Rick and he said they weren’t coming.

It was a pretty warm morning and JB was in his vest and arm warmers so he stopped at the Gate to doff them and I joked that I was going to attack. I set off by myself, not too fast, fully expecting him to catch me within a minute or so but he didn’t. I figured if he was a little tired when he caught up to me I might be able to stay with him since I also noticed he had forgotten his water bottle (again) and he might have some performance deterioration so I picked up the pace a bit just for fun. Near the bottom of the Bump (still alone) I noticed a group of four fast riders approaching me, one of whom I reasoned was JB. Turns out it was a gruppetto of leg shavers with club kits (one was Galaxy Granola, I didn’t recognize the others) so I didn’t know how far back JB was and I started to think he’d had a mechanical or something. Anyway, I stayed with these guys up the Bump and felt pretty proud of myself and one of them even started to fade before the Ranches. Another one of them opened up about a 1 minute gap in front of us and I rode behind the two guys in the middle. The strong gusty winds above the Ranches were a serious challenge and I used these two guys as wind blockers whenever I could but didn’t glue myself to their wheels. I did the last three miles in under 20 minutes and finished in 40m39s, which was excellent given the wind conditions and slow start. JB showed up a few minutes later, saying that he couldn’t get his cyclo-computer to reset at the start and his time was 40m41s (2 sec slower than me!). The guy in the group of four that flared out finished a few minutes behind JB so he must have really bonked.

We watched another dozen riders or so come in to the Junction from the north and the south, and then Peter came down from the Summit. Peter and I reminisced about Primavera last week and then we all went our own ways.


I’m riding the Tour de Cure charity ride for the American Diabetes Association. Please visit my sponsorship page and donate $5 – I’d really appreciate it. Thanks. Scott