Diablo Junction 16 miles

Warm and breezy this afternoon. I missed my ride last Saturday so I wasn’t sure if I could maintain my streak of good showings. A good group from work was coming so I waited at the Gate for them. No one was there yet though when the Diablo Cyclist peloton rolled by so I started up.

Cadex guy was there, and the Giant guy, a rider named Jack, and an MTB rider with a Trek Y-Foil going curiously fast, and one regular guy I hadn’t seen in a while but who does the Death Ride and Climb to Kaiser. Cadex guy had some borrowed HED carbon wheels on and he started to have shifting problems so he fell back and Climb to Kaiser guy dropped back to help him. That left Jack, Giant guy, Y-foil guy and me. Unlike the previous couple of Wednesdays, things splintered up pretty quickly tonight. We were all pretty close to each other but gaps of 50 to 100 meters opened up and started to grow by the Upper Washout; we were all single and there were no little gruppettos but we were all riding pretty much the same pace. Kaiser guy soon caught back up and came by all of us, taking his position in first place. Nineteen minutes flat at three miles to go… excellent: sub 40 for sure.

The last three miles didn’t see any shakeup in the order. The gaps got a little bigger, I got well clear of the Y-foil guy, finally. We passed a couple guys who started while I was waiting at the Gate. I had some encouraging split times and rolled across the line at 38m05s. That’s an excellent time but I’ve got this hunch I could knock a couple minutes off if I work at it. A sub 35 would be a real diamond in my palmares.

Here’s a list of my best Junction rides of all time:

1 37m05s May 2004
2 38m05s June 2004
3 38m30s June 2004
4 38m32s August 2001
5 38m52s April 2003

Six hundred times up North Gate Road in the last thirteen years and my best three rides ever have been in the last two months. Exciting!

The rest of the Diablo Cyclists rolled in gradually including Brian on his new single-speed Quickbeam. Then the rest of my group from work including JB on the Atlantis, Jeff, Robin on some borrowed ‘70’s vintage 10-speed; “it’s way faster than my mountain bike!”, Nicole (who’s trying to stay out of her granny gear), and finally Amanda on her MTB who timed herself with the clock on her cell phone – 69 minutes, probably a PB.