Diablo Junction, 20 miles

Interesting group this afternoon. Three of Adam’s racing buddies decided to join us, and so did one of our new interns at work, plus the usual gang minus a few folks, and a big contingent of Diablo Cyclists.

The Diablo Cyclists left just before JB and I did, so we didn’t see much of them until the finish. JB said he can breathe as hard as he wants to now, but still gets some painful ribcage spasms when he pulls on the handlebars or puts too much weight on his hands. He also doesn’t have his #1 bike repaired yet and he’s lost a lot of aerobic capacity since the accident 6 weeks ago, so he rides his Trek 520 touring bike in low gear and stays in the saddle. I didn’t have any trouble keeping up with him but didn’t really feel like a super hard effort so I mashed my big gears at low rpm most of the way. I have no idea if there’s any training benefit to that but it was more interesting than just twiddling along in a low gear, especially since we weren’t going that fast. We did pass a few other riders on the way up, but none of the Diablo Cyclists.

Adam and his friends (Justin, Leif, and Tom) got a late start, passed JB and me around the ranches and kept going. They were starting to break up a bit with Justin really ascending well, Adam trying to hold things together, then Leif (also recovering from an injury, and Tom trying to hang on. Leif got a new Specialized bike with a sloping top tube – a Roubaix I think, but not the carbon fiber one. As JB and I got near the Junction he started to pick up his speed – still no trouble for me to keep up. We even started to catch Tom and then Adam, Leif, and Justin circled back to ride us in. Adam challenged me to outsprint Tom so I did and crossed the line first, but no one else was sprinting! Adam and his subgroup continued on up to the Summit.

At the Junction the Diablo Cyclists folks were all joking that Brian was famous now because he got his picture in the Rivendell Reader with his new Quickbeam.



An interesting bike but I wouldn’t have guessed there’d be much of a market niche for it. Find out more by clicking here: Quickbeam by Rivendell Bicycle Works.

Amanda, our intern, is a senior at Cal and she has a typical Berkeley commute bike – unsprung MTB with slick tires and stickers all over the frame. She’d never done any riding like this and she’d never been on Diablo at all before today. Nicole rode with her and pointed out all the locations that had names our historical significance. JB and I circled back to bring them in but they were quite a ways down. They wound up finishing in 78 minutes, which is pretty slow, but Amanda hung in and seemed to enjoy herself. She’ll certainly do it again, but probably won’t become a regular.

JB should have his Rivendell Atlantis ready by Saturday. He says it looks kind of funny with his lightweight wheels in the frame with clearance for big fat touring tires and fenders. He also got some new rims for his Della Santa so that should be ready before long also.