Diablo Summit 24 miles

I was the first one at the Gate this morning.  Down below the Gate they’ve put down new asphalt and they left all the loose gravel on top, I could hear the little pebbles spraying up and dinging the paint on my bike… grrr.  JB showed up early too and as we wondered where Peter might be he rode down from his first ascent to Junction – must have started about 7am.  I had good legs this morning and the weather was perfect; cool but a little windy and I was kind of annoyed that we were riding such a cyclotouriste pace.  When we got to the Bump, JB said to me “I hope you’re reveling in your ability to drop me at will, because this atrocity will NOT LAST!”  I told him “Well, it’s better than the other way around!” 

Finally Peter and I started eating up the road and lost JB.  I rode Peter’s wheel for a mile or so and then we rode up to a couple guys near the upper ranch who looked like posers; in fact I saw them go through the Gate while I was waiting there.  Anyway when they saw us one of them pulled ahead of his riding buddy and took the middle of the lane.  Peter called out “on your left” and the guy didn’t move – in fact he hugged the painted line like he was trying to block us!  He didn’t seem to be a jerk, just stupid, and maybe he actually thought he was leading a 3-man pace line or something.  We stayed back enough to avoid any stupid moves on his part and in about 30 seconds he bonked and we rode by him without saying anything although there were plenty of things I thought about saying. 

So I still felt good and figured I’d pull up even with Peter or maybe even let him sit on but before I knew it I had opened up a gap.  I tried to slow down a bit because I thought it was too early to go but he didn’t catch up so I got aero and pushed it all the way to the line for a 39m41s elapsed time.  Peter later said he just gave up when he saw the gap, that’s not like him but he had already been up once this morning. 

I didn’t even get off my bike, just rode a few laps around the Junction parking area and when JB got there he went straight up Summit Road so Peter and I headed up too.  It was the final ITT stage in the Tour (TIOOYK) today so we were all doing our Powerbar commercial self-talk.  JB fell back again and Peter pulled ahead of me above Juniper but I almost caught up with him at the Summit Wall.  He said, “You win based on total time.” Which was cool because he was 3 or 4 minutes later than me to the Junction.  Good day on the mountain – I felt a little like the “patron” of Diablo.

Peter was planning on doing South Gate and then back to the Summit again, and JB had something going on, and I had to watch my tape of the ITT stage of the TdF on OLN.