Diablo Junction plus SGR, 33 miles

The ride was to start at 8:30 today but I got there at 8 and found JB’s note under a rock saying he was up but would be back. I rode up to the “curvy road next 6.5 miles) sign and then my rear tire went soft.

Pulled out my flat fixing stuff and got to work – found a little shred of a thorn in there that was difficult to remove. JB came down and stopped about a minute later, then Mark came down with his new custom Rivendell cyclocross bike so I had some good conversation while I got the tire back on. His bike had a front derailleur as a chain watcher over his single chain ring with a 9-speed cassette and he said he didn’t get any chain rub over the whole range. It had a single bottle cage, cantilever brakes, threadless headset, and with sew-up cyclocross tires mounted it weighs 18.5 pounds. The paint job was a nice, flat grey with one extra Rivendell panel where the seat tube bottle cage would normally go.

So back to the Gate where we met up with Rick and started back up. I did a good effort up the Bump but then it started to get way too warm for the clothes I was wearing. We all rode together then until the Upper Ranch where JB started to fade. I was on Rick’s wheel thinking JB would launch an attack from far behind and that’s what happened when we got to the Ranger House. Rick tried to follow him but I just sat up.

After a while at the Junction we went down South Gate Road to the Kiosk where I turned around but JB and Rick went all the way down for a Bump de Bump. The top part of SGR is a lot nicer than the lower part because you don’t see all the urban sprawl down in Danville.

Still don’t have the new derailleur installed on my Merckx – it won’t go high enough on the braze on to clear the big chainring without bumping it. This operation is going to take longer than I thought, hope I don’t have to file the slot bigger.