Diablo Junction 18 miles

Adam said today was the day he was going to break 30 minutes; his plan was to work with Mark, who can do a 28 on any given day. But he didn’t have on his race wheels and it was damn windy in the early afternoon – I wasn’t convinced.

I got to the Gate just a little early and I saw Adam, Mark, and two other guys approach so I got on quick and grabbed Adam’s wheel. I knew JB and Nicole also were coming but I figured I’d see them later. So across the line there were five of us but one guy didn’t try to stay on so then there were four of us. I hung on for a couple hundred meters and then I got removed too. Then the three of them disappeared into the distance. A little while later the fourth guy passed me up too so then I was alone.

Coming around the lower hairpins I could see the Bump up ahead and a rider that looked like Adam was on his own; if true that would mean he couldn’t ride Mark’s wheel and likely wouldn’t make 30 minutes… but maybe it was somebody else. Then JB caught me… he said he was only 10 seconds behind Adam at the Gate but I didn’t see him there. We rode together for a while and passed up a few people. My 3mtg time was 20min so I thought I could probably just break 40. JB dropped me before Clavicle Cracker and quickly opened up a gap of almost a minute and then stayed there the rest of the way. With about 400 to go I saw two Diablo Cyclists coming up fast behind me so I poured on the juice and tried to stay away from them. One of the guys was Jay K who yelled at me to quit looking back and just go. My Junction time: 39m59s.

Adam didn’t make it. Jay told me about his recent trip to Italy including a pilgrimage to Madonna del Ghisallo and a crash on some cobblestones. There was a huge crowd of cyclists up there tonight – and all was well with the world.

On the way down, JB and I came across Nicole who just got a new saddle and a water bottle rack that goes behind the saddle and she wanted to finish so we turned around and rode back up to the Junction (hardly anyone left there by then).