Diablo Junction plus South Gate and Blackhawk 40 miles

Nicole talked us into the 8:30 start time again, I have to say I don't mind too much. It was COLD when I left and I had on my winter jacket and full gloves but by the time I got to Northgate Road I was already too warm. I got to the Gate at 8:10 and saw JB's rock. I knew I'd never catch him so I stopped and tried to reset the clock on my Flight Deck but I had forgotten how and wound up resetting everything to zero EXCEPT the clock. I figured I could re-enter the data when I got home because I keep track of that kind of stuff, and Flight Decks allow you to enter the odometer so you don't lose that number on a battery change or screw up. What I didn't realize was that I also reset the speed to kilometers per hour so I didn't have my usual reference units telling me how well I was going. I can work just fine in metric units, but I just didn't know if 25kph was faster or slower than I usually go in this or that particular section. Also made me realize how much feedback I do get from my computer - I don't even know if I’m having a good ride without one!

Anyway I rode up a ways and then turned around. I found Rick and Nicole coming up so I turned around again, and a little ways farther up we saw JB but he had to go back to the Gate for a an official odometer data point. We all rode together until the bottom of the Bump when Nicole dropped back. Stayed together for another couple of miles and then Rick made the first move. JB and I came along for a while and then JB tried something. After Chainbuster I dropped back and let them go. I was maybe 20 seconds behind and saw that Rick was ahead but JB made a failed attempt at a sprint so Rick was the strongest today.

Product Review: PowerBar Endurance Sports Drink - Got a free sample of this stuff from Performance a few weeks ago and decided to try it instead of my usual Cytomax. On the Diablo Scale of 1 to 10, this gets a 2. Tastes bad, doesn't mix well, no apparent performance benefit. Any future free samples I get will be summarily shit canned. Only redeeming feature - it didn't give me a stomach ache.

We didn't wait around long at the Junction. Somebody said "Blackhawk?" and off we went. I led the gruppetto down South Gate Road but probably not as fast as Rick or JB would have gone. When we got to Blackhawk Road I started dishing out a little pain myself. Opened up a gap on both of them and increased it all the way to Camino Tasajara. After that I waited for them and when they caught me I rode their pace for a while but still sprinted up the little hills just to see them suffer. On Danville Blvd I pulled most of the way and Rick held on but JB fell way back and when he rejoined he made some excuses about how slow he was but he didn't even convince himself. Felt good to be on the giving end for a while… maybe had something to do with watching a tape of Boonen's amazing 2005 Paris-Roubaix this morning.