Diablo Junction – 23 Miles

I missed a ride last week for a rare weekend business trip so I was committed to riding today no matter what the weather. Luckily it wasn’t too bad. Not cold at all but lots of rain over night and more in the forecast. It wasn’t raining when I rolled out the door though so I was expecting a good ride.

Got to the Gate a little late and saw JB’s rock so I started up right away. Took off my gloves and unzipped my jersey and took in the sights. The normal streams were full of fast flowing water, there was even a miniature Niagara Falls near the farmer’s house at the bottom. The ditches were full of running snow melt, and in the few places that were flat, there were ponds of still water.

I first saw JB just below the Bump – he was probably a half mile ahead of me but I must have been going faster. With three miles to go I almost caught him but he apparently decided he didn’t want me to because after that the gap just got bigger. With two miles to go the rain started falling but it was just enough to be annoying. There was a ranger in his pickup who was kicking rocks off the road and he said to me “I think these little ones are the cause of most broken clavicles.” I agreed and explained that we called the corner just beyond there “Clavicle Cracker”.

So I get close to Chainbuster and JB has pulled far enough away that I knew I wasn’t going to catch him, and I pulled into the Junction probably a minute behind him. It was still drizzling and another rider came down from the Summit – he said it was even wetter up there. So JB and I decided going straight back down made the most sense.

After the ride I made a trip to the Performance store in Walnut Creek with my daughter. Dear wife had a couple of $10 vouchers from the expired Team Performance membership and I had a $10 off coupon if I spent more than $50. We decided to get some PowerBars and new tires for Eddy. If you’ve ever been there, you know there are some “Performance Customer Only” parking spots behind the store – well those were all full but I sort of thought it was OK to park in one of those other spots back there – NOT. Got a $20 parking ticket that blew all my savings from the coupons. So I won’t be doing much shopping at Performance any more – it’s not their fault that I got a ticket of course but that’s only part of it. Without the “Team Performance” incentive there’s not much to get me in there – their bicycle selection is really unexciting. Mostly I’ve bought tires, tubes, and Cytomax there for the good pricing but I think I’ll get that stuff off the web from now on and get other stuff from the smaller stores that I appreciate like Encina Cycle Center, Pleasant Hill Cyclery, Danville Pedaler, and Pegasus.