Bump d’Bump - 34 miles

Looked to be the hottest Saturday morning of the year so far – sleeveless jersey and frozen bottle weather. I saw Mark A. getting his bike ready when I rode by his house, then he caught up with me at the light on Ygnacio; said he was beating the heat and wanted to do some trail riding before the USA v Italia World Cup game. I stopped at the Gate and he went on. I decided today I would not go for a sub 21 big gear ride but would only use lower gears when it would help me go faster and when I needed to to hold JB’s wheel.

JB showed up right on time and two guys who looked about our speed started up just in front of us. We let them go and stayed a ways behind them for a long time. We were pretty close behind them when two other guys (Pegasus team) passed all four of us fast and easy – not even breathing hard.

JB told me that he usually makes a smoothie for breakfast and puts some in his bike bottle. Today though, he was out of strawberries so he made a smoothie out of broccoli and walnuts (!) He admitted it didn’t have the restorative qualities of his usual concoction.

At the Bump, one of the first two guys attacked his buddy and got a big gap – JB and I stayed behind the slower guy. Now it was two Pegasus guys, single guy, another guy, and me and JB. Then we got to Son of Chainbuster and JB tried to launch one around the single guy and I accelerated around the outside and kept it up. So now I was in front of JB and stayed there the rest of the way to Junction (42m26s) with him finishing about a minute back.

Yes, nice and warm at the Junction. We decided to go down South Gate Road and back up. It really felt good and cool to descend through the shade of those big trees. We also saw Mark A on his way up the road so I don’t know what trails he rode to get way over there.

We turned around at the Tire Poppers but JB forgot to downshift beforehand so he struggled for a minute to get in a groove. I opined that most of the people who don’t ride Diablo regularly and the riders who come from farther away, prefer riding on the south side because it’s a little easier and has more varied scenery and for that reason the average speed of riders on this side is a little slower than on the north. There are certainly plenty of fast riders here, and there are usually more riders here, and there are more slow riders here than on the other side so you wind up passing more people than you do on NGR… and that’s always fun.

Then a really fast guy passed us, and then a triathlete guy passed us and I tried to stay with him. Suddenly JB appeared to bonk but I kept going with triathlete guy, passing him at the SGR ranger kiosk. I felt pretty good and kept on pounding but the triathlete guy passed me back. So my SGR time from the Tire Poppers was just under 37minutes and JB was way back. I think he’ll be buying some more strawberries this week.