Gate-Junction-Summit-Gate

This morning's contingent: me and JB.

Cool and very windy - not enough to make bike handling a problem but enough to really slow us down and also I had to be very careful with the snot rockets.

For a long time we were chasing a guy about 60 seconds ahead of us and we weren't making any progress and then suddenly he turned around and went back down.

It got warmer and calmer somewhere around Son of Chainbuster.

Dudley Driveby: not today, hope he's OK.

Then a guy in a Freddie Rodriguez US Champion jersey came around us pretty fast but his bike was really squeaky. I tried a long time trial but JB passed me and stayed ahead to the line.

Lots of riders at the Junction, I talked to one guy who had a custom Waterford and he said he had it made to match the geometry of his Eddy Merckx Corsa so we had some things in common. There was also a couple who was waiting for their son to ride up - they said he rides the Mountain a lot and has a Klein Quantum Pro! Can't believe I haven't seen him before. Then JB went down and I started up Summit Road.

Wildlife Encounter: a tarantula, this time I stopped to snap a photo.

There were a whole bunch of these cotton-like plants all over the Mountain.

There was some kind of event at Juniper - I got the idea it might have been a Buddhist retreat.

Seen from Mt. Diablo: Mt. Tamalpais

On the way up I had fun exploring some of the picnic areas - the DiabloScott challenge for today is to put all these signs in order from lowest elevation to highest.