Rick Writes

Today we have a guest blogger - see below.

Also, please notice that I've added Maynard Hershon's blog to my "Highly Recommended" list of links. Maynard's columns in the back of Winning magazine were always the first thing I read when it came back in the 80's. I've got a hundred or so "The Bike Shop" stories that I saved when I tossed the rest of the issue; some day I'll scan them in. I met Maynard one time on a Cal cycling team training ride and he was an unassuming guy and I tried to act cool. Please click on his link and maybe he'll see that you came from my blog and maybe he'll come here and remember me. (Hi Maynard!)

Rick sent some photos too but they were embedded in an MS Word document and getting them out of Word and uploaded to Blogger is a confusing html-headache.

Guest Blogger Rick reporting

Today Scott was absent as he and Amy are celebrating her birthday – Happy Birthday Amy!
I arrived at the gate to find JB already there. I kept looking back down the road as I came from my car expecting him to be back there somewhere as he is usually the last to arrive. “You’re early” I said. “No, I’m on time!” was his reply. As we rolled out JB said his computer was still on the fritz, and he thought maybe the wire from the sensor was bad somewhere. I told him I had 7:38 on my clock since leaving my car.

The temperature was 48 at the gate and JB said it was also 48 at the summit. We talked about how nice a day it was and expected it to get much warmer. It really felt spring like.

Wildlife encounter: a lone coyote standing on the East Ridge just past the dips.

We went fairly leisurely until about Big Shady Oak when JB pushed the pace. We both crossed the line together at the Junction at about 49:20.

The temperature had risen to 58 by the junction so we shed layers before continuing up. The wind was picking up by about Juniper and we worried that it might really be strong at the top. This turned out not to be the case; there were a few gusts before Devil’s Elbow, but not bad.
JB was felling low on gas and commented that the only reason he was going all the way up was to see the view today. It turned out to be a good one indeed.