Saturday, November 29, 2008

Gate-Junction-Tire Poppers-Gate

Woke up to wet thick fog; low visibility and dripping trees. I grabbed Eddy and pumped him up.

Came upon JB and Rick on NGR; JB was fixing a flat. He has a new technique of putting a stem nut on the inside of his rim and another on the outside so that the tube/valve joing will ostensibly experience no wiggling forces from the pump. I remain skeptical as always about such things.

Rick said he was sure the fog would break because Pleasanton was clear and the fog was local to Walnut Creek. He was right, when we came up around Penny Lane everything suddenly changed - clear, bright, and really warm. I took off my gloves and unzipped my jacket.



It was also crazy windy in some sections - I was out of the saddle just trying to keep forward motion.

We only saw a couple riders on North Gate but there were a bunch of people at the Junction. This guy pulled the classic "slow motion topple stuck in toeclips" maneuver, and took down the guy next to him as well. I decided to immortalize his embarassment with a blog photo.



Then down to the Tire Poppers. SGR was a completely different world than NGR. It was clear and bright and warm and not windy, and there were dozens of riders. I did a quick turnaround and got a head start on JB and Rick and managed to stay ahead until about the Kiosk.

Ride back down NGR was a slow because the wind was still quite strong. Still fun but you have to know what to expect.

1 comment:

Donald said...

Hi Diablo Scott– Well that tricked me… I thought 8 years… WOW. Anyway… I think I got so caught up in the fact that I was feasting on all that great “Breaking Away” information I didn’t realize I failed to leave a comment. I do apologize for that and I will certainly check back in with Diablos Scott’s Bike Blog. Thanks Again!