Bump de Bump

Cool and breezy this morning. Met JB and Peter at the Gate and launched.

Peter got a new bike; A TREK 2.3. The less aggressive riding position is better for his back and the triple crank is better for his knees.

Scads of riders this morning and I felt pretty good - even tossed down a little sprint at the Junction.

Wildlife Encounter: black tail deer at the bottom of the Bump.

We all went down SGR. JB went on to Blackhawk but Peter and I turned around at the Tire Poppers and climbed back up.

These new markers are a culvert numbering system and don't have anything to do with distance.

Blog reader Nate from Ohio dropped me a note that the "butterfly" I photographed at the Junction a few weeks ago is actually a Ceanothus Silk Moth.

Thanks to absolutely fabulous nature photographer Bill Bouton and his Flickr account for this phenomenal photo.
http://www.flickr.com/people/billbouton/

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Wooooo-Hoooooo! Getting close now.

- COMFIRMATION -
Group Health Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic 2009

STP Rider : Diablo Scott

Your STP ride bib number is: 2067

Included with your STP registration, you will be receiving:
Jacket - L
1 Cool Tag

Paid for Packet Mailing? YES

I'm not worried about the mileage or the time, but I'm going to be in some serious pain at ride's end... that's a lot of weakness leaving my body.

2009 WNR 06

I was looking forward to the odometer effect on today's ride - putting the 10,000th mile on my Flight Deck and watch it "roll over" to 0000 - turns out though it has no trouble reading that high. I have never had a computer with an odometer that had so many digits. Possibly it will only read a "1" in the 10,000 place... I'll have to do another 9987 miles to find out I guess; maybe it goes to 99,999? I only use this computer on my Klein so that's a nice milestone for the whole bike, not just the computer.

It was pretty hot and I brought two frozen bottles of Cytomax... wasn't hot enough to melt them as fast as I wanted to drink though... must get a better system figured out. Lots of people on the Mountain tonight; I came upon Jeff near Chainbuster and finished going to the Junction with him.

Happened to see an old neighbor up there too, just looking at the wildlife with her son - they had driven up just for the afternoon and were walking along the road.

UPDATE: I checked my Owner's Manual. Sure enough, it's going to be a LOOOOONNNNGG time before I roll this baby over.

Gate - Junction - Juniper - Summit - Blackhawk - Peet's

So last weekend it was in the high 90's and today it was in the high 50's with cold wind and fog... I thought my tights and jacket were done for the year.

Met Rick at the Gate, no JB or Peter. There were a lot of riders on the Mountain this morning - seemed like a lot were Diablo noobs too because so many of them were stopped at various places along NGR.

So it was really windy at the bottom, then it got really foggy with just a breeze before the Junction and that's where JB showed up and we decided to go up. Then it cleared up really nice about Juniper and started to get warm... JB turned around but Rick's idea was Summit + Blackhawk so I went with that.

My legs were a little rubbery after the Summit but we still had a good run back to WC for a coffee.

2009 WNR 05

I figured it would be just me today but JB showed up at the Junction after I did. Started about 5:30 so most of the Diablo Cylists passed me at some point on the way up. Wasn't as hot as I was expecting but it was a little windy too.

This guy parked in front of me just as I was starting my ride. He pulled out a mountain bike from the back of his van and I noticed a folded up bike trailer in there as well but didn't give it much thought... we just kind of nodded hello and I left. I wondered about the LIVESTRONG decal - he must be really into it for some reason. On the way down I saw him coming up and he was towing that trailer I saw and he had a small child in there too... now I wonder what his story is.

Las Trampas with Team Club Sport

Rick's racing this weekend and JB's in Hawai'i so I decided to do the ride with the health club team. It was about 48 miles out to Las Trampas and back.

Marching orders from Mamacoach.

Roadkill observation: snake

Wildlife encounter: black tail deer



Started off with a group of 30! A few people turned around in Danville.

At the end of Bollinger Canyon Road

Not a bad bunch of riders, they mostly train for centuries and triathlons

It was kinda hot so the shady bits were nice.

Klein Krown goes to this Quantum

Soul mates

A bunch more riders turned back after Las Trampas and only four of us did the whole route over Crow Canyon.

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2009 WNR 04

Since it's bike to work week, I rode the Klein in to the office this morning and left my stuff in a locker for the afternoon ride. It's a nice ride to the Gate but it's a hassle to go back afterwards.

JB didn't show and I rode solo. Started to keep track of my "passed-em to passed-me" ratio but the denominator was increasing too rapidly.

Pay it Forward Moment: Found some sunglasses on the road and returned them to the owner at Junction (one of the passed-me guys).

Quite a lot of talk about the Davis Double this weekend, going to be hot - good luck to those guys.

Office to get my backpack and then home to beat on my new conga.

Gate Junction Hole Blvd

Perfect weather today, just me and JB.
Too many people passed us up on the way to Junction.
Roadkill observation: snake
Reminder to self... lube the cleats.

There was some kind of search and rescue practice going on at South Gate

2009 WNR 03

The weather report said showers this afternoon so I brought my foul weather bike to work this morning; still haven't cleaned him up and his chain is in serious need of some new lube and it didn't rain anyway.

Rode up with Ed who's also turning 50 next month and has some epic adventures planned but hasn't been road riding much recently so we stopped a couple times for breathers.

Think I saw a red tail hawk at Upper Washout.

Saw JB coming down at Big Shady Oak, he turned around and rode with us a while before turning back down.

Got a flat near the Ranger House just before Junction - I went 100 miles in the rain on Saturday with no problems and then I puncture on a dry day on the Mountain.

Nice day, not too cool, a few too many bugs.

2009 Wine Country Century

I always like this century - it's the one that most feels like home turf and this edition was to be my first century of my sixth decade so I was eager for a good result. Rick agreed to join me and we both signed up months ago which is good because it sold out very far in advance.

Watched the weather report all week and it became painfully obvious that we were in for some rain. Predictions were for periodic showers so I put my rain wheels on my foul weather bike and packed up all my get wet gear.

Pre-century parking lot ritual.

Rick came to my house and we drove my truck to Santa Rosa and looked at the sky and steeled ourselves for a long sloppy bike ride. Leaving the parking lot was the last time we would even consider not having our rain jackets on. By mile two it started raining and alternated between light drizzle and heavy showers the rest of the day.

Didn't get any action photos because I kept my camera and phone double bagged in my pocket to keep them dry. By the first rest stop I was soaked including my socks but we were having fun and it wasn't really cold so there was no reason to bail out.

This rider was wearing the jersey from my health club's team. I have one too but I opted for long sleeves instead.

By the second there were a lot of bailers though and the number of riders on the road clearly decreased. Rick and I also missed a turn somewhere and we wound up on an alternate road that cut about 4 miles off the official route. All the rain was making it pretty hard to see the painted arrows on the road. There were volunteers and CHP directing people back to the start assuming most of us would quit - HA! We snubbed those Nancy riders and headed north to the lunch stop at mile 70.

Non-Nancys

Ewww, my hand is all funky!

I've been trying a new endurance drink called Perpetuem hoping it would get me to the final of these rides with a more even output and it seemed to work pretty well - I didn't eat nearly as much at the rest stops so I never had that sluggish feeling you get when you're trying to ride and digest at the same time. Never felt low on energy either, although I didn't have much snap left in my legs by mile 90 when we got to Chalk Hill. Also I've been getting more cramps lately so I brought some e-Caps and didn't have any problem today. So that'll be my standard prep for centuries from now on.

Ride stats: 96 miles, 6h19m ride time, 7h30m total time.

Flemish Face

The Belgian Beast performed flawlessly in the slop - shifting got a little sluggish toward the end though; the cable guide probably clogged up.