2023 Diablo Day 02 - Saturday Junction

I decided to quit trying to fix Blogger's re-organizing my photos, so they will sometimes (like today!) be out of sequence. Leave me a comment if this pisses you off.

We've had several days in a row without rain so things were a little dried up and the sun was out and things were in better perspective. SGR was also open so there were a few more riders than my Wednesday ride. There were a few more rocks and things on the road too though - we're not out of this mess yet.

Some anonymous person just emailed me about my "Broken Patella Recovery" post - a triathlete who broke the same patella twice and had to drop out of some Ironman races... at least I was already old and feeble when I broke mine - so less of a life impact.

 

No sirens on - hopefully just a joy ride.

2023 Diablo Day 01 - Redeemed

 Hard to believe here on the 18th of January and today was my first Junction. These storms have been something else. Most of the photos in this blog entry are of the damage and mess.

There were a lot of small mudslides where most of the muck stayed in the ditches.

There was lots and lots of running water in the creeks and culverts.

There were a lot of medium sized mudslides that had been scraped off the road and piled up on the side. 

And there were a few places with real damage to the foundation... this is gonna take some engineering and financing.

 

This pile of muck had been dredged out of the creek
behind and piled up here for photos.

OK - the serious stuff - this is just above the old single-lane washout,
below Diablo Ranch.

I was surprised to see this rider come up from the South because I'd heard it was closed, and she said she came up North and you could only go down South a little ways before they made her turn back up.

Of course this place is even worse now.

2023 Diablo Day 01 - DENIED!

 Happy freakin New Year; The Mountain is closed. I should've checked, I should've expected it even... but I din't.

It's been raining most every day for two weeks - stuff is wet and mushy; there were little floods all over town, trees down, roads closed, gutters backed up. But it stopped last night.

Went to bed early on NY Eve, so I could get up at 4AM to prep for an early assault on the first Diablo Day of 2023 expecting hundreds of my peeps doing the same thing (except me first) - JB said too early for him. Everything else was to plan.

I rode up and saw The Gate was closed and figured they were maybe just late opening up - nope - mudslides on SGR made them decide to close the whole park.  So I just rode around for a while and came home.

When I checked the Mount Diablo Facebook Page I saw that it had been closed for two days... no excuses, my fault for not knowing. I copied a few photos from there below. Apparently damage on NGR too but no photos. 

Photos below from MDSP:

2022 Diablo Day 75 - Wednesday Junction

JB and Charlie opted out today. Another solo ride for your humble blogger.

Looking at the weather forecast - this may have been my last Diablo Day of 2022.

No wildlife, no roadkill, no unique characters... a few hard core cyclists, and a few sight-seeing motorists.

Threw my chain off the big ring on the way home... I should get to that bike maintenance task I keep postponing.

Diablo Brother sent me some nice light full-finger gloves for X-mas that were perfect for today's weather.

2022 Diablo Day 74 - Saturday Morning Junction

Christmas Eve and it was just cold enough to feel festive. I had my jingle bell hanging from my spare tire, and holiday music on my speaker... it was right out of a Hallmark Special.

I forgot to wear my knee sleeve and it turned out I didn't really miss it - maybe I don't need it as much as I thought... every once in a while my knee just sort of goes noodley and the sleeve helps with that... but that happens more while walking than riding.

Then my Garmin battery went dead - my fault for not checking before I left... so I didn't feel any pressure to care how fast I was. I chuckled at the thought of renaming it my FUBARmin.

These guys passed us racing each other up The Bump... then they fizzled out.

This guy had a pretty cool gravel bike that was set up for road riding.

Bharat and I swapped stories about work and life.

Coming LEFT!

2022 Diablo Day 73 - Wednesday Junction

Solstice 2022 was at 1:47 PM on

Wednesday

, 

December 21

All times are in Pacific Time.

And I was ON MY BIKE, riding toward The Mountain. A little warmer than I was expecting so I was a little over-dressed.

Legs felt good but cardio was crap. I just don't have many Watts left when there's still a couple miles of NGR left.

JB, Charlie, and I talked about Christmas and current events and earthquakes and bomb cyclones.

Next week we'll talk about our plans for the new year.

Charlie showed up in his spiffiest bike togs.

JB wore his normal thrift store bike stuff.

This guy wins the prize for orangest bike.