2013 SMR 12

A little moist but some good riding weather.

The display case at Junction had a whole lot of AMGEN TOUR OF CALIFORNIA MOUNT DIABLO STAGE information.  The roads will be closed at 2pm, or earlier if they have reached "capacity".  The race is expected to enter the park at 3pm with a 3:45 finish.  There is also a photo of the official commemorative AMGEN ToC Mt. Diablo Stage jersey which will be available "on race day"... I assume that means they'll have a merchandise booth at the Junction or something - like they had at Bonny Doon on the Santa Cruz stage a couple years ago:

Bonny Doon Booth

Road Kill Report:  1) black cat, 2) blue bird,  3) brown frog

We decided today was probably the greenest the Mountain will be for the year.  Bring on the brown.

2013 WNR 01

The Wednesday Night Rides have returned.  It was kind of dark but it was because of rain clouds in the sky... sun didn't set until well after I was done.  Brought my knee warmers but didn't need them.



Clavicle Cracker





JB at Upper Washout








Wounded Knee



Wildlife Encounter:  BOBCAT!

Passed'em:Passed'me ratio = 0:1

2013 SMR 11 -- The Pipe

Doo doo doo dit dit doo dit:  Important announcement... My e-mail service that was associated with this blog (diabloscott@terra.es) will be terminating soon.  I have convinced the nice folks at Yahoo to allow me the use of this new address:  diabloscott@ymail.com

I've updated the text over there in the margin so you can always come back here to look it up if you send me something and it bounces.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled blog.

OK, today's plan was to ride up to my proposed AMGEN TOUR OF CALIFORNIA Mount Diablo Stage viewing area.  A few times I have stopped for photos here but didn't really remember how much of the road below I'd be able to see.  On the way up I noticed a few other places that could see lots of South Gate Road, so they'd be decent back-up plans.  The Pipe is about a quarter mile up from Juniper - just past the 3000 ft elevation sign; and it's about 2 miles from The Summit so it should be a strategic point in the race for both the stage win hopefuls and the GC contenders.

I'm predicting this will be the money shot.

View from The Pipe

Top of the Pipe

The Pipe from Below

When I got to The Pipe I found that I could see quite a bit of Summit Road below, but not much of South Gate.  Anyway, here it will be... nice views, a place to sit if I want, a place to display my California flag, and a better than average chance of achieving the Ultimate Prize (getting on TV).

I figure that if you can't edit your ride video to less than three minutes, you'd better have some exceptional footage.  Today's clip is 2m17s.

The Pipe from Diablo Scott on Vimeo.

Saturday Morning Ride with the Health Club Team

Product Review:  You already know Hammer Gel is like liquid go ... but the Montana Huckleberry flavor is crazy good; it even has little seeds in it.  Thanks to my brother's family for giving me this jug for X-mas.

My usual Diablo partner knew he was going to be sick in plenty of time to let me make arrangements with the health club team for their Saturday Morning Ride.  They called the route "Franklin Canyon and Cummings Skyway" but I saw neither a canyon or a skyway.  I didn't have a route map so I just followed the people who looked like they knew where they were going but I'm still not quite sure where I was most of the time.  I mean I've looked at the map since then and I know where the roads are, but I don't think I could find them again without a GPS or something.

I think that's the Vallejo-Carquinez-Al Zampa bridge.

Golden Bear on the smoke stack of that ship.

So good riding with good folks.  That guy with the Capo jersey is an animal.  There were four or five of us that could ride with him but we didn't do much of the pulling.

Roadkill Report:  two skunks on some road about 20 miles northwest of Diablo.


Hammering Franklin Canyon from Diablo Scott on Vimeo.


Team Club Sport: Franklin Canyon and Cummings Skyway from Diablo Scott on Vimeo.

2013 SMR 10

Well... that was some nice weather!

Wildlife Encounter:  turkeys near Wunderbar Pet Hotel

From Junction I went down to the Kiosk and back up... created a new Strava Segment for it:

Д Mt. Diablo SGR: Junction-Kiosk-Junction

Be sure to go AROUND the kiosk.

Oddball Siting:  one of these things... my daughter calls them "running bikes".  It would be fun to try one sometime... but I'm really sure I'll never own one.

Barely cracked the 1.1kW bar in spin class Wednesday... probably because I had lemonade in my bottles instead of Cytomax.

Righteous Diablo video below.

20130302 from Diablo Scott on Vimeo.