2013 SMR 37

Tights and windbreaker, light gloves.  Really quiet day on The Mountain - didn't see another rider going up or down until Junction and only one car.

Wildlife Encounter:  deer at the vineyard

Wildlife Encounter:  coyote above the Zigzag

Wildlife Encounter:  turkeys at the Upper Ranch

Work is progressing on fire cleanup and repair.  Lots of burned trees near power lines have been cleared away, lots of burned rubble has been cleared away, and there's a new picnic table at Grapevine.  Also the Lower Summit work has re-commenced with concrete and paving nearly done.

Lots and lots of people coming up while I was descending - big groups of people... maybe everybody just decided to sleep in today.

Dudley Driveby... about the same place as last week.

Pain face going up the wall.

2013 SMR 36

Nice weather today after a very windy week.  I was expecting to see a lot of fallen tree branches but the road was clean.

JB still hasn't fixed his bottom bracket - it's become a running joke.

JB started up to the Summit with me but then his knee started hurting so he turned around at Toyon.

Warmer and windy up past Blue Oak.
 I unzipped my windbreaker and it flapped around in the wind,
giving my shadow the appearance of a superhero with a cape.

Bianchi Boy passed me twice but stopped at picnic areas
after each time, and I don't think he did The Summit.

Camera check - sat.

Dudley Drive-by above Juniper.

Clear, clean, blue sky: tastes like November in NorCal.

Triple Crown guy and his friend Pannier Guy.

Wildlife Encounter:  Coyote at Diablo Ranch on the descent.

Wildlife Encounter:  Jackrabbit below the Gate on the descent.

Deed of Chivalry:  Saw a little loose dog starting to cross busy Walnut Avenue so I warned the traffic behind me and then stopped to rescue him.  He was a friendly little fellow and came right up to me.  One of the drivers also stopped and we tried to call the number on his tag but it had been disconnected   ;-(    Driver offered to accept responsibility for finding the owner so I continued on home.

2013 SMR 35

Tire was flat last night so I fixed it then instead of this morning.

Eight at the Gate.

Sun is looking us right in the eye as we go up NGR.

What's JB smiling about?

Friendly Bianchi girl chats us up.
She said she came from Palo Alto to ride
Diablo with her dad who hadn't yet arrived at Junction...
she DROPPED her DAD!!

I was hoping for a cool shot of a rider descending
with this burned up terrain in the background...
but it didn't happen.

I thought of the coolest caption while I was riding up The Wall -
but then the blood supply to my memory banks was interrupted.

Excursion to the newly-finished observation deck... looks nice.

I've never done this hike... maybe someday.

Looking toward Central Valley

 

This shapely rider carved the corners like an artist, but
she didn't have much for top-end speed

Two dudes, abiding.

2013 SMR 34

First ride of Daylight Wasting Time.  Still pretty cold on the ride out though so I went with full tights.  I need to think about getting some new winter gloves soon.

Me and JB got to The Gate at about the same time.

This morning my rear tire was completely flat - this is the tire that I changed after I had the gash last weekend so that's pretty strange.  I pumped it up and hoped it would hold for the day, but I should've checked it last night.  Anyway, it's still fully pressurized in the late afternoon so who knows what happened?

Eleven summits in the last 14 weeks - only missed for 1) fire closure,  2) Veteran's Century, and 3) Foxy's Fall Century.

This guy spotted my camera and put on his pain face.

In a still shot, you can't tell who's passing whom.

Lower Summit parking lot is freshly re-paved.

Hey, the observation deck is open again!

I just liked the perspective on this one.

2013 SMR 33

Cooler than last week, but not by much.

Last ride of Pacific Daylight Time - we were staring into the sun for a good bit of the trip... that'll be different next week.

JB was a little late to the Gate, but I wasn't in a hurry.  We had an enjoyable journey.

Wildlife Encounter:  A HAWK!  You can't always tell if a hawk's a hawk in the air, but when they're perched on a naked tree branch they have that distinctive profile and you're sure.

The Mountain abides, and life fights back from the fire damage.

About three miles from home I had a blowout - didn't think I ran over anything but something made a big gash out of my rear tire.  I wasn't sure a boot would hold but I stuck a dollar bill in there and only enough pressure in the new tube to be rideable and made it home OK.  Put on my last reserve tire this afternoon - time to re-stock the rubber.