Wednesday, December 30, 2020

2020 WNR 37

 I couldn't make the morning ride with Charlie, so went later in the afternoon.

Crazy amount of auto traffic enjoying the good weather on The Mountain.

AAA also seemed to be having a busy day.

There's still time for more bad stuff to happen in Year 2020, so stay out of trouble dear readers.

This group of ladies was enjoying a "side of the road" picnic.  Or so I THOUGHT


This group of young men was enjoying the views from Son of Chainbuster... or so I THOUGHT.








Hmmm, somebody must be having trouble.

Ahh, guys in white SUV needed AAA help.



Oh no - picnic ladies needed to get towed off The Mountain!

Considerate AAA guy let me pass... completely unnecessary but I took it.

Junction plus 5 Bump repeats today.


Saturday, December 26, 2020

2020 SMR 42

Rained overnight. JB wanted a later start. I got there early and did some Bump repeats.

Big dark cloud over The Summit. The road was wet but the air wasn't.

There's definitely a feel of hanging on while the world puts itself back together - preparing for the reboot.

Diablo Wife got me a new Garmin smart watch for Xmas so I was paying a lot of attention to all the data it was giving me. Here's what happens when you record a ride on both a GPS bike computer and a GPS watch:  you get two Strava activities, it says (eg) DiabloScott rode with DiabloScott; the two activities are more or less the same but in my case the watch included heart rate data and the bike computer didn't. Then of course you have to delete one of the two. I keep my Strava activities private by default, then make them public after I edit them for name and photos and such. That way, my fans will only see one and I'll never have to delete a kudo or a comment. After I get a little more confidence with the watch, I'll just stop uploading the ride from my bike computer in the first place.


 





U-turns can be tricky if it's windy.









Five times up The Bump today, in my quest to become the Legend of The Bump. Since they use a 90-day rolling timespan, my older rides will go away - I might do 5 bumps and my count only goes up 4. But everybody else's will too - so maybe those 8 guys ahead of me will take it easy for a while... while the world puts itself back together... and I'll be the Legend earlier than expected... I'll be ready.










Thursday, December 24, 2020

2020 Thursday Bonus Junction

 Work is slow - Christmas Eve - go ride!

Charlie went hard right right from the start and had his best NGR-Junction time ever.  I felt pretty good and kept up with him most of the way. I did some stretching last night so I didn't feel as stiff in the joints as some of my previous rides... I'm going to advance my stretching routine. 

Looked like the same group of e-mountain bikers was at Junction as yesterday. Also too many cars for a perfect day, but I was feeling the Christmas spirit and decided to share The Mountain with the cagers.

I decided to force Charlie to descend first, so I could do my Bump repeats on the downlow.  It was a little harder than yesterday because of the effort to Junction but nobody said being the Legend of The Bump was going to be easy.














Wednesday, December 23, 2020

2020 WNR 36

 Charlie wanted to do the Wednesday ride on Thursday, so I said I'd do both. Today was all by myself.

Kind of windy, but mostly enjoyable.

I've written before about all the accomplishments my Strava friends are achieving for the year - amazing elevation gains, impressive mileages.  Then I saw that blog reader Bernie was the Local Legend for The Bump segment with 61 completions in the last 90 days.  Then I had the idea that that would be a good objective for me - in fact I could really smash it.  Not exactly a premier league trophy, but kind of fun and it sounds like something I would do.  Lots of top riders do repeats up The Wall, and kudos to them... but what kind of nutjob does repeats up The Bump?  I determined to crown myself the Local Legend of The Bump.  So while I was ascending Northgate Road, I was thinking about how many Bumps I'd have to do in 90 days and then I remembered that the December Solstice was just a few days ago... so 90 days would put us right about the March Equinox.  I hatched a modification to my plan and here it is:

I resolve to do 100 BUMPS of WINTER - that is, between the first day of winter and the first day of spring. 

I also don't want to interfere too much with my normal Saturday Morning and Wednesday rides, so that would mean doing some Bump repeats on every ride after the normal ride, and maybe a few rides where I just do Bump repeats on other days. 100 rides in 90 days is about 8 Bumps per week. As a test of my plan, I decided to do three Bump repeats after Junction today. And then I did it.  OK, from now on, more of the same.


This guy had Grateful Dead flags on his recumbent trike.

Bump repeats start here.


Bump repeats end here.



Here is the "Local Legend" chart as of yesterday.
I will be redefining what is possible and exploding this chart.







Here is the Local Legends chart after today's ride - MOVING UP!



In case you forgot what The Bump looks like.



My Project Management Plan - keep the bars (cumulative Bumps) above the dotted line.

Sunday, December 20, 2020

2020 SMR 41

Last ride before the solstice. Last ride before the great conjunction of Juniper and Saturn. This morning was cold and foggy. 

We popped up above the fog layer at about 1000 feet and it was really nice.

Met Diablo regular Stewart at Junction. He said me and JB must have the same ride schedule as he does because he always sees us there. I said "we're always here, so of course you see us every time you ride".

I've been getting lots of Strava notifications about my friends achieving their goals for the year:

"Rider R has completed 12,000 miles this year"

"Rider B has climbed 1,000,000 feet this year."

How'm I supposed to compete with those kinds of stats?  I decided to do my regular Saturday Morning Ride. Maybe my friends will get the message "DiabloScott did the same ride he's been doing since before Strava was born."

Coming back down, I dropped into the fog again and it was even thicker and colder than it was when I left home. Also, the battery in my Garmin does NOT like the cold and died on me before I got home. I'm not sure it's bad enough to merit buying a new one though... it's not like I'm going to accomplish some impressive goal for the year that won't get recorded.

This star appeared in the east, so wise folks followed it,
but then it moved so we turned around at Summit.



This guy shouted out "You're in my video",
so I gave him a big wave and wished all his viewers a Merry Christmas.

Magenta jerseys show up really well in my photo snips.

Top of the fog layer... prepare to dive... arrooooogah.