2024 Diablo Day 12 - Saturday Morning Junction

February made a surprise appearance today! I had to dig out my tights and jacket from the Diablo Box 'o' Bike Clothes.

It was so wet it looked like it rained overnight, but I think it was just condensed fog dripping from the trees and such.

Wildlife Encounter:  Two turkeys and a deer. The deer was very young and alone, maybe for the first time in its life; the turkeys were just doing dumb turkey stuff.

Huge news - the pull-out lane construction starts next week! Starting with nine new turnouts on South Gate Road which will be closed to all traffic on weekdays but open on the weekends.

Monday, June 3. South Gate Road will be closed weekdays to all traffic including cars, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Each week for approximately five weeks, the road will be closed from Monday 8 a.m. through Friday 2 p.m. It will be open weekends.

This is the perfect pull-out passing procedure.

2024 Diablo Day 11 - Saturday Morning Junction

Beautiful day on The Mountain. It was sunny and just a little on the cool side. I skipped the sunscreen. 

After last week's ride I was exhausted and was worried that I was on some downward trajectory of performance that would end my cycling days - but today I felt fine so I guess it was just a discontinuity in the matrix.

Roadkill Report: two possums and a skunk.

Wildlife Encounter: lots of lizards and butterflies - do lizards eat butterflies?

At Junction I was on the bench with JB just BS'ing and a group of about 10 motorcyclists arrived from The North; they all hovered around Junction with their loud engines, not being obnoxious, but a little rude and it made it hard to talk. Then they all started up Summit Road and I didn't see what happened but they all stopped at the driveway to the Junction Picnic Area and there appeared to be some kind of accident. The rangers all went into action controlling traffic and such and one of the guys came down to say one of them was seriously hurt. Then the helicopter started circling and then the ranger told everyone to clear the Junction area - I thought the helicopter was going to land right there in the road (that would've been quite a maneuver!) so I waited to watch from a safe distance. But then the ambulance and rescue vehicles came up from The South to handle things, the helicopter went home, and I started down.

2024 Diablo Day 10 - Saturday Morning Junction

Roadkill Report:  BOBCAT!  That was a first.  I see probably one bobcat per year on The Mountain, I've never seen one not on The Mountain. I stopped to get a good look because this was memorable. Also, two possums and a skunk.

Pretty warm but it's going to get HOT today, so it wasn't really too bad. First time I put on sunscreen this year. Lots of AIDS Ride folks training today - some of them looked like experienced endurance riders, and some of them looked like The Ride would be the most challenging thing they'll ever do.  One rider had a paper bowl and made herself a bowl of corn flakes with a cut up banana at Junction.

Picked a little bouquet for myself.