2008 WNR 03

Drove to Church, rode to Gate, put up rock, took a photo:

A dark and forboding cloud was passing over the Mountain.

There were a bunch of cars parked just inside the Gate. No ranger at the Kiosk so I wondered if they paid their parking (self serve envelopes).

Seems the cow population is increasing rapidly.

The parked cars appeared to belong to a group of women walking up the road in what appeared to be a training walk for a fundraising event judging from the number of pink hats.



Should have brought my arm warmers. Should have brought some warmer gloves too.




The middle washout repair is going quickly. No retaining wall, just some extra foundation and new pavement it looks like.

I still hadn't seen JB and Adam but I felt pretty good and went pretty hard the last three miles. They showed up at the Junction a little while later and we didn't hang around very long.

JB and I went back down - it was pretty cold... should have brought some arm warmers and full gloves.

Almost Warm

I even thought about going out in shorts but opted for tights and a LS jersey.

Finally got around to resetting the clock on my Flight Deck and accidentally screwed up the gear selection.

Got to the Gate at 8 and no one was there so I got a head start on JB. A group of about 10 had started just in front of me and I held them in view for quite a while, but then stopped chasing.

Stopped at the Bump for a couple shots.

They've got some road repair equipment at the Middle Washout already - they're taking this seriously. There's a piece of the pavement that's been saw cut but they'll have to do a lot more than just repave... maybe even including a new retaining wall.


I saw JB behind me and got serious. With a couple miles to go I thought I could stay ahead, and I did.

It was getting windy, so we decided to do SGR, then Blackhawk and around.

Wildlife Encounter: a big turkey on a sound wall next to Blackhawk Road - there was a whole flock in the field farther back.

No Dudley two weeks in a row??

2008 WNR 02

Just me and JB tonight. When I left for work this morning I thought it would be raining by afternoon. Luckily, it sort of cleared up but the heavy clouds and wind were still around.

Just before the Bump, a woman passed us. I did an interval on the steep bit and caught her but then I was spent. JB came around me and then passed her too.

The Middle Washout is getting worse - part of the downhill lane looks like it's sinking now.

We all got to Junction within about five minutes of each other.

It was a cold descent.

Gate - Junction - Hole

Rick's in Florida for a vacation. JB and I got a late start (my fault). Both of us had flats last night, but that didn't affect today's ride.

It was supposed to be drizzling but it didn't happen during the ride.



Two faster guys passed us as we toodled up. Didn't see Dudley.

The Washout below the Washout is even a little worse than Wednesday.

At the Junction some guys came down from Summit Road and said everything was frosted over up there and 29°F. JB and I decided to go down the south side.

On the descent we could see a big black cloud just hanging over the Mountain at higher elevations.

First Wednesday Night Ride (WNR) of the Year

Daylight Wasting Time ended Sunday, so the WNR is on! There were some logistical problems though and I got to the start before everybody else and took off solo.





It was a little cool and I had on my tights but no jacket. Two guys passed me but they turned around at the top of the Bump. Didn't see anybody else going up but quite a few riders coming down.


Just as I suspected from Saturday's ride, the "Washout Before the Washout" is now down to one lane. It's really not too bad yet but it's worse than a few days ago so it'll probably keep sliding for a while.

Finally just after Chainbuster I see Adam and JB coming up behind me. I droped the hamer and managed to keep my gap until I got to Junction. There we talked to other riders who were all enjoying Daylight Saving Time. The news is reporting studies that show DST doesn't save energy... I don't care, I like it.

Celebrity on Diablo

Local newscaster and meteorologist Roberta Gonzales is into cycling and recently blogged about her trip up Diablo with her trainers. She went up the easy side to the Kiosk... but it was her "first Diablo ride of the season" so it sounds like she's been up before.

The Diablo entry is currently the second post... there doesn't seem to be any way of linking to specific dates or anything.

http://cbs5.com/roberta

Gate - Summit - Gate

Me, JB, and Rick today. Warmest ride of the year so far but only Rick wore shorts. I had on a wind breaker that wasn't cycling-specific and flapped around in the breeze too much.

Poppies everywhere today.

Lots of these little purple wildflowers too.

We noticed that part of the road just below the Upper Washout was starting to slide downhill from all the rain. Looked like about half of the upbound lane was cracked for twenty or thirty meters. JB called it "The Washout Before the Washout". Might be single lane through there soon... or maybe next year.

Dudley Driveby: Near the upper entrance to the Upper Ranch.

Roadkill Observation: A big fat frog, I forget where.

Hardly anybody at Junction, we decided to go up. It immediately got cooler and windier. Rick coaxed me into trying the "standing all the way through the Blue Oak section again but this time I had it in my lowest gear and just plugged so I made it to Anti-Gravity Corner.

We stopped at Juniper for a while and JB decided to quit. Rick and I kept on going.

A pause at Juniper to contemplate the next 8 or 900 feet of vertical. I noticed a sign at the campground that said the elevation was 2900 feet, but a hundred yards up the road was the 3000 foot elevation marker... one of them is wrong.

Poor folks over there have a lot more fog to deal with on a regular basis.

Looking toward Pleasanton.

It's really greener than it looks in this shot.

A little windy but the sky was beautiful.

Only a couple cars and a couple bikes at the Summit.

Rick got a flat on the way down... that's him just past the bend changing his tire... I was leading and it was a good thing I heard him shout out.

Coming down on Summit Road.

This guy came by while Rick was fixing his flat.

There were tons of people coming up North Gate Road about 10:30 while we were going down - most of them had on Team in Training jerseys... they might be doing the Death Ride or the Ride Around Tahoe... don't know.

I gave Rick a lead out to the Dips but it was so windy he didn't come around very fast. So we decided to have another sprint on the way back to his car but he pulled a cleat and banged up his shin... that's gonna hurt tonight!

Gate - Junction - Juniper - Gate

Weather report was for a big storm to come in today - looked like we were going to beat the front though... I packed my rain cape just in case. Started to drizzle on me on Bancroft Road.

I put a new chain on Eddy just before I left - I have this new technique of sizing the chain correctly with less mess by hanging the old chain and new chain next to each other from nails and then trimming to size. Much better than my old technique of laying them flat on newspapers. Hardly any old chain gook got on my hands.

Just me and Rick at the Gate. We took it kind of easy.

Wildlife Encounter: Some coyotes howling around Burma Trail somewhere unseen.

Lots of low-flying planes today, to stay under the cloud cover.

Dudley Driveby: Near Wounded Knee.

At Junction, we decided to continue on up Summit Road to Juniper. I had taken off my rain cape. It started hailing on us. It got windier.

Wildlife Encounter: A bunny about where the new pavement starts.

Rick had this idea of standing climbing the length of the Blue Oak Speedway; I decided I'd try it too... made it about half way before I sat down for easier spinning.

At Juniper, Rick's ski gloves fell out of his jacket and he didn't notice. We later found them in the brush down below the parking lot - the wind had blown them quite a ways.

It was a dicey trip down too with all that wind... I'm pretty sure my knuckles were white underneath my two layers of full-fingered gloves.

Rick's Photo Slideshow from Prologue and Hamilton

This is just a sequence of photos, not video.

First time I've tried to embed a slideshow... let me know if it doesn't work for you.

If you double click on the viewer, it takes you out of my blog to my Picasa page.

Tour of California Prologue

Rick and I were on hand for the action today - he brought his son and I brought my daughter and they're about the same age and they're both experienced bike race spectators... my daughter was at all five SF Grand Prixs and has been at all three Tours of California with me.


We started, appropriately enough, near the start. We walked around some of the team RV's and then made our way to the main drag. I should have gotten a photo of Michael Ball's Rolls Royce.

Some of the early guys didn't have full-on time trial bikes.

There were no crowd barriers in the beginning of the parcourse.

You know it's a big race when the helicopters show up.

My shutter finger was too slow to capture some of the faster guys. My daughter thought it was hilarious that I got so many photos of butts. This one obviously belongs to Dave Z.

Australian National Time Trial Champion Adam Hansen's Butt

The parcourse went under El Camino Real - it was loud in there!

Rick and son cheer on a Quickstep rider just inside Stanford's campus.

PAOLO !!!

Most everybody made their way up to the finish area by the time the big names got started.

Fabian Cancellara was also too fast for my trigger finger. Dear daughter suggested I take photos of things that weren't moving!

I missed Tom Boonen altogether, but got him on the cool-down section after the finish. Neither he nor Bettini have rainbow trim on their skinsuits - I DID NOT KNOW THAT !

Palm Drive on the Stanford Campus.

Parking was no problem. We never did find the schwag distribution center though. Palo Alto ain't no San Francisco but they did manage to put on a good show.

And for the first time ever - some embedded video from my still camera... it's a brave new world, blog readers. This is Swedish National Time Trial Champion Gustav Larsson.

Started Out Cold and Foggy

But then it warmed up nicely. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote was howling. JB and Rick attacked and I didn't see them again until Junction.

Dudley Driveby: Coming down from the Summit while we were lounging around at the Junction. I noticed he was wearing hightop basketball shoes.

Southgate to Blackhawk to Crow Canyon and the trail to Peet's. You can still get a peppermint mocha even though it's not Christmas anymore.

Then I came home and made this cool bike parking rack out of PVC pipe:

Rick Writes

Today we have a guest blogger - see below.

Also, please notice that I've added Maynard Hershon's blog to my "Highly Recommended" list of links. Maynard's columns in the back of Winning magazine were always the first thing I read when it came back in the 80's. I've got a hundred or so "The Bike Shop" stories that I saved when I tossed the rest of the issue; some day I'll scan them in. I met Maynard one time on a Cal cycling team training ride and he was an unassuming guy and I tried to act cool. Please click on his link and maybe he'll see that you came from my blog and maybe he'll come here and remember me. (Hi Maynard!)

Rick sent some photos too but they were embedded in an MS Word document and getting them out of Word and uploaded to Blogger is a confusing html-headache.

Guest Blogger Rick reporting

Today Scott was absent as he and Amy are celebrating her birthday – Happy Birthday Amy!
I arrived at the gate to find JB already there. I kept looking back down the road as I came from my car expecting him to be back there somewhere as he is usually the last to arrive. “You’re early” I said. “No, I’m on time!” was his reply. As we rolled out JB said his computer was still on the fritz, and he thought maybe the wire from the sensor was bad somewhere. I told him I had 7:38 on my clock since leaving my car.

The temperature was 48 at the gate and JB said it was also 48 at the summit. We talked about how nice a day it was and expected it to get much warmer. It really felt spring like.

Wildlife encounter: a lone coyote standing on the East Ridge just past the dips.

We went fairly leisurely until about Big Shady Oak when JB pushed the pace. We both crossed the line together at the Junction at about 49:20.

The temperature had risen to 58 by the junction so we shed layers before continuing up. The wind was picking up by about Juniper and we worried that it might really be strong at the top. This turned out not to be the case; there were a few gusts before Devil’s Elbow, but not bad.
JB was felling low on gas and commented that the only reason he was going all the way up was to see the view today. It turned out to be a good one indeed.