Diablo Scott's Bike Blog

Saturday, January 15, 2022

2022 Diablo Day 05

60 is the new 40. That's what I wrote on my Strava activity. I was sure people would understand that doing Junction in 60 minutes now, is as hard as it used to be when I could do 40 minutes. It's also an acknowledgement that those days are probably gone... but it wasn't that long ago that I was putting in some pretty nice times so maybe I'll be doing some respectable rides when the knee heels some more and the fitness comes back and the stars align and they legalize EPO.

Well at least I was faster than JB today.

At Junction there was a lady with a pretty cool Specialized E-Bike. It looked a lot like a conventional road bike; not enough to fool anyone, but enough that it looked like it would handle like a real bike. She said she wouldn't be able to do Diablo without the help so "brava" to her.

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

2022 Diablo Day 04

Warmer than I thought it was going to be - I stopped at The Washout to take off my jacket.

Charlie opened up a can-o-whoopass from the gun, and after 10 minutes I was 20 minutes behind.

Met a guy at Junction who said the first time he rode Diablo was 1963!

Charlie told us about another cycling status score you could keep track of, called: The Eddington Number I looked it up, it didn't grab me.

Looks like they're starting to build a new house just before The Gate.

Knee felt OK, the endurance was asleep.

My shadow took off his jacket too.

Saturday, January 08, 2022

2022 Diablo Day 03

Today is about 3 days shy of ONE YEAR since I broke my patella.

JB suggested a 10 AM at the Gate start time. That worked out very well.

Early morning I was getting my bike stuff ready, before taking Ursa to the dog park, and I immediately noticed I had a rear tire garage flat.

I had two thoughts - 1) I waited too long to change that worn out old tire, and 2) am I still going to make the ride?

I inspected and found a TINY little piece of wire in the almost worn out tread. So I crafted my plan. I removed the wire bit, took off the rear wheel and put it in my truing stand, and put some Stan's in the tire and pressurized it and spun it around. I don't remember when I bought the bottle of Stan's, but I'm glad it was still good. I figured if the tire was still good when I got back from the dog park I could ride it, and if not, I could put on my clincher spare wheels.

Stan's worked, and the tire was good for the whole ride. So now my new plan is to find time to do a big maintenance and glue on some new ones, and it better be pretty soon.

10AM at the Gate start, not terribly cold. I went for a couple of hard efforts; the knee didn't hurt and it felt good to incorporate some muscle fibers that had been underused for a while, but I didn't have the endurance to push it for more than a few minutes at a time. This also worked out well because JB wasn't feeling great so we were going about the same pace anyway.

Met a guy with a really nice Santana tandem at Junction. We talked about disc brakes and epic rides.

Listening to all the rushing water in the creeks and culverts was a nice flourish on a nice day. Normalcy is coming, amigos.

Wednesday, January 05, 2022

2022 Diablo Day 02

JB bailed. Me and Charlie met at 1 pm. We talked about COVID and inner tubes.

Beautiful weather; short sleeves and a vest.

We went pretty hard from the start... at least for me. I felt pretty good but my endurance is in the pits. Since when is a plain old Wednesday Afternoon Junction a "MASSIVE EFFORT" ?!?!?!

It was a good day on The Mountain, and everybody was in a good mood.

Diablo Shoutout to Punkin' Jay.

Got some new water bottles at Sports Basement yesterday - fluid container technology has come so far since my newb days.

This guy said he told his bike painter he wanted "Eddy Merckx Orange".

I'm pretty sure this is unsafe.

Saturday, January 01, 2022

New Year's Day 2022

Almost a year since the last time I rode higher than Junction - my knee feels OK but I've lost a lot of fitness and strength and NYD is a LONG standing tradition to ride to Summit so I planned on the old college try. Made it to Juniper.

I needed to go early because my new dog isn't adapted to the routine of my being gone, so I took her for a walk and fed her and sent her back to bed.

HOO BOY it was cold; thick frost on the windshield of my truck. I had plenty of warm clothes though and by about 8am it had warmed up quite a bit.

Wildlife Encounter: dozens of turkeys and three deers.

Got passed by two guys going up - I knew one of them.

Also saw my neighbors Mark and Amy coming down in their camper van - that was a surprise. They said I was the first rider on NGR. They must've camped out overnight and got up early to get out.

I still felt pretty good at Junction where I stopped for a stretch and a Clif Bar. There was a van there with supplies that I figured was a running club support vehicle or something, but it turned out to be Dr. Julia Salvador, a professional bike fitter and physical therapist there just to pass out goodies and drum up business. You can find her website here:

https://www.americancanyonbikeshop.com/bike-fit-pt

Since I was the only other person there at the time we talked for a while - she said she was an avid cyclist but she just had a baby so wasn't back riding yet and looking for more customers. I don't know enough to recommend her, but her service is certainly worth considering if you're looking. Then her husband came out and showed off their new baby and admired my old bike.

Above Junction I was enjoying the feeling of going farther up than I have since my patella fracture, but my legs were telling me it wasn't going to be a Summit day - plus it got kind of windy and I was having a little trouble holding a straight line, and vehicle traffic was picking up, things were starting to ache, so I decided on Juniper.