Pig Farm, Bears, Wildcat, Pinehurst

My health club team put on a century training ride so I joined them for 52 hilly miles.

Lots of people at the start, but only about 15 did the long route.  Some turned around after the Pig, some took a shortcut back and skipped Wildcat.

It's been a long time since I rode Pig Farm from the east - definitely the easy side.

Then the Bears - and the requisite discussion of which hill was which.  I'm going on record as saying there's only two Bears and the Three Bears thing is just kind of a cute name.  I believe though, that the official designation comes from riding south to north - the opposite of what I did today.  Now check out this profile showing Bear Creek Road from Wildcat to Alhambra.

Mile 0 = Bear Creek Road at Wildcat Canyon.  Mile 8.4 = Bear Creek Road at Alhambra

So from the south (left to right) you have Papa Bear which makes sense because it's the biggest and baddest climb, but then you have a descent and then a couple little bumps along a more gradual climb for the rest of the way which is supposed to be Baby Bear in the middle and then Mama Bear at the end.  I don't see it... there's just nothing "three" about it.  From the north (right to left), Mama Bear is obviously the tougher climb but there's still not three distinctive peaks.  So I always call this area just "The Bears" - everyone knows what I'm talking about and then next question is "Which way?" instead of "Which one is Papa and which one is Mama?"  Of course someone has painted the names of "each bear" on the pavement on the shoulder so I'll probably get over-ruled... or ignored.

So we re-grouped at the bottom of Wildcat where there was a duathlon going on.  Really really fast guys on time trial bikes had been passing us on The Bears, but we didn't know what was the event until now.  Saw them again running trail in Tilden.  I remember riding down Wildcat many times when I was at Cal and thinking it would be a really hard climb back up... but the first time I did it I was surprised at how "easy" it was.  

Then another re-group at the Brasil Building.

Then the excitement.  We were riding along Grizzly Peak as a pretty cohesive group since only the long ride people were left, when Morgan's had a blow out.  After an inspection, I gave her the what-for about checking tires for wear - this could've been a serious injury.  Somebody had a boot that they got at Levi's Grand Fondo and I managed to fix Morgan's tire well enough to get her to the BART station in Berkeley, and we dispatched her down Centennial.

This is AFTER the repair.  Seriously, check your tires people.

More Grizzly Peak, a couple more re-groups and photo ops.

And then down Pinehurst, and then home.  That was probably the longest it has ever taken me to ride 52 miles but it was fun and I got to know more of the people that I'll be seeing in Santa Rosa next month.  Started to get some leg cramps in the flat fast sections near the end so I'm a little worried about that... guess I'll max out on e-Caps and GuBrew or something and hope for the best.

2012 WNR 02

Today's guest rider is Charlie from work.  He's a rider but I didn't know he used to ride Diablo every week a long time ago.  As usual, there were some logistical problems getting everybody going so it wasn't a very social ride.

Wildlife Encounter:  turkeys and deer

Forgot to take any photos, so here's a webphoto.  Bancroft, CA was a little unincorporated area near where the Best Buy on Buskirk is now.

A bit of a regroup and chinwag at the Junction and that was the ride.

Not Diablo Again

I've had enough.  I'm going to take up ski pole walking or something.


Not Diablo Again from Diablo Scott on Vimeo.

2012 SMR 13: Moderately Moist

Last week of course was Milan-San Remo, where we saw Cancellara make his signature attack but found Gerrans on his wheel.  Both of them and all of us knew that Gerrans would win a sprint, so Cancellara's only hope was that he could just shed the Australian dingleberry before the line.  Gerrans knew that Cancellara would sit up if he didn't think he had any chance of winning, so Gerrans worked *JUST* enough to convince Cancellara that he should keep going... and it worked perfectly and Cancellara was beaten.

It was kind of like that with me and the rain this morning.  It was supposed to start raining at 1AM which would have made me "sit up" (stay in bed), but it didn't.  And at 7AM it was kind of drizzling, but not enough to make me give up, so I got dressed and found my rain jacket.  I imagined that it would start pouring before I could finish my ride and figured I'd be turning around, but I *HAD* to keep going because it wasn't raining *THAT* hard... yet.  Got to the Gate and within a half mile the rain got just bad enough to let me know that the wet was going to win.  So it was a rather soggy slog up to Junction and JB showed up as well and we just tried to pretend that we like riding in the rain.  I think you can convince yourself of anything if you don't lose track of your objective.

Thought this might be my only chance for a photo today.

Finally, I put a compact crank on my Klein, and I put my old DA-9 crank and BB up for sale on eBay if anybody wants it cheap!

eBAY

2012 WNR 01

For the first Wednesday Night Ride of the year we were supposed to have a pretty big group including a lot of first-timers.  Most everybody weenied out except for Ed, Kenny, and Judy, and they were kind of late.  Then Kenny got a flat before we even got to the Gate.

Not the panachiest repair I've watched but it was successful.

Stopped a few times for Judy to catch her breath.  They've both done marathons and other endurance events but not too much cycling.  They're doing Santa Rosa in May though so wanted to get some saddle time.  Ed's got a nice new Specialized that he was breaking in too.

Lots of people enjoying the Mountain tonight, plenty of light until 7:15 or so.

Went to Sports Basement at lunch for some new rain tires for Eddy.  I was thinking rain tires are almost disposable; since they tend to get slashed up and gouged, why bother getting anything except from the cheap rack?  My last pair was Continental Ultra Sports and they ride like a pig at 330g each, so I figured maybe something a LITTLE better.  But the Sports Basement knew what they were doing when they hired the attractive, fit, and friendly saleswoman who talked me into the GP 4 Seasons... hey, Eddy deserves these. 

2012 SMR 12

The road was wet and the sky was gray but there wasn't much wind and it wasn't too cold.

Wildlife Encounter:  Flock of about 40 turkeys near the Loading Dock - didn't see them at first but they gobbled a greeting as I passed.

Saw the park pickup with the snow blade coming down but I was sure there wasn't any snow up there... lots of precipitation the last few days but too warm for snow.  I saw him later just clearing mud slides and tree branches.

DiabloSpyCam:

And my cover is blown!

At first I thought this was a camera, but it's probably a weather station.

Wednesday night spin class will soon be supplanted by Wednesday Night Rides (WNR) to the Junction.

Missed the 1100 Watt bar by THAT much.

I've noticed that the more people in the class the more times I can convince myself to check my peak power.  There were only four of us remaining at the end of Trish's workout; four people, two attempts.  Also, pizza for lunch is contraindicated for max power.

2012 SMR 11

Saw a few people in shorts this morning, but they had pink legs!

Kind of windy, I guess March is being a lion.

Grabbed this photo of the full moon over the Mountain Thursday night.

So JB and I went to Junction.  Some guy was catching us with a mile to go, so I upped my wattage and soloed to the finish with a Passed'em : Passed-me ratio of 0:0.

Blog reader Corey, from Houston, wrote to tell me he thought 90% of the road riders there were on the big three brands of Specialized, Trek, and Cannondale.  I told him those were popular brands here too but it was probably only about 50%.  I decided to go down South Gate and do a DiabloSpyCam for a little data aquisition and analysis.

Is that a helmet cam?

So that's 27 bikes from a controlled sample and the results are:

Specialized: 6

Trek: 0  (!)

Cannondale: 2

Giant: 4

Cervello: 2

Felt: 2

Look: 1

Masi: 1

Pinarello: 1

Bianchi: 1

Unidentifiable: 7

I couldn't see the descending bikes from my angle so I left those out of the pool.  But one guy was climbing so fast I couldn't get his photo - he was a Team Saxo Bank rider and had a follow car right behind him.  Easily going twice the speed of anyone else through my little observation window.  Amgen Tour of California is going to love Diablo.