TODAY is the Devil Mountain Double, and we saw quite a few of those intrepid pedallers coming down NGR.
Passed'em : Passed me ratio - 1:1
Sometimes folks joke about recumbent riders... but if you
ride the DMD on one, you get a big Diablo Salute from me.
Talked to a guy at Junction who used to ride with Cunningham, Fisher, and Breeze in the incipient days of mountain biking in Marin County... he had some good stories.
This was the biggest group of riders I've
ever seen going up The Mountain. Most had matching
but I didn't recognize it.
Kind of windy at the lower elevations. Charlie set a hard pace the first 4 segments and had me breathing hard but then he faded.
Some cows escaped above Diablo Ranch. There were about a dozen humans on foot trying to round up the errant bovines while we were ascending. Then on the way down they had mostly succeeded in herding the beefalo back down but they were causing somewhat of a traffic jam.
Time trial guy passes us at the bottom of The Bump
I hadn't until I met Kyle Bryant. He used to work for my company in our Sacrameto offfice. I don't know him well enough to call him a friend, but I've met him a few times and I've watched his disease progress, and he's the kind of inspirational guy who makes you ask your family, friends, and blog readers to make a donation. Kyle is now a spokesperson for the Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance, and organizer of the series of charity rides like the one I'm doing in Davis on June 1.
F.A. is an insidious genetic disorder that slowly but relentlessly takes away your coordination, your ability to speak, your sight, and your hearing... and THEN you get diabetes, scoliosis, and heart disease.
Now I could post some lugubrious videos here showing kids who are losing their ability to walk, teenagers who went from running hurdles to hobbling on crutches, and adults who have to worry that their hearts and lungs will just stop because of this disease... but instead, I found this one of Kyle that shows the guy I know - a man with absolutely zero self-pity:
My Donation Page:LINK (I put one of those tear-jerker videos there in case you need a little arm-twisting). When you click on the donation link, you'll see this:
Now I hate how they make it look like a $500 donation is realistic, and a $50 donation isn't REALLY REALLY generous, but the webmaster didn't consult me. My idea of a magnanimous gesture is to skip one lunch at your regular lunch place and donate the amount you would've spent to a cause that someone cares about enough to ask you to. So don't be shy about clicking the OTHER AMOUNT circle.
One really interesting thing about F.A. is that they know EXACTLY what causes it... the exact genetic error and exactly which genes are involved and exactly where they're located on the genetic map. But they don't know how to "patch" the genetic mistake, or counter-act the effects. So this disease that only affects one in 50,000 people gets a lot of interest from medical researchers because there's a real chance that they could figure it out, and when they do they could apply that knowledge to other similar conditions (like ALS) that affect larger numbers of people. You can share in a little of that triumphant discovery by offering your lunch money to the cause.
Devil Mountain Double was today - most of the fast guys were already gone but we got to see quite a few finishing their Diablo segment. Chapeau to everyone who finished the most awesome double century in the USA.
edit - anonymous poster tells me today was the staff ride and the actual DMD is next week. I guess I was fooled by the DMD rest stop at the church and the red numbers on the riders' backs. Still... I should know about that kind of stuff. Actual DMD is on Saturday, and the ATOC Etape de Tour is on Sunday so lots of Diablo riders next weekend.
JB uses the stopwatch function on his Blackberry
instead of a cyclocomputer.
Some guy who just happened to ride into a nice
natural frame behind me.
Wildlife Encounter: a bunny.
That's some blue sky right there.
The green phase has passed.
The wind was really stiff up above 1,000 feet or so. Put your head down and grind is about all you could do.
Perhaps the DMD caboose.
I don't know this guy, but I think he was posing for my seatstay cam.
The display case at Junction had a whole lot of AMGEN TOUR OF CALIFORNIA MOUNT DIABLO STAGE information. The roads will be closed at 2pm, or earlier if they have reached "capacity". The race is expected to enter the park at 3pm with a 3:45 finish. There is also a photo of the official commemorative AMGEN ToC Mt. Diablo Stage jersey which will be available "on race day"... I assume that means they'll have a merchandise booth at the Junction or something - like they had at Bonny Doon on the Santa Cruz stage a couple years ago:
Bonny Doon Booth
Road Kill Report: 1) black cat, 2) blue bird, 3) brown frog
We decided today was probably the greenest the Mountain will be for the year. Bring on the brown.
The Wednesday Night Rides have returned. It was kind of dark but it was because of rain clouds in the sky... sun didn't set until well after I was done. Brought my knee warmers but didn't need them.
Doo doo doo dit dit doo dit: Important announcement... My e-mail service that was associated with this blog (diabloscott@terra.es) will be terminating soon. I have convinced the nice folks at Yahoo to allow me the use of this new address: diabloscott@ymail.com I've updated the text over there in the margin so you can always come back here to look it up if you send me something and it bounces.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled blog.
OK, today's plan was to ride up to my proposed AMGEN TOUR OF CALIFORNIA Mount Diablo Stage viewing area. A few times I have stopped for photos here but didn't really remember how much of the road below I'd be able to see. On the way up I noticed a few other places that could see lots of South Gate Road, so they'd be decent back-up plans. The Pipe is about a quarter mile up from Juniper - just past the 3000 ft elevation sign; and it's about 2 miles from The Summit so it should be a strategic point in the race for both the stage win hopefuls and the GC contenders.
I'm predicting this will be the money shot.
View from The Pipe
Top of the Pipe
The Pipe from Below
When I got to The Pipe I found that I could see quite a bit of Summit Road below, but not much of South Gate. Anyway, here it will be... nice views, a place to sit if I want, a place to display my California flag, and a better than average chance of achieving the Ultimate Prize (getting on TV).
I figure that if you can't edit your ride video to less than three minutes, you'd better have some exceptional footage. Today's clip is 2m17s.
Product Review: You already know Hammer Gel is like liquid go ... but the Montana Huckleberry flavor is crazy good; it even has little seeds in it. Thanks to my brother's family for giving me this jug for X-mas.
My usual Diablo partner knew he was going to be sick in plenty of time to let me make arrangements with the health club team for their Saturday Morning Ride. They called the route "Franklin Canyon and Cummings Skyway" but I saw neither a canyon or a skyway. I didn't have a route map so I just followed the people who looked like they knew where they were going but I'm still not quite sure where I was most of the time. I mean I've looked at the map since then and I know where the roads are, but I don't think I could find them again without a GPS or something.
I think that's the Vallejo-Carquinez-Al Zampa bridge.
Golden Bear on the smoke stack of that ship.
So good riding with good folks. That guy with the Capo jersey is an animal. There were four or five of us that could ride with him but we didn't do much of the pulling.
Roadkill Report: two skunks on some road about 20 miles northwest of Diablo.
