2019 SMR 24

Weird weather this morning - warm, but foggy and humid.  Even looked like a possibility of RAIN?!?!?!  It made things different, and I like different. 

Lots of people on bikes and otherwise on The Mountain this morning.  We thought maybe the fog would keep the traffic down since the views would be minimal... but stupid me!  The view of fog over the Diablo Valley from the top of Mount Diablo is divine... I knew that... apparently so did all those other people.

Wildlife Encounter:  Coyote near Diablo Ranch and pretty big black tail buck on The Approach.

At Junction, blog reader Brian recognized me and introduced himself and we did a selfie.  He's been riding Diablo since 2011 but hung up his road bike and now rides a vintage hybrid with low gears.  He said he also crashed at the same roundabout that I broke my pelvis on in 2014, but he didn't break any bones.

The fog got pretty thick between Juniper and Summit, but thinned out right at the top.  I took a hike up to the top of the center to look east.

Then I got stuck behind a car that was stuck behind a slower cyclist, and there was too much upcoming traffic to pass so I had kind of a slow descent down to Junction.  Diablo Regular Samer rode next to me for a while so that was fun - when the car finally pulled over, Samer went into his descent mode which was too fast for me, so I did my normal speed back down North Gate Road.  Saw the deer at NGR and Castle Rock... we watched each other for a while before he darted off into the woods.

JB's bike has been at the frame-builder for: 1 week.

Extra nice ride today - extra long photo spread.

Is that a RAIN cloud?

Blog Reader Brian

DOUBLE Cal Jersey Autoblog.

2019 WNR 21

I didn't get to The Church in time for a double junction today. Charlie, Shawn, JB, Kathryn, and Donna came so it was a diverse group.

Good riding weather, not too hot.

Wildlife Encounter: big buck at Junction. We heard him snorting loudly behind some bushes so I knew he was big even before I saw him.

I rode with Charlie and Shawn until 1 mile to go, and then I went for a Split 6 Personal Record - not knowing what my previous record was, and not knowing how I did until I uploaded the Strava.  I beat my previous best (last September) by almost 30 seconds.  Kevin and I used to pick one segment to really attack on every Junction, but Kevin hasn't been coming recently so it's all up to me.  Now I have to pick another one to attack on next week's ride.  For every segment though, my PR is from year 2019, so I'm having a good season!

I expect pretty soon, people will start training for The Challenge, which this year is October 13... only two months away!

MIKE!

Passed me 1

This guy passed me during my PR attempt - slightly demoralizing.  Looks like he was a full minute faster over Split 6.

Charlie checks his time at the line with his stopwatch function.

Shawn lets his Garmin determine his time.

JB doesn't use GPS on the bike.

When the sun is right about there on the descent, the Perseid meteor showers are coming;
and that means there are about six Wednesday Night Rides left in the season.

Photo Credit: Shawn

Charlie and I frequently have coordinating color jerseys... just a cool unplanned coincidence.

77 Bike Turnouts Project

UPDATE! It's on the MountDiabloCyclists Facebook page, copied in a new post because I'm the star.



Here's the link to the relevant politico:



https://sd07.senate.ca.gov/contact/email

2019 SMR 23

Wow, everybody was on The Mountain today.

DiabloShouts go out to: Parry, Linda K, Colonel Al, Joe Shami(!), Deadhead Mike, Bernie and Doug, Lance and Midland, Kasters, Tuck, and Dudley.

Started off just a little on the cool side but then got warm quickly.  We had heard of some early morning fires over on the Marsh Creek Road side of The Mountain, but everything was in good order on our trip up.

Photo Credit:  CalFire

JB finally got his Della Santa over to Ed Litton's shop in Richmond.  JB said that Ed had some good stories and JB left with confidence that Ed would do a good job.  JB stripped his own frame of parts except for the headset.  Ed had a color chart of Della Santa paint jobs and pointed out the exact one, so JB's going to keep it the same.  Lots of painted frames there to admire too.

That stuck chain link that caused me problems on Wednesday night seemed to be completely healed... no issues this morning.

Wildlife Encounter:  lots of deer again, and one really cute coyote.

At The Summit, Al was there with Joe Shami promoting the 77 Turnouts Project .  Al made a video of me requesting that all my fellow cyclists contact State Senator Glazer and ask for funding.  I'll be sure to post that if it ever goes up.

UPDATE!  It's on the MountDiabloCyclists Facebook page, copied in a new post because I'm the star.

Here's the link to the relevant politico:

https://sd07.senate.ca.gov/contact/email

Me and Famous Joe
He's at 550 consecutive weeks or so of Summit rides.

You don't want to hit one of these guys at descending speed - slow down and keep your eyes open. 

Sorry Steve - your photo was blurry.

Hey - An Eddy Merckx 7-Eleven!
Looks to be one of the reproduction versions.

2019 WNR 20

The Mountain was closed over the weekend for high fire danger, so I didn't get in my Saturday Morning Summit.  I needed both Junctions today to hit my July climbing trophy from Strava:  success.

Tonight was kind of the last bit of the heat wave, so it was hot but not oppressive.  On my first trip up, I decided to make a record attempt at segment "Split 2".  I had no idea what my best time for this segment was, and I held back a little bit because I had lots of riding left to do...and it was hot... but I did a PR.

One guy was about 30 seconds behind me for the last three miles or so and I figured he was just waiting for the perfect time to pass me.  I was just riding my own ride and a few times I put out a little more than average and the gap got pretty big - so then I figured he was on the limit keeping up.  Finally he passed me 100 meters or so before Junction and was happy with himself.

Wildlife Encounter:  lots of deer - different places - made me extra careful but none of them crossed the road in front of me.

Back to the Doncaster Staging Area to wait for the WNR regulars, not sure who was going to be there, but Lance Oldstrong showed up to ride with Midland - so I figured I could go with them if none of my crew came.  Then Shawn got there and said there might be one more so we waited for a while and then got started a couple minutes behind.  Shawn pushed pretty hard for the first couple miles but then started to have a harder time on the steep stuff.  When we realized we could catch Lance he was re-energized and full-gas the rest of the way.

Right about Chainbuster, I started to have chain skipping problems... I futzed around a bit with my barrel adjusters but couldn't get it to stay in any one gear so I kind of had to soft-pedal it the rest of the way in.  Couldn't even figure it out at Junction while I was stopped - but when I got home I did an investigation and realized it was a sticky link - no amount of barrel adjuster adjusting was going to fix that - but it's very satisfying to figure out the problem, and find out I don't need an expensive new part or visit to the bike shop.  Never had a link get sticky for no reason before.

Diablo Shoutouts to:
Bernie
Doug
Lance Oldstrong
Midland
Deadhead Mike

Not a lot of riders on The Mountain tonight, but I seemed to know more of them than usual.

My chaser.

The CATCH

Lance asked me for some sew-up advice, and then he ignored it.

THERE'S my problem!