Mount Diablo

Yesterday was an 80 mile ride in the East Bay area, organized and led by Dan (with some help from his phone). Started at 8:30am... I think we got back to my car close to 5:30 in the evening. It's ironic that 9 hours is about the amount of time I spend at work daily but time passes much more quickly on a bike (aside from the last miles of an Ironman bike course). Actual riding time was under 6 hours for me, and the remaining time was spent waiting and eating and more waiting. And for most everyone else riding time was less since they had to wait for me as I s-l-o-w-l-y descended all the twisty hills. All in all, probably my favorite ride of the year thus far with the Fiddletown/Shenandoah wine country route a not too distant second.

The ride started with the other woman on the ride (JA) telling me I looked tired. I was like uh-oh this might not bode so well. That and the 15.5 miles I had run Saturday were on the back of my mind as we started. Luckily, my legs were there from the beginning and never really failed the entire day. If I can remember correctly, first we went up. Then down, but not a too scary down. Then some flats on the way out to Mount Diablo, which was 10 miles long and 3800 feet up. I think just over 1 hour 10 minutes to go up that, and then waited around at the top and took some photos of the view.

We were under the clouds, then in the clouds, then above the clouds!

Then we went down. And it was freezing, finger-numbing cold. I experimented getting into my drops like one is supposed to descend but it still freaks me out. Once back to sea level, we got lunch, including carrot cake!! There were 20 miles left at this point and it was nearing 3pm. A small climb and one more longer climb remained. Lunch reminded me not too push too hard on the climbs up, so was taking it easy. The last descent before heading back into Berkeley proved to be the most treacherous, as I saw JA and her bike suddenly seem to catch air and then crash. Luckily she is okay but this is a reminder to myself to take the descents carefully, particularly on twisty roads with poor road surface.

Overall a good day, legs a bit stiff after Diablo but nothing too terrible. Currently lacking motivation for training, but I was reading the Death Ride website this afternoon and am now slightly more motivated to train big hills for that ride. If nothing else, I will just ride my bike.