Diablo Ride - Sat. Dec. 8

[Veronica]

I haven't done any significant climbing since September and if this irritates my knee too much I'll be turning around and rolling back down to Arbolado Park.

Meet at Arbolado at 10 and you'll get to see my new Ibex Serrano jersey that my sister gave me for Christmas. Yeah, I opened it early. It's December, I needed some wool. :D

V.

[jobob]

The Bobs shall bring up the rear.

[aka_kim]

I'm in too.

[Veronica]

Oh goodie! :p

V.

[maillotpois]

We'll be at the Motorcycle swap meet. Who knew there was such a thing?

[Veronica]

Yeah, I knew you had that. :p Next weekend, maybe...

I just wanted to give myself the commitment of riding. Plus I haven't seen my buds in awhile.

V.

[LBTC]

What a cool thing to see! You girls have a great ride and enjoy it even more on behalf of all of us who aren't out riding in December!

Thanks!

Hugs and butterflies,
~T~

[maillotpois]

I get the commitment thing for sure! I'm a little lacking in that department lately. :rolleyes:

Have fun!

[snapdragen]

I need to be committed, but I guess that's not the same? :D

[Veronica]

We'll be sure and talk about you MP. :D

I hope we have a sunshiney day. Now that the fog is gone, today is gorgeous.

V.

[SadieKate]

I have sent an email to Mr. Bubba asking him to attend for gossip-collecting purposes as well as his last chance to bring up the rear with Mr. LeeBob.

Izaak the Wonder Poodle and I will be gossiping about the committed and committable this weekend.

[Veronica]

Double goodie!!!! But we'll miss you SK! You gotta organize a summer event for us. :D I was thinking I'd do LRRH again if you were going to go. No pressure... just nice to be with the gang.

You should let us know about any cool Oregon rides. They must have something. :D

V.

[SadieKate]

Oh, yeah, I'm thinking about it. Just waiting for a bit more 2008 info to come on line.

[jobob]

Or we could just go up there and do our own ride !

[SadieKate]

I know Kim is dying to come up for some of our lovely winter weather.:rolleyes:

[aka_kim]

Is it cold yet?

[SadieKate]

You'll love it.

http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/USOR0031_f.html

Should be getting my new winter tires mounted on Saturday. Now, where's the snow again? We're having a few challenges in that department.

[aka_kim]

Dee-lightful! I might just stop on by.

[deedolce]

Sooo tempting. I've never ridden Diablo, but I grew up in Concord! Went to Clayton Valley High, class of '77. Now I'm a flatlander, riding in Davis. I may not get far, but even to give it a try...that would be cool! :D

And I can at least start with company...!

[jobob]

No worries Dee !

[deedolce]

Just what I needed to hear, jobob! I'm planning on being there, unless the weather or teenage daughter have other plans for me. YES!! I'm already getting stoked. I NEED this. :cool:

[Veronica]

Be sure you bring warm clothes for the descent Dee. This is going to be fun. We usually go chow down after at a local plaza with lots of eating options. I hope you can join us for that. :)

V.

[Bike Goddess]

Hmmm- this is very tempting (I just posted on another thread about the very same mountain)....There is a Sheila Moon sale going on at her shop in SF that morning and I'm tempted to go over as I love her stuff.

I trust you are going up the North (as in steeper) side?

We shall see....:) :)

[Veronica]

Yep, the North side.

V.

[aka_kim]

Current weather report: Clear and crisp. Very, very crisp. Kind of Bend-like crisp.

[SadieKate]

Just view it as training. Today is the Xmas Parade downtown. I wonder what all the baton twirlers will be wearing?

http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/USOR0031_f.html

[deedolce]

Hey, I didn't get the day wrong! I got to the parking lot of Arbolado Park and there was just me. I waited for about 15 minutes, then thought, heck, I drove all the way out here, surely I can find a mountain! So even though my sense of direction was off, I followed the sign, and found my way.

It was a beautiful day! Perfect for riding. Can't say I made it all the way. I was maybe a mile or two away from the peak, but my stomach was hungry, it looked a zillion miles away, and I was cold. So I turned. Something to works toward! :p It's now my goal to ride to the peak by the time I turn 50. Gives me a year and a month! lol.

On the way back to my truck, I noticed that Arbolado Dr. crosses Northgate, aha! A short cut. Darned hilly one, that nearly did me in. :rolleyes: And as I reached the park, it was then I realized there were TWO parking lots! I was in the kiddie playground one.

Anyway, maybe next time I can find you'all to ride it again, and join you for food afterwards! How lucky you are to have that in your backyard!!

[jobob]

Hey Dee, we were at the lot next to the rest rooms at the north(?) end of the park. Really sorry we all missed you! :(

We went up as far as the Junction and then went down the south side, and then rode thru Alamo, Dublin and Walnut Creek back to the park.

Oh, yeah, that Arbolado Rd. "shortcut" - I took it once. Gahhhh.

It was an excellent ride. We'll do it again sometime, promise!

[aka_kim]

Dee, sorry we missed you! Yeah, we always start from the second lot. I'm surprised we didn't see you somewhere on the mountain though.

For the record, we did not enter Dublin at any point - Diablo, yes. Dublin, no. :)

[Veronica]

Oh bummer Dee! I'm sorry we missed you too! We got to the Junction and I made the command decision to go down the South Gate. My knee had stiffened up in a couple of the steeper sections, just briefly. But I don't want to be too stupid about pushing it. I knew I'd want to to do the 17% at the end if we went to the summit and I'm not quite sure I'm ready for that yet. I don't think I can spin at 70 RPMS on 17% :eek:

I'm glad you rode up it anyway. We ride it pretty often. We like company and meeting new folks.

V.

[aka_kim]

Jo, you asked about the Pink Lady. Check out Bike Bits Vol 9 No 20 (http://www.adventurecycling.org/resources/Bike%20Bits%20Vol.%209,%20No.%2020,%20October%2017,%202007.txt) and Bike Bits Vol 9 No 21 (http://www.adventurecycling.org/resources/Bike%20Bits%20Vol.%209,%20No.%2021,%20November%207,%202007.txt) from the Adventure Cycling site.

[snapdragen]

This is good, one of the links in the Adventure Cycling Bike Bits

http://www.teamalameda.com/FlashBlog/?p=14

[aka_kim]

Oh, sorry snap. The Pink Lady you were probably looking for is here (http://www.drinkswap.com/drinks/detail.asp?recipe_id=6089). :p

[snapdragen]

:d :d :d :d :d

[snapdragen]

:D :rolleyes: :D

[Bike Goddess]

It was pretty darn cold here when I got up and after I figured out the bus schedule to get to the Pleasant Hill BART and then after the ride home, I figured it would be a bit complicated. So, I did my usual Gordon Valley Rockville ride. It was cold and windy down here and I wondered how you all were doing UP there (I could see Diablo from Fairfield, Rockville and on the way home).

Good that you didn't test yourself Veronica. I know how you feel- once you get to the lower parking lot, it's pretty hard to resist the summit run. I tried walking it a few weeks ago and decided that was harder than riding!

Anyways, sounds like you all had a good time and you got a good ride in which is really what matters.

Hopefully I'll see you all one of these days- mountain or otherwise. I'll most likely go up next week when the winds calm down and it's (maybe) a bit warmer (ha, ha, ha!)

[jobob]

Hee hee. Nice articles, thanks.

So the Pink Lady has a name, and her name is Alison.

For those of you who are wondering what the heck we're talking about, Veronica, Kim and I passed by said Pink Lady, who was ascending the south side of Diablo as we were heading down.

Her bright pink panniers were bulging and I almost asked if she was carrying brownies again. (Some time ago a bunch of us accompanied her on the final stretch up to the Diablo summit, and at the top she pulled out a box of home-baked brownies and passed them around. Yum.)

But, if she said she had brownies, I would have been faced with a hard decision - continue the fun descent, or stop and turn around and follow her back up? Such a quandry.

So instead I just waved hello as I passed by. :cool:

[Veronica]

I saw her and got a big grin on my face. It's hard not to smile at bright pink panniers. :)

V.

[deedolce]

Geez, I WAS on the same mountain wasn't I? I never saw the Pink Lady either! Is the Junction where those bathrooms and little ranger station is? I didn't realize you didn't have to go all the way to the peak (I assume that's where the little round brick thing is) to go down the other side.

I'd definitely be up for another try! I'm not suprised we didn't see each other, since I left later, and went up and down the North side. Having never ridden it, and coming from a place where a 'hill' is an overpass, it seemed pretty darn endless! Came down pretty slow too, since it was all unfamiliar with lots of turns, I had to stop a number of times to uncramp my hands!

[jobob]

For the record, we did not enter Dublin at any point - Diablo, yes. Dublin, no. :)

Argh, I meant to say Danville. I often get Danville & Dublin mixed up. The Senior Moments are coming fast & furious. :p

[jobob]

Is the Junction where those bathrooms and little ranger station is?
Yes indeedy.

[Bike Goddess]

I was at REI today (the Concord one) and a guy was showing us topo maps on the computer. Evidently you can buy a program that will map routes on a topo map for you, determine elevation gain, etc. My pal Mick (who works in the bike-now ski shop) asked the guy to do a route up Mt Diablo using the roads instead of trails. So, first he did the south side route and then the north side. Turns out the average grade (from the bottom of the northgate route to the summit) is 11%. That makes sense since there are a couple of nasty U turns as you near the ranger station at the junction as well as some steep sections on the summit road. (That average included the 17% climb at the end BTW!). So no easy task getting up the mountain. I think the south side average (also including the summit road) was 10%.

Anyway, he said the demo with the software is there all the time. You can even print out an elevation gain map for any route you choose. He was also talking about how a specific GPS device could coordinate with the topo programs. It was quite impressive. I recommend that you all check it out when you get over to REI. I would imagine they have this program at other REIs as well. :D :D

[Bike Goddess]

What days did you say the Pink Lady does Diablo? I'll ride for brownies any time (well unless it's freezing outside)!:p :p :p

[Bike Goddess]

Deedolce- Yes, that's the junction. We(the group I ride with) often sit up there in the sun, have a bite to eat, and... if the ranger is around... have him/her call the weather radio at the summit to find out the temp and the wind conditions. At least then we know what we are getting in to.......especially this time of the year.

If you want to know current conditions of most areas just go to the NOAA weather site. For example: Type Mt Diablo on the search window and you will get all kinds of stuff. Go to the MesoWest thread and you will find temps, humidity, wind, peak wind, temps and precipitation for the last 24 hours, etc. It's useful if you are planning to come down to do the mountain. It kind of has its own weather system. Mozie around the NOAA site in the same area (get out of MesoWest) and you can find forecasts for the Diablo range as well. Also useful for longer term (as in 5 days)

I use this site a lot because it doesn't have any ads. Just lots of info and interesting discussions.

[maillotpois]

Hi Nancy -

We use that Topo program to create our routes for our TNT Death Ride training rides. A BIG caveat to anyone thinking of using it - the climbing is WAY over estimated, at least for this area. There are many suspected reasons why this is, but it will calculate climbing for some rides at double what it actually is (per a GPS or barometric altimeter).

[Bike Goddess]

MP- I didn't think 11% average was too far off for Diablo:( :( . We're going up on Wednesday and one of the guys has a pretty reliable altimeter. (He often shouts out what the % of the grade is as we ride along:rolleyes: ) I'll check with him at the end of the ride. We're doing south side up, north side down. Sweet Affaire Bakery beckons us on the way back to Heather Farms

[aka_kim]

11% average??? I would fall off my bike crying like a baby if that were true. I think 5-6% is more accurate ...

[SadieKate]

Diablo ain't tall enough for an 11% average grade and a lot of us have ridden it enough times with good altimeters to know.

You'd have to climb 5,808 ft over 10 miles for that. Do the math. Here, I'll make it easy. (http://www.csgnetwork.com/inclinedeclinegradecalc.html):D

[jobob]

I thought 11% seemed like a bit much as well. That's Sierra Road/Welch Creek territory. :p

With my CicloSport computer I can download the % gradient over very short intervals of a climb.

So, I pulled up the data from one of the times I climbed the entire mountain up the north side, and dumped the data into this spredsheet (http://www.geocities.com/jrp22@pacbell.net/MtDiablo.htm).

I color-coded the gradient values so that < 6 % is white, 6% to 8% is yellow, > 8% to 10% is orange and > 10% is red. Apart from the last bit to the summit, there are not very many stretches over 10%. The brief steep sections are mainly switchbacks, and the gradient there depends in part on what line you take going around.

My numbers worked out to about 6% average gradient from the North Gate to the Junction, and 7% average gradient from the Junction to the summit.

[maillotpois]

Nancy - I didn't mean percentage gradient - I meant cumulative feet of climbing. (These guys know more about percentage and that's not really relevant for what I need for ride planning.)

on the cumulative feet, topo will give me 20,000 feet where a ride only has 11,000, for example.

[Bike Goddess]

You can tell I don't know much about gradients! 11% when I think about it seems a bit high since the last pitch is (I understand) 17%. So my thinking is the program I saw at REI the other day didn't calculate the straight areas and the slight inclines very well. It pretty much skipped that part which, as I see now, would make the climb much less steep.

Tomorrow we'll see what the average is for the S Side to the Junction.

[jobob]

I got 5% average for the south side (http://www.geocities.com/pokeyjobob/MtDiabloSouth.htm), from the Hole in the Wall to the Junction

[SadieKate]

Way easier! Why even bother? :D

Let's do repeats up Pilot Butt instead.

[maillotpois]

I was thinking about this more.

Alpe d'Huez is 11% average, I believe. (They do their roads differently, so the switchbacks are dead flat and the part in between is scary steep, but I digress.) Anyway, when I rode that back in 2003, I remember thinking it was the hardest ride I had ever done, after the 2002 Death Ride.

So 11% is pretty scary steep average.

:)

[jobob]

Pilot Butt (http://www.geocities.com/pokeyjobob/PilotButte.htm)e averages out to about 9&#37;.

Happily, it's only about a mile long.
But you're almost 4000 ft above sea level. :p

Do a few repeats of that and you'll be tres studly, SK !

----

This gradient tabulating thing is fun, in a geeky sort of way.

I'll see if I can dig up the gradient data for Sierra Road - I think I managed to do the entire climb once or twice. Don't know if I saved it, tho.

Welch Creek, however, ain't happening.
V, I'd be glad to lend you my computer and you can slog up it as a Public Service. :cool:

[SadieKate]

Do a few repeats of that and you'll be tres studly, SK !Or just ride it without your bottom 3 gears and on knobby tires.:rolleyes:

[Veronica]

I'll look at my data on Welch Creek when I get home and report back.

V.

[Bike Goddess]

Welch Creek? Hmmm- where's that one?
Yeah, I'd love to know what Sierra is. Even the Amgen Tour guys suffered on that!

We did Diablo today and wouldn't you know- no one had their altimeter with them. BUT I will say, south side sounds like 5% average to me. After doing it 6 of 7 times up in the last 8 weeks and averaging about 7mph up to the junction, it feels pretty gentle. The last part up couldn't be much more than maybe 7% unless we take into account the 17% grade at the end which might bump it up a bit. I did that one once on a triple with a 25 on the back- it just about did me in! Now I do it on my Jamis which has an XTR on the back. I can almost walk it up (on the bike that is).

It was pretty darn cold- 53 at the junction and 48 at the summit. The only thing that made going up easier was NO wind... as in ZERO! How many times do we get that???? But coming down was a different story. Cold, cold,cold! Thank goodness Sweet Affair had hot soup waiting for us!

As an aside- our oldest club member- Joe Shami (71)has done Diablo 25 weeks in a row. I'm not sure what his goal is, but as of next week, if he gets to the top it will be a full 6 months! I'm happy to support his endeavors until it gets 1) too cold, and/or 2) too wet. Since we have 7 days to do the climb, usually one of those will work. We'll see come January. :p :p :p

Sure is nice to be retired.....

[snapdragen]

Sure is nice to be retired.....

Oh stop bragging! :D