Top Hat/ Devil Mountain Double Volunteer Report
Well, yesterday was a long day! I woke up at 3:00 and decided I was awake enough to just stay up. I worked on some stuff for school until Thom got up at 4:30. We loaded my gear for the ride and all the stuff we would need for volunteering into the car and hit the road. Parking for Top Hat wasn't bad. The Amici Veloci crew was easy to spot. I think Subaru must be the official team car.
Registration seemed just a bit disorganinized. You had to go to at least three different tables to get all your stuff. Pins weren't distributed with numbers. There didn't seem to be a place to sign up for team photos before the ride.
We took off at about 7:30. A bit later than I had hoped for, since I wanted to be back by noon. We stayed pretty close together until the first rest stop at mile 12.3. I did have my front tire go down into this section of pavement that was all beat up with cracks parallel to the road. It sounded awful and I thought for sure I had done some damage. I guess running sturdy, heavy gear does pay off. The wheel was still true and the tire itself has some heavy scrape marks, but that's it.
We broke up a little bit after the first rest stop. Jo and AG were waiting for Snap. (Where were you?) We had a couple of fairly steep, short hills and then we climbed up by some reservoir. This section was really pretty and had some great downhill.
We got together again at the second rest stop at mile 26.4. We stayed together for a mile then the 75 milers went left and the 50s continued straight. Jennifer, Corey and I rode much of the way back together. Well, to be honest, Corey would take off and wait for us at certain points.
I'm not sure which road it was, but there should have been a warning in the route sheet. We had a really steep, fast downhill ( you know if I say it's steep, it's STEEP!) with a four way stop at the bottom. Where you really do, actually have to stop because there is traffic. Our next rest stop was at mile 34.2. This was supposed to be our lunch stop, but I just blew by it.
The rest of our ride was through the 'burbs and fairly mundane. About five miles from the end I gave my tube to a guy who was on his third flat.
We rolled into the finish at about 12:30. I wasn't impressed with the food or the signage on this ride. The turns were all marked, but often on the other side of the intersection. That made some left hand turns a bit dicey. I didn't eat at the lunch stop or the BBQ so maybe those would have made up for few choices at the stops.
Thom was waiting for me by Sarah and Bubba's bus mobile. We loaded up my bike and headed off to get some food for us and ice for our rest stop near the top of Mt. Hamiliton. We were supposed to be there at 2 and it's 50 miles up Mines road from Livermore - 50 twisty miles. Everything was going pretty smoothly, we were in and out of Jack in the Box and Albertson's quickly. Then we got to Livermore - which had some event going on and we were detoured. Arghhh.
We finally got onto Mines road and I rang my bell for each rider we passed. Mines Road is a gorgeous road to ride. Beautiful scenery and lots of flowers right now. You climb pretty steadily for about 25 miles and then you enter the San Antonio Valley.
Just before the end of the valley, there's a guy stopped by the side of the road. He's slashed his rear tire. We're not an actual SAG vehicle, so we don't have any tires, tubes or anything. We do have our pump and full tool kit, but that's it. The last SAG we've seen is about an hour behind us. Remember this is a 205 mile course and the riders do get quite spread out. The first guy finishes around 6:15 PM and the last guy finishes around 3:00 AM. So we offered him a tire from Fluffy or to just ride my bike since he's not much bigger than me. Since we had pedal incompatibilities, we swapped out tires. He had 23s and my SpeedBlends are 28s. It did fit on his bike with a little less air and meant he didn't have to sit by the side of the road and wait.
We were about 45 minutes late to our stop. Not bad considering. We had less than half the riders stop at our stop. Last year it was much hotter and nearly everyone stopped for water refills. The last guy came through right around six. It was a bit drizzly and cold.
We drove down the front side of Hamiliton and then drove part of the course. We had never been up Sierra Road. This has got to be the worst climb on this ride. It comes at about mile 150 and is 3.7 miles of what I would guess to be 8 -10% grade. It looks vicious. ACTCs Billy Goat list gives it a 5. Totally doable when you're fresh, but at mile 150 with over 15,000 feet of climb already in your legs? Now I know why I stop at mile 116 on the staff ride. :D
We stopped at the summit of Sierra to ring the bells for some of the riders and take some pictures. There was a nice sunset and Thom got a couple of good shots. So much nicer (in my opinion) then the stuff you get from the regular event photographers.
http://www.tandemhearts.com/bike/dmd...22a-v-bell.jpg
We stayed for a little bit at the next rest stop. Then drove home. I was in bed around ten.
It was a long, eventful day.
V.
