Diablo Ride - Sat. Dec. 8

[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]

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.

[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)!

[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 ) 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.

[jobob]

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

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.

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.