Mount Diablo - Nov 1 or 2

[Veronica]

I wish. But with this class if I have "sub off the street" I need to leave lots of worksheets to keep them busy.

I don't do worksheets as a regular thing, so having a sub requires a lot of extra prep work.

Veronica

[melissam]

But a brewery would be a good choice. They'll have that baseball stuff on TV for you.

"A brewery would be a good choice?!" I see that my reputation is shot. OTOH, we probably won't need to worry about the baseball stuff, as it may be all over tonight.

I wish. But with this class if I have "sub off the street" I need to leave lots of worksheets to keep them busy.

I don't do worksheets as a regular thing, so having a sub requires a lot of extra prep work.

Veronica

Veronica, you should delegate the worksheet thing to us! Shoot, I'm sure we could come up with something that would keep your class occupied for hours.

- Mel (who wants to be a hooky-playing, Diablo-riding IT-hero tomorrow)

[dachshund]

I wish. But with this class if I have "sub off the street" I need to leave lots of worksheets to keep them busy.

I don't do worksheets as a regular thing, so having a sub requires a lot of extra prep work.

Veronica

I figured there would be a snag. Darn.

"A brewery would be a good choice?!" I see that my reputation is shot.

I was only making the point that a good brewery will have good food AND good beer. Your reputation is safe here. But, hey, you've been putting in all those extra hours at work. You deserve a hooky day, or even half a day!

[dachshund]

What's on the agenda for Saturday? I'm interested in riding if there's a break in the rain. Mount Diablo might be risky in case the road's wet, though. Somewhere with rolling hills might be better. There's always Calaveras and the roads around Pleasanton & Sunol. What's anyone up for?

For the record, aka_kim and I did ride up Mt. Diablo yesterday. It didn't start raining until we were off the mountain and coming back through Danville. Good timing! It was beautiful up there. Very different with the dark clouds all around.

[melissam]

What's on the agenda for Saturday? I'm interested in riding if there's a break in the rain. Mount Diablo might be risky in case the road's wet, though. Somewhere with rolling hills might be better. There's always Calaveras and the roads around Pleasanton & Sunol. What's anyone up for?

You know me -- I'm always up for Calaveras!

OTOH, I'm not sure I have it in me to do a copycat ride of Veronica's epic journey on Mt. Diablo. You might think it's because I'm lazy and don't feel like climbing Diablo. Well, that would only be partially true.

Or you might think that I'm chicken and don't want to descend Diablo when the road's wet. That's true too, but it's not the deal breaker.

It's that whole exposure to freezing wind thing that gets to me. My fingers turned blue just thinking about it.

What time are we thinking of meeting up tomorrow, and where should we meet?

[dachshund]

You know me -- I'm always up for Calaveras!

OTOH, I'm not sure I have it in me to do a copycat ride of Veronica's epic journey on Mt. Diablo. You might think it's because I'm lazy and don't feel like climbing Diablo. Well, that would only be partially true.

Or you might think that I'm chicken and don't want to descend Diablo when the road's wet. That's true too, but it's not the deal breaker.

It's that whole exposure to freezing wind thing that gets to me. My fingers turned blue just thinking about it.

What time are we thinking of meeting up tomorrow, and where should we meet?

Well I am chicken and don't want to descend Diablo on wet pavement. There, I said it. Calaveras sounds much more civilized.

9:00 is fine for me, at the Sunol Glen School in beautiful downtown Sunol.
I'm certainly open on the time though.

[melissam]

Well I am chicken and don't want to descend Diablo on wet pavement. There, I said it. Calaveras sounds much more civilized.

9:00 is fine for me, at the Sunol Glen School in beautiful downtown Sunol.
I'm certainly open on the time though.

Thank goodness someone was brave enough to say it.

OK, 9am @ Sunol Glen School sounds like a plan to me. I think I'll bring the Merlin and see how she likes the rain.

[Veronica]

Have fun ladies. I'm wondering what racing in the rain is going to be like...

Veronica

[aka_kim]

9:00 is fine for me, at the Sunol Glen School in beautiful downtown Sunol.

Well, I'm one huge wimp. Getting up EARLY, on a Saturday, to go ride in what Weather Underground says is 100% probability of rain all day, is strangely just not appealing to me. I think ... I will sleep in, have breakfast, then hop on the trainer for some quality time with ECT! Yeah, that's the ticket!

Have fun all you hardy souls!

[melissam]

Yesterday dachshund and I completed Stage 1 of the Tour di Stupid. The route was perfect for a Tour prologue -- not too challenging, but with beautiful scenery. According to my Garmin Training Center, we climbed 2197 feet, which when translated to US feet, means that our total elevation gain was ~500 feet. OK, maybe a little more than 500 feet, but probably closer to 500 feet than 2200 feet.

We started at the civilized hour of 9am, and the wind was gusting pretty steadily from the west. Clouds were threatening to open up, but since this was the Tour di Stupid Prologue, dachshund and I decided to head out and see what happened.

The weather cooperated as we made our way up Calaveras past the nursery -- we stopped at Geary to shed some layers. We climbed up to the false summit and continued on the rolling hills until we got to the part before the Wall. There's a dirt driveway with a locked gate that's a great stopping place -- I used it to re-align my cleats the last time we were there. This time, we stopped and began chatting about ... well, lots of stuff. It's really interesting how the stream of consciousness works when you're out on a ride. I mean, one second you're talking about the upcoming election, and the next thing you know, you're trading stories about your misspent 20's.

Eventually, we decided to resume our ride back to the starting point. After about 100 yards of pedaling, the sky starts to open up. I put on my best "glass is half full" mentality and hoped it would just be a temporary drizzle. No such luck. After another mile or so, I decided that it'd be best to put the sleeves back on my jacket. Good thing, because my sleeves were already sopping wet. And this is with a wool jersey too! I took my full fingered gloves off to better work the zippers, and they were literally wringing wet. Oh boy, this is gonna be a fun ride back!

Meanwhile, dachshund decided to ditch her glasses, since she couldn't see thru the beads of water anyway. I tried a different approach -- looking over my glasses to see, but trying to use the glasses as a shield from the raindrops. Uh, my way was stupid, so I ended up ditching my glasses as well. I have to say that riding without corrective lenses is an interesting experience for a nearsighted person. Just ride into the blur! It really wasn't a problem...well, until we encountered the flock of turkeys in the side of the road on Calaveras. I think the leader of the turkey pack was trying to play chicken with the blind cyclist -- almost with devastating results.

I also confirmed the fact that my cycling shoes are not waterproof. Nope, not in the least. Every time I stood up to pedal, I'd squish out a bunch of water.

Actually, it was kind of fun.

We got back to the parking lot, no worse but much wetter for wear. I threw all modesty aside and changed right there in the parking lot. Dachshund, who's much more civilized, waited until we got to Bosco's to change.

It was a truly excellent adventure and a worthy prologue to the Tour di Stupid (Lite).