Diablo Ride - Sat. Dec. 8

[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.

[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, from the Hole in the Wall to the Junction

[SadieKate]

Way easier! Why even bother?

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 Butte averages out to about 9&#37;.

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

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.

[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.

[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.

Sure is nice to be retired.....

[snapdragen]

Sure is nice to be retired.....

Oh stop bragging!