threadwalker

FTW! I rode up Mt Diablo yesterday.

Personal assessment: This was my first time on Sally since before my trip. It was an aggressive idea to climb Mt Diablo after a 5+ week break from riding. It took me 2hrs+45 minutes to get to the top; 2:10 of actual riding the rest were a potty break and stops to take pictures and rest my butt. I was down the mountain in 35 minutes. Overall I'm pretty pleased. I need more power, though (Tim Taylor: More POWER!!), because I think I need to cut the trip down considerably for Death Ride. I'll have to see what it is without the picture taking breaks. More planning on this later.

View from the observation deck on the top was breath taking. Great reward for a great ride.

Bummed that the snack-shop was not open. Was counting on a Snickers and Diet Cola to fuel my ride down.

Gear comments:
Bike Gear: I got to try out my new headlamp, which works just fine at 3mph (duh). It's 150 lumens and the guy at REI thought it would be suitable for 30mph in the dark. We'll see - I kept the receipt. Wednesday or Thursday I'm doing Wildcat, which will be a better test. All my little blinking lights and reflector stuff clearly warned the wild-life away. Since I didn't see any cars, I don't really know if they help or not. I was able to do the trip with 2 water bottles and without a camel pack (yay). The gear ring on my rear wheel (there's 6 gears?) was not always responding to my lever-shift... I wonder if it's time for a tune up? gah. $$$

Cold Weather Clothing: Overall, I'm pleased with my planning. I wore an UnderArmor long-sleeved shirt, long sleeved biking jersey, and "cold weather" long sleeved biking pull-over. Over all that I wore a bright yellow safety vest. A full length pair of pants. socks and Toe covers. lined gloves. On the way up, a cap with ear-flaps under my helmet. On the way down I swapped out the cap for a full face-mask (like a skiing one). I brought, but didn't use, my elbow warmers - which was a mistake on the descent.. brrrr!

Cold Gear Tweaks: I need to get some knee-warmers because my legs and knees got very cold on the descent. The face-mask did not keep my ears warm enough. Maybe I need to wear both cap and mask or just get some ear covers. I'd like to add a water-proof layer eventually - I might be able to swap out the underarmor if I'm adding a water/wind proof slicker.

PreDawn Mountain Climb
In the Darkness I arose at 4:45 am. I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to do the climb. I spent time bonding with my bike, putting on a new, burly headlamp and reattaching some stuff that I pulled off for my last race. I layered up, figured out how to attach glow-in-the-dark stuff, prepped water, pumped up tires and loaded Sally and gear into car. During which the small voice in the back of my head suggested it would be more comfortable to go back to bed.

I started riding at 6:15 am. It was dark, cold and the fog was thick and soupy. Visibility was low and I could watch the fog swirl through the beam of light cast by my headlamp. I rode through some water that was coursing across the road from a broken line, but couldn't see it even as I was going through it. My arms and legs got coated in dew, changing my coloring from black to gray/black stripes. The park was closed, which meant I didn't need to worry about cars, only wildlife. I was not the first cyclist up, though. It totally ruined my fantasy that I was the only cyclist on the mountain when I was passed by someone going downhill while I was yet below the half-way mark. (pout)

I saw the dawn bring my surroundings from curtain of foggy darkness to fog-enshrouded hills. Once I climbed above the fog line I could see the entire San Ramon Valley and Concord/Clayton valley socked in with fog. It looked like whipped frosting or a white ocean decorated with islands that were peaks and ridge-lines poking through. When the sun broke I was an hour into my climb and almost at the 2000 ft mark. The white peaks of fog laying along the Hwy 680 corridor below me went from a variegated shades of white to pink peaks that cast dark shadows. It was gorgeous, so I stopped and took pics w/ my phone. Above the fog I had azure skies, fluffy white clouds, and green and yellow fields.

During the climb, I had one ear-piece for my ipod in. Technically, this is illegal and I wouldn't have done it if the park were open. However, the gates don't open until 8 and apparently the park rangers don't stir until 8 (I was passed by 3 pick-up trucks full of them. I was amused when I saw one of them shaking his head at me... yes, only the crazies are up this early on a Sunday risking life and limb to ride a mountain that's closed to traffic and has very little cell coverage. Yay! Go Crazies! )

Back to the ipod... my musical back-drop was funny and frequently in sync with what I was doing. Metallica's "Sandman" came on during my dark ascent; Beyonce/DC came on with Bootilicious while my glutes were burning; Lovely Loreena McKinnet and Celtic Harp stuff accompanied me while dawn was changing the colors of the fog and the birds started to wake up; "whiskey for my men and beer for my horses" by Toby Keith got me through a hard climb. I wobbled up the last stretch, which made me swear in disbelief the first time I did this ride and which totally kicked my ass yesterday, but I did it to that song by Toby Keith, where he sings "not as good as I once was but I can be that good once", or something like that.

One of the rangers rode my tail up the last killer stretch. I did not have the power/strength to ride a straight line up the side of the road to let her pass. I was zig-zagging back and forth across the single lane, so she had to cool her jets and pace me. My options were "zig-zag" or try to stop, which would have resulted in crashing right in front of her. The zig-zagging was faster. That stretch was probably the true measure of being out of shape - I don't recall working that hard on that stretch last time. Once I got to the top I had to lap the parking lot a few times to get my wind back so I could unclip my feet. The geezers who were up there and decked out for a hike both saluted me with "good job" and "keep up the good work". I gasped out a thanks. heh.

And boy, was my body tired. I parked myself on a bench for about 5 minutes and when I tried to stand, my legs refused to cooperate. I frowned at them and "willed" them to hold me up. They still refused! Apparently standing was not on my list of options until my knees and legs had spent more time recovering. They did, but today's casualties are my neck-shoulders (too much hunching while I ride) and my glutes. The knees and legs are just fine.

On the way down (no ipod), I was passed by a bunch of motorcylces zipping to the top. A few waved, which was kind of neat. I zipped by other cyclists who were climbing and who gave me the "look".. the "look" is simultaneous "congratulations for having made it" and "I can't wait to reach the top so I can zip down".

Hmm... when do I go again? I'm very eager to see if I can trim my time down. Maybe I need to just to identify a stretch of mountain that's tough and practice on it over and over? When I ran XC, we did hill sprints that were like that. Pick a spot and either do for distance or time... Like maybe a pyramid.. climb like made for 5 minutes, return to start. Climb like made for 10 minutes, return to start. climb like made for 15 minutes, return to start, then do 10 min and then 5 minutes... I need to do some homework on this.

Wildcat on Thursday. Spinning on Sunday. Maybe an early mountain foray on Saturday? This time I'd need to be home by 9am so I can get cleaned up and we can go to Dickens. Can't wait! My goal is to be able to do Mt Diablo 2x in succession by the end of February. 3x by the end of April. 4x by end of June. Then it's time for Death Ride. Woot woot!