Day 167: Riding Up Mount Diablo with Melvis

After feeling the need to do some deep reflection yesterday, and writing about it afterwards, I’m happy to take a deep breath today and keep things light. I was invited out to a client’s offices in the East Bay today in order to help them learn about a new system that will manage their Web site. In planning any venture out to the East Bay I try to work in a ride with my friends that live out there. The riding isn’t quite as varied as the riding is in Marin, but they do have great rides like the one that Melvis and I did up on Mount Diablo today. There’s also the Morgan Territory ride that I did several weeks back, and that’s a glorious ride on the back side of Mount Diablo. Today we rode from Melvis’ house in Concord CA, and headed over to the North Gate of Mount Diablo State Park. There are two main routes up the mountain, and this one is the harder of the two climbs that lead up to the Junction where the two roads collide. They become one road that's a heinous 7.2 mile climb up to the summit. As we left Melvis’ house I wasn’t feeling great. I got to sleep late, and was up early answering Email. I was even too busy to eat breakfast at home, so I hit Starbucks on the way out of town. We began climbing over the rolling hills that lead to the sustained six or seven mile climb up to the Junction. My legs were feeling dodgy at best, especially my left one. I think that I know why...

Melvis informed me that we were about to reach the beginning of the long climb (he knows the mountain much better than I do), and I was really feeling quite anxious about the ascent. As we began climbing I reminded myself to find a rhythm in my pedaling. I hit the first out-of-the-saddle portion of the climb and I attacked it with confidence. Then I did the same thing on the next one. By the time that I had hit Burma ( a nasty little section) my legs were feeling better, so I kept on chugging up the mountain. I had lost contact with Melvis, at least I no longer heard him breathing behind me. When I reached the switchbacks where it is easy to look back, I saw him about a quarter mile behind. He was ticking over the pedals just fine, so I kept on going. I reached the second nasty part of the climb and I went at it with gusto, but this time my legs barked back at me like a Rottweiler in a junk yard. I backed off and spun my cranks the rest of the way up to the Junction where I basked in the sun while I waited for Melvis to arrive. I think that he had regained some time on me during the second half of the climb. ;-)

After a brief stop, we plummeted back down the mountain to the bicycle shop of choice in the East Bay, Pegasus Bicycle Works. I can tell you this, these guys rock! I’ve been in their shop dozens of times, and I’ve never seen a customer waiting, or tapping their feet, or perhaps feeling ignored, AND their clients never get attitude. Instead they get help. We visited for a while before making the long and flat journey back to Concord where we’d started. It’s funny, we were doing 20-24 mph the whole way back, and that’s not too bad for two guys that are on the back side of their 40’s. Yahoo… Melvis, thanks for the fun ride today!

Distance: 40.41 miles Calories burned: 2,731 Time: 2:38:26 hours Elevation gain: 2,757 ft Garmin Connect ride details: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/19969537