1 January 2010
We celebrated New Year's Day with a bike ride up Mt. Diablo, with our friends Alison (aka "The Pink Lady") and John.
It's a popular New Year's Day activity among East Bay cyclists. I'm guessing we saw about 300 people on the mountain today and a wet morning probably kept the numbers down.
We start in Danville on Diablo Road about a half mile west of I-680. The climb is 14 miles and about 3500 feet. (The summit elevation is 3849 feet.) The first 3.5 miles is a gentle warmup through Danville. Over the next six miles, we climb to 2200 feet to the Junction Ranger Station, the most popular spot on the ride to take a break. The final push is 1600 feet of climbing over a 4.5 mile distance. We rode at a leisurely pace, clocking about 3:15 of seat time (2:30 on the climb up and 0:45 coming down) during the five-hour outing.
Although it threatened to rain at times throughout the day, we stayed dry. The temperature was cool, 50-55 °F at the base and probably 40-45 °F at the summit. I climbed in a long sleeve jersey & undershirt plus full length biking pants. For the descent, rolling down at 20-30 mph in the chilly air, I added a light sweater, a fleece vest, a wind breaker, nylon wind pants, and a second pair of gloves.
Views throughout the ride were terrific. For most of the time the sky had a high overcast with thin mist and haze in the distant valleys and good visibility in the middle layer. Later, the high overcast broke up into scattered clouds at high altitude. New clouds formed at lower elevation that engulfed the summit for a brief time. Just before we arrived, the skies above the summit opened up for a brief period of brilliant sunshine!
3 comments:
Thats a good pic of mom
Great way to start the year -- a ride up Diablo. The pic at Junction Ranger Station captures a scene that, for me, is emblematic of bike touring around the world. Excellent shot! Also I agree with Daniela -- good pic of Ingrid.
Loved the photo of Ingrid and the last picture that captured the magic of the weather and clouds that day. And who is that huge pink thing?? It's enough to make me buy a cool, light bike and ditch the pink!!!
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