Northern California - Today's Mt. Diablo Challenge (pics)

Early arrival at Monte Vista HS
http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t353/CliffLowe/Diablo%20Challenge%202008/IMG_0776.jpg
Priorities
http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t353/CliffLowe/Diablo%20Challenge%202008/IMG_0777.jpg
The Serious Guys
http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t353/CliffLowe/Diablo%20Challenge%202008/IMG_0778.jpg
Darn, I should have done it sooner (where's a bush when you need one?)
http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t353/CliffLowe/Diablo%20Challenge%202008/IMG_0786.jpg
The Start
http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t353/CliffLowe/Diablo%20Challenge%202008/IMG_0781.jpg
The Finish Area
http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t353/CliffLowe/Diablo%20Challenge%202008/IMG_0789.jpg
Me, after recovering from a massive quad attack
http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t353/CliffLowe/Diablo%20Challenge%202008/IMG_0792.jpg


Overall, it was a lot of fun (with fun being a fairly relative term in this case). A little on the chilly side, but that help me beat my goal of 1:25 by three minutes.

I'll put more pics in a second post. Sorry no pics from the ride; I was hurting too much.

Cliff

The Podium
http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t353/CliffLowe/Diablo%20Challenge%202008/Diablo%20Challenge%20II%202008/IMG_0793.jpg
Anyone need a nice bike?
http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t353/CliffLowe/Diablo%20Challenge%202008/IMG_0794.jpg
These bikes died an honorable death
http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t353/CliffLowe/Diablo%20Challenge%202008/Diablo%20Challenge%20II%202008/IMG_0795.jpg
The first of these unicyclists made it in about 1:22. I know because I just barely beat him
http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t353/CliffLowe/Diablo%20Challenge%202008/IMG_0801.jpg
Amazing, 36" wheels. I don't know how they go downhill, much less uphill
http://i515.photobucket.com/albums/t353/CliffLowe/Diablo%20Challenge%202008/IMG_0802.jpg

Cliff

beat my goal of 1:25 by three minutes.

Cliff

Congratulations on your personal best! sounded like a great but painful time!:thumb:

That's a very decent time. Congrats!

Nicely done, Cliff. Wish I could have been there today.

More from today's Mt. Diablo Challenge:

http://pommerenk.blogspot.com/2008/10/sun-oct-5-mount-diablo-challenge-2008.html

43mins and 33sec - wow. Wasn't that the guy that won on Tam the other day?

43mins and 33sec - wow. Wasn't that the guy that won on Tam the other day?

Correct.

http://www.californiaroadclub.org/TamResults/2008tamresults.html

So these times, from where to where are we talking? Base to summit via [North|South] Gate? Ranger station to summit?

South Gate Rd. from Athenian School to the parking lot at the top.

So these times, from where to where are we talking? Base to summit via [North|South] Gate? Ranger station to summit?

From Athenian School on Mt Diablo Scenic Blvd in Danville, to the Summit.

http://www.savemountdiablo.org/Bike%20Challenge/MountDiabloChallengeHome.htm

In 43 minutes. Ouch. It takes me a bit longer than that to get from the gate on North Gate to the ranger station... :P

I think this is Pizza Man, he was faster than my shutterspeed.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/DiabloScottsBikeBlog/SOmL__88RAI/AAAAAAAAEYQ/QmaVBK7bz7U/s800/PA050009.JPG
Bottom of the wall

Thanks for the pic!

It was a lot of fun yesterday, but real cold at the top. I'm very thankful for the volunteers who brought up our extra clothes. :thumb:

I tried to stay with Nate as long as I could, but blew up after about 9 minutes.

Here's the track from the trailguru app on my iphone.
http://www.trailguru.com/wiki/index.php/Track:1EYG

I started it about 5 min before we started and stopped it about 1 min after we finished, so my actual time was about 47 min.

I finished the challenge 41st out of 99 women. Way behind the fastest lady. Enjoyed the ride though. Rode there last week and it took 1.33, for the challenge I finished in 1.22, really pleased with the time.
The descent was awesome, all you could see was a long line cyclists all the way down.

Well done ma'am. I don't remember the last time Jenny Slawta didn't win the women's class.

There were a couple bad accidents on the way down, not sure what happened but ambulances, fire trucks, and helicopters were involved.

Also there were several DQ's because of Wave 2 riders sneaking into Wave 1 (including the first two riders listed on the "official" results page (http://results.active.com/pages/displayNonGru.jsp?orgID=218713&rsID=70768) They were fast but not that fast and their times were really 5 minutes slower (or maybe 10 or 20 if they were assigned to Waves 3 or 4. As great an event as this is, the budget to run it is pretty low and they don't have transponder sensors at the start... only the finish so they subtracted the start time from the finish time and there really was no way to check for wave jumpers except by being reported by staff or other riders (they had different colored bib numbers and number ranges).

Thanks for the pics.

I had to haul ass up the wall to finsh just ahead of the first unicyclist too...quite a humbling experience.