RoboCheme

Thanks again, Richard for organizing this. You did such a great job that you've been chosen to host it again next year.

I'm sure everyone had a great time. I did, too, until some folks started throwing tacks in front of me, causing me to flat. I guess that I shouldn't have call them "sandbaggers!" as they passed.

Here's the group shot. Anyone care to have a go at providing nicknames and real names?



Here's a pic of BikingShearer taken on the run by the guy with antler helmet. Is he everywhere?



Markopolo at TT start


Nervous riders getting race instructions. One talking back in Italian.


Totally color-coordinated Tricia


The heavy hitters arrive


Mass start?

RoboCheme

Looks like Richard is getting the hang of this start thing


At the top

spingineer

Great pics. Yeah, I'll second that ... it was very well organized, and we gotta do this again.

I think we should post our times, and to see if we made our original estimates or not. Well, mine had an ominous beginning. I was adjusting my computer, and then, wham ... lost balance and fell, in the parking lot. Left side of my face a little swollen, swollen left pinkie, banged up right knee, but hey, gotta HTFU. Made it in 94 minutes ... although Garmin says 95. 2 minute longer than my original estimate, which means I'm even slower up the hill.

c0lnago

Awesome...sorry I missed it but looks like a great time. Who was first to the top!?

Beaker

Thanks for getting this off the mark Cliff. I'll post some more photos later.

It was a fun time, although due to a late start and a few minutes of my PR, I missed a bunch of finishing times - please post or send my your times and I'll update the list.

I liked the way that it actually did make a lot of folks finish the climb at a very similar time - that was nice. To do the timing a little better I think would require the next person (NOT ME!) to actually drive to the summit to avoid disappointment, although frankly we could easily just take numbers from everyone's bike computers.

So, results in so far:



I reported times rounded to the nearest minute - for the purposes of tracking, but serious kudos to Eric for breaking the 60min mark.

Awards:

Winners - (closest to bid time) - DiabloScott, bikingshearer and ericm979

Sandbagger Extraordinaire (most under their bid time) - cccorlew (huge margin -18mins)), with honorable mentions to AlainP (11mins) and rumbutter (-9mins) - and I so wanted to give Ygduf grief for this one. Oh well.

Worst luck - Robocheme (pesky flat that shaved 20mins from his climb time)

rumbutter

I really enjoyed the event today and the weather was perfect.

I wasnt sandbagging but merely exceeding my expectations by a lot. Since my injury I have been climbing like a bag of spanners so I reckoned to be about 5 minutes slower than the time I did on the Weekend Before the DMD especially considering I am 7 pounds heavier !! I actually went 5 minutes faster (Must have been the Death Ride.). New PB for me

Beaker

Nice juxtaposition of the word "merely" with a 60 minute climb of Diablo I was also trying desperately to catch Britpower on the top of the climb, but she kept a great steady pace up to the summit. All in all, a good outing for the queens subjects today I'd say.

It was also nice to bump into new BF'r Geoff16W (jw) who I met on the climb up south gate and joined us at the summit - he's in Cliff's photo, but reeling off all those names right now feels like climbing Diablo again. I'll have a stab at that later on.

Also, bostic showed up (nice surprise), silentben was a little late, unfortunately I passed him as I was descending towards the south gate kiosk w/Brentley.

Britpower

My time was 78 mins, so I rode faster than I thought I would. Thanks for a great event, sorry I didn't hang around for the photo but I like to take the descent at my own pace and not get in anyones way.
Great fun!!!

xg43x

Damn, I didnt think I would qualify as a sandbagger. I certainly did alot better than my previous time. It was a pleasure meeting you all and enjoying a beautiful day. Only bummer was my little brother being run off the road by some fool in a Honda Odyssey causing him to crash for the 2nd time this month...

brentley

From this point forward his friends just called him Jens.

So I am getting dressed at the car and I hear this awful racket and I turn around and Jens is sprawled out on his side. So I go over and help him, recover his camera, do a quick bike check and then help him get comfortable. A quickie exam of his finger shows no breakage, so he was good to go. Way to HTFU.

spingineer

Thanks Brentley. I just wonder what my time would have been if I didn't turn into Jens.

x136 

That was a lot of fun. Thanks for putting it together/setting it up.

That'll be the one and only time I'm not the DFL up the Damnable Mountain. And the only time I'll ever race Marco up the Wall (okay, I was running, but still!).

I must've pushed a lot harder than usual, because I was trashed by the top. Not puking trashed, but probably not far off.

Shouldn't the negatives and positives be reversed? I took longer than my estimated time (which, according to my clock, I missed by one minute, not two!), and a positive Sandbag Factor would imply that I was sandbagging, when I clearly wasn't. </nitpick>

And yeah, I knew something was off when Curtis went flying by me halfway up the mountain.

cccorlew

UPON FURTHER REVIEW OF THE DATA

I looked down at bike computer as I hit the summit. I'm sure it was at 77 minutes (well, 1 hour, 17 minutes). I was using the stopwatch and not the ride time, so even if the computer hickuped it should be right. Right?

BUT

I just downloaded my Garmin data and it says I took 82 minutes. Darn it. Now I don't know what to think. I guess I better go back tonight and do the whole thing over. Or just go out to dinner and blow the whole thing off.

So, in the interest of Occam's Razor, please set my official time to (darn it) 82.

alainp

Many thanks to Beaker for conceptualizing and organizing this challenge and for sending us off on our "mass starts" with an enthusiastic ALLEZ!!! I was able to achieve a personal best of 74 minutes which is 3 minutes better than my previous and 11 minutes better than my 85 minute guesstimate which was based on having last done this climb in 86 minutes two weeks prior. Great to see familiar faces and meet new ones.

Oh and Ben, hope your cuts/scratches heal up quickly!

Didn't take any pics at the bottom but here's what I got at the top:



xg43x


Britpower


Beaker


Brentley


MarkoPolo


Bikingshearer


Mellum76


Ygduf


Kyle16

alainp

More...

MyLilPony


Gpelpel


Diablo Scott


Benson and Bostic


Ericm979 (?)


Uspspro (the first time up the wall)


x136 (foreground) and spingineer


rydaddy


ruthness


and robocheme


more here...

spingineer

I had a similar thing happened, but mine was a difference of 2 minutes, and your was 5. That's also one reason why I was sprinting up the last hill, so I can try to match my 92 minute time ... damn

MarkoPolo

That was as much fun as 11 miles of climbing could be! Great seeing everyone on the mountain. Kudos again to Beaker for the organization and well done everyone.

BTW: my time was 120 - 5 minutes than my target time.

ericm979

That was fun! Ok, some of it was painful. But the rest was fun. My powertap says I did it in 59:55... my polar, which is what I was reading the time off, didn't have an interval recorded. I must not have hit the button hard enough. So the time I read off it at the top was wrong, as it was still running. I sort of remember the numbers wern't standing still but I was distracted and it didn't register.

DiabloScott, I am bummed that I didn't get to meet you! I like your blog.

Avg speed: 11.1
Avg power: 256
Avg HR 168


Here's the plot.

diablo.jpg

gpelpel

Thanks Richard for putting this ride together. Great idea and splendid organization.
I was wondering why Cliff didn't catch up (I start fast but end slow), had no idea he had a flat.
Some very impressive rides: Curtis (a true 77'), BritPower and Rumbutter skyrocketed by me, Brent's power demonstration and Alain's ease up the hill. Beaker, you didn't look bad either.

RoboCheme

My net time was 85 minutes, but that was with a big break. Put me down for 86 minutes

Beaker

Updated my post with everyone's revised times. Still missing a few. Curtis, that's still an impressive job whichever number you pick.


Here's my attempt

Back row:

gpelpel/Georges, DiabloScott/Scott, Rmblnwrk/Alex, ericm979/Eric, Ygduf/Robert DeNiro, mellum76/Michael, mylilpony/trish, x136/Alex, cccorlew/curtis, bostic/Ramon, bikingshearer/Rich, MarcoPolo/Mark, Beaker/Richard, Brentley/Brentley, Geoff16W/jw, ruthness/Ruth, uspspro/Marco, rydaddy/Ryan, xg43x/william, rumbutter/mark, benson (william's brother), matt (Georges' son)

Front row:

kyle16/kyle, Ron-gineer (resplendant), Robocheme/Cliff, AlainP/Alain

What's the story, william? Was Benson OK?

Brentley, Lance called, and he wants his game-face back.

Here's a few extra snaps:

The early crew, readying for the start:


AlainP, spingineer and rydaddy:


The x136 seal of approval:


ericm979 cresting the wall with a PR in the bag


Here's my graphy stuff. Strangely, my blue line seems lower than the other ones on this page. Close to MHR again.

rydaddy

Good times for sure. Thanks for setting this up Richard! Nice to meet most of you... unfortunately I didn't actually meet everyone. And thanks for posting the pics!

The extended ride was a bit painful after my max effort up Diablo. Marco sure made me work on the downhills

More later. I'm beat and haven't yet watched the climb up Mt Ventoux....

silentben

My unofficial time was 76 minutes which is 11 slower than I bid. As was mentioned I was running late, as in an hour late. Got totally lost between Dublin BART and the start and ended up riding an extra 16 or so miles

When I did finally reach the start I had been riding about 27 miles since the BART station. I only had 1 full water bottle but didn't stop, just plowed up the mountain. So upon reaching the junction I had to stop and refill my water. Later I was trying to open a clif shot and dropped it so I stopped and went back to pick it up. But really those probably only added 3 minutes. The real killer for me was the extra mileage and not being part of the group and having people to chase down.

Oh so the very first thing in my day was that I had to get from my house to Fremont BART. I left home at 6:05am and did the 26 miles in an hour 22 which is 18.8mph or something. I think that also sapped some of my hill climbing energy.

After the climb I descended North Gate with those who were doing the Morgan Territory loop and then I split off and took BART to San Bruno and rode home from there. That was another 48 miles so my daily mileage was 131.

Lessons learned:
* The east bay is a scary place. Maps highly encouraged
* Try to be a little better rested before attempting mountain climbing PRs

Anyway I still had a good (if frustrating at times) day. Thanks for setting this up Richard!

kyle16

That's me!

Ygduf

That's my graph. Average HR of 169? I knew I didn't have "it" today. On my Montebello PR runs my avg hr runs about 178. I'm happy to have broken 70 minutes, and also to have set a beatable PR.

I tried to come through on the sandbagging. I said 72, but was really hoping for 65!

I did achieve my goal of not being caught by Marco, Ramon, or Eric!

Excellent event. It's nice to see some true effort every once in a while!