This was to be my weekend of riding up Diablo three times, but the air quality has been so crappy (due to all the forest fires), that I had to scrap that idea and head to the coast. The air on the coast wasn’t perfect, but it had the best particle reading in the bay area. And it was probably still better than your average day in southern California.
On my recent rides up Tam, I’ve been taking the northern approach via Fairfax. It’s longer and a bit more challenging, but it doesn’t have the traffic of Panoramic Highway. However for this ride, I was looking for efficiency, so I ended up taking the route through Mill Valley and Panoramic that I had followed on my first ride up to the ranger’s station last year. Actually that was almost a year ago to the day.. how fitting! Anyway, the ride up to Pan Toll station wasn’t nearly as bad as I remembered it. In fact there was a nice flat stretch in the middle where I was able to accelerate quite a bit. It probably helped that it was overcast and chilly, so no chance of overheating or dehydrating. From the station I headed up to the summit (west peak on this first pass) and then turned around to descend down to Stinson Beach.
From Stinson, it’s a much shorter approach to get to the summit: 3.7 miles to the station, 1.5 to the junction with the ridge, and then 3 miles to the visitors center on the east peak. A construction crew was up there working on some expansion to the center, and the snack bar was closed (!) but there were hordes of cyclists up there. Looked like it might have been a couple of club rides.
For the third and final pass, I again descended down to Stinson and then climbed back to the ranger station. I really started feeling fatigued on this final climb and it took all my energy to get through it. For the first time in a long time, I was actually sore after this ride. Somehow I managed to work my inner thigh muscles to the point that they were stiff and sore after the drive home. I suspect that on that final climb, I wasn’t keeping my knees lined up correctly and was probably swinging my legs out a bit to find some extra power.
For those of you keeping score at home, the three climbs today measured:
12.5 miles, 2500 feet (west peak)
8.3 miles, 2540 feet (east peak)
3.7 miles, 1400 feet (to Pan Toll ranger’s station)
The three passes I want to complete for the Death Ride are:
Front side of Monitor: 13.3 miles, 2700 feet
Front side of Ebbetts: 10.4 miles, 2700 feet
Back side of Ebbetts: 4.8 miles, 1500 feet
So I came very close today to the real elevation gain I’ll be seeing in 2 weeks. It was a perfect training ride, and I’m as ready as I’ll ever be for the real thing.
Animules: One deer crossing Panoramic Highway
Total Distance: 50 miles
Elevation gain: about 7000 feet
Time in the Saddle: 5 hours 45 minutes
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