The 2013 PMC: Monte del Diablo

September 8, 2013

This year's PMC is dedicated to the memory of my uncle Warren. Below is a picture taken just one year ago of my cousin Stephen, Uncle Warren, Dad (yep, they are twins), and me. Uncle Warren had been in a battle with multiple myeloma for several years. At the end of July, he could battle no more. He was 84.

For me, the PMC is a metaphor for such battles. Cancer is an arduous journey, often filled with pain and suffering. We make our ride difficult for this reason.
 

Seigel Men
Cousin Stephen, Uncle Warren, Dad and myself, September, 2012

 

Pre-ride

Finding the time to do long rides this year was a challenge. I picked a PMC route that would be tough, but doable - a metric century including Mt. Diablo (3900 feet) in the east bay and a navigation around the eastern slopes on Morgan Territory road. Mt. Diablo was in this year's Tour Of California bike race; this is not the first time I've used a TOC climb in the v-PMC. To prepare for this, I concentrated on climbing. Each week I rode at least one of my local steepies - Black, Montebello, Redwood Gulch, Page Mill. I did the Big Basin State Park loop many times (44 miles, 4400 feet of gain). In August, I doubled up the steeps, doing Montebello and Redwood Gulch + highway 9 on two occasions. A short ride (30 miles), but lots of elevation (4600'). The last time up Montebello, we were able to see the Rim fire at Yosemite in the distance.

It was also tricky to find a date that both long time sponsor and virtual-PMC-veteran riding buddy Steve and I were both available. We picked September 7. Well, after a relatively mild summer, 9/7 was forecast to be about the hottest weekend since an April/May heatwave. Heat doesn't bother me all that much, but we planned to get a reasonably early start just in case. For us, that's like 9AM (note: the PMC starts around 5:30 nowadays).

Ride Day

I picked Steve up around 8:30 and we drove out to Danville. The temperature at the start was a perfect 72. We warmed up through some residential neighborhoods, following the trusty Garmin's advice to get to Diablo road, the approach to the Mt. Diable State Park South Gate Road. By the time we reached the entrance to the park, we were warmed up - that's a good thing, since the road tips up immediately. It's 12 miles and 3500 feet to the summit, all up. It was already 80 degrees.

Along the south gate approach, you can get a reasonably good view of the mountain. After climbing for about 7 miles, we had climbed to 2100 ft elevation, and reached the junction to the summit. The math says it's about 7.5% average for the last 4.5 miles. Below, you can see how the road is cut into the slope, like many mountain roads. Traffic was very light. We passed a good number of cyclists on our way up. Diablo does have a bit of a kicker at the end. After climbing a generally steady grade with occasional relief of 4-5% and an occasional stint at 8-11%, the last 0.2 miles tips up to about 16%. I grunted my way into the parking lot, a minute or two behind Steve. Whew. It was 88 degrees at the summit.
 

 
Area
General area of the ride
 
Steve @ south gate
Steve at the park entrance
summit view
A view of the summit from South Gate
A look back while on the climb
A look back partway up the climb
 
The road ahead
The road ahead
 
Last bit of climb
Last bit of the climb (file footage).
Sure felt steeper than 16%
Sign at the summit
The sign at the summit
 
summit
Steve and I at the summit

Ping

Just prior to taking the pictures above, we realized two things. For me, for some time, my front brake was rubbing on the wheel. Ok - a little extra work, but not a big deal, and easy to adjust. For Steve, however, he had just broken a spoke on his rear wheel (ping!). Doh! These are not wheels of yesteryear with 36 spokes, where one broken is not a big deal. These wheels have 20 high tension spokes and one broken spoke makes for a very wobbly wheel. We tied his broken spoke to another with a rubber band, opened the brake caliper so the wobbly wheel wouldn't rub, and decided to follow our expected route which has a bike shop on it - in Walnut Creek. If they had a spoke (unlikely) and could fix it, we'd continue. If not, we'd re-route and head back to the car park.

As neither of us had ever climbed or descended this 4.5 mile stretch, and since Steve was basically short the back brake, we set a reasonable pace; I was a little ahead. It was clearly getting hotter. At the junction, it was 95 degrees. Steve was doing ok with the bike - no noticeable balance problems. We got water at the ranger station and continued down the north gate road into Walnut Creek. As expected, the bike shop did not have a spoke, so we decided to re-route.

 

Re-route

One nice thing about the area where we were riding: the East Bay Regional Park District maintains an extensive network of bike paths. Many run alongside drainage canals. They are mostly flat, which in this case - dealing with an out-of-true wheel - was a preferred route. The bike shop had a map and gave us directions to the Contra Costa Canal trail (which we missed the first time). It's fitting that we were on a bike trail next to a canal -- the early part of the route of day 2 of the real PMC is on the Cape Cod Canal Trail. The East Bay trails are wide and nicely paved, and it was pretty easy to find the Iron Horse trail which would take us back to the parking lot. In total we did about 12 miles of trails. The peak temperature of the day was recorded along the Iron Horse - we saw about 20 minutes of 99 degrees, and it briefly hit 100. We were able to find a mall close by where we could get a good burrito and then a Starbucks slurpy for the air conditioned ride home.

 

 
reroute
The adjusted route
 

Recap

The Diablo climb was as advertised: hot and steep, a solid challenge. I would have enjoyed riding Morgan Territory, but as it's on the eastern face of Diablo, it would have easily been 5 to 10 degrees hotter than the west side. Sure, I like a good hot ride, but 106+? The broken spoke may have been a blessing in disguise. A little less heat, and a nice break from riding with cars. We'll save the original route for another day. But not today, as a large wildland fire has broken out along that route.

Now for the next challenge. Fundraising is a little slow, but I'm about 55% of the way to my goal of $8500 and hoping to get close by the 10/1 deadline. As has been the case for many years now, 100% of rider raised funds go directly to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. PMC donations are the lifeblood of DFCI, funding many areas including new research. Research yields everything from life-extending treatment options to cures. This is why over 5000 riders do what we do and how the PMC has raised over $400M for Dana Farber in 34 years.

As always, thank you for your support and encouragement!