Busy times with moving and all so not that much time to write and advise on our latest rides but let me at least catch up on the climb of Mount Diablo in Alamo/ Danville CA. 
Lisa and I did the climb on Aug 7th with a 9:30 am start and beautiful weather - not windy, not too warm.
Mt Diabolo climb about to
3849 ft in about 11.5 miles with a brief respite a few miles in through the Rock City area. This works out to an average of about 6%. This actually makes it a climb worthy of the Tour de France. By comparison a few of the legendary climbs in the tour are:
Col de Tourmalet (east) - ~4100' in 10.7 miles
Port de Bales ~3990' in 12 miles
Col de la Colombiere ~3750' in 10.5 miles
etc
Of course we were not racing - nor did we do Mt D after 100 miles or racing :) but we like to think of it as a significant climb.
We started with 5 or 6 miles of flat riding or gently climbing 1% or so to warm up and then we started the main climb. We purposely controlled out tempo to keep our heart rates below our Lactate Threshold (166-8 bpm for both of us) Lisa has been
riding more than I so her heart rate was consistently about 10 bpm less than mine - but I only went over my Threshold on the last 200meter climb ( which exceeds 15 or 16%)
The climbs were busy with lots of folks testing themselves on road and mountain bikes. There was also a Vespa club that scaled the mountain on their scooters.. dressed in leathers. It was hard not to smile and imagine them congratulating each other when they reached the top:)
We did not stop at the Junction but rolled right on through reaching the top in about 1:45 with out a break and feeling pretty good.
The trip down with 11.5 miles of downhill was fun as usual.
We are thinking of organizing a group ride up Mt D in the fall for our cycling friends interested in the challenge... stay tuned:)
Regards
R & L
Lisa and I did the climb on Aug 7th with a 9:30 am start and beautiful weather - not windy, not too warm.
Mt Diabolo climb about to
3849 ft in about 11.5 miles with a brief respite a few miles in through the Rock City area. This works out to an average of about 6%. This actually makes it a climb worthy of the Tour de France. By comparison a few of the legendary climbs in the tour are:Col de Tourmalet (east) - ~4100' in 10.7 miles
Port de Bales ~3990' in 12 miles
Col de la Colombiere ~3750' in 10.5 miles
etc
Of course we were not racing - nor did we do Mt D after 100 miles or racing :) but we like to think of it as a significant climb.
We started with 5 or 6 miles of flat riding or gently climbing 1% or so to warm up and then we started the main climb. We purposely controlled out tempo to keep our heart rates below our Lactate Threshold (166-8 bpm for both of us) Lisa has been
riding more than I so her heart rate was consistently about 10 bpm less than mine - but I only went over my Threshold on the last 200meter climb ( which exceeds 15 or 16%)The climbs were busy with lots of folks testing themselves on road and mountain bikes. There was also a Vespa club that scaled the mountain on their scooters.. dressed in leathers. It was hard not to smile and imagine them congratulating each other when they reached the top:)
We did not stop at the Junction but rolled right on through reaching the top in about 1:45 with out a break and feeling pretty good.
The trip down with 11.5 miles of downhill was fun as usual.
We are thinking of organizing a group ride up Mt D in the fall for our cycling friends interested in the challenge... stay tuned:)
Regards
R & L
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