Mt Diabolo By Bike

Mount Diablo (3,848 ft) by bike

On the summit

Matthew Gilbertson

5/2/18

112 miles

5,600 ft elevation gain

7am to 4:45pm

Like Mount Hamilton, the summit of Mount Diablo is also visible from many locations around the Bay Area. I had read that it had one of the best “viewsheds” in the area, which made it a worthy objective for a bike ride. (A viewshed is all the land that is visible from a location, similar to the way in which a watershed is all the points of land that drain to a specific waterway or body of water.)

After an alpine start, I headed NE from Palo Alto across the Dumbarton bridge. My route brought me next through the urban jungles of Newark, Union City, and Hayward. Naïvely following Google Maps, in downtown Hayward, I found myself in the middle of a death-defying intersection clogged with traffic where 2 three-lane roads merged together. After a harrowing experience, I managed to escape, and vowed to never visit that intersection again. Next, I climbed up a long slope paralleling I-580, and cruised down into the less scary neighborhoods of Dublin and Danville. Finally, after 45 miles of biking, I reached the bottom of the windy 10-mile road to the top of Mt Diablo.

View from the summit

Wary of overexerting myself on the ascent, and with a desire to conserve energy for the 56-mile return journey, I kept the pace relatively slow. I passed a few other cyclists here or there, but maintained a steady pace. By the time I reached an elevation of about 2600 ft, I noticed another cyclist approaching in my rear view mirror.

“I can’t let this guy pass me,” I said to myself. In all of my road biking, I had really only ever been passed fairly on flats or uphills by two other cyclists (both on the Minuteman Trail in MA). I couldn’t let the tally reach three.

“But I need to keep some fuel in the tank,” the other side of me said. “The summit is only half way. No need to overexert at this point.”

In the end, the competitive side of me won out, and the race was on. In my opinion, there is a certain code of ethics in this sort of informal, ad hoc racing. First and foremost, you have to act like you’re not actually racing, and that you’re just going your normal pace. Having a rear-view mirror and sunglasses makes this easy, because you can glance back as often as you like and the cyclist behind you is unaware. Still, you have to be able to back it up with muscle and endurance.

Giving it almost 100% for 1,200 ft of climbing, I managed to hold off the other cyclist, and reached the summit in triumph. Except, I couldn’t express any outward sign of triumph, I had to keep my cool like I was oblivious to his presence for the whole climb.

When the other cyclist arrived 30 seconds later, he said, “wow, great pace, you probably made it up in 50 minutes!”

“Same to you!” I replied.

There were about six other cyclists milling about the top on this Wednesday afternoon – more than the number of cars in the parking lot. I leaned my bike against a railing and took in the view from the observation deck. The view was indeed expansive. To the E and NE, you could barely make out some of the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra, about 120 miles away. To the W and SW, you could see the San Francisco Bay. It was well worth the effort.

I rested and chowed down for about 30 minutes, then layered up and began the exhilarating 10 mile descent. After I reached the bottom, I mostly followed the same route back, and tried to keep the pace low to keep from overexerting myself and burning out too early. Just before the last big climb of the trip – the 500 ft hill between Dublin and Hayward – while I was stopped at a red light, another cyclist with a super aero helmet, super fancy bike, and clipless pedals passed by me on the right, then had the gall to park directly in front of me, waiting for the light to turn green.

“Wow, what a jerk,” I thought to myself. “He probably saw the pannier, rack, and fenders on my bike, along with my regular old tennis shoes, and thought to himself, ‘this chump is just commuting a mile or two, I’m way faster than him. Might as well get in front.’” Although I wasn’t exactly fresh after having biked 80 miles and climbed 5,000 ft, the race was on once again. This kid needed to be put in his place. Having a fancy bike doesn’t necessarily make you a faster cyclist, in my opinion, it’s more about your level of fitness.

When the light turned green, I accelerated in front of him casually, and began the climb. Unfortunately, a ferocious headwind had begun, making the grade seem much steeper. He kept pace with me for about f

ive minutes, then slowly faded away. I didn’t see him again until the backside of the hill. I had been slacking somewhat on the downhill and now he was catching up. In my opinion, however, there’s no particular honor in passing someone on a downhill. If the hill is steep enough that you’re not even pedaling, and only riding the brakes, then your speed is really only a matter of how much risk you’re willing to tolerate. It took me one crash on the descent of Page Mill road in Palo Alto to learn that lesson. So, I would feel no shame in being passed on the downhill.

Luckily, it never came to that, because he turned off on a side street before he caught up to me. The rest of the ride was uneventful until I reached the Dumbarton Bridge. The same SW headwind that I had experienced on the ascent of the previous hill was still present in full force. Although now, it was amplified by the oncoming traffic. To cross the Dumbarton bridge by bike, you have to bike on a sidewalk located on the SE side of the bridge. You’re separated from NE-bound traffic by a mere waist-high concrete barrier, and the cars go zooming by at 60 mph less than two feet away. Thus, if you’re going in the direction opposite traffic, you’ve got a vehicular headwind to contend with. Whenever a tractor-trailer would zoom by, just feet away, you’d have to hold on tightly to your handlebars, lest you’d be knocked over by a 60 mph gust of air. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience, and I was glad to be back on the bike trail near the Facebook campus. I arrived back at the apartment without incident around 4:45pm.

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