Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.  ~ John F. Kennedy

This is true to the umpteenth degree, and this is exactly what we set out to do last week.

For months, actually almost a year now, Mr. S and I have wanted to make the daring climb up one of our local mountains… Mount Diablo. Whoever named it such wasn’t kidding when they did so. The climb to the top is a relentless <8 mile trek with an approximate 3,400 foot gain in elevation. All in all that calculates out to an 8% average grade. Ouch.

The ride was all planned out, and we left the valley with five bicycles in, on and behind the car… Mr. S, Pastor W, Kev, Ben and myself. This shot was actually taken on our way home, but it shows our trusty pack-mule. I think pictures of this car have been in my posts more than any other car. And it always has something to do with biking… weird...

Mount Diablo can be seen from miles and miles away. Even from the top of a hill behind our house. We weren’t on the hill here, just on a freeway some 45 miles away as the crow flies…

Upon our arrival at the trailhead, the bikes were unloaded, tuned up and lubed. Ben did a marvelous job holding the back of the van open… Don’t you like his biking outfit?...

The first part of the ride was actually quite pleasant, and quite chilly. A nice easy climb along a shaded creek was a nice warm-up for what was to come.

Get a bicycle.  You will not regret it if you live.  ~ Mark Twain

In my opinion there are two ways that a bicycle can kill you:

1)      The combination of speed and falling from the bike at that speed results in either blunt trauma to your tissue, or the wearing away of the epidermis, dermis and subcutaneous layers, possibly reaching the muscle tissue beneath. Extreme amounts of blood loss and infection may ensue, which in turn can result in death.

2)     The over exertion of the muscle tissue in your legs combined with other elements such as insufficient amounts of oxygen and rising body temperature can result in an altered level of consciousness, or depending on the severity of the condition and the age of the victim, can even result in death.

Both of these came close to happening on the ride up and even down the hill, obviously the latter on the way up. At one of the stopping points called Deer Flat, Mr. S assured us that the worst of it was over, and that there wasn’t much climbing beyond what we already did. It goes without saying that we were very excited. Here is the flat Deer Flat with Pastor W drinking and Mr. S ready for more…

I think Mr. S was just trying to encourage us and keep our spirits up, because what we were about to ride up was nothing close to easier than what we already did.

The secret to mountain biking is pretty simple.  The slower you go the more likely it is you'll crash.  ~  Julie Furtado

I have… actually had… I lost it on the mountain somewhere… an odometer/speedometer, and at a couple of points I was riding and sometimes walking so slow that it didn’t even register that I was moving.

Here’s Mr. S at the top with Pastor W walking...

Yes... Pastor W did make it to the top of the hill, but I think his smile is a little forced...

Now I have to admit… Ben’s ballet dancing gave him a very slight advantage. He has the endurance to keep up a steady pace on the long hard hills. If you look close you can see him. He sure blends in against the hill with his plaid shorts…

After the grueling uphill on the dirt portion, we proceeded to the grueling uphill on the paved portion. This in my opinion was the hardest 1.5 miles of the ride, just a steady grade up to the summit. We did make it however (and I will admit I was the last one up due to the sudden onset of nausea at the last 100 yards), and took a break to enjoy the view from the top. When at the top of Mount Diablo an amazing 40,000 square miles can be seen on a clear day, second only to Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa. That’s a lot. Here are four of the five bikers at the top…

Funny story time. Ben and I wanted to get our picture in front of the fantastic view of the central valley. The other bikers were down the hill already so we asked a kindly looking Asian tourist, that spoke pretty good English and even had a camera around his neck, to snap a shot with our camera which has one of those flip/moveable screens. I opened the screen, but not all the way so that it was flat with the rest of the camera, and I handed it to the guy with the traditional instructions of “here is the zoom” and “you push this shiny button to take the picture”. We posed and he held the camera up. The only problem is that he held the camera so that the screen was pointed in our direction and not the actual picture taking part of the camera a.k.a. the lens. Ben and I saw what was coming… his next question for us after looking confused for several seconds was… and I quote: “Where are you?”

We were stunned… I tried to explain to him that if he just moved the camera just a little to his left he would see us just fine, but for some reason it just wasn’t sinking in. We weren’t getting anywhere in our efforts to have him move the camera so I had Ben scoot over a couple feet so we would be in his “field of vision”. He even helped us out by waving his hand and saying “a little more… a little more… there! Perfect!” Ben and I couldn’t wait until we were out of earshot so we could laugh our heads off…

This next picture is my favorite of the bunch. I am not going to say anything… I will just let you come to your own conclusions on what it means…

On the way down we had to take a short little single-track trail that was more walking then riding, just because it was so steep and full of loose rock. Ben made it in one piece…

Even the ride down can be quite strenuous and exhausting. We had to take multiple water breaks…

This next shot is of my favorite part of the ride. That is the rest of my party down on the hill, but it took me only about 15 seconds to catch up. 37 mph on a mountain bike down a dirt road is exhilarating…

In my opinion, every ride should have a section of downhill that is caught on tape... or in this generation... caught on digital... I actually don't know how to say it in this generation. Oh well. Regardless, here is the clip...

At this point everybody was exhausted. We came to a crossroads that wasn’t really marked very well. One way was uphill… and one way was downhill. We were pretty sure that the way to go was uphill, but we didn’t want to make the last little push. Ben and Kev are dreading the hill, and I think Mr. S is trying to figure out if he can fly if he gets enough speed up and flap his arms really hard…

We all made it back to the car in 5 pieces, loaded the bikes and took off, tired as can be. A ride like that absolutely kills you when you are doing it, and you vow never to do anything like that again, but as time goes by the mountain looks less and less daunting, and you forget all of the energy that went into climbing it with two wheels. Such was the case for this trip.

Due to many complications with transportation, Ben and I were dropped off in a certain town at a certain establishment to wait for mom to come and pick us up. Ben is looking quite tired don’t ya’ think?...

For the hour that we were sitting out there, I didn’t even think to go in and get something to drink. I guess I was too tired to think.

For different pictures, and different words (surprise surprise!!) check out my bro's blog... deusprimus 

This last quote just about sums it all up… Except for the four million years part…

Mankind has invested more than four million years of evolution in the attempt to avoid physical exertion.  Now a group of backward-thinking atavists mounted on foot-powered pairs of Hula-Hoops would have us pumping our legs, gritting our teeth, and searing our lungs as though we were being chased across the Pleistocene savanna by saber-toothed tigers.  Think of the hopes, the dreams, the effort, the brilliance, the pure force of will that, over the eons, has gone into the creation of the Cadillac Coupe de Ville.  Bicycle riders would have us throw all this on the ash heap of history.  ~  P.J. O'Rourke