Oakland Zoo Review Century-2011

(August 27, 2011) Oakland Zoo Palomares Century, Diablo Cyclist Metric Ride with add on of Palomares, with Ward, Christine, Cisco Dave, new rider, and Joe accompanied for a good portion. 16.6 mph, no official elevation but Zoo ride is listed at 4500 feet and Palomares ride is 2000 feet, so with some overlap we probably did 5000'. The official Ward Industries elevation chart shows 5490' , 200' of that going over tree roots in the road down to the Oakland Zoo. (WI)
Not one of my favorite Club rides. Crapshoot going towards the Oakland Hills in the morning, can be -20 degrees cooler. Today while clear where we started the ride--fog rolling over the Oakland hills with scant visibility. Bunch of nice rollers to have fun on towards the zoo, nice except for the potholes, cracks and tree roots coming up in the road on the descents. To the zoo Super Joe and Cisco Dave racing from point to point--unless they were stuffing free newspaper inserts in their jerseys to stay warm. Ward, taking a cue from BART protesters, almost stopped the zoo train full of screaming kids to get this shot. (WI)

I'm with Joe who just visited the goats in the petting zoo to get more sports drink (CB)

The bonus mile group with Joe holding up that disgusting sports drink he snatched from a kid on the merry-go-round(PC)

Real problem figuring out how to add on from the Oakland Zoo. Riding back on Skyline in the Oakland Hills a possibility--but we'd contend with more crappy weather in the hills, in the bad direction (better going North to South on Skyline) and then once back in Contra Costa we'd be hitting the treeless Bears climb in the heat of the day.

Another possibility would be to head to Sunol. We'd have to do a warm climb, Palomares, from the shorter steeper side but it is tree lined. Then uphill on Niles Canyon but we'd get a tail wind so it would even be faster than going downhill in our usual direction. Then we could circle back through Livermore and Collier Canyon--thus avoiding the 10000 traffic controls on Danville Blvd.

Ward and Christine figured out how we should go, Dave worried about getting 100 miles in, and Joe looked for the nearest dairy. Jim rode with us until we turned towards Palomares. But before we could get going, and depart from the larger group, new guy had a flat--the second one in our Club for the morning. Ward got to use his years of rolling expertise. Two flats and two long regroups made it seem we were riding all day and did not that many miles.

As an aside, exiled clubmate, California Mike, was doing a All Day Ordeal Gang ride out of Riverside, where the scheduled options were 120-132-144 miles and 8,000-14,000 climbing so we'd seem like pikers compared to what he did. Of course we didn't realize that due to smog it looks like the sun set at 4 in the afternoon and he only did 75 miles.

Sun was full bore when we climbed out of Oakland and back in central Alameda-Contra Costa. Now about 90 degrees for the rest of the day. Ward pulled the group to the Palomares climb, then Dave and I were determined to make this ride hard and "pushed" each other up the climb as fast as possible. Then long downhill off of Palomares and sweet tail wind aided uphill into Sunol.

Ward leading the charge to Palomares. (CB) I'm enjoying the good weather after the crap in the morning. (CB)

Usual great regroup in Sunol, watching nothing happen in tiny town from yesteryear plopped in the middle of the Urban Sprawl. Joe turned off here. Our remaining 5 pacelined through windy Livermore. Dave gets the Museeuw award as he was often at the front pulling everyone along--sometime too fast. Another nice break in Livermore before hitting windy Collier Canyon.

Ward and I watching time go by in Sunol (CB)

Dave probably wanted to do Mt Diablo but nicely he didn't say a word--everyone else was beat. I was unexplicitly tired--related it to spider bite two days ago were I was running mild fever the day before the ride. But the next day found out my rear wheel was out of true and slightly hitting the brakes, so who the hell knows. But in any event too tired for a course not especially hard and hi jink ended when we left the zoo.