Happy New Year
If we are not traveling and it isn’t raining, we try to get out to ride our bikes up Mt. Diablo on New Year’s Day. This local tradition brings all sorts of riders to the mountain on all sorts of machines. The odd machine this year was the rare carbon fiber tandem recumbent trike. When we stopped at the mid point to mingle with the crowds we happened to roll up next to a couple of other Rivendell bikes. It was amusing to have a stranger walk over and ask if it was a gathering of vintage bikes. “Yes.” I said. “Mine is vintage 2005.” and another rider said, “Yes, mine is vintage 2007.”
This year’s weather was complex. Winter around here can mean bright sunny days in the 50s or cloudy, dreary cloudy days in the 40s. We’d had some pretty steady days of living in Deary Town since mid-December and New Year’s Day was no exception. This is where it pays to be able to see further ahead than your nose. The dreary days are days of thick morning fog and a layer of low clouds the rest of the day. The trick is the remember that the clouds only go up to about the 2,000 foot mark. Mt. Diablo is over 3,800 feet tall. The view from the summit was worth the slog through the dull lower slopes.
