Monday, March 5, 2012

Hors Categorie

Nick at Nite led a field trip to the East Bay on Saturday. With signed permission slips, he took us on the BART to a Bay Area suburb, Orinda, where we rode through neighborhoods with garages and manicured lawns on well-paved roads to the base of Mt. Diablo.

Mt. Diablo's our local McKinley. There are bigger mountains out there and plenty of routes with more overall miles, but from top to bottom, it's the Bay Area's best. 3,245 feet over 11.1 miles means you're gonna be on that bike for at least an hour, painfully pedalling uphill. If you do it in August, make sure you get from top to bottom without stopping because that's when it's tarantula spring break, frenzied males running around trying to find any female. In March, they're burrowing underground like Baleen on those mornings when I turn off the heat, the covers pulled firmly to her chin. Seriously. Mt. Diablo's famous for them.

There's cache for those who can get up the 11.1 miles from the base at the Athenian School to the absolute summit, 3,864 feet from sea level, in under an hour. Strava says that 841 people have tried it and 81 peole have done it. Poor Stephen Bowline, having reached the summit in 1:00:00. He's looking for one more second; I'm looking for another one hundred and thirty-six seconds. They're out there. Somewhere.

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