Solvang 2010
This year was my 18th ride in 19 years. If I hadn’t crashed and broken my collar bone two weeks before the ’93 ride it would have been 19 rides. I wrote the bulk of this 10 years ago. I decided to revisit it and modify it some.
The Town
Every year since 1991 Cherryl and I gone with and several friends and sometimes family to the town of Solvang, California for the annual 100 mile bike ride. The area is located about 40 miles northwest of Santa Barbara, on the banks of the Santa Ynez River between the coastal Santa Ynez range and the San Rafael Mountains, It was originally settled by the Chumash Indians, then the Spanish Missionaries who built the Santa Ynez Mission, located in the town - an interesting place to visit by itself.(2010, Sydney – we really missed you on the ride this year)
About 130 years ago a group of Danish settlers moved in and liked what they saw. The name Solvang means "sunny field" in a Danish dialect. The town was originally a farming community that kept some of its Danish flavor with the half-timbered construction, clean narrow streets, Lutheran churches and lots of bakeries and restaurants where you can get authentic Danish pastries and sausages. Over the years it evolved into a tourist stop, but has managed to keep a lot of its charm in spite of rampant commercialism.
The area is generally wealthy, especially the neighboring town of Santa Ynez. President Reagan had his ranch on the top of the coastal range that looked down on the valley and there are many Hollywood types, and business moguls who have getaway homes and ranches there including Michael Jackson’s "Never Land" till he lost it.
The area between the mountains is mostly rolling hills with vineyards, cattle and bison ranches, an Ostrich/Emu ranch or two and a lot of horse owners. Nearer to the river are old riverbed plateaus and bottomland that have rich fertile soil and it is used extensively for agriculture and grazing. In the spring everything is green and beautiful. This year (2010) was no different. We had almost a month of rain before the ride. The uncut grass was at least two feet high and in some of the meadows and fields it was so green it almost looked black. If the first explorers came here in the spring they must have thought they found heaven on earth.
It sooo green!!
The Route
The ride starts at the Royal Scandinavian Hotel on the east side of town, - this year, 2010 it started at the golf course down the street from the hotel. The Chumash indians bought the hotel last year and raised the fee to SCORE, the sponser - winds west through the back streets, then out to highway 246, a couple of miles to Buellton and the 101. From there we get out into the real country and follow the old Santa Ynez River Road for about 20 miles into town of Lompoc. Until 9/11 we used ride the back streets through town till we got to Ocean Ave. and followed it towards the coast for about 10 miles to the 13th Street gate of Vandenberg Air Force Base. We’d pass the guards showing our little armbands that separate the real riders from the “bandits” – riders trying to take advantage of the ride without paying the fee - and up the hill to the top of the Vandenberg plateau. It was about 20 miles across the base and the Vandenberg Grade, the Casmalia hills, then we’d drop down into the Santa Maria valley, out to the Airport and the Hilton Hotel SAG stop. Now we have to go to the east of the base, We pass through the military family housing, but no more through the secured areas. From Santa Maria we head south to Orcutt, then away from the town up into the Sisquoc and Foxen Canyon farmlands and vineyards. This is the mentally longest part of the trip, all uphill and a rough road. Eventually we reach the top of the ride at about 1,560 feet (we were almost at sea level in Santa Maria 30 miles back) and it's mostly downhill for the last 10 miles back into Solvang.
Every year I wonder how I'll do or if I'll even make it. I usually spend the last 2 1/2 months training for it, riding farther and harder each week, out Highway 126 to Ventura, up San Fransisquito Canyon and out to Palmdale. The real question is will I do it faster or slower than last year, or will I have an accident. This year – 2010 - was even more stressfull. It rained every Saturday for a month before the ride. I was never able to get the training rides I needed. Syd’s training schedule was so fouled up she decided to drop out.
THE RIDE
Bob (the husband of Syd's high school friend Chris), me, Syd and Bill - 2008. We missed Syd this year. We didn't see Bob, though we knew he was here. We did run into him and Chris at AJ Spurs when we went to dinner. Bob's a monster rider. Only Bill can stay with him.
(This is from 2000. I’ll note where I update for 2010) I usually leave the motel about 6:50 AM. I want to go to the official start point and reset my odometer and timer to get an accurate time and distance. It's 6:57 AM and I'm off. It’s cold, but I like it. My thermometer says its 40 degrees, but I know my readout is about 4 - 5 degrees high, so it's really around 36 degrees. A lot of the riders have outer pants and jackets on over their regular riding outfits. I try to avoid that. What are they going to do with all that stuff when it gets warm? I love the cool and I only wear thin knit gloves under my regular ones and the removable long sleeves that I can stick in my pockets.
It's a low-key excitement to be starting out. It feels good to have the cool breeze blowing past my ears and the vibration of the road under my wheels. I wind through the residential streets and out to Mission Road, turn left and we're officially on our way. We drop down a short steep hill and already some people seem to think it's a race. The road is busy with cars even this early and the bike lane is only big enough for single file, but they have got to pass every one and put us all in jeopardy.
It's foggy. I can only see about 1/4 mile down the road. Trees on both side of the road come out of the fog and fly past me. I can see large green pastures of the horse ranches on both sides of the road, but not the houses. The horses stand singly or in groups of two or three, shadowy, in soft focus, heads down, nibbling on the grass or half asleep. It's one of those mental pictures I want to keep.
I get into Buellton about 7:10. It's a small town whose biggest claim to fame used to be the Anderson's Pea Soup Restaurant. I'm supposed to meet Bill Reynolds at the Mobile gas station. I'm late and I don't see him. I find out later that we had a mix-up and he's in his room waiting for me to call and let him know I'm coming. I think he's gone ahead because I'm late, so I don't wait. It's just as well. Bill is an avid rider. He turns 51 this year, but he has the physic of a twenty year old and the stamina of a cross-country runner. We only stay together for a mile or two anyway and at the first hill I don't see him anymore. I’m through Buellton in the blink of an eye, turn left and head down to the bridge, cross the river and turn right onto the river road.
This year – 2010 – Bill and Lyn n are in the same motel so we meet up before leaving. Bill turns 61 this year, and nothing has changed with him physically. He still looks 15 years younger and has the same build. But he has been sick a lot this year with the flu going around and a head cold he hasn’t been able to shake. He’s sick today too, but he doesn’t let it stop him.
The river road is one of the most beautiful parts of the ride. The hills rise steeply on my left and the river plain stretches out on the right. It has rained almost every day for the last three or four weeks and the wild grasses and mugwort are trying to get to full growth before the wet weather stops. It's so green it hurts to look at and I think this must be what Ireland looks like. Ancient oaks cover the hills and many are covered with Spanish. The fields are either freshly plowed or have an early growth of what appear to be asparagus, cabbage, brussel sprouts and lettuce; the cold weather crops. Farther down the road we get into the orchards. Some of them are very old and the trees are so large that as I ride along and look into the rows it's like looking down long dark tunnels. Sometimes I become mesmerized by the patterns of the precisely planted rows that revolve and change as I pass. Usually a pothole brings me back to reality.
The road begins to narrow after a time and the centerline disappears. The fog is thicker and my glasses start to mist up making it hard to see details on the road. The riders are starting to spread out across the road, riding three and four abreast. The road may be a country road, but it's still in use. Field hand's cars come up from behind and can't pass because they can't see far enough ahead. Calls of "Car back!" or "Car up!" come out of the mist and most riders pull to the right to let them by.
The first real hill comes into view and we all start to gear down for the ascent; all of us except the velo club riders. You can hear them coming from behind, a short of whirring sound that gets louder and louder till they fly by. They whiz past like a bullet train crowding me toward the shoulder, but I hold my line. They're bent over their handlebars, thin as paperclips, no stomachs, calve muscles so ripped that they look like an illustration from Grey's Anatomy. And that's the girls!!!
As I get to the top of the last major hill on the river road I look back down to the valley and I've climbed above the fog bank. It lies in the hollow like a thick gray blanket, the valley rising up on either side. The sun is starting to shine through the upper clouds and illuminates the grassy hills and trees for the first time today. It's a Kodak moment. Two more small hills and then the ascent to Highway 1 and we drop down into Lompoc.
Lompoc's mainly an agri-town that got extended life from the state penitentiary and the air force base. It's a nice place, but it's a long ways to anywhere else. They don't want us getting run over by the locals, so they put us off onto the side streets and the local police bold traffic for us at the intersections. Most of us make sure to say thanks to the cops because the poor guys are going to be out there pretty much all day just for us. I turn onto Ocean Avenue and head toward the coast. I'm in a large river plain with plowed, unplanted fields, very wide. About 2 miles I think. The fog has closed in somewhat and this becomes a featureless ride for the next 8 miles. Later the wind will pick up from the ocean and blow it all away.
Three years ago -1997- we had the bright idea of starting the ride in Santa Maria. Good idea we thought. We'll get the worst of the hills out of the way while we're still fresh, then the rest should be a piece of cake! No one told us about the afternoon winds. That year it was worse than usual. Just before Lompoc I felt the wind startup, straight into my face. I still had about 35 miles to go and was getting a little tired. When I dropped down out of the hills and into town the wind really picked up. Out on Ocean Avenue it was so bad I could never get faster than 11 mph, and that was when I was drafting some poor guy. Most of the time I was hunched down over the drops, out of the saddle in low gear, cranking for all I was worth and doing about 8 mph. For the first time ever I was seriously thinking about going back into Lompoc, calling Cherryl and telling her to come get me. At the Vandenberg Gate the road takes a right angle turn to go up onto the plateau. Good, I thought. At least now the wind will be blowing from the side, but by some freak twist of the terrain, the wind was right in my face again. It was the point of no return. If I went through the gate couldn't get onto the base to pick me up. My ego and pride overruled my common sense and I went through. Not a good choice. No matter which way the road turned, the wind was in my face, all the way across the base, into the canyons, downhill, uphill, every which way. It never got behind me till I was almost to the airport. That year it took me 7-3/4 hours to do the ride and I slept like the dead that night.
In 2010 the wind started about the same place and was in our faces from about mile 19 to mile 56 at the turn to the airport. In 2008 it turned on us and was in our faces all the way from Lompoc and back into Solvang. I can truly say that was the worst wind ride ever. I was so blown out that by the time I got to the climb at the top of Foxen Canyon I actually got off the bike and walked to the top. This year, because I hadn’t been able to do the training rides I was very careful to use all the SAG stops and conserve my strength, so I was able to do all the hills without cramping.
This year – 2000 - I'm ahead of the wind and the fog begins to lift as I near the gate. I flash my armband to the guard and he waves me through, then I begin the ascent to the top of the plateau. This is usually a pleasant part of the ride. At the top and through most of the base there are eucalyptus groves all around us. The ground doesn’t seem to drain well even on the plateau, so this time of the year it's a little swampy in some areas. Cattails and ferns, many of the types of plants associated with wetlands thrive here during the rainy season. Ponds, streams and creeks line the road in the lower places. There are several species of duck, snowy egrets and other waterfowl. The temperature has risen to about 70 degrees and the shade of the trees feels good.
There's a light breeze starting and the fog is gone. From the top of the plateau I can see out to the ocean and I can see Point Sal State Beach. If the coastline didn't stick out so far I'm sure I could see all the way to Pismo. The road drops off the plateau and I get my first zippy-wee downhill ride, then it's up the long canyons. There are several such drops and ascents on the base and after the first time I learned to conserve my energy for the last long climb over the Casmalia Hills. I crank past the second SAG stop, still too proud to stop. Who's tired? Not Me. I rocket down the 1/2 mile to the bottom of the canyon, and then start that last ascent. It's a 2-mile climb at a 7% grade. I do pretty well, passing a fair number of riders. Then a girl passes me! Then a peloton zips by. I’m humbled, again.
Finally I reach the top of the "Vandenberg Grade" and get a real downhill ride. This is where I'm lucky. At just over 200 pounds I can still get into a tuck and go aerodynamic. With all that weight I can really get the speed. I even pass that girl! The bullet train is more aerodynamic than I am though, so I let it go.
I can hit about 45 to 50 mph on this hill, especially if the wind is behind me. I love the speed. I try not to think about what the road can do to bare skin at 50 mph if I go down. You have to suppress those thoughts or it can freak you out. One year at this same spot I had just reached the bottom of the hill and was slowing down. There were two riders about 25 yards ahead of me and we were doing between 25 and 30, when for no apparent reason one of the guys just went down hard. He got separated from his bike and glasses, all of which were going in the same general direction and slowing fast. I couldn't stop in time so I gritted my teeth and tried to maneuver through the wreck. Somehow I managed to miss all three obstacles and get by without dumping myself. No skill, just providential interference.
Since 9/11 we have left Lompoc and ridden up Highway 1 and out to Orcutt, turning left at West Rice Ranch, through old town Orcutt, West on Clark to Highway 1 and right at Black Rd, which gets us generally back to the old route.
The rest of the ride into Santa Maria is through some of the earthier parts of the agri side of town. No pun intended. Landfill, tractor repair, liqueur stores, rough road; I go into autopilot and don't pay any more attention to the ride than I need to. I pass a guy stopped on the side of the road who's got one of those folding tuck-in-the-trunk bikes that BMW used to sell or give away to the proud owner of a new 325i. I've seen some strange things on this ride before, but this is a top candidate for the worst type of bike to use. He's got maybe 24" diameter wheels and is about 15 inches closer to the ground than I am. He's still got a little less than 50 miles to go. He's got a bib number so he's part of the ride and I wonder if he'll make it. His gear ratios don't look too promising and I think he's cranked himself out. He says he's alright so I ride on.
I feel a little sorry, and a great deal of respect for the people on the mountain bikes. They're great for downhill and cranking up a dirt road, but there's a reason that road bikes were invented. Their bikes are so much heavier and with so much more road resistance from the tires that they use a lot of energy just spinning down the road. 100 miles on one of them is more like 150 on my Cannondale.
The recumbent and tandem bikes are another story.
The visual or apparent balance of a recumbent kind of unnerves me. They look very unstable, but I've never seen one crash. Maybe because it's easy to plant both feet on the ground if you start to lose it. The seats have got to be the most comfortable; like sitting in a lawn chair. They are heavier than a road bike so they aren't quite as fast uphill, but they are much more aerodynamic and literally scream going down, if the rider has the nerve. I'd guess there's not much saddle pain after the ride either. That alone has got to be a big advantage.
I play leapfrog with the tandems. Unless the stoker is strong I can pass them on the uphill, but with the weight of two riders they can often get more downhill speed than I can. I get a smile out of the father/child tandems. It's got to be a great bonding exercise. Either that or they will hate each other for the rest of their lives. This year while going up a canyon I'm overtaking a father/son tandem and I can hear the squeak squeak of a rubber ducky kind of toy. As I pass them I see they have stuck a toy dinosaur, Barney or something, on the stoker's handlebars. As dad shifted back in the saddle to get more push into his rank, with each revolution his butt pushes against the toy making it squeak and the kid is cracking up.
(2010. I have seen some remarkable things on this ride, but this year between Lompoc and stop # 2 Bill pointed out a tandem with a set of crutches strapped on the back. When I was leaving stop #2 I saw them come in and saw that the lady acting as the stoker was an amputee. She was missing her left leg about 10” below the hip. At this point of the ride I knew they were doing the full 100 miles. That’s determination and grit.)
Here's where I saw the amputee
I roll into the third SAG stop at the airport and refill my water bottles, stuff a PB and J sandwich in my mouth, eat a banana for the potassium, hit the outhouse and go. Elapsed time is a little less than 10 minutes. 58 miles behind me and 44 to go, all uphill for the next 30. I feel pretty good and don't want to lose time standing around when I can be riding. I probably should pick up another banana, some Fig Newtons and oatmeal cookies to take along, but I've still got a couple of jell packs and power bars, so I don't hang around.
This stop is usually pretty crowded. I see a lady TV reporter from a local station interviewing one of the ride officiators. She asks him how many riders are on the course today and I hear him say a little over three thousand. That's why it so quiet. In the past there have been as many as seven thousand riders. The airport was one of the starting points for several years, but not this year. A few times the ride was so big they had a third starting point in Lompoc. I don't know why it's so low this year. Maybe the rain scared some off.
I roll out to the street, cross the intersection and hang right down the frontage road along highway 135 for a few miles. The guy ahead of me is wearing tube socks, which give him away as a novice rider. I pull up alongside and we start to talk. It’s his first time on this ride.
"Well, the best part of the ride is coming up." I tell him. "Now we get into the hills."
"You mean those weren't hills back there?"
"Oh they were OK, but the good ones are a few miles ahead. The top of Foxen Canyon and ‘The Wall’ ". (You always say "The Wall" in quotes. It sounds ominous.)
He's heard something about "The Wall" and thinks he saw something on the map last night. I'm getting a kick playing with his head.
"Yeah, the top of Foxen Canyon is actually steeper, but you can't see it except for short stretches because it turns a lot, but "The Wall" is psychologically more intimidating because you can see the whole thing from the bottom and you've already gone 87miles with the last 30 all uphill. But don't worry," I say. "Just drop into low gear, stand up and keep pumping. You'll make it." I’m so patronizing. Truth is, I hate the top of the canyon and "The Wall". It's the only real challenge for me on the whole ride, and believe me it's enough.
A couple of miles and we turn east on Clark avenue and start the long uphill grind for the next couple of hours. Uphill, across highway 101, up another hill, then out on the flat for a couple miles. We're out of the low areas and into cattle and oil country now. There's a slight prevailing smell of sulfur from the oil wells rising in the heat.
I can see the front of the San Rafael Mountains. There's snow on the upper peaks and everything is so green. California is technically desert and the green season is short even on the coast. I love it all the more because it's so uncommon. My thermometer says 87 degrees but a light breeze is blowing and it feels cool and soothing. Now down a short drop, right on Dominion and up another long climb for about 3 1/2 miles at a 3% grade. Not bad if it's not too hot. It's a camel hump with two climbs and two drops till I end up at the same altitude before I get to Sisquoc. The last drop can be a killer. You can get going faster than you think and when you get to the turn at Palmer road you're turning left into a right hand banked curve, and the road is banked the wrong way for you. To make matters worse there's loose gravel on the road. There are warning signs all down the bill to the curve but more than one rider has eaten it on this turn.
Once again I blow past the SAG stop just before Sisquoc but I'm starting to think I should have stopped. I'm not really low on liquids but I think maybe I should be rehydrating more often than I have. I probably should have finished a 24-oz. bottle since Santa Maria and refilled before "The Wall". But it’s too late for that and I just keep going. I suck on a couple of jell packs, eat a power bar, take a few swigs of juice and hope it kicks in when I need it. I'll be sucking on these bottles for the next 15 miles or so. A little farther, turn right at Sisquoc and I'm now officially going up Foxen Canyon.
The road runs straight for about a mile, then jogs right and hugs the south side of the canyon in the shade of the trees. About 8 years ago at this spot I saw a rider about 300 yards ahead of me with a sign fastened to his back He wasn't going very fast so I caught up with him in a short time. The sign read, "Please be patient with me. I'm going as fast as I can for 83 years old" That just blew me away. He'd already gone some 75 miles and was still going steady. I hope he made it and I think about him every year when I start to feel sorry for myself. (This year I had the strangest thought as I was riding through here. As healthy as that guy was – he has to be dead now. He’d be over 100 years old today. I wonder how many more years I have.)
The next year as I was riding across the Vandenberg plateau I saw similar rider. He was gray haired and mustached, lean and angular, lined face, kind of weather beaten with that old cowboy look. By now I'd gotten into the habit of talking with fellow riders so I pulled alongside and started to chat. To my complete surprise I found out he was a couple of years younger than me! At first I thought he was telling a tall tale, but as we talked I saw that he was the real thing. It turned out he had been a heavy drug user and drinker and it had just about killed him. He was off the juice and dope now and biking was one of the ways he was trying to regain his health. I think about him at every ride too and thank God for my own amazingly good health.
We’re in wine country now. The breeze is gone but the air is a little cooler, coming off the mountain. It's about 11:30 and the day hasn't heated up in the canyon yet. The workers are out in the fields pruning back the vines. There is vineyard after vineyard here and most of them have been here for over 100 years. The trees feel ancient. I pass an old adobe farmhouse that burned down many years ago. The roof is long gone as are the window headers. The columns and walls of sun-baked adobe are weathered and crumbly and stick up like the pillars of a Greek temple, and grass is growing thickly out of the tops.
I wish I knew more about this area and its history. I do know that it was settled by a man named Foxen and explored by John C. Fremont, the man of whom Lincoln said he would not have such a general surveyor who became the owner of all he surveyed. The Chumash had a large population living here and There are still a tribe of Churnash living in the area and they run the Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez.
This is the deadly part of the ride. For the next 10 or so miles it's nothing but climbing. Sometimes steeply, sometimes not so steep, but always up and up. Usually when I climb I recite things or sing songs in my head to take my mind off the job. It works, but I've noticed that when the climb is really tedious the weirdest things come into my mind, like Gordon Lightfoot singing Canadian Railroad Trilogy. Canadian Railroad Trilogy??
Part of the 30-mile climb
The road is a farm road in every sense of the word. It's poorly paved, rutted and in place. Someone ran a caterpillar tractor along it so it has the texture of a washboard. Most of the ruts take on a stealth quality in the sunlight. They're not sharply defined and there are no shadows. You really can't see them until you hit them. I'm already tired and the jolts are sapping what energy I have left. It's bad enough that my shoulders are starting to ache and my rear is getting sore from the saddle but now the vibration from the road is starting to work its way from my legs and lower back to my upper spine and finally my brain. Mile after interminable mile. I don't look around much anymore and my attention closes down to the 6 or 8 feet directly in front of my bike. The rattling becomes the only sensation. My brain even begins to shut down and finally only the medulla oblongata keeps me going. Some of my family would say that's the only functioning part of my brain anyway, so maybe I'm not so far gone.
The bottom of the climb out of Foxen Canyon
Suddenly the road turns right and rises into the trees. I'm near the top of the canyon and the toughest climb of the ride. It's 6/10s of a mile to the top and we rise a little more than 250 feet; about an 8% grade. Now I pay the price for not drinking enough early in the ride. My thighs start to cramp. With each turn of the crank I get a charly horse right above the knees. I try standing but for some reason it makes my legs spasm worse, so I sit back down and work on the pull more than the push of the crank. The road rises through the trees to a turn then rises more through more trees to another turn waaay up there. I think about the rider whose head I played with and I have a feeling this is Karma payback time. Then I turn another bend and I'm at the top. The road slowly starts to level out and I can shift up till I'm in my top gear at last and flying down the other side.
(2010) I’ve learned my lesson since then. I refuel at all the SAG stops, usually drink about 80 oz of Gatorade by this time and rarely have cramps anymore. But it’s still a very tiring climb)
Oh blessed relief! It's a steep drop and I can sit back a little and relax. The road drops quickly to the backside of the hill into another canyon. I'm getting back into wine country and there are some nicely tended vineyards in the lower part of the canyon. Fess Parker, the original Daniel Boone of Walt Disney fame built a vineyard and Visitor's Center here. The first year I rode was before the center was built and he let them put in a SAG stop on the lot. It's a beautiful building and if I was a wine drinker I'd go there just to say I'd been.
For about 2 1/2 miles I get all the rest I can because I'm coming up to "The Wall". The Firestone Vineyard at the base of "The Wall" is the last SAG stop. (This year it was Fess Parkers’s place again) Again I don't stop, but for a whole other reason. One year I stopped there and my legs stiffened up so badly that I hardly made it up "The Wall". I can tell by the way they worked at the canyon top that if I stop it will happen again so I decide to tough it out and climb.
"The Wall" is also about 6/10 mile climb and about 250 feet up, but like I said before, you can see it from start to finish. And besides, when you stand something up that's 250 feet tall it looks a heck of a lot higher than it sounds. Consider that the average Freeway Bridge has a 15-foot clearance for trucks, then stack 16 of those one on top of the other and you have 250 feet. We've already gone 87 miles and the last two hours have been that lovely farm road from Hell. My legs ache and there doesn't seem to be anything left in them. I shift down to the lowest gear and settle in for the climb. The cramping comes back with a vengeance. My mother’s voice comes to me with a vengeance. "You push yourself too hard dear. I worry about you, you're so competitive with yourself” Dang! I think she's right this time. I do make it though. Some kind soul has painted a message on the road, "Last Hill", and farther up, "You're almost there!" I glance to my right and see the valley floor laid out below me and it's a wonderful sight. The road begins to flatten out. I shift up gear after gear. I'm over and it's 14 miles downhill to Solvang. Almost downhill.
It's 2+ miles down to Highway 154 and then a hard right on Ballard Canyon Road for the really truly last hill. It's not a tall hill or even that steep, but it's like the final parting shot from the ride. I wind up and up, back and forth through the hairpin turns and I'm over. I don't even cramp on this one. Down sharply on the other side, through another hairpin turn and it's a straight shot to town. As I go through this last turn I slow down a lot and study the road ahead. The ride wasn't always popular with the locals and one year, the story goes, someone scattered tacks on the road at this turn to blow out tires. I tend to think this was just an urban legend.
From the top of "The Wall" to the town we drop about 700 feet. There's not much need to pedal and it's a good thing because fatigue has caught up with me. If there's no headwind I average about 30 mph for the rest of the road until I get into town.
Ghosts of the past come to me again. The year I started in Santa Maria I was fresh and riding like a bat out of Hell down this road. I stopped at the Solvang SAG stop to get some snacks and as I started out the driveway, not even completely on my bike yet, my front tire popped. When we got it off the rim we found that the rubber spoke guard had deteriorated and fallen apart and a spoke had punctured the tube. There was basically no guard left. I could see the imprints of all the spokes on my tube. All I could think of was that the tire could have blown at any time on the downhill run, but it went out at the least possible dangerous time. I could only write it off to Providence again, there was no other explanation.
March 15, 2000
2010
Although we missed Syd this year we had the added surprise of having GK, Susanna and Van (and the twins, sort of) meet us in Solvang.
This year was my 18th ride in 19 years. If I hadn’t crashed and broken my collar bone two weeks before the ’93 ride it would have been 19 rides. I wrote the bulk of this 10 years ago. I decided to revisit it and modify it some.
The Town
Every year since 1991 Cherryl and I gone with and several friends and sometimes family to the town of Solvang, California for the annual 100 mile bike ride. The area is located about 40 miles northwest of Santa Barbara, on the banks of the Santa Ynez River between the coastal Santa Ynez range and the San Rafael Mountains, It was originally settled by the Chumash Indians, then the Spanish Missionaries who built the Santa Ynez Mission, located in the town - an interesting place to visit by itself.(2010, Sydney – we really missed you on the ride this year)
About 130 years ago a group of Danish settlers moved in and liked what they saw. The name Solvang means "sunny field" in a Danish dialect. The town was originally a farming community that kept some of its Danish flavor with the half-timbered construction, clean narrow streets, Lutheran churches and lots of bakeries and restaurants where you can get authentic Danish pastries and sausages. Over the years it evolved into a tourist stop, but has managed to keep a lot of its charm in spite of rampant commercialism.
The area is generally wealthy, especially the neighboring town of Santa Ynez. President Reagan had his ranch on the top of the coastal range that looked down on the valley and there are many Hollywood types, and business moguls who have getaway homes and ranches there including Michael Jackson’s "Never Land" till he lost it.
The area between the mountains is mostly rolling hills with vineyards, cattle and bison ranches, an Ostrich/Emu ranch or two and a lot of horse owners. Nearer to the river are old riverbed plateaus and bottomland that have rich fertile soil and it is used extensively for agriculture and grazing. In the spring everything is green and beautiful. This year (2010) was no different. We had almost a month of rain before the ride. The uncut grass was at least two feet high and in some of the meadows and fields it was so green it almost looked black. If the first explorers came here in the spring they must have thought they found heaven on earth.
It sooo green!!The Route
The ride starts at the Royal Scandinavian Hotel on the east side of town, - this year, 2010 it started at the golf course down the street from the hotel. The Chumash indians bought the hotel last year and raised the fee to SCORE, the sponser - winds west through the back streets, then out to highway 246, a couple of miles to Buellton and the 101. From there we get out into the real country and follow the old Santa Ynez River Road for about 20 miles into town of Lompoc. Until 9/11 we used ride the back streets through town till we got to Ocean Ave. and followed it towards the coast for about 10 miles to the 13th Street gate of Vandenberg Air Force Base. We’d pass the guards showing our little armbands that separate the real riders from the “bandits” – riders trying to take advantage of the ride without paying the fee - and up the hill to the top of the Vandenberg plateau. It was about 20 miles across the base and the Vandenberg Grade, the Casmalia hills, then we’d drop down into the Santa Maria valley, out to the Airport and the Hilton Hotel SAG stop. Now we have to go to the east of the base, We pass through the military family housing, but no more through the secured areas. From Santa Maria we head south to Orcutt, then away from the town up into the Sisquoc and Foxen Canyon farmlands and vineyards. This is the mentally longest part of the trip, all uphill and a rough road. Eventually we reach the top of the ride at about 1,560 feet (we were almost at sea level in Santa Maria 30 miles back) and it's mostly downhill for the last 10 miles back into Solvang.
Every year I wonder how I'll do or if I'll even make it. I usually spend the last 2 1/2 months training for it, riding farther and harder each week, out Highway 126 to Ventura, up San Fransisquito Canyon and out to Palmdale. The real question is will I do it faster or slower than last year, or will I have an accident. This year – 2010 - was even more stressfull. It rained every Saturday for a month before the ride. I was never able to get the training rides I needed. Syd’s training schedule was so fouled up she decided to drop out.
THE RIDE
Bob (the husband of Syd's high school friend Chris), me, Syd and Bill - 2008. We missed Syd this year. We didn't see Bob, though we knew he was here. We did run into him and Chris at AJ Spurs when we went to dinner. Bob's a monster rider. Only Bill can stay with him.(This is from 2000. I’ll note where I update for 2010) I usually leave the motel about 6:50 AM. I want to go to the official start point and reset my odometer and timer to get an accurate time and distance. It's 6:57 AM and I'm off. It’s cold, but I like it. My thermometer says its 40 degrees, but I know my readout is about 4 - 5 degrees high, so it's really around 36 degrees. A lot of the riders have outer pants and jackets on over their regular riding outfits. I try to avoid that. What are they going to do with all that stuff when it gets warm? I love the cool and I only wear thin knit gloves under my regular ones and the removable long sleeves that I can stick in my pockets.
It's a low-key excitement to be starting out. It feels good to have the cool breeze blowing past my ears and the vibration of the road under my wheels. I wind through the residential streets and out to Mission Road, turn left and we're officially on our way. We drop down a short steep hill and already some people seem to think it's a race. The road is busy with cars even this early and the bike lane is only big enough for single file, but they have got to pass every one and put us all in jeopardy.
It's foggy. I can only see about 1/4 mile down the road. Trees on both side of the road come out of the fog and fly past me. I can see large green pastures of the horse ranches on both sides of the road, but not the houses. The horses stand singly or in groups of two or three, shadowy, in soft focus, heads down, nibbling on the grass or half asleep. It's one of those mental pictures I want to keep.
I get into Buellton about 7:10. It's a small town whose biggest claim to fame used to be the Anderson's Pea Soup Restaurant. I'm supposed to meet Bill Reynolds at the Mobile gas station. I'm late and I don't see him. I find out later that we had a mix-up and he's in his room waiting for me to call and let him know I'm coming. I think he's gone ahead because I'm late, so I don't wait. It's just as well. Bill is an avid rider. He turns 51 this year, but he has the physic of a twenty year old and the stamina of a cross-country runner. We only stay together for a mile or two anyway and at the first hill I don't see him anymore. I’m through Buellton in the blink of an eye, turn left and head down to the bridge, cross the river and turn right onto the river road.
This year – 2010 – Bill and Lyn n are in the same motel so we meet up before leaving. Bill turns 61 this year, and nothing has changed with him physically. He still looks 15 years younger and has the same build. But he has been sick a lot this year with the flu going around and a head cold he hasn’t been able to shake. He’s sick today too, but he doesn’t let it stop him.
The river road is one of the most beautiful parts of the ride. The hills rise steeply on my left and the river plain stretches out on the right. It has rained almost every day for the last three or four weeks and the wild grasses and mugwort are trying to get to full growth before the wet weather stops. It's so green it hurts to look at and I think this must be what Ireland looks like. Ancient oaks cover the hills and many are covered with Spanish. The fields are either freshly plowed or have an early growth of what appear to be asparagus, cabbage, brussel sprouts and lettuce; the cold weather crops. Farther down the road we get into the orchards. Some of them are very old and the trees are so large that as I ride along and look into the rows it's like looking down long dark tunnels. Sometimes I become mesmerized by the patterns of the precisely planted rows that revolve and change as I pass. Usually a pothole brings me back to reality.
The road begins to narrow after a time and the centerline disappears. The fog is thicker and my glasses start to mist up making it hard to see details on the road. The riders are starting to spread out across the road, riding three and four abreast. The road may be a country road, but it's still in use. Field hand's cars come up from behind and can't pass because they can't see far enough ahead. Calls of "Car back!" or "Car up!" come out of the mist and most riders pull to the right to let them by.
The first real hill comes into view and we all start to gear down for the ascent; all of us except the velo club riders. You can hear them coming from behind, a short of whirring sound that gets louder and louder till they fly by. They whiz past like a bullet train crowding me toward the shoulder, but I hold my line. They're bent over their handlebars, thin as paperclips, no stomachs, calve muscles so ripped that they look like an illustration from Grey's Anatomy. And that's the girls!!!
As I get to the top of the last major hill on the river road I look back down to the valley and I've climbed above the fog bank. It lies in the hollow like a thick gray blanket, the valley rising up on either side. The sun is starting to shine through the upper clouds and illuminates the grassy hills and trees for the first time today. It's a Kodak moment. Two more small hills and then the ascent to Highway 1 and we drop down into Lompoc.
Lompoc's mainly an agri-town that got extended life from the state penitentiary and the air force base. It's a nice place, but it's a long ways to anywhere else. They don't want us getting run over by the locals, so they put us off onto the side streets and the local police bold traffic for us at the intersections. Most of us make sure to say thanks to the cops because the poor guys are going to be out there pretty much all day just for us. I turn onto Ocean Avenue and head toward the coast. I'm in a large river plain with plowed, unplanted fields, very wide. About 2 miles I think. The fog has closed in somewhat and this becomes a featureless ride for the next 8 miles. Later the wind will pick up from the ocean and blow it all away.
Three years ago -1997- we had the bright idea of starting the ride in Santa Maria. Good idea we thought. We'll get the worst of the hills out of the way while we're still fresh, then the rest should be a piece of cake! No one told us about the afternoon winds. That year it was worse than usual. Just before Lompoc I felt the wind startup, straight into my face. I still had about 35 miles to go and was getting a little tired. When I dropped down out of the hills and into town the wind really picked up. Out on Ocean Avenue it was so bad I could never get faster than 11 mph, and that was when I was drafting some poor guy. Most of the time I was hunched down over the drops, out of the saddle in low gear, cranking for all I was worth and doing about 8 mph. For the first time ever I was seriously thinking about going back into Lompoc, calling Cherryl and telling her to come get me. At the Vandenberg Gate the road takes a right angle turn to go up onto the plateau. Good, I thought. At least now the wind will be blowing from the side, but by some freak twist of the terrain, the wind was right in my face again. It was the point of no return. If I went through the gate couldn't get onto the base to pick me up. My ego and pride overruled my common sense and I went through. Not a good choice. No matter which way the road turned, the wind was in my face, all the way across the base, into the canyons, downhill, uphill, every which way. It never got behind me till I was almost to the airport. That year it took me 7-3/4 hours to do the ride and I slept like the dead that night.
In 2010 the wind started about the same place and was in our faces from about mile 19 to mile 56 at the turn to the airport. In 2008 it turned on us and was in our faces all the way from Lompoc and back into Solvang. I can truly say that was the worst wind ride ever. I was so blown out that by the time I got to the climb at the top of Foxen Canyon I actually got off the bike and walked to the top. This year, because I hadn’t been able to do the training rides I was very careful to use all the SAG stops and conserve my strength, so I was able to do all the hills without cramping.
This year – 2000 - I'm ahead of the wind and the fog begins to lift as I near the gate. I flash my armband to the guard and he waves me through, then I begin the ascent to the top of the plateau. This is usually a pleasant part of the ride. At the top and through most of the base there are eucalyptus groves all around us. The ground doesn’t seem to drain well even on the plateau, so this time of the year it's a little swampy in some areas. Cattails and ferns, many of the types of plants associated with wetlands thrive here during the rainy season. Ponds, streams and creeks line the road in the lower places. There are several species of duck, snowy egrets and other waterfowl. The temperature has risen to about 70 degrees and the shade of the trees feels good.
There's a light breeze starting and the fog is gone. From the top of the plateau I can see out to the ocean and I can see Point Sal State Beach. If the coastline didn't stick out so far I'm sure I could see all the way to Pismo. The road drops off the plateau and I get my first zippy-wee downhill ride, then it's up the long canyons. There are several such drops and ascents on the base and after the first time I learned to conserve my energy for the last long climb over the Casmalia Hills. I crank past the second SAG stop, still too proud to stop. Who's tired? Not Me. I rocket down the 1/2 mile to the bottom of the canyon, and then start that last ascent. It's a 2-mile climb at a 7% grade. I do pretty well, passing a fair number of riders. Then a girl passes me! Then a peloton zips by. I’m humbled, again.
Finally I reach the top of the "Vandenberg Grade" and get a real downhill ride. This is where I'm lucky. At just over 200 pounds I can still get into a tuck and go aerodynamic. With all that weight I can really get the speed. I even pass that girl! The bullet train is more aerodynamic than I am though, so I let it go.
I can hit about 45 to 50 mph on this hill, especially if the wind is behind me. I love the speed. I try not to think about what the road can do to bare skin at 50 mph if I go down. You have to suppress those thoughts or it can freak you out. One year at this same spot I had just reached the bottom of the hill and was slowing down. There were two riders about 25 yards ahead of me and we were doing between 25 and 30, when for no apparent reason one of the guys just went down hard. He got separated from his bike and glasses, all of which were going in the same general direction and slowing fast. I couldn't stop in time so I gritted my teeth and tried to maneuver through the wreck. Somehow I managed to miss all three obstacles and get by without dumping myself. No skill, just providential interference.
Since 9/11 we have left Lompoc and ridden up Highway 1 and out to Orcutt, turning left at West Rice Ranch, through old town Orcutt, West on Clark to Highway 1 and right at Black Rd, which gets us generally back to the old route.
The rest of the ride into Santa Maria is through some of the earthier parts of the agri side of town. No pun intended. Landfill, tractor repair, liqueur stores, rough road; I go into autopilot and don't pay any more attention to the ride than I need to. I pass a guy stopped on the side of the road who's got one of those folding tuck-in-the-trunk bikes that BMW used to sell or give away to the proud owner of a new 325i. I've seen some strange things on this ride before, but this is a top candidate for the worst type of bike to use. He's got maybe 24" diameter wheels and is about 15 inches closer to the ground than I am. He's still got a little less than 50 miles to go. He's got a bib number so he's part of the ride and I wonder if he'll make it. His gear ratios don't look too promising and I think he's cranked himself out. He says he's alright so I ride on.
I feel a little sorry, and a great deal of respect for the people on the mountain bikes. They're great for downhill and cranking up a dirt road, but there's a reason that road bikes were invented. Their bikes are so much heavier and with so much more road resistance from the tires that they use a lot of energy just spinning down the road. 100 miles on one of them is more like 150 on my Cannondale.
The recumbent and tandem bikes are another story.
The visual or apparent balance of a recumbent kind of unnerves me. They look very unstable, but I've never seen one crash. Maybe because it's easy to plant both feet on the ground if you start to lose it. The seats have got to be the most comfortable; like sitting in a lawn chair. They are heavier than a road bike so they aren't quite as fast uphill, but they are much more aerodynamic and literally scream going down, if the rider has the nerve. I'd guess there's not much saddle pain after the ride either. That alone has got to be a big advantage.
I play leapfrog with the tandems. Unless the stoker is strong I can pass them on the uphill, but with the weight of two riders they can often get more downhill speed than I can. I get a smile out of the father/child tandems. It's got to be a great bonding exercise. Either that or they will hate each other for the rest of their lives. This year while going up a canyon I'm overtaking a father/son tandem and I can hear the squeak squeak of a rubber ducky kind of toy. As I pass them I see they have stuck a toy dinosaur, Barney or something, on the stoker's handlebars. As dad shifted back in the saddle to get more push into his rank, with each revolution his butt pushes against the toy making it squeak and the kid is cracking up.
(2010. I have seen some remarkable things on this ride, but this year between Lompoc and stop # 2 Bill pointed out a tandem with a set of crutches strapped on the back. When I was leaving stop #2 I saw them come in and saw that the lady acting as the stoker was an amputee. She was missing her left leg about 10” below the hip. At this point of the ride I knew they were doing the full 100 miles. That’s determination and grit.)
Here's where I saw the amputeeI roll into the third SAG stop at the airport and refill my water bottles, stuff a PB and J sandwich in my mouth, eat a banana for the potassium, hit the outhouse and go. Elapsed time is a little less than 10 minutes. 58 miles behind me and 44 to go, all uphill for the next 30. I feel pretty good and don't want to lose time standing around when I can be riding. I probably should pick up another banana, some Fig Newtons and oatmeal cookies to take along, but I've still got a couple of jell packs and power bars, so I don't hang around.
This stop is usually pretty crowded. I see a lady TV reporter from a local station interviewing one of the ride officiators. She asks him how many riders are on the course today and I hear him say a little over three thousand. That's why it so quiet. In the past there have been as many as seven thousand riders. The airport was one of the starting points for several years, but not this year. A few times the ride was so big they had a third starting point in Lompoc. I don't know why it's so low this year. Maybe the rain scared some off.
I roll out to the street, cross the intersection and hang right down the frontage road along highway 135 for a few miles. The guy ahead of me is wearing tube socks, which give him away as a novice rider. I pull up alongside and we start to talk. It’s his first time on this ride.
"Well, the best part of the ride is coming up." I tell him. "Now we get into the hills."
"You mean those weren't hills back there?"
"Oh they were OK, but the good ones are a few miles ahead. The top of Foxen Canyon and ‘The Wall’ ". (You always say "The Wall" in quotes. It sounds ominous.)
He's heard something about "The Wall" and thinks he saw something on the map last night. I'm getting a kick playing with his head.
"Yeah, the top of Foxen Canyon is actually steeper, but you can't see it except for short stretches because it turns a lot, but "The Wall" is psychologically more intimidating because you can see the whole thing from the bottom and you've already gone 87miles with the last 30 all uphill. But don't worry," I say. "Just drop into low gear, stand up and keep pumping. You'll make it." I’m so patronizing. Truth is, I hate the top of the canyon and "The Wall". It's the only real challenge for me on the whole ride, and believe me it's enough.
A couple of miles and we turn east on Clark avenue and start the long uphill grind for the next couple of hours. Uphill, across highway 101, up another hill, then out on the flat for a couple miles. We're out of the low areas and into cattle and oil country now. There's a slight prevailing smell of sulfur from the oil wells rising in the heat.
I can see the front of the San Rafael Mountains. There's snow on the upper peaks and everything is so green. California is technically desert and the green season is short even on the coast. I love it all the more because it's so uncommon. My thermometer says 87 degrees but a light breeze is blowing and it feels cool and soothing. Now down a short drop, right on Dominion and up another long climb for about 3 1/2 miles at a 3% grade. Not bad if it's not too hot. It's a camel hump with two climbs and two drops till I end up at the same altitude before I get to Sisquoc. The last drop can be a killer. You can get going faster than you think and when you get to the turn at Palmer road you're turning left into a right hand banked curve, and the road is banked the wrong way for you. To make matters worse there's loose gravel on the road. There are warning signs all down the bill to the curve but more than one rider has eaten it on this turn.
Once again I blow past the SAG stop just before Sisquoc but I'm starting to think I should have stopped. I'm not really low on liquids but I think maybe I should be rehydrating more often than I have. I probably should have finished a 24-oz. bottle since Santa Maria and refilled before "The Wall". But it’s too late for that and I just keep going. I suck on a couple of jell packs, eat a power bar, take a few swigs of juice and hope it kicks in when I need it. I'll be sucking on these bottles for the next 15 miles or so. A little farther, turn right at Sisquoc and I'm now officially going up Foxen Canyon.
The road runs straight for about a mile, then jogs right and hugs the south side of the canyon in the shade of the trees. About 8 years ago at this spot I saw a rider about 300 yards ahead of me with a sign fastened to his back He wasn't going very fast so I caught up with him in a short time. The sign read, "Please be patient with me. I'm going as fast as I can for 83 years old" That just blew me away. He'd already gone some 75 miles and was still going steady. I hope he made it and I think about him every year when I start to feel sorry for myself. (This year I had the strangest thought as I was riding through here. As healthy as that guy was – he has to be dead now. He’d be over 100 years old today. I wonder how many more years I have.)
The next year as I was riding across the Vandenberg plateau I saw similar rider. He was gray haired and mustached, lean and angular, lined face, kind of weather beaten with that old cowboy look. By now I'd gotten into the habit of talking with fellow riders so I pulled alongside and started to chat. To my complete surprise I found out he was a couple of years younger than me! At first I thought he was telling a tall tale, but as we talked I saw that he was the real thing. It turned out he had been a heavy drug user and drinker and it had just about killed him. He was off the juice and dope now and biking was one of the ways he was trying to regain his health. I think about him at every ride too and thank God for my own amazingly good health.
We’re in wine country now. The breeze is gone but the air is a little cooler, coming off the mountain. It's about 11:30 and the day hasn't heated up in the canyon yet. The workers are out in the fields pruning back the vines. There is vineyard after vineyard here and most of them have been here for over 100 years. The trees feel ancient. I pass an old adobe farmhouse that burned down many years ago. The roof is long gone as are the window headers. The columns and walls of sun-baked adobe are weathered and crumbly and stick up like the pillars of a Greek temple, and grass is growing thickly out of the tops.
I wish I knew more about this area and its history. I do know that it was settled by a man named Foxen and explored by John C. Fremont, the man of whom Lincoln said he would not have such a general surveyor who became the owner of all he surveyed. The Chumash had a large population living here and There are still a tribe of Churnash living in the area and they run the Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez.
This is the deadly part of the ride. For the next 10 or so miles it's nothing but climbing. Sometimes steeply, sometimes not so steep, but always up and up. Usually when I climb I recite things or sing songs in my head to take my mind off the job. It works, but I've noticed that when the climb is really tedious the weirdest things come into my mind, like Gordon Lightfoot singing Canadian Railroad Trilogy. Canadian Railroad Trilogy??
Part of the 30-mile climbThe road is a farm road in every sense of the word. It's poorly paved, rutted and in place. Someone ran a caterpillar tractor along it so it has the texture of a washboard. Most of the ruts take on a stealth quality in the sunlight. They're not sharply defined and there are no shadows. You really can't see them until you hit them. I'm already tired and the jolts are sapping what energy I have left. It's bad enough that my shoulders are starting to ache and my rear is getting sore from the saddle but now the vibration from the road is starting to work its way from my legs and lower back to my upper spine and finally my brain. Mile after interminable mile. I don't look around much anymore and my attention closes down to the 6 or 8 feet directly in front of my bike. The rattling becomes the only sensation. My brain even begins to shut down and finally only the medulla oblongata keeps me going. Some of my family would say that's the only functioning part of my brain anyway, so maybe I'm not so far gone.
The bottom of the climb out of Foxen CanyonSuddenly the road turns right and rises into the trees. I'm near the top of the canyon and the toughest climb of the ride. It's 6/10s of a mile to the top and we rise a little more than 250 feet; about an 8% grade. Now I pay the price for not drinking enough early in the ride. My thighs start to cramp. With each turn of the crank I get a charly horse right above the knees. I try standing but for some reason it makes my legs spasm worse, so I sit back down and work on the pull more than the push of the crank. The road rises through the trees to a turn then rises more through more trees to another turn waaay up there. I think about the rider whose head I played with and I have a feeling this is Karma payback time. Then I turn another bend and I'm at the top. The road slowly starts to level out and I can shift up till I'm in my top gear at last and flying down the other side.
(2010) I’ve learned my lesson since then. I refuel at all the SAG stops, usually drink about 80 oz of Gatorade by this time and rarely have cramps anymore. But it’s still a very tiring climb)
Oh blessed relief! It's a steep drop and I can sit back a little and relax. The road drops quickly to the backside of the hill into another canyon. I'm getting back into wine country and there are some nicely tended vineyards in the lower part of the canyon. Fess Parker, the original Daniel Boone of Walt Disney fame built a vineyard and Visitor's Center here. The first year I rode was before the center was built and he let them put in a SAG stop on the lot. It's a beautiful building and if I was a wine drinker I'd go there just to say I'd been.
For about 2 1/2 miles I get all the rest I can because I'm coming up to "The Wall". The Firestone Vineyard at the base of "The Wall" is the last SAG stop. (This year it was Fess Parkers’s place again) Again I don't stop, but for a whole other reason. One year I stopped there and my legs stiffened up so badly that I hardly made it up "The Wall". I can tell by the way they worked at the canyon top that if I stop it will happen again so I decide to tough it out and climb.
"The Wall" is also about 6/10 mile climb and about 250 feet up, but like I said before, you can see it from start to finish. And besides, when you stand something up that's 250 feet tall it looks a heck of a lot higher than it sounds. Consider that the average Freeway Bridge has a 15-foot clearance for trucks, then stack 16 of those one on top of the other and you have 250 feet. We've already gone 87 miles and the last two hours have been that lovely farm road from Hell. My legs ache and there doesn't seem to be anything left in them. I shift down to the lowest gear and settle in for the climb. The cramping comes back with a vengeance. My mother’s voice comes to me with a vengeance. "You push yourself too hard dear. I worry about you, you're so competitive with yourself” Dang! I think she's right this time. I do make it though. Some kind soul has painted a message on the road, "Last Hill", and farther up, "You're almost there!" I glance to my right and see the valley floor laid out below me and it's a wonderful sight. The road begins to flatten out. I shift up gear after gear. I'm over and it's 14 miles downhill to Solvang. Almost downhill.
It's 2+ miles down to Highway 154 and then a hard right on Ballard Canyon Road for the really truly last hill. It's not a tall hill or even that steep, but it's like the final parting shot from the ride. I wind up and up, back and forth through the hairpin turns and I'm over. I don't even cramp on this one. Down sharply on the other side, through another hairpin turn and it's a straight shot to town. As I go through this last turn I slow down a lot and study the road ahead. The ride wasn't always popular with the locals and one year, the story goes, someone scattered tacks on the road at this turn to blow out tires. I tend to think this was just an urban legend.
From the top of "The Wall" to the town we drop about 700 feet. There's not much need to pedal and it's a good thing because fatigue has caught up with me. If there's no headwind I average about 30 mph for the rest of the road until I get into town.
Ghosts of the past come to me again. The year I started in Santa Maria I was fresh and riding like a bat out of Hell down this road. I stopped at the Solvang SAG stop to get some snacks and as I started out the driveway, not even completely on my bike yet, my front tire popped. When we got it off the rim we found that the rubber spoke guard had deteriorated and fallen apart and a spoke had punctured the tube. There was basically no guard left. I could see the imprints of all the spokes on my tube. All I could think of was that the tire could have blown at any time on the downhill run, but it went out at the least possible dangerous time. I could only write it off to Providence again, there was no other explanation.
March 15, 2000
2010
Although we missed Syd this year we had the added surprise of having GK, Susanna and Van (and the twins, sort of) meet us in Solvang.
