I spent most of my Christmas break from graduate school in sunny, beautiful Southern California with my partner Craig. I promised my teammates and friends tales of epic rides (sans any and all cold weather riding gear) and pictures of the amazing sites. Being a woman of my word and not wanting to disappoint (really, I just want to boast about the amazing place I got to spend what was suppose to be a cold and miserable January), I have prepared this ride report for the multitudes.
I arrived in Santa Barbara just before the New Year skeptical about what was in store for me on the West Coast. Being accused of being ‘painfully East Coast’ on more than one occasion made me curious if I would even like it ‘out there,’ but I was actually excited about all the things Santa Barbara had to offer.
- I mean…what’s not to like?!
My first day there and I was ready to barter my bicycle for a long board, but Craig talked me out of it. He promised that some great riding in the Ynez Mountains was in store for me during my stay, so I decided I’d wait to make such a trade.
The first chance we had during my stay, we took off up Mountain Rd, California State Route 192, which not only offered us some amazing views of the ocean and the Channel Islands,
Pretty special!
but also some interesting construction sites
Wait! Is this house supposed to be crooked?!
and also this interesting take on a mailbox that made me think of my friend Cindy, as she seems to have a penchant for mailboxes
How pissed must this letter carrier be, huh?
The next day, Craig and I took the opportunity again to get in some more great riding. This day he took me in the opposite direction that we went the day before and promised to show me the avocado trees, aplace called ‘Hope Ranch,’ UCSB, and the mesa.
Within the first few minutes of our ride, we saw a rider cross on the opposite side of the road and recognized the kit almost immediately. At first, I thought it was some fanboy rocking the Liquigas kit, but as we passed the rider, he did look pretty legit (almost too legit, HEY HEY!). Craig turned to me and asked “That wasn’t Ted King, was it?!” I replied with, “I don’t know! These euro-pros! THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME.” (Yo, is that racist?!) Later on that evening, after a little blog reading and twitter tweet reading, we realized it was probably him….
Since Craig is an adult now, he had to return to work the next day, so I was left to venture out on my own for the rest of my stay. Each day the weather report promised to be a tad hot during mid-day, so I elected to ride in the late afternoons.
This photo was not really necessary to make my point, but I thought I'd make my fellow New Englanders a little jealous....
Not willing to be annoyed and lost in the hills surrounding Santa Barbara, I decided the two hour ride that I was already familiar with on Mountain Rd, looping through Moneticeto, and then to the ocean was just about all I wanted to complete each day on my solo rides, so I set off for the Ynez Mountains again, this time sans any winter riding gear AND a riding/life partner.
My shadow is the only friend I have.
My good friend Dottie is a firm believer in taking pictures to prove that you are were actually someplace (not to mention I fully intended to write this blog report and have a gratuitous amount of amazing photos), so I decided to stop to take some pictures.
Here I am trying to get a picture of a. me, b. the canyon, and c. the ocean all in one photo.
Self portraits with a cell phone camera...how do all these tweens in front of bathroom mirrors make it look so easy?
And then of course, the one all the hipsters love on Instagram: the photo of the bike. I found some real nice flowers to place my bike up next to, figuring it would make the hipstakind real emotive….
A photo to soothe the angst in you.
Deciding I had enough pictures for one day, I continued my ride.
AND THEN ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE. I freaking SRAM’D my Shimano shifter!
Yep, I see what my problem is.
So, now stuck with no tool set and having a really bad attitude about everything else that went wrong that day, I turned around to go home figuring it was only seven miles away and mostly down hill…but as my chain janked along in-between my chainrings…I grew angrier and angrier as my crank went around.
And then, I got to the Gibralter Road intersection and stopped to think about my options: if I go left, I have a nice, sweeping downhill and can go home and sulk. If I go right and up Gibraltar, I have some climbing to do, but will most likely get a good day in spite of my broken shifter . I could go straight…and well….probably something…but I never looked on a map, so I didn’t really know. So I did what any pissed off cyclists would do: I took the hard road.
Two roads. I took the one less taken.
I guess you could say it didn’t really matter that it was a pretty grueling climb, as I was too busy thinking about my broken shifter…and about my dissertation that I really need to work on so I can graduate….and the potential of not finding a job when I graduate….and the fact that I took too much time off of the bike this Fall…and how my December training was interrupted…and how I really hate the sound of my chain hitting my big ring…and how I really hate how everyone wears flip flops here in California….and I wondered how far up this road goes…and oh God, I hope the top is after this next corner….
and Oh! This must be how the 1% lives, stupid jerks….
and Oh Man! The sun is setting and I don’t have any lights for the ride home…
and Hey! Okay, there’s a sign! This must be for something important; I’ll take a picture….
And ZOMG! LOOK AT THE VIEW!
And then finally, I gave up. The inner monologue riddled with anxiety and self-deprecation gave way the startling inner silence that endurance athletes are so familiar with and I gave way to the fact that I would never make it to the top before sunset and would probably barely make it home before then even if I turned around right then, anyways. I stopped just long enough to take a picture of my turn around point for future reference.
(And if interested, this house is listed for sale here.)
And even though I gave up and turned around prematurely, I never did make it back before sunset.
When I got home that night, I asked Craig if he knew how much more I had left in my climb. He wasn’t that familiar with the area yet, but he looked it up for me when he got to work the next day.
Not. Even. Close....SONUVA!
And then, on my last day in sunny, beautiful Santa Barbara, I took one last ride through the mountains. And when I made it to the Pacific, I decided I would stick my feet in it (just to say that I did)….
Well, sort of anyways....
And because Dottie wouldn’t believe I was there unless she saw a picture of me, I took one last one for her…
And another last one for the hipsters…
And later on that night, while waiting for our flight at SFO, I decided to look at the data from my rides on the Strava app on my phone. I was complaining to Craig that I got ‘131 place on one of the segments from my ride, ’ whatever that meant…Craig not really interested in my complaints or what some silly app had to say, snarked back to ask ‘How’d Ted King do?’ to which I replied, ‘OH! He got 8th!’ I don’t think Craig was expecting a real answer….
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