Sunday, February 24, 2013

A good day for 'bents

Amber and I drove up to San Luis Obispo yesterday to ride Vickie's 300k brevet. I reviewed the course beforehand and it has a lot of my favorite roads. There's the unforgettable Drum Canyon, lovely Santa Rosa Rd, the famous Foxen Canyon and a new one to me - Corbett Canyon.

About 20 of us gathered at 6:00am outside Vickie's house and set off into the dark. This was my first brevet with my Schmidt dynamo hub and it performed beautifully. The ride headed south on just about the only route available to cyclists and we made our first stop at Guadalupe at mile 25. I've cycled through here many times and never found anywhere good to eat. Ask me about the Mexican chef with skin cancer sometime. It's never a good sign that the gas station makes it onto the top 5 best places to eat.

The next control is in Los Alamos - a lovely little town just off the 101. It's well worth the visit, especially the Quackenbush cafe. After sharing a subway with Amber we headed up Drum Canyon. I've ridden Drum Canyon a couple of times before and always enjoyed it. It's about 700' of climbing at 6-8%. You'd think a big guy like me wouldn't like that, but I've always had good memories of the climb. We got to the cattle grid at the top before I was expecting it and the handlebars tilted down for a long, steep, rough descent. To say that Drum Canyon is rough is like saying the Pope is Catholic.

At the end of the canyon we turned right on 246 (strong headwind from the West) into Lompoc and the next control at the Albertsons. Amber bought a chicken and apple croissant for me. It was wonderful. We took D St. down to Ocean (have to remember that) and soon we were on Santa Rosa. The road joins Lompoc to Buelton and is scenic and quiet. However there is a some climbing and the road is pretty rough in places. The headwind had turned to a tailwind. We continued to Los Olivos where we ate at a deli. We had a turkey, bacon, cream cheese, and BBQ sauce bagel. Awesome!

Pretty soon we were on Foxen Canyon with a powerful swirly headwind from the Northwest. We were struggling to hold 10mph on the flat. There were times when it felt there were two people standing on either side of me taking turns to try to push me off the bike. At the top of the first summit around 1300' there was a 40mph crosswind that blew both Amber and I off the road into the dirt. Thankfully we weren't hurt. If I hadn't been on a 300k that I needed I would not have ridden in these conditions. We had to walk our bikes the next 100 yards to the far side of the exposed section.

Then there was more headwind until we got to the control at Sisquoc. Except there wasn't a control there. The Sisquoc store closed down last year and the old route slips and gps file had been posted on the PCH Randos website. They weren't fixed until 5 days before the ride so those of us who downloaded them last week got very confused. After battling the headwinds for the last 30 miles we found we were out of water and only had emergency food that randos should always carry. We went to the fire station near the store and begged for water.

If you need water there are several types of people that will help you. Fire stations are always good - they are normally bored, they understand cyclists, and they have bottled water. Also look for gated communities with a manned guard shack. They are also bored and normally have bottled water. Schools and churches often have drinking fountains on the premises. Parks are obviously good places to look for drinking fountains.

Amber ate an energy bar and I had some trail mix (almonds, cashews, and dark chocolate from Trader Joes - very good). We topped up on water and continued cycling into the headwind. Ten miles later we passed by the outskirts of Santa Maria. My though is that we could have detoured into Santa Maria for a control. The next control was 10 miles further up (50 miles from the previous one). Maybe next year. Both our backsides were painfull and the flesh over my sitbones was swollen. Foxen canyon was just one of several extremely rough roads we rode on.

Continuing into the headwind we got to the formal control in Nipomo. Because our routeslip was outdated we didn't make the detour to the freeway as we should have and stopped at a mexican grocery store instead. Gatorade, coffee, red bull, and sweet Mexican pastries. Loved it. Vickie moved the control 1/2 mile off the course because she needed the miles. I wasn't too worried that we would come up short because we had ridden an extra mile trying to figure out what to do in Sisquoc.

It was dark by now and the wind was dying down a little. It had also shifted due north so sometimes it was a headwind and sometimes a tailwind. We went through Arroyo Grande and climbed Corbett Canyon which was an absolute delight. It's a gentle climb on smooth pavement with light traffic.

Control #7 was an info control and then we started our Tour de SLO to get the miles. There was a receipt control just ten miles from the end of the ride - neither Amber nor I wanted anything so I just went up to a gas pump and pushed the 'print receipt' button. Bingo - I have a receipt with the current time on it. Because we were using the old route slip there was an info control just two miles from the end of the ride but when I opened my brevet card there was no reference to the control. Grrr. It's time to finish the ride. We put the bikes in the truck and walked over to Vickie's house. We got a official time of 23:24 which is a ride time of 17:24 - one of my slowest 300k rides.

When I think about it I've had the worst weather on 300k distances. Is it because they tend to be held in February? Next ride is my 600k staff ride on 23rd March.

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