Solvang Prelude

My wife and youngest daughter decided to ride the Solvang Prelude this year so they wanted me to come along in case they got a flat. I don't normally pay to ride such short rides but I agreed to come along as support.

The Solvang Century and Prelude rides are organized by SCOR and are not to be confused with the Solvang Double Century which is organized by PlanetUltra. They've been organizing rides for many years and recently changed the routes on this one to address safety concerns. In my opinion they failed.

We had a pre-dawn 7:30 start with temps around 50F and rode on the 246 highway into the rising sun. The 246 is busy and every car passing us was also driving into the rising sun which means they were blinded. Never organize a ride so that the riders are riding into the sunset or sunrise. It's very dangerous.

After four miles we rode through Solvang and turned onto a quiet road. After many pleasant miles we turned onto the 154 highway. This is another busy road even though it has a good shoulder. Many riders were not sensitive to the needs of other riders or motorists and blocked the shoulder to regroup, take photographs, etc. After 11 miles of heavy traffic we turned onto Zaca Station Road/Foxen Canyon.

This is a perennial cyclists favorite despite being hilly and rough. It's a beautiful road with wineries every half mile or so. Unfortunately it was an out-and-back section of the route which meant it was clogged with cyclists on both sides. This isn't a very busy road but there are plenty of people out for wine tasting and tours. Wine tasters and hordes of cyclists on both sides of the road make a very bad combination. This would have been better ridden as a loop so the cyclists would only have been on one side of the road.

We went back to Fess Parker winery on Sunday. They had hosted the 40 mile rest stop on Saturday and we spoke to the employees. They were very unhappy about the way the cyclists behaved and I had to agree with them. That one or two percent who think we own the road and can behave anyway we want ruin the ride for, and reputation of, the other 98 percent that ride responsibly.

I much prefer to participate in smaller rides of 20-30 people who form a few, spread out, small groups that don't impact traffic. There's no way I'll ride this ride again.