Santa Barbara Training Camp

 

The rest of the photos from day one are here.

 

Man was it great...

 

I raised my own bar too:

 

 

 

Day1

 

We rode in sunshine around the polo fields, up foothill and then the Gibraltar.  This mother just kept on coming.  Not the hardest climb I have ever done, but MAN, when does it end?  The bad pavement at the top didn't help.

 

Then down from the top to painted cave, dropping down to the 154 and Old San Marco on beautiful smooth brand new pavement.  If I had ridden this before, man, would I have been going scary fast down that thing... actually, I think I might have scared a few of the TX boys as I passed them coming down several of the climbs this day.

 

Ran into LA and the disco boys at the shop where was  "not a good time"

 

ride time: 4:34

TSS:  378

Pnorm: 237

 

Day2

 

Rain and more of it.  Have the TX crowd wussed out, but David and Troy were up.  Rode the flats in Lompoc and cruised the gravel covered farm fields.  Very Flanders.  Legs were ass, but the riding company was great.

 

ride time: 2:25

TSS: 232

Pnorm: 244

 

Day3

 

More of the shite weather with rain at the start and a small group, but we added Nathan to the ride, loosing Thomas.

 

The plan: UP Old San Marcos, Painted Cave, drop down and then back up Stagecoach then back down PC and OSM.

 

I felt my climbing legs that day and was feeling strong on OSM.  When we hit PC, in the steep section I just went standing on the 34/23 and chasing David to within ~45s.  When the pavement went south, Nathan caught up to me and about 500m before we stopped for water on PC, Troy caught me.  If I had remembered how close to the stop we were, I would have fought to not let him pass me (as if it were a race).

 

We lost Nathan to a return flight (and the associated drive to LAX) and continued on to Stagecoach.

 

By the top of SC, J was done on the climbing and I was done with the cold so down the 154 to OSM and home.

 

The TX boys were convinced to climb some more since they can't at home and went up to the top of Gibraltar to descend it... running into a buttload of disco refuse on the road (gel wrappers, bar wrappers and discarded waterbottles littering the road - as if it were a euro road race and they could litter at will).

 

They ended up freezing themselves off the mountain and calling us for reinforcements as we were headed for burritos.

 

We eventually made the burritos with Troy and David in tow and man were they good...

 

ride time: 3:19

TSS: 330

Pnorm: 253

 

Also of note:  Arigato Sushi - excellent - the crowd dropped a $500 bill there Saturday night...probably ran a few of the locals out - sorry about that.

-G