Day Four (Recap): Pismo Beach to Santa Barbara (119 miles)

Today marks the longest day of riding we have on this trip. 119 miles from Pismo Beach to Santa Barbara. It’s going to be a tough day, especially after yesterday’s brutal climbing and distance. I decided to stay with group 4 today, since I was with them most of yesterday and had a good time.

After a nice, yet quick breakfast, we rolled out around 715am and went through the city of Pismo Beach. We rode at a nice pace of 17mph and then turned Eastward, and that’s when things got tough. Today was going to be a relatively flat day, except with a long climb to get to lunch, but what the route profile didn’t tell us was that there are westbound winds blowing around 8-12mph. So when we turned East, we were smacked in the face with these winds.

Hooter led our pack, and we were pushing pretty hard on these flats, but the headwinds kept us down to around 9mph. It was rough and we had a ways to go. This is when I learned the beauty of drafting. If we individually went through the headwinds, the effort we would output would be 15-30% more and we’d be tired quicker. We all rode in a double paceline to block out the winds.

Every time we turned South, the winds ceased, and then we turned East, and back into the headwinds. It was pretty tough to deal with this, but Hooter and Mark VD were really helping with the pulling. We hit our first SAG, which was a nice relief.

So the question must come up, how do we relieve ourselves? The obvious answer is use a port-a-potty or a restroom. Well, what if there isn’t one around? Well guys have no problem using the bushes, and some girls don’t either. When I got to the SAG van, I heard a sound similar to a water cooler just leaking. I looked over at the van, and the two doors were open, and a stream of liquid was coming straight down. I was confused for a moment, but I figured out what was going on. One of the female riders wasn’t too keen on the bushes, and since the port-a-potty wasn’t nearby, using the van as cover worked out pretty well.

As we were preparing to leave the SAG, the Garmin team bullet train zipped by us. The sound of the bikes cutting through the air as they flew by us at 30+mph was amazing. Their pedal strokes were in sync and it looked effortless. I always missed the moment to snap a picture because they come by without much noise and leave in a flash.

After we left the SAG, we hit some nice downhills and then were met with our climbs for the day. Long, 10-12 miles of climbing, but mostly a 3-5% grade. The last portion was an 11% grade which was not very fun. We did see four tarantulas, and they were all trying to cross the road. Looks like they were trying to find the tarantula bar across the street.

We got to lunch, which was at the Fess Parker Winery. It was a beautiful place and a lot of people were enjoying their day there. Team Garmin was in full effect as well as some of the Challenged Athletes, and it was nice to hang out with everyone at the winery. We had some yummy pita pockets and salads for lunch, and I had a little Riesling, which was really good!!!

After lunch, and after popping some Aleve (thank you Bayer), we were back on the road. We hit a huge hill after some downhill fun. The funny thing is that the Garmin team actually got towed up this hill by their chase car… pansys!! =)

The rest of the ride was pretty fun. We stopped off in Solvang for some ice cream. Rob Millum had some heat exhaustion so he decided to SAG out and take it easy. He’s had a tough week… poor guy.

We kept forging ahead, stopped at SAG 3 for some quick refills, and then hit the freeway. I had forgotten my water bottles at SAG 3, but thanks to the generous folks in Group 4, they gave me some water. We flew down the highway 1 on the freeway for 2.5 miles and then hit the coast.

It was interesting riding on the freeway because every time a huge truck flew by us, we would get a big headwind followed by an even bigger tailwind. We held a nice pace down the coast of around 18mph. We hit a narrow bridge, which was pretty dicey to cross, but had a nice SAG escort blocking traffic for us. Unfortunately, Jim Pansyeres hit one of the poles at this bridge and went down. He suffered a broken rib and shoulder injury, but he’s doing well.

About 20 more miles to go, and we started going through Santa Barbara. We hit every stoplight you could imagine, which kind of ruined our pace. Julie also ran into a cup full of soda and had her chain drop. The mileage may have been getting to her.

At mile 118, the familiar sites of Santa Barbara came back from my college days. We turned left on the main drag and I saw Rusty’s pizza and a lot of the places we used to go when we visited SB in college. We finally made it to the lovely DoubleTree.

Our wonderful luggage angels were there to give us our room keys and the hotel had an awesome spread of eggplant parmigiana heroes!! It was perfect after a long day of riding. The hotel was massive and beautiful at the same time. I had a great room with an ocean view!!

Tonight, we were on our own for dinner, so I thought it would be fun to have dinner with some of the G4 riders. We decided to get Rusty’s pizza delivered and have some beers. Webby, Rob T., David Lee, Ken and Brent joined me for the pizza party and we had a great time.

I survived the day… my personal mileage record! I’m feeling pretty good, a bit tired, but still have a lot left in me. Tomorrow, we’ll be heading into Marina Del Rey, which will be great. I’ll get to see my friends and family!!