Doubling Down in Solvang

On Saturday, March 22, I ended a two-year lapse of sanity by riding the Solvang Spring Double sponsored by Planet Ultra. I had hoped that one of my compadres might join me because, you know, it helps to have company when you make a break from the looney bin. As it happened, they all opted to abandon me in favor of staying local and riding the DBC 300k brevet. Bastards.
The drive down the Central Coast and check-in were uneventful. I saw a few familiar faces, but no one I knew well enough to buddy-up with for the ride; so at 5:15 AM the next morning I set off solo, riding eastward across the Santa Ynez Valley under a starless sky. I rode through the shuttered town of Solvang, namesake of the ride; no turistas at this time of the morning.
After about half an hour, a group of 3 riders caught up to me and since they weren’t riding too much faster, I decided to hop on their wheel. We rolled across the Santa Ynez Valley and I took a turn at the front and chatted with them. It turned out that all 3 (Lonnie, Joe, and Craig) had come from Utah, and one of them was the former RBA of the Utah Randonneurs who was a NorCal expat.

Spinning Down Foxen Canyon

We turned up Foxen Canyon Road, the first climb of the day and the Utah Boys pulled away and I figured that was that. But at the top of the hill they had eased up and waited for me, so we continued on as a group over the next set of hills and down the long, fast descent into the Santa Maria Valley. We set a pretty fast pace and had picked up several more riders by the time we rolled into the first rest stop in Sisquoc.  The UtahBoys were in a hurry to get back on the trail, but I needed to answer the call of nature, so we parted company.

Back on the road, riding solo again, I quickly found another pair of riders and we traded pulls as we headed north by northwest toward the next check point in San Luis Obispo. After a time, a large pack of riders overtook us and I hopped on their train. It was actually more like a slinky than a train, with the lead riders variously hammering then sitting up when they noticed that they had shattered the peloton. Despite the squirrelly riding, I stayed with the Asian Invasion because, you know, better to have an unsteady wheel than none at all. I took an occasional turn near the front, though didn’t have to do any significant work, because the Asian Invasion, so named because most of the riders in the pack belonged to one of 3 Vietnamese cycling clubs, was all over the place, pace-wise…hammer…sit up…hammer…sit up…hammer….sit up. They also couldn’t hold a line very well, and more than once that bad joke about Asians not being able to drive crossed my mind. I figured it was okay to have such thoughts, cause, you know, I’m Asian. I can’t be offended by poking jokes at my own people, right?

The Asian Invasion Sits Up and Spreads Out

Eventually, I grew weary of the erratic riding and let the Asian Invasion go. By that time, however, we were only a few miles from the second rest stop; so I pedaled in on my own, did the rest stop thing and headed out on the next leg, which included a 12-mile slog out to the coast into a steady headwind, accompanied by, you guessed it, the Asian Invasion. However, fortune had smiled upon me because I found myself riding with a subset of the more solid, steady AI riders instead of the aimless wanderers from before the second rest stop.

Morro Bay State Park

We set a good pace out to Morro Bay, picking up several more riders along the way. The pace was a little too hot for my liking, but since we were working well together I burned a few matches to keep up rather than face the headwind alone. The reward was turning back downwind and enjoying a nice gentle push back to the lunch stop, again in SLO. Along the way, the Utah Boys caught up with me, so we all rolled into lunch together.

Ah, lunch…and not just any lunch: a Planet Ultra lunch. The experienced double century rider knows that PU spares no expense when it comes to support. And when I say “spare no expense” I mean they really spare every expense. I can’t be overly critical of the food selection: I mean a sandwich is a sandwich, whether it’s lovingly made to order by a ride volunteer or a pile of Subway sandwiches stacked up 

in the sun…chips are chips and sodas are sodas and cookies are cookies. However, PU has a particular talent in the all-important category of porta-potty planning. Imagine you’re the director of a sports event attended by 350 riders. You’re thinking about the lunch stop, several dozens of riders coming through simultaneously in need of both sustenance and relief. How many porta-potties would you order? A dozen? Half a dozen?

Poor Piss Planning

If you’re in PU’s universe, the obvious answer is 2. That’s one less than the number of licks that it takes to get to the center of a tootsie-pop. I think maybe PU plans things this way to make the rides more social, a kind of bonding experience for the riders. “Hi, I’m Eric. I stood behind you for 30 minutes in the porta-potty line at lunch. Want to be Facebook friends?” One of compadres in line cracked that PU suffered from piss-poor planning AND poor piss planning.

The Utes invited me to ride on with them, but I knew I could not keep pace with them without being in a serious pain cave, so we parted company again. Besides, I had a line to wait in. Also, waiting in line allowed me to delay my re-start long enough to link up with the Asian Invasion once again – woot! We slinkied our way out of San Luis Obispo and headed southwest toward the finish.

Pismo Beach Vista

Within a few miles, one of the AI flatted so it was time to sit up again, for them, but I soldiered on with one of my piss line friends past the beach towns of Pismo Beach and Clam Beach, Oceano and other nameless trailer park communities to the sprawling metropolis of Guadalupe. The rest stop in Guadalupe was held in a city park, half of which was occupied by a large contingent of Latinos celebrating something: BBQs, Mexican music blaring, kids playing boisterously on the playground equipment, teen girls posing for group photos…was it a birthday? A quinceañera? They certainly appeared to be having fun. I asked a group of people departing what was going on: a funeral, they told me. Oh…okay then. So much for my cultural awareness.  Only 60 miles from the finish, we were turning downwind in earnest and a faint scent of the barn began to make itself known in the air.

Where the Hell is Guadalupe?

I hooked up with another group of riders, 2 guys and 2 gals from SoCal (Steve, Ron, Debbie, and Sharona), who all knew each other from previous doubles. One fellow and I did most of the pulling, such as it was as we ambled toward the penultimate check point in Los Alamos. I couple of miles short of the rest stop, one of the gals pulled up with a flat. The other gentleman that Had been helping with the pulling looked over and said, “Think a girl knows how to change a flat?” To which I replied, “I don’t know about a girl, but a woman could.” We continued on without them. They haven’t responded to my Facebook friends requests.  

At Los Alamos I downed a Cup O’Noodles while waiting in line for the porta-potty, filled my bottles, and rode out solo for the final leg home. The last time I did this ride, the route climbed up and over Drum Canyon and finished with a quick run back to the finish, but in recent years they’ve re-routed the course to avoid the bad pavement and technical descent in favor of a longer route back over Foxen Canyon.

Windmilling on Foxen Canyon

It was late afternoon, but I began to entertain serious notions of actually finishing before dark, a kind of holy grail of riding a double. Never mind that you might start the ride at zero dark-thirty. If you finish before dark, you’ve done something worth bragging about. Just read any ride report: if the person finished before dark, they’ll make a point of it. Trust me. So here am I, just 30 miles from home with two hours on daylight left. My average ride pace thus far has been almost 17 mph, so you do the math: daylight finish in the bag. Ride report proudly proclaiming my daylight finish in the bag. What’s that you say? There are hills between here and the finish? Ha! I laugh at your hills! Look upon my massive thighs and weep, oh you hills of puny! Hahahaha! 

Sunset as I Crest the Final Hill

I set out, my victory certain…I, Eric the Vanquisher of Hills, He of the Daylight Finishes. O! Hills of Satan, why must you punish my poor, pitiful thighs? What have I done to deserve such foul treatment? I who have ever been the loyal, faithful, humble servant, who have worshipped and sacrificed at the altar of Santa Maria del Ghisallo? O! What a wretched wreck am I! So, it was ugly. Three set of hills, while not alps, certainly feel like it to my addled legs, but I keep turning the cranks while the world spins on its axis, the sun rapidly sinking toward the horizon, and sinking with it my hopes of a daylight finish. But finally I am over the last hill. I’m on the last descent. In the distance I see the last turn before the finish. I cross the end line as the sun kisses the horizon. I have finished the ride in daylight! 

Overall, a great day of the bike. Cool temperatures meant no muscle cramps or GI distress, and I was able to ride my fastest double century ever.  Total time to complete the course 13:48; actual time spent riding 11:42; total porta-potty line time at least 40 minutes, but it seemed oh so much longer. Ride stats: http://www.strava.com/activities/12310133