Well, I made it back from Solvang alive, but at times I felt like I was in a US Postal Service commercial: braving rain, hail, sleet, snow, lightning, and 40 mile an hour gusts. But, it was only bad for about an hour out of the ride, but I'll get to that. Let's start at the beginning. First of all, here's a map of the Solvang Century route:
I met my buddies Jerry and David at the start, but we left a little later than we wanted. My parents were with me because they've never seen one of these "century things" that I do on these traveling weekends and wanted to see what it was all about. Well, older parents always need a little bit more time for everything, but we got under way and left Solvang about 8 o'clock.
The first hour was great. The route goes clockwise on the map above, so were making our way to Lompoc through one of the back roads. We were feeling pretty good, starting to leave a few people behind us whenever we went up a small climb, and then David got a flat. It was alright, but the cows were already up, and they were starting to get talkative. I think they were complaining about those horses getting the best view of the riders:
So, we got back on the road and not fifteen minutes later, the sky got really dark, and it began to rain. Then we started to hear, "Ow, ow," from the riders behind us, then we figured out why: hail. And not little hail either, marble sized hail. Ice was getting into my helmet, building up on my thighs, hitting my cheeks and nose, and landing in my eyes. Try steering a bike with one hand, the other shielding your face, on a slick road, avoiding other cyclists. Not fun. Well, ten minutes later, the hail turned into sleet, and all the ice that had been bouncing off my thighs, turned into a waterfall straight down my legs and into my shoes. I didn't need to feel my feet anyway. I mean, I'm clipped into the bike, so as long as I can feel my ankles, I should be okay. Finally, the sleet turned into just rain, but the damage was done. It was just above freezing, all the non-water proof stuff was wet, and we were not yet to the first SAG (Support And Gear) stop.
The first stop was in an abandoned warehouse (at least it looked abandoned), so there was some shelter from the rain. But not being able to dry out was the biggest problem for the next hour. That fifteen miles from the 1st to the 2nd SAG stop was the worst I have ever felt on a bike. I've already told you that my feet were frozen and the wet socks added weight that I didn't need, but I could deal with that. The problem was in my hands. My gloves were totally soaked and in that cold, they were not going dry out anytime soon. I could no longer feel my fingers, I had to concentrate to flex them, and I also had to visually confirm where my fingers were to shift and brake properly. An old mantra from my thermodynamics class from college crept into my mind: Evaporation is a cooling process. Wet gloves with a 20 mile an hour breeze would cause some evaporation, but not enough to dry them out, because it was still raining. So, frozen hands. It got to the point where I welcomed every little climb, so I could get hot blood pumping into my hands. But what was strange to me was that my right hand was doing much better than my left. Remember, I've got 5 steel screws in the middle of my hand, and when it's cold, I can feel them in my bone. But my left hand just got no circulation. But the climbs offered no real relief because whenever I crested the hill, it was time for the descent, and at 40 miles an hour, the numbness returned very quickly: Evaporation is a cooling process.
The rain finally stopped during this hour, but there was snow on the side of the road. We were in a higher elevation now, just getting past Vandenberg Air Force Base, so when it had hailed earlier, this part of the route had gotten snow. My cold hands were such a distraction that I couldn't keep up a good pedal cadence, and I lost contact with Jerry and David. I met up with them again at the 2nd SAG stop, but they were held up waiting for me as I was trying to get my cold hands dry and warm by sticking them underneath my armpits. Then I began to shiver. Just when I thought the rest of my day was going to be really uncomfortable, my friend Jerry Rossiter walked up and said hi.
Jerry was driving one of the SAG vehicles for the Solvang Team in Training and had just seen some of the team members off and was about to get back into his minivan. He asked if there was anything he could do for me, and jokingly, I said, "Not unless you can get the feeling back into my hands." He said, "Wait, I've got just the thing." HEAT VENTS! Ohmigod, such pleasure and pain. Pain from the nerves coming back to life, pleasure from the warmth and hot blood finally circulating through my left hand. I told Jerry and David to go on without me, because I was definitely going to be a few minutes. It was only 64 miles to the end at that point, and I do that kind of mileage by myself almost every Saturday, so I knew I would be okay. But my gloves were still wet, and Jerry didn't have a clothes dryer in his back pocket, and as I began to think that the relief was only going to be temporary, Jerry said, "Here, put these on too." Surgical gloves. Oh yes, a mini wetsuit for your hands. I was feeling great, and it was time to kick Solvang's ass! Well, Solvang had something else for me, but I'll get to that later.
So, on to the 3rd SAG stop. Along the way, I ran into the coach for Team In Training's Solvang Team. Micah was sweeping and at that point, he was chasing down the "fast" group. Apparently, the fast group was furthest back because they had already 7 flats along the way. I had started about an hour after they did, and I was catching up with them in about 3 hours. That's a lot of flats. Sure enough, Micah and I found them on the side of the road, fixing another flat. I said hi to my friends in that group and then took off for the next stop. The 3rd SAG stop is traditionally the "lunch" stop because it's at about the middle of the ride, it's when you should have your heaviest meal of the day, and you should relax a little bit there before you move on. I encouraged my parents to try and meet me there if they wanted to see me during the ride, and sure enough, they were on the best corner to see all the riders come in. You see, we're from Pasadena, so we know how to stand on the sidewalk and look at things go by, thank you Rose Parade. So I saw my parents on that corner, rode up to them and said: Hiya!
And my dad was there too:
Well, I also ran into a whole bunch of my riding buddies from the San Gabriel Valley at this stop. My mom is still learning how to use her camera phone, so while I was commiserating with my buddies about the hail and the frozen hands, she took these shots:
I never saw Jerry and David again, but I talked to them after I finished. They stayed about a half hour ahead of me the rest of the way, which means that I stayed at about their pace. I kept running into my friends at the stops and kept staying a little longer while chatting. The climbing at the end of the ride was actually no big deal. I guess the training on all the mountain roads during the last six months really helped. But, there was one more thing that Solvang had to do to me to make it harder: I stopped being able to clip into my pedals. The rain had turned all the stops into such muddy muck, that my cleats were totally jammed and frozen, that I couldn't clip in, and when I did, finally, I couldn't clip out. I'm used to climbing these hills dancing on my pedals, but I had to sit down and push, not fun and not fast. At the last stop, I couldn't clip out of my standing leg and almost fell over because I clipped out on my other side, starting cramping because of the cold and had to ask another cyclist to help me clip out. It took that guy two hands to push my left foot out of the pedal. I know speedplays have a lot of float, but that was ridiculous. There was a climb right after that SAG and you could see the riders like little ants climbing that thing. Normally, that kind of climb would not be a big deal because I'd get out of my saddle and stairmaster my way out of there, but I couldn't clip in, so I had to gingerly push down on the pedals, making sure my cleats kept contact. No pulling, only pushing. After that, I was able to clip in and it was all downhill from there, except for one messed up little ranch road, but it was okay. Then we were all back in Solvang. Here's a little photo montage of the finish:
Needless to say, most of us were tired after that. I heard some fun stories from people who went to the Chumash Casino that's near there, but that was at brunch the next morning. Here's Alan and I playing checkers while we waited for our reservation:
So, we all ate big, and it was time to go home. Some people hung out in Santa Barbara on the way back, others took a nap before saying "Farvel" to Solvang.
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