So, thanks to my hasty planning of the second half of my trip, I accidentally booked my campsite for tomorrow night, outside Malibu, a day early. It should have been for two nights from now. Not wanting to forfeit my camping spot, I was left with the prospect of having to do two days’ of cycling in one day. In addition to the imposing distance I needed to cover, it was also one of the most mountainous sections of the ride so far, with over 800m (3200′) of climbing to do.
With that looming large in my mind, I was a bit leery to get going. I kick-started myself by heading across the street to the Pantry on Park for a blueberry pancake breakfast. Boy, was it delicious, and huge! I only ate one cake!
After the giant breakfast, it was back to the hotel to load up the bike and hit the road. Just as I was wheeling the bike out of the hotel, I noticed the rear feeling really wired going over a bump. A flat! Crap! This was not looking good! I filled it with air and planned to stop at a bike shop on my way out of Santa Maria — a thought you’ll see repeated a few more times in the coming days.
Out of Santa Maria I went, on city streets, hoping to spot a bike shop. I didn’t have much luck with that, and found myself going out into the country and to the town of Orcutt, also with no apparent bike shop.
After Orcutt, I was out onto the US-101 freeway for most of the rest of the day.
I knew from the Google Maps elevation profile that I had three major climbs, each around the same height, and all in the first half of the day. The first climb came shortly after Orcutt. Luckily, it was a really long, gentle grade that I was easily able to climb.
The countryside was nothing too interesting, similar to the rolling hills and ranchland that I’d travelled through the days before, except instead of seeing it from a a quiet country highway, I was on a busy freeway shoulder. I had to exit the freeway into the town of Los Alamos, and not having stocked up on fruit, I found a market to stop at. As I was preparing to go inside, I got my Ottawa Senators cap on (to hide my helmet hair), when a couple came out of the store. On seeing me, the did a double-take and asked, “Where are you from?”
“From the Bay Area.”, I replied.
“No, originally?”, they specified.
“Ottawa”, I said.
It turned out that this couple was in California doing a road trip loop between LA and San Francisco, and in fact, they owned a tire business very close to my home in Ottawa on Bank Street. Small world! We wished each other well on each other’s trips, and they headed off, while I went inside for some fruit and a cold beverage.
After my snack break, I left town, and it was back to the freeway and the second climb. It was a bit steeper than the first, but nothing too severe. It seems they try to keep freeways as low a gradient as they can. Lucky for me!
I kept on down the freeway, getting great speed on the downhills, making pretty good time. It was only just getting toward noon and I already had almost 50km (35mi) to my day. It was then that I came onto the town of Buellton. Plastered all over the road into town were signs for pea soup. I wasn’t about to try riding the bike in the warm weather on hot pea soup. So, I stopped for some tacos instead!
After some tasty tacos, and some work putting more air in the bike tires, it was back out on the highway and the last big climb of the day. This one was the highest and steepest freeway climb since I was going over “the grade” into SLO. I had to take a break halfway up to catch my breath and have a drink of water.
At the top, it was all downhill from there. I set a speed record of 57km/h (35mph). The shoulders were well paved, making the speed great, but the bridges! Most of them had no shoulders, forcing me to ride in the traffic lanes to cross them. Luckily they were mostly short, and my big, bright red panniers made me pretty obvious to traffic.
Then the freeway came out on the ocean at Gaviota Beach, of course with a real steep hill before the mostly level stretch. At this point I was already at 80km (50mi), nearly already at my one-day max!
I was starting to get pretty tired at this point, but stopping for breaks along the coast was great. At this point I started coordinating with my friend Nick, who knew a friend in Santa Barbara who offered to let me camp on her yard. Catharina was a film production student at Santa Barbara City College, and I sorted out meeting her there.
About 20km further on the freeway along the coast, brought me into Goleta and off the freeway. Woo-hoo!
Just as I got off the freeway, Nate (the fellow I passed the day before near Pismo Beach with the blown up wheel), caught up to me and we had a chance to chat.
Nate had travelled from Oakland, and took a trip that followed the coast much more, down to Monterey, before finding his alternative route inland to avoid Big Sur. His ride was very unique thanks to it’s unique seat and handlebars, and being older than me or him! Nate was traveling to LA to visit some friends, then taking the train to New York! What an adventure! After sharing an orange, we said our goodbyes.
Just after chatting with Nate, I rolled over the 100km marker!
It was bike lanes and pathways all the way into downtown Santa Barbara, right up to the edge of SBCC campus, where I arrived at a monster hill! With 119km (74mi) on the clock already, my legs weren’t going to pedal me up that! I got off and pushed myself the last of the way up the hill to a beautiful campus overlooking the ocean!
From there, I met up with Catharina, and a few friends of hers for dinner in SB. It was a great evening, and a slept like a log after recording my longest distance ever at 121km (75mi)!