The freezing rain is no place for a bicycle ride.

Such were my sister’s words upon the completion of my first century in Solvang last weekend. The trip was fraught with peril - hail, snow drifts on the coast, freezing rain, Danes Driving Diesels, and drunk party girls mistaking the fat pedal for the skinny one at a stop light. Good times…

I took the day off of work headed up to Santa Barbara on Friday morning to meet up with my sister who was also supposed to ride in this thing. Prior to the event, I had been watching the weather report, which was encouraging:

A SECOND…STRONGER DISTURBANCE WILL APPROACH THE AREA ON SATURDAY AND MOVE THROUGH SATURDAY NIGHT. THIS COULD BE ACCOMPANIED BY HEAVIER RAIN AND SNOW…WITH SNOW LEVELS FALLING AS LOW AS 2500 FEET AND STRONG WINDS IN THE MOUNTAINS. THE PRECIPITATION SHOULD LINGER INTO SUNDAY AS COLD…MOIST…AND UNSTABLE AIR CONTINUES TO FLOW IN FROM THE WEST.

Oh boy the storm of the season with the peak expected to hit right during the ride on Saturday! Count me in!

Melissa and I drove up to Solvang in the rain Friday evening to check in at the hotel where the event was centered. Luckily it stopped raining by the time we hit town, which was a good thing since the line for the checkin was around the block. While in line we discussed with several folks the best way of not freezing to death. Sandwich baggies around the toes were popular. I think this was about the point Melissa decided to take a rain check.

After getting my bib number, Melissa and I headed back to Santa Barbara to grab dinner at Palazzio. We were heading down State St. when a blue Civic comes up behind us like it was about to make a left, and then at the last minute decides not to and comes to an abrupt halt. “Hmm, I think that car behind us almost hit us.”

The driver of the car apparently was not one to disappoint because at the next stoplight she plowed right into us - AFTER already having come to a complete stop. Double-you Tee Eff, Over? I pulled over to exchange information and the wonderful pile of trash decides she’s gonna make a run for it.

The driver of this car, a little cutesy platinum blonde type who apparently had a bit to much to drink at happy hour, decides she’s going to make a run for it while keeping to the speed limit, and signaling for every corner - ya know just to show she’s not really drunk. Melissa gets on her cell phone and calls the cops while we continue to follow at a speed reminiscent of a certain white Bronco on an L.A. freeway. We end up right back on State Street after going around the block to find two of Santa Barbara’s finest waiting for our special friend, about half a block from where the incident occured.

It turns out there was no damage to Melissa’s car other than the dirt being displaced a little, so after I gave the cop my name and phone number as a witness to Little Miss Prissy’s “erratic driving”, we head back off to actually get food for real this time.

Dinner was completed without incident, so we went back to Melissa’s house where I proceeded to crash out on the futon.

I woke up at 4:30 in the morning, grab some breakfast, drove up to Solvang, and got ready to ride. Luckily it wasn’t raining at this point either, otherwise the Fuck-it Point might have been reached a bit prematurely. I started rolling at about 7 am and headed out of Solvang towards Lompoc.

The first 20 miles were nice. There were some little rolling hills, but no rain and actually a bit of sun. I came into the first SAG stop in Lompoc feeling nice and strong.

Upon leaving Lompoc I noticed a change in the weather. Behind me were unicorns and butterflys and rainbows, but ahead of me was this huge black storm front with lightning and thunder and pestilence. On the hill climb out of Lompoc, I remarked to another rider “One does not simply ride into Mordor!” It was about this point that the hail started.

The nasty weather lasted for a good 10 to 15 miles to the next SAG stop. Along the way I rode through a couple of SNOW DRIFTS on Highway 1. That was a real trip - it never snows that low. I stopped to grab some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and refill my water bottles while two riders had to get in an assistance van and head back to their cars, as they were in the slightly more serious stages of hypothermia.

I ended up joining on to a paceline for the next 20 miles with a group until Santa Maria, where I decided it would be a lovely thing to actually feel my toes again. Finding a generator that was powering the PA system at the Radison’s parking lot, I stuck my feet right next to the exhaust. About the only thing I felt was wet, so I decided maybe it would be a good idea to get riding again before I felt cold too.

The odd thing about Solvang is that the big hills don’t really start until about mile 85. That gives you a lot of time to burn off all of your reserve calories in the flats. Right around mile 80, I entered Bonksville, Population: Me. My average pace in these relatively flat winding roads dropped from about 18 to 10 mph. Despite all that I had eaten at the past couple of SAG stops, it wasn’t enough. I limped along for a while, trying to avoid getting hit by the random Danes driving Diesels (Solvang fancies itself a “Danish Village” and most of the locals drive huge diesel pickup trucks). After the fourth one, something resembling a freight train came roaring past. I looked up in time to barely catch a glimpse of my coworker Steve, doing his best impersonation of a locomotive, pulling along about 5 other riders at a pace close to Mach 3.

I knew there was a hill coming up soon, but my pace was dragging along. I’m actually better in the hills than the flats, probably due to my mountain biking roots, so I was actually looking forward to them. But I had to get there first. I decided to stop and scrounge around in my saddle bag for a couple of packets of Gu that I had squirreled away for just such emergencies. I popped those and took off like a rocket towards the first really big hill climb of the ride.

It was about this time that it started to hail. Again. I guess I wasn’t destined to be warm this trip. I pushed on to the next SAG stop, armed myself with more PB&J, chocolate chip cookies, and bananas, and then climbed up the second really big hill they call the wall. Not much of a wall, really, certainly no steeper than the inner route on Torrey Pines Road in San Diego. The rest of the ride I managed to keep a good pace and pulled into Solvang some time before 2 PM to an almost sunny day.

About this time I realized that I left my wallet in Santa Barbara, which isn’t quite as bad as El Segundo, but it might as well have been considering that I was almost out of gas in my truck and had a 45 mile drive over a now snowy mountain pass. I called Steve, who had finished playing freight trains at this point and was out wine touring to bum some money off of him, and headed back to Santa Barbara.

My recovery from this ride consisted of beer and hamburgers at the Santa Barbara Brewery with Kailen, Zoe, and my sister, and then partying until 3 AM at UCSB grad student party somewhere on the east side of town. I was amazed that my legs held out when the sleepy party somehow turned into a dance party, but I wasn’t sore the next morning.