I LOVE SANTA BARBARA! There is a very high chance that I may be living here in a few years.
I was not even supposed to do this Gran Fondo. I am currently taking time off the bike - nearly three weeks - and this Gran Fondo feel right in the middle of that time off. I talked with some mentors and coaches about it, and they felt that it would be alright if I rode the Fondo, as long as I didn't hammer and put hard efforts in the legs. So, I ended up doing it because Santa Barbara is SO amazing that there was no way I was going to pass up six hours through the Santa Ynez Mountains.
The ride is 101 miles and ascends nearly 10,000 feet vertically. Last year, when I rode this Gran Fondo, I treated it as a race. Aside from a thirty minute fiasco with my derailleur, I rode the rest of the ride without stopping, treating it as a race, because this ride is commonly referred to as a "race simulated Fondo". My finish ride time last year was 6 hours on the dot (6.5 hours total).
This year, I was planning on not going into the red at all, and stopping at rest stops as often as I felt. That's just what I did. It was fun, it was gorgeous and it was tasty. I ate a lot of potatoes, I talked to every person I saw and took a lot of pictures. The only "effort" that I put out throughout the ride was on "the". Yes, it's referred to as "the" descent. That's how epic it is. After flying down a 4,000 foot mountain for 12 miles, the remainder of the ride (~30 miles) was mostly flat. If I'm being honest, here I went a bit harder than I was trying to do. I was very motivated to go fast and the roads we were riding were flat, it was easy to sustain high speeds. I tried to keep it no higher than low tempo, though that was harder than I should have gone.
I had a good time riding with others the last 15 or so miles, and after some riding through Hope Ranch we arrived back at Ledbetter Beach at the finish. Somehow - my ride time this year was 5 hours 40 minutes (6 hours 15 minutes total)!
After the ride, I ate some absolutely BOMB paella from Gerard's Paella and had quite the excessive amount of ice cream. There were kids passing it out to everyone - what could I say?! Anyways, I had three bowls. Savage.
A successful weekend? By all means.
Photography: Scott Christopher Stolarz Photography
