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Ian Dewar's Journal
Retreat might be the better part of valor…
posted by id* at 09:30 PM on December 09, 2007
- Region:
- Santa Ynez Valley
- Location:
- Solvang, CA
- Country:
- United States of America
- Nearest Zipcode:
- 93463
Ride Description
Sometime you really need to turn around. I know there are mountains to climb and miles to go before we sleep… but at some point it might make sense to beat a quick retreat instead of sucking it up for another ½ hour.
This past weekend I went to Solvang near Santa Barbara, with the intention of putting in three days of riding and planning a bit of a camp for later in the spring. I figured Southern California couldn’t be that cold – but when we did a short ride on Friday in 40 degree weather – I almost assumed we’d driven the wrong way… North instead of South. But when my friend Dave showed up on Friday with the intention of riding over Figueroa on Saturday and going up the long way – it’s a nice loop from Solvang with a sold 12 mile climb in the middle. What could be better as a way to kick start a new season’s training then a hard ride with an old friend…
Well we made it ¾ of the way up the Fig before it started to get really cold, but crossing the dirt went ok, and the little descent only served to prepare us for the final climb… but when we hit the turn to the final 4 mile ascent to the summit the light rain had turned to snow. Dave asked me meekly “dude, are you sure we want to do this”… clearly the answer was “heck ya”, but when we got a mile higher we stopped again to look at the weather and realized that heading into the unknown might not be the best option for early December. I mean it was 36 degrees, snowing and we were already cold. What could be better then continuing uphill into the cooling weather? Ha! We made a decision that at 2 hours into our ride, we might as well survive to ride another day – and turned around… ok we probably could have made it over the top and probably could have made it down the other side, but man it was cold and the descent back (including the dirt) was a good adventure in itself…
We did make it back to Solvang and had a bowl of soup when we returned. We still rode 3 ½ hours – so it makes it both of our longest ride in months, so the ride was a success… even if we didn’t cross the summit and bomb down the other side. I guess we’ll have to go back! J
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