The Great Bonk (aka Solvang Report)

[bluegoose]

Consider yourselves lucky, those of you who received the personal revelation regarding the crappy weather coming to SoCal this weekend and bailed on the Solvang Century.

In a word, it sucked.

The 8+ hour drive down was okay with minimal problems (praise Allah for portable DVD players to keep the kids happy). The drive home stunk, as we hit a major rain storm just outside of creeksters hometown and it continued for about 100 miles, causing traffic to cruise along at 35 mph.

As we were driving to the starting area at 6:00am, there were some light snow flurries in the “mountains”, elevation about 1,000 feet. Probably should have recognized this as a bad sign, as it could be 10 years before Santa Barbara sees snow again. Cold temps at the start, about 37 degrees, but the skies overhead were fairly clear. Got bundled up as well as I thought I would need to – undershirt, BYU jersey( that never saw the light of day), wind vest, rain jacket, arm and knee warmers, long fingered gloves, toe covers, skull cap, ear warmers. Probably more, but I can't think of it right now.

First 20 miles went very well. The weather was cool, but the skies were clear. Then we turned a corner toward the coast and were met by a big black cloud with sporadic thunder and lightening in the distance. Made it to the first rest area just as the rain hit, and fortunately it was moved at the last minute to an old barn that was big enough for about 1,000 riders and bikes. Then came the hail, followed by the sleet/snow. It lasted about 15 minutes of the intense stuff and then eased off to moderate rain. Meanwhile, I'm freezing my butt off in this barn, walking laps back and forth to try to keep warm.

Finally decide to get back on the saddle and head out into the rain. It continued to steadily rain for the next hour as we plodded along the pacific coast highway. It was probably a very scenic route, I'm not sure, I had too much mud covering my glasses to see. It finally stopped raining as we pulled into the 41 mile rest stop, but temps hovered around 42 degrees. Saw about 50-60 riders piling into the paddy wagons for a free ride back to Solvang. If they had room, I would have probably joined them.

Still cold and wet, we take off again to cold weather with occasional rain showers. Within 100 yards of where I saw a wreck last year (remember the face plant, Steel), another guy went down right in front of me, but was okay. This was the first of 2 wrecks I saw on the day.

Cruising along, we were finally able to get in some pace lines at about mile 50, as it too wet and slick prior to that, and I wasn't interested in taking a rooster tail of spray in the face. Did fine until about mile 75, when I hit the wall. Went from cruising along at a decent pace to hobbling into the 80 mile rest area at about 13 mph (sound familiar SteelBlue?). Got some energy back and finished fairly strong up a couple of hills into town. Took third in a final, unofficial KOM climb of about 15 guys.

So basically, the day sucked. Totally not worth the trip down to SoCal. I'm not sure how long it took to finish as the bike computer shut off at 10 hours.

The town of Solvang was nice when we got back. Very authentic Dutch town, complete with crappy weather, windmills, wooden shoes, good pastries and adult men peeing on the side of the road.

I took some pictures on the camera phone I will try to get on the site, but really was not in the mood for stopping for photography along the way. 2 days later and I'm still grumpy. :x