willwheels

Well, I'm back from my trip to California. What an incredible ride. First, the start was in Solvang and the ride was all through the Santa Ynez Valley and surrounding area. The weather was gorgeous and it was freaking beautiful. This is the area where Sideways was filmed, so we saw several locations and even ate at the Hitching Post, which is good but not as good as Miles describes it.

Our team suffered a lot through the training season and I was a little worried. Because of cold, snow, and ice a lot of rides were moved indoors or cut short. The longest anyone managed was 73 miles so it was still a big jump to 100+. The first 60 miles were pretty easy and I thought we had overtrained. But the course starts going up about then (see http://www.bikescor.com/solvang/route.htm) and around mile 70 or so, we had a 15ish mile run of almost constantly up. The grade was only 2 or 3 percent most of the way, but after an hour your legs start burning pretty good and then right at the end, BAM, half a mile of a good, steep climb (they call it Heartbreak Hill). The descent was pretty much worth it. There's a pit stop at a winery (but no wine!) shortly thereafter, at the base of The Wall, a 200 foot switchback climb, which looks at lot worse than it is, and the view at the top is definitely worth it. After that, it was pretty easy getting home.

I was the Training Captain for the team and I can't remember a more rewarding experience. Most of our participants were only casual riders prior to this and didn't know if they could do a Century. But everyone who trained finished (barring a freak accident or two). I don't think I've ever been in a position to be proud of people before, but I goddamn sure am.

And just a second to talk about my favorite rider, Beth. Beth attempted a TnT century in 2000 for her husband, who had chronic lymphocytic leukemia but was doing better after a bone marrow transplant. She rode 75 miles on a hybrid and didn't get back on a bike again until we started training. But her husband relapsed and passed away in early 2004 so she wanted to try again, along with several of her friends. She was pretty out of shape and struggled more than anyone during training. But she worked as hard as anyone and made more progress than anyone. I knew she could finish, but I'm not sure she did. Although the Coach and I talked about helping Beth, what we didn't know was that other people planned on spending some of their day helping her, too, so she had four domestiques with her on the long climb, which of course she beat.

So that's it. I wish I could go open a bottle of wine.