Calif Spring Ride Pics

[Steve in SLO]

As MattTuck said in a recent thread, we have it good in California. Today was 60 degrees in San Luis Obispo, and pretty windy, so I took the opportunity to do some repeats on one of my favorite local hills: Perfumo Canyon. It's about 5 miles from the bottom and 2.5 miles to the top where I turn around for repeats. Total distance was 20 miles with 3000 feet of climbing various grades from 5-20%.
I was just planning on two ascents, but as I was coming down for the second time just above my turnaround point, I passed a biker going up and thought I could catch him. I turned around and chased him (think slow motion). I caught up with him about 1/2 way up and saw it was Bob Stapleton, owner of Team HTC-Columbia. He was riding a really nice Scott with carbon wheels in full kit and had his iPod on, so I just smiled and nodded as I passed. He turned around just shy of the top, so I chased him down on the descent and we rode the last few miles together, him with his iPod, me admiring his bike. To his credit he pulled pretty strongly on some of the shallow parts of the descent. Pretty cool.
Oh yes, I got some pics just to make the non-Californians drool:
The first is panorama of near the top, showing Morro Bay in the distance. Road is ~11% here
The second shows how quickly the road goes up.
The third shows one of the hairpins requiring heavy braking.

[fourflys]

Very nice... I just rode over Highland Valley Road yesterday from Ramona, just wonderful...

After doing the Solvang ride, I want to do a lot more riding up there...

[Waldo]

Climb to Drum Canyon at ~ mile 180, Morro Rock at mile 104, and me at mile 193, which was the finish.

Temps on Saturday ranged from mid 40s and breezy to mid 70s and strongly breezy with breezies blowing in the wrong direction most of the day.

[mosca]

Wow, I used to ride that when I was a student at Cal Poly back in the mid '80s. Brings back great if hazy memories, and gives me a strong desire to ride there again. Thanks for posting.

[Steve in SLO]

I saw quite a few of you Double Century guys on Orcutt Road just south of SLO. I am hoping you got tailwinds coming back into Solvang, because you sure didn't have them going north.

[Waldo]

I saw quite a few of you Double Century guys on Orcutt Road just south of SLO. I am hoping you got tailwinds coming back into Solvang, because you sure didn't have them going north.

This was my third consecutive year doing this double and this year's winds were the weirdest. We had headwinds all morning until SLO, then tailwind (!) going north on 1 into Morro Bay, then headwind almost all the way back to Guadalupe. Tailwind on Drum and 246 for the last 10 miles or so. More bad winds than in prior years and fewer fastish pacelines made for a hard day of mostly solo riding.

[fourflys]

A couple of pics from my ride yesterday around Ramona...

http://threeflys.smugmug.com/Sports/Cycling/IMAG0147/825205238_EzXWK-L.jpg

http://threeflys.smugmug.com/Sports/Cycling/IMAG0144/825205160_jZKGb-L.jpg

[Steve in SLO]

Very nice.
Looks like you had the same weather we did yesterday. I got rained on for about half of my ride. The other half was sunny.

[Peter B]

Here are a few from my ride last Saturday, an out and back from home. Ended up with 170 miles and 14,500' climbing on a gorgeous spring day. It snowed here two days later ?!?

Gotta go put fenders on a bike for this weekend's Fleche. Must be early April in Norcal...

[MattTuck]

:beer: :beer: Wish i was there.

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Science/Images/drooling-homer-simpson.jpg

[henrypretz]

Wow - those are all great.
It's still pretty green around here. That will last for another month or so. Then it starts to turn .... golden :)

[54ny77]

amazing!

so jealous.

at least it's starting to get nice here in nyc. but, it ain't no slo.... :cool:

....jealousy-inducing quote snipped....