Day 17 - Lompoc, CA - Rincon Point, CA
Bicycle - Specialized Roubaix
Miles ridden - 75.3
Total elapsed mileage - 1140.9
Time in saddle - 5:15
Average speed - 14.2
Maximum speed - 36.3
July 20, 1961 - Guadalupe - Carpinteria
Woke up early in dripping fog and messed around (as in "hung out", in modern English) until I left at 9:00. Bought more bread and honey for lunch in Lompoc. Mountain ranges (2) hard, hot. I miss Marylou.
Entered fog again at coast. Northern parks full - rode on to Sta. Barbara and ate at drive-in so I wouldn't have to cook. Snuck into the state park and am in a large clearing near beach. Will wait until dark before rolling out, for safety.
Replaced three spokes at once in Goleta.
Tomorrow I will go to Bill and Dianah's and put up for the night there. Go on home Sat. morn - rest, clean, check bike and race Sunday morning. Rode 92 miles.
I sure seemed to hit the fog in 1961. Hot, dry here this time. Local news reported rare flash floods yesterday in mountains and desert. My older brother Bill (two years, three months my senior) lived and worked in Compton, when, prior to the Watts riots of 1965, it was both a racially mixed community and home to numerous manufacturing firms. As for racing, I was a member of the Long Beach Wheelmen, a group of young riders supervised and trained by an adult male with experience, who held informal Sunday-morning sprints of a suburban boulevard. I always came in second to an athletic age contemporary with a much better, Italian racing, bicycle than my road-weary Schwinn.
July 6, 2011 - Left Lompoc at 10:15 after replacing rear tire with a matching Serfas. Not seeing thread yet, but better safe than sorry. Remarkable that I've ridden more than 1,000 miles without a flat.
Road until noon was gradually ascending through a long valley between typical southern-California summer-browning hills colored by stands of live oak. Road was good but asphalt especially coarse and I had some head winds during the second hour. I was happy and relieved at reaching the high point of the day, where Rte 1 plunges down to meet Hwy 101 about two miles from the coast, and seeing a sign and icon reading and indicating "7-1/2 per cent grade next two miles".
Once I turned left, to the southeast, and the breeze began to build, I started making good time. Left 101 before Goleta and rode a surface road about 12 miles to Santa Barbara, stopping to stoke up on my first Jack-in-the-Box cheeseburger in years. As I was self-supporting for the day, Bob visited the reconstructed Mision La Purisima and had a bowl of famous - well, locally, anyway - Anderson's split pea soup for lunch.
Back on home turf now, I passed several spots known to me when I was a young surfer - El Capitan State Park, Goleta Beach, next to the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and ended up at the classic winter, north swell, surfing venue of Rincon Point. Bob picked me up to 4:40 and we drove inland to our motel in pretty, peaceful Ojai. Probably the best motel, and certainly the best for the money, of the trip, and our Italian dinner at a small, indoor-outdoor garden, establishment a couple of miles south of the motel, was also memorable.
Did not see on the road, much less talk to, any long-distance riders during the day, but there was a party of five, four seniors and one younger man, at poolside when I went for my daily jacuzzi and dip, who had just finished a three-day, 200-mile-plus, ride in the hills to the north, beginning and ending at our motel. We had a pleasant visit, comparing notes and telling tales.
Morro Bay was the same kind of watershed as the Leggett-Pacific crossing of the Coast Range several days ago (I'm losing count). We left the cape-and-creek regime behind and have entered the plain, sometimes narrow, but largely level, and sometimes broad, which dominates the coast and upon which metropolises are built all the way down to Corona del Mar, south of Newport Beach.
Did I mention that my Aunt Mildred, with whom I rode to Lee Vining to begin the 1961 trip, was psychic? No, I didn't think so. According to family lore, she was gifted with ESP, and she proved it to my satisfaction the eve of our departure. Some of our tropical fish had been disappearing from the aquarium, so Mildred and I asked Ouija what was happening to them.
"Fisheatfishatnightaverageforthem" came the reply. Not surprising, I have to admit.
The came the hard question: where was the handlebar bag that I had not used for a couple of months and had spent half an hour searching the house and garage for? The reply was, "Lookingarage behindtrunkagainstwall." I did as Ouija instructed and found that the bag had indeed fallen between said trunk and said wall, and lay there covered with dust.
Tomorrow, Malibu or Santa Monica.
Surfer Bob
Bob
ReplyDeleteYou're a tough old bird!