Touring - Fun tour of Santa Barbara today....

Hey, we've got a BFer coming up for a ride today. I drew up a nice 65-mile ride through the area hitting up all the great views. He's starting from Carpinteria State Beach around 10-11am. I actually live at the opposite end in Goleta, so I may ride down there and meet him about 2/3rds of the way and give myself a nice century. Send me a note if anyone wants to join us. :)

Road Cycling : Carpinteria State Beach (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=155540).

Danno, you did a terrific job laying out that route!! Nice pictures too. I wish I could join you today but the weekend is booked.

I do ride this area frequently. One thing I do differently on the return is from Cabrillo, I turn right at the cemetery and take the path to Channel Drive along the beach. I then meander to South Jameson Ln and I generally just jump on the 101 at the end. But it is easy enough cut back to the north side at Eucalyptus/San Ysidro to do the Ortega hill.

Enjoy the ride!!

You really know how to make me envious. We have had our first snow and it is freezing here in Toronto. Though I have never cycled there, Santa Barbara is my favourite city in the USA.

Say hi or wave to Oprah W, if she is out mowing the grass, or planting flowers

I use to live in Santa Barbara between 70 to 82 and loved it there, especially for riding bikes due to the perfect weather, but not for buying real estate or renting! But as the years went by and I visited there at least 5 times a year up until 2003 the "new" Santa Barbara after they removed the lights off of 101 and remodeled lower State St was not as good as the old SB, and the traffic has increased at least 10 times from what it was when I live there. So I'm sure the city planners love the new SB due to all the tourist that come to sightsee and hang at the mall on State.

Now I live in balmy Indiana...or is that clamy...right now it's just darn right cold! Although I did see snow in Goleta on Foothill Rd once!!

Heh, heh... if you had bought back in the 80s, you'd be sitting pretty right now. Most properties have doubled or tripled in the past 10-years. Problem is, folks who bought in the last 5-years at the peak of the boom aren't able to charge even enough rent to cover 1/4th of their mortgage payments. So it's a renter's market now, you can get a 2500sq.ft house for $2000/m in rent, while the mortgage is about $8000/m along with $10k/year in property taxes! :eek: Most of the recent buyers over-extended themselves and maxed out their payments with interest-only variable-rate loans... and rates are going up.... suckerzzz... http://www.gururacing.com/imagesmisc/graemlins/graemlin-tongue.gif Foreclosure-rates this past quarter is 25% over last year's... heh, heh...

Anyway, we have celebrities like Oprah to thank for driving up the real-estate prices. She paid an extra $20mil over the asking price just to have the bragging rights of having bought the most-expensive home in the area...

As for snow, we had it a couple of years ago too. Really freaky with the coldest winter since .... 1963 I think...

http://www.gururacing.com/artwork/santabarbara/SnowInSBsmall.jpg
http://www.gururacing.com/artwork/santabarbara/SnowSB1.jpg
http://www.gururacing.com/artwork/santabarbara/SnowSB2.jpg

No way I was gonna ride that day, at least I got to go cross-country skiing and surfing on the same day... ;)

Heh, heh... if you had bought back in the 80s, you'd be sitting pretty right now. Most properties have doubled or tripled in the past 10-years.
)

Yeah I would have been sitting pretty had I bought back then...problem was back then real estate was expensive too based on what you could earn in those days! Not only was it expensive, but I was young and not making much money as a high school student and then a college student, and then once the education was completed there were no jobs-at least none that would pay enough to buy a house. Even after I met my wife there the combine income was not enough to buy a house! Same is true today. My brother in law (my father in-laws favorite) was "given" at about half the going rate, a house they owned as a rental for $150,000 about 10 years ago when he got married and it STILL takes both of their incomes to pay for the house! And 3 years ago (last time I checked) that house located in 2 blocks north from downtown Goleta is worth $580,000 and it's cracker box of a house! If you know that area you know what I'm talking about. If the average income of lets say a respectable job like teaching is 45,000 a year and you have two teachers married for a total of $90,000 a year, those two teachers can't even afford the $3,300 a month (assuming two teachers could come up with with $50,000 down!) or so for the mortgage plus the high taxes and all your other normal living expenses.

Wow, those pictures sure makes me miss home, especially this time of the year here in Fort Wayne!

...My brother in law (my father in-laws favorite) was "given" at about half the going rate, a house they owned as a rental for $150,000 about 10 years ago when he got married and it STILL takes both of their incomes to pay for the house! And 3 years ago (last time I checked) that house located in 2 blocks north from downtown Goleta is worth $580,000 and it's cracker box of a house! If you know that area you know what I'm talking about. Yuck! That entire area should be leveled! Those places are digusting! :eek:

Yeah, it's unfortunate that wages have not kept up with inflation at all in the past several decades. Average income in this area is actually down about -20-25% as far as purchasing power compared to 10-years ago. Yet the cost of housing has increased at 50-100% over inflation. The party scene's completey dead, there's no Happy Hours anywhere, no one's out after work. Due to the dot.com boom and the celebrities moving in, it's driven the price out of range for most people, especially the natives. Tremendous disparity between income and cost-of-living, so not much has changed, eh? The rates of homeowner-occupied housing as gone from 40% down to 20%. That means rentals have gone from 60 to 80% of the properties out there. Similar thing happened up in Silicon Valley where I grew up.

But that's only in the highly-desirable places to live. There's plenty of areas in the mid-west and south where property-prices have been stagnant for decades. Many areas in Texas haven't appreciated much in the past couple of decades. I guess the trick is to earn loads of money in Silicon Valley or some high-income area. Live a meager existence like a student and tuck most of your income away. Then retire to another area with a much lower cost-of-living. Heck, I'm eyeing some little tropical islands in the S.Pacific even.. makes Mexico look expensive! :)

No way I was gonna ride that day, at least I got to go cross-country skiing and surfing on the same day... ;)


Ah, skiing and surfing on the same day, one of the coveted laurels of the dedicated outdoor enthusiast... kudos to you, Danno! Incredible feeling of wholesome goodness, too, from the snow and being in the water. Great bragging rights at the bar after bagging the surf-n-ski combo as well.

http://tinyurl.com/78jfk Here's your route one more time. enjoy