Suggestions for rides in Santa Barbara?

[bitingduck]

My SO is back in California for a conference and some work stuff and has monday free in Santa Barbara, so I'm going to meet her there sunday night so we can ride monday. Any suggestions for good rides in Santa Barbara? She's about the same level rider as I am, so we lean towards hammerfest deathmarches with lots of climbing.

Any suggestions welcome, especially if they don't involve figuring out too many turns (unless there's a routeslip or something I can print out).

[thomson]

How many miles are you looking for?

If you have just a few hours, I would look at East Mountain and Gibraltar.

If you have all day, perhaps San Marcos Pass to Solvang and then the hills north of Solvang. San Marcos Pass is full of casino traffic these days but once north of Solvang it will be nice. You can connect to San Marcos Pass via Gibraltar/Camino Cielo or start San Marcos Pass in Santa Barbara.

[cyclezealot]

Head out towards Solvang . From there ride up towards Santa Maria. Great Vineyards and mildly hilly terrain. Some prefer the coastal route north along the coast. I like inland riding . It's less foggy.

[jmechy]

You could try something like this, starting in Goleta and going up to Solvang inland (read: climbing), then back on the 101:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/4460826
If you want even more climbing you can start going up Gibraltar, then connecting to East Camino Cielo and then 154. That sounds like quite a fun ride actually, I might have to try that some time...

[Nachoman]

Here are a couple great rides that Danno turned me onto.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=151599#post1774880

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=155540#post1848409