TrojanHorse

Nah, I'm doing the Helly century. He gets a 10 mile head start, so all i have to do is pass him before the popsicles.

PhotoJoe 

I'm just hoping to beat you to lunch!

TrojanHorse

Come to think of it, I should make an effort to get there first - no telling what will be left.

I assume we'll do a quick meet and greet in the parking lot before we head out? I'm looking forward to meeting Charlie.

I also assume they'll trap us for a safety speech if we're not alert to that, so be on your guard.

PhotoJoe 

Let's try to meet at the corner by the starting line at 6:30. We'll do the requisite ridiculing of the new guy, take the mandatory pre-ride picture (won't do one after because I'll have helmet hair) and let you go mosey through the mountains while we go enjoy the coast! I gave Charlie my cell in case he can't find us before the ride.

TrojanHorse

There will be no moseying! It's hard to tell but while there's a lot of uphill, nothing looks dreadfully steep. (phew)

Bag? Packed.

Biked? Washed.

Electronics? Charging.

Pirate flag? Oh wait, I paid.

See you all tomorrow.

jsigone

I'm out, gonna be a late night out and 5% chance I will wake up at 3am to make the drive

Beachgrad05

My gang wants to take pre-start photo too. See you guys at 6:30 or a smidge earlier

Ursa Minor

Time for a strange story: I was getting nervous about doing the ride so Thursday I did the ride took me 11 hours!
I'll be there Saturday morning for the regular ride but we'll see how far I get.

PS PJ thanks for your cell number but I don't have a cell phone sorry.

Charlie

PhotoJoe 

I'll be amazed if you don't get to just about 100 miles!

Uh....ok. No problem. I'll just go up to say hi to everyone I see wearing a

CYA tomorrow!

tunavic

Don't forget your water bottles!!!!!!!!!!

TrojanHorse

I almost did! AGAIN!

No worries though.

I did bust my garmin - one of the little dog ears broke off right before we started. I had to hobo rubber band the thing on to the mount. I was plenty concerned that it would fly off.

Beachgrad05

Boy am I tired. Was fun today tho challenging. Think I did better than last year in several areas

tunavic

I forgot my water bottles at home for Tour de Big Bear a couple of weeks ago. Luckily they were giving away some freebies at the event

Did you run into Candy at the ride? She and a friend rode together for most of the ride. I got text by text photos of most of the ride

Congrats to all who participated!

Ursa Minor

Trojan horse sorry I missed you today. I got to the start at 6 and waited around til 6:22 then got too cold so took off. Fortunately I ran into Beachgrad and PhotoJoe near Carpinteria. Had a fun ride but way slow as usual (took me 10:40 !)

Charlie

PhotoJoe 

Charlie - it was great to see you, however briefly. Congrats on completing the ride. Sorry I didn't slow down to make a formal (and polite) introduction. We got a late start and I had a commitment at home tonight, so I had to keep rolling. Next time, though!

TrojanHorse

Charlie, I imagine we passed you at some point, depending on what time you / me got to the first rest stop. I was looking for a green and yellow jersey too! Oh well.

It was cold at 6 am. It worked out well for the first hills on the helly century though, it was downright comfortable. The second set of hills (the century set) were quite a cooker.

I didn't see Candy - if they did the regular century they probably finished before we did.

And a big fat round of applause for PhotoJoe for gritting his teeth and signing up for the century after what can only be called a light training schedule up through July. Well done, El Guapo.

PhotoJoe 

Thanks TrojanHorse. I felt good, but not fast. You and HunkerDown made good time.....every time you passed us! Riding with BG05 and her crew was a pretty good pace for me. My ideal pace would have been somewhere between theirs and yours, but trying to keep up with you guys would have burned me out. Riding ever-so-slightly slower with the ladies made for a very enjoyable day....and the pace was pretty good too! Very nice ladies, good attitude, lots of fun, lots of laughter.

The climbing was hot, but manageable. I should be a little stronger climbing next year now that I've discovered my local "GMR to the shack" ride.

The scenery of this ride is awesome, too!



Last year, by the end of the ride, I hated each and every one of you. I hated the stripes on the road. I hated the birds chirping in the trees. I hated all the friendly, encouraging volunteers that smiled as they dished up the post-ride meal. I was sooooo done being on the bike that I almost put a "free to a good home" sign on it. This year, I could have ridden another 20-30 miles pretty easily I think. That's the first time I can say that. It felt really good.

Time to start the thread "Cool Breeze 2015 - Who's in?"

Ursa Minor

I talked to a rider on the Cool Breeze who was hit by a pickup truck. Happened at mile 90 on the Rincon
where the RVs park by the beach. The pickup was between two RVs and just backed out quickly without
looking. Bike and helmet totaled but fortunately the rider was unhurt! I guess you can't be too careful.

Charlie

HunkerDown

Thanks for a fun (that special, masochistic, kind of fun that can only come from riding a bicycle a hundred miles) day. Got towed along by TrojanHorse and tried hard not to be too jealous of PhotoJoe as he cruised along with the ladies while I stared at TH's butt all afternoon while I tried to keep up...

Let's do it again soon - but not too soon because this time I think I'm going to give my now-bleeding saddle sore time to heal before any more of this long-distance pedaling.

Next time let's combine it with a bbq and maybe one of those $20 massages on Thousand Oaks Blvd...

HD

PhotoJoe 

Ugh. I hate to hear that. I wonder if it's the truck I saw. We were riding along that and a pickup, parked perpendicular to the trailers started up. I made a mental note that I hope he's careful pulling out. I looked behind me and saw no riders coming, but I never saw him pull out. Anyway, glad the rider is relatively unhurt.

TrojanHorse

Man, that sucks! I hate that stretch of road too - all the RVs part part way in the bike lane and the pavement is so awful you just want to bite somebody's head off anyway. HD and I rode on that white line between the street and the bike path, which still probably isn't far enough left to avoid a speeding pickup backing up. Actually, that was my prime motivation for the hilly century this year because we only had to ride on that road once. Thank goodness I found another crazy person to do it with me.

Didn't see anybody wiped out at that one hazardous corner up in the foothills... first time in 3 years!

Didn't see anybody wiped out under that guardrail either after that photo overlook along the coast.

I had a low grade headache for the last 50 miles - I honestly think it was a caffeine headache, but other than that I felt pretty good all day.
@PhotoJoe I find it IRONIC that HD and I, a party of merely two people couldn't get in and out of the rest stops faster than you and that gaggle of Unlikely Cyclists you were riding with! of course, that just added a little extra motivation to pedal harder. Heck, one time we passed you like you were standing still! (you in fact, were standing still).

It's funny how on a ride with 1800+ people, you will keep seeing the same people over and over again all day. We kept getting passed by this skinny little Filipino dude and then we'd blast by him on the down hill... he passed us again on an uphill and called out "light weight, light weight" as he scooted by. Thanks, I needed the reminder.

OK, if there's a complaint box - the route markings this year were awful. We missed a handful of turns! Not only that, they changed the route and didn't update the ridewithgps track, so I got hosed a couple times that way too. I understand they had an unplanned road closure near the lunch stop but the second rest stop was in a different spot this year and there were a couple of other small changes too that left my garmin yelling "off course" at me numerous times during the day.

And I busted one of the little dog ears off my garmin so it won't mount securely anymore... Sigh. I found a couple rubber bands and just jury rigged it for the ride yesterday. I think I've read that Garmin charges $90 to fix, which is annoying. I've seen other people hobo up a fix out of epoxy and still yet others buy a garmin quarter turn mount for the older garmins and epoxy THAT on the back, which seems superior. Annoying though, swapping out the back should be inexpensive and something the end user can do.

volosong

That must have been awful. I bet it was the heat and sun instead of the caffeine. Get a mile or so inland and it is a lot warmer than right on the coast.

Sorry about your GPS. I worry about those tabs. They don't look super strong. Must be a huge profit center for Garmin. A ten cent piece of plastic and about a fifteen minute swap job should cost a lot less that ninety bucks.

TJClay

Did the metric with the wife and 5 friends. The first 30 miles were good but the least half along the coast was kinda boring. Seems like it was set up to just get your miles in. Rough road lots of RVs to watch out for but the Popsicles were good!!

PhotoJoe 

@Beachgrad05 and I commented on both of those locations, as well. Any chance to not see a downed rider is a good thing!

@Beachgrad05 kept saying riding with them was like herding cats. Well, these kittens were feisty and ready to ride. We stopped long enough to take care of business and enjoy the food, but didn't lollygag. It was nice. And, it didn't hurt us any that nobody had seat issues that needed the mechanics attention...... @HunkerDown!

Now, on the flip-side, it seemed like everyone in our little group of four had times of strength, and some times that we just weren't in the grove. Of course, those "off" times didn't come at the same time for all of us together, so yes, there were times where we would regroup. No complaints. It was good to force rests. Speaking of irony, doesn't it just suck that those who are feeling strong, get to stop and rest. As soon as the person who isn't quite as strong at that moment gets the shortest rest because as soon as they show up, the rest want to get moving again?

Agreed on this count. There were at least two turn signs missing. I was looking for them and they were nowhere to be found. Like that last one at Olive. Also, I would like signs, especially for left turns, to be about 100 feet further out. The last minute lefts could lead to dangerous situations. My other complaint would be that I saw the photographer setting up in the morning, then our route took us another way, so we never passed him in the direction he was taking pictures. Not a major deal, but would have been cool.

Ah, too bad. We would have loved to have met you. It's fun to put faces to names (or screen-names!). Maybe next year?

@TrojanHorse made the comment that if they were all gone by time I finally rolled in, it's not like you can't get another. Uh......really? It just wouldn't be the same. Just ask @volosong!

TrojanHorse

Well, it wasn't an awful headache but it had me wishing I'd remembered to bring some advil (which I usually do). I usually also need it for my right knee, which gets plenty stiff late in the day. Oh well!

They should run the metric route up the way they did the hilly century - it was SO much better than RV Alley. Unfortunately, most people doing a metric probably aren't in the mood for any extended climbing but they could have created a nice route that wasn't a double out-and-back.