What ride was colder Solvang '06 or your ride today???
 

Today was definitely one of the coldest rides I've ever been on.

Solvang last year was cold, but I think it was more because you were wet from the rain, and then the cool temperatures didn't help. But the winds were light.

Today, the air temp was colder and with the crazy winds, the wind chill factor made it downright frickin cold.

LA Baby, myself and some friends started out from Santa Clarita, with the intent to ride to Dennison Summit west of Ojai and then back to Santa Clarita. Between flat tires, and waiting for the air tempature to reach the mid-30's, we didn't start until 9:30AM. Part of the crew decided to turn around at Fillmore and fight the winds back, the rest of us decided we would climb to Ojai and then up and over Casitas Pass and return back to Ventura and have my wife SAG us back to Santa Clarita. With the ride to Ventura we should have made the 100 miles. It was not to be, with the weather the time of day, we decided at Ojai that we should just take the bike trail to Ventura. If we would have gone up and over Casitas we probably would have been riding in the dark back to Ventura. We ended up with a Metric Century. John and I still have two weeks to get our CAM century in.

All I can say is that while it was nice getting out and riding the bike, it was just too frickin cold & windy. I hope those of you doing GMR tomorrow are safe and don't get hypothermia. Its 8:45 PM in Santa Clarita and the temperature is already 28 degrees at my house without the windchill factor.

Maybe tomorrow's ride should emphasize the Stagecouch and not the Baldy.

Today's Stagecoach century. 28 in Ocotillo at the 7:00 start, 28 plus winds at Julian (17 miles from the turnaround) and then the sun finally came out for 48 at 3:00pm back in Ocotillo. Far, far colder than I, and I think everyone else, would have liked.

Today at Stagecoach was as bad if not worse than Solvang...
everyone dressed for a 58 degree day...WRONG...

Dunno about Solvang '06, but it was 28 degrees when I left my house this morning.

It really wasn't all that bad though. I didn't wear that much more than I usually do for cooler SoCal "winter" mornings. I just had a thin fleece cap that covered my ears, instead of the usual coolmax skullcap (I have a shaved head, so I have to wear *something* on my head, whenever it dips below about 50.), toe covers, and full-length leg wamers instead of the usual knee warmers.

Other than that just the usual stuff: base layer, jersey, wind-vest, arm warmers, defeet long-finger gloves.

The Cannell Plunge loop, in Kernville, over thanksgiving weekend was far worse. Not sure what the temp was when we started, but it was friggin' cold, a lot more miserable than this morning ws. I didn't warm up for at least 90 minutes that day. Fingers were totally numb with cold and *hurt* when they started to thaw. By contrast, my fingers got a little cold this morning. Then we got to the top of the climb and had to sit around in the cold waiting for the rest of the group, thus losing all that precious body-heat generated on the (grueling) climb.

Today wasn't too bad by comparison.

Colder today for sure only not wet or as miserable as Solvang was last year. I feel great right now (albeit tired). After Solvang, I hurt all over.