Santa Barbara Climbing
Our Trek group officially meets tomorrow, but some of us have already arrived. Six of us had dinner last night. Ian, who is from England, was one of that group. I happened to meet him again this morning while grabbing breakfast and we decided to do a ride together. We chose to do a loop which climbed to the top of the mountains east of Santa Barbara, ride north along the ridge, then back down making a rough 42 mile square. The initial climb was 10 miles and 3500' of climbing for an average grade of just under 7%. The picture above is most of the way up the climb looking towards Santa Barbara and the pacific.
Here is a picture of Ian just near the top of the climb.
We had a number of parasailers go overhead as we biked up.
Here is the view looking east from the ridge of the mountains.
The descent from the ridge was fairly technical with sharp switchbacks and rough roads. By the time we finished the descent, our hands were a bit numb from the vibrations and braking most of the way down. The final stretch was along the same roads that I biked yesterday.
It was nice to stretch out the legs. I'll try to post again tomorrow.