Day 5 is the shortest day of the ride. It’s also the most festive. Everyone is expected to wear something approximating a red dress. People go to all sorts of extremes making the ride quite a lot of fun.
Route: ridewithgps.com/routes/46874492
Miles ridden: 42
Feet climbed: 1,800
Total time: 6.5 hours
[NB: some photos courtesy Chris Eisenberg]
Santa Maria to Casamalia
Day 5, Red Dress Day, is one long rolling party. A string of red-clad riders as far as you can see. The course is short enough that fast riders, if left to their own devices, get to the finish before the volunteers are ready for them. So the ride is halted at lunch to give the camp volunteers time to set up. As a result, there is no hurry on this day. It’s all about slowing down and taking your time at rest stops to enjoy the show.
Kathy showed up in her costume, Goth Red Riding Hood. Fetching, but hardly the most outrageous. I fitted on a red tutu (loaned to me by Martha Gegan) over a removable mountain bike shorts pad. And away we went. I’ll give a short description of the ride below. But really the attraction this day is the costumes. Feel free to skip all this writing and scroll down for the slideshow.
The morning itself was quite cold. I actually wore a (red) cycling jacket out of camp, the only day I had to do so. There was not much notable about the ride itself. The first section to Rest Stop 1 was absolutely flat, skirting the western outskirts of Santa Maria. The rest stop was at Pioneer Park on the cusp of Santa Maria and Orcutt. It was a madhouse, but a very upbeat, joyous one. From there we merged onto Highway 1 before turning off on a small road on the western edge of Vandenberg Space Force Base. We had one good-sized hill before Rest Stop 2, which was obnoxious but not unduly so. At least for us. I have no idea how some of the riders managed in their costumes. The rest stop was in a town I’d never heard of, Casmalia. It’s a small town known, apparently, for the Hitching Post, a BBQ restaurant (which boasts “World’s Best BBQ,” which we found a suspect claim). Bike parking was tight here—in fact the entire rest stop seemed compressed into a relatively small area—but we were able to navigate ourselves and the tandem in and out okay.
After Rest Stop 2 there were more hills. One of them quite steep and long. By the time we got to the top Kathy was somewhat cross with me. She told me she preferred to ride hills like that by staying behind slow riders and keeping to a slower pace rather than passing them, as we did. I explained how our gearing wouldn’t allow that (Arte Johnson; tricycle), and I think that assuaged her a bit. But I think the climb still pissed her off. As it should have! Just like Day 3 (“It’s easy! Only 65 miles!”) the challenges of Day 5 are unwelcome guests to our rolling celebration.
Eventually we made it to lunch in Lompoc. We knew we’d be held here for some time, so no hurry whatsoever. There was a stage set up with music so loud I’m pretty sure they could hear it at the camp we’d left that morning forty miles back in Santa Maria. At this point I had reached a sort of sensory overload. The music, the costumes, the crowds . . . I needed a break. I took my bag lunch across the street to an adjacent park. There were benches in the shade next to a kids playground. They were tempting. But seeing as I was dressed in a tutu I worried that some worried parent might look at me askance, and that quite possibly worse events might ensue. I wandered over to another bench at the far end of the park away from everyone and everything.
It was just a few miles from lunch to camp. We were there by early afternoon. We were out of the marine layer by then and camp was sunny and hot. Usual routine. Roger takes Kathy to the hotel, I retrieve my gear, set up the tent, wash clothes, etc. As a matter of fact, I remember very little about camp in Lompoc. Testament either to my state of mind or the quiet state of the camp.
All in all, not a bad day. Enjoy the show!
Day 5 — Red Dress Day
