Bob At BAC Solvang 2012

Nojoqui Falls Park

Because this was a fixed-based ride, there was no official ride that we had to follow each day. We were on our own to ride any the the routes and to make up our own routes. Traditionally, the ride director announced the route that he would be riding and we could follow him if we wanted to. Most of us followed Gary who started from the parking lot at 9:30. We first did an out-and-back to Nojoqui Falls Park. The weather was cold when we started but it soon warmed up to cool. When we rode back through Solvang, Gary led us on a detour through Old Mission Santa Ines. We didn't get a chance to look at anything, but we avoided traffic.

Darrel and Ruth at Panino

Our lunch stop was a few miles up the road in Los Olivos. Most of us ate at Panino. We had very tasty sandwiches.

After lunch, most of us continued up Mt Figueroa Mountain Road. At the cattle guard, we had to make a decision to ride up to the first ridge to look at the view. Some of us did that. It was a difficult climb with some pitches reaching to high teens. We paused at the first plateau to look around and catch our breath. Then it was a fast, technical descent on bad pavement back to the cattle guard. The road back to Los Olivos was slightly downhill resulting in easy pedaling. When we reached Los Olivos, I decided to ride back to Solvang on Ballard Canyon Road. It was a nice route with no traffic that went past lots of vineyards. Here is the route that I took:

Dinner tonight was on our own. Rich and I joined several of our group at the Solvang Brewing Company. I had a BBQ pulled pork sandwich to go with my very dark IPA. The sandwich was better than the IPA. We ate with Patricia, Hans, Dave and Terry. I discovered that Terry lives in Marin and rides sometimes with GPC.