Before I retired, I rode my bike to and from work every day, and sometimes got an evening ride in, but I almost always did one or two big rides on weekends – often a hundred mile ride on Saturday or Sunday.
I started noticing a woman in Santa Barbara ending up on Strava’s monthly leaderboard in almost the same place as I was, so I peeked at her profile from time to time to see what she was up to. Eventually, I followed her on Strava, and I made a comment like, “I think we are twins!” And we became Strava friends!
I found out she had a daughter in Seattle, and that she loved going on long (more than 120 mile) rides all year long, usually on Mondays. She is a badass!
Well, she decided to greet me on this tour, and showed up at the start of my ride this morning. We rode together for the morning. She is basically a native on Santa Barbara, so we ignored the ACA route and she told me where to turn. We stopped for “second breakfast” in Ventura, on a Main street that is closed to traffic, and I had a stack of raspberry pancakes.
By the time she turned around, we’d covered more 30 miles. It was really nice to meet Laurie Lehman in real life – another highlight of my adventure!
Things didn’t start getting interesting until I reached Point Mugu State Park. Highway 1 has nice wide shoulders here, with dry brown hills on the left, and the ocean on the right. There are wetlands, rocky beaches, and sandy beaches with tons of surfers. Eventually I reached Malibu and the fancy modern houses started peppering the hill side, or hiding behind tall walls on the ocean side. The weather was absolutely perfect. Not too cool, not to warm. This is really a cycling paradise!
But I didn’t see any famous people. 😁
