It's not really a race. It's more like a timed bike ride wrapped in a barbecue hidden in a vineyard underneath a festival.
The cross country and downhill races provide an opportunity to qualify for Nationals, so you can still expect people to take their time on wheels pretty seriously, despite the distraction of vendors and bonfires.
I have a reservation at a motel in Buellton, but I think I'm going to camp at the venue. Wedged in between the grape vines and the Chamberlain Ranch, the meadow next to the course will be colorfully filled with several hundred tents.
Blessedly, it might be too early in the season for the traditional earwig infestation. Last year, some guys loaned me their pickup truck bed cover for added protection under my sleeping bag. Then there was that time some other guys zip-tied my rim brake cantilever together the morning of the race. Or when friendly mountain biking firefighters explained how AV and SV nodes work so I could control my heart rate better. In 2008, a professional trainer whose name I'll never know took it upon himself to help me recover from heat exhuastion.
If I were to give the full Oscar list speech of everyone who's looked after me during this strange stay-at-home-mom turned bike racer trip, the stage light would start blinking and you'd all wish you were at the after party.
Did I tell you about the first time I raced Santa Ynez? Five years ago, my third ever race. My craigslist bicycle ripped off the roof rack an hour after I left San Diego. While I was doing 85 miles an hour on I-5. The officer who ran the traffic break didn't have the heart to ticket me. He recovered the carcass from the middle lane and I tearfully drove home.
When I got there, my husband transferred my saddle and pedals to his own bike. He took the front wheel off so bike could fit inside the car, and I started off again. After preriding the course, I absentmindedly left that front wheel leaning against a tree somewhere. Half an hour before the starting gun, and I still couldn't find it. The parking attendant loaned me his. It had a hybrid tire, the kind with a bald road tread down the middle. So I raced on an unfamiliar grip shifter bike with a tractionless front wheel and brakes that only sometimes worked. Ha ha! No wonder I ended up covered in blood and dirt. In the Beginner women old lady age group.
But I finished. After the race, the Red Bull girls handed me a sample, and I sat under Bachelor Andrew's giant outdoor deck thing, alternating sips of energy drink and free Firestone beer. An announcement came over the loudspeakers that someone had found a lost wheel.
New to the sport, I sat by myself and watched people mill around, discussing every last singletrack switchback climb. They leaned on bikes worth half a year of my mortgage payments. They populated a parallel universe of athleticism, kindness and intimacy with Earth's terrain. Could these be my people, someday?
I've never raced well at Santa Ynez. Since it is early in the schedule, I'm usually struggling at the back of a newly upgraded category. Beginner, Sport, Expert, I pretty much roll in late. Sometimes very literally when the cows come home. I lost precious time once in a stare down with a giant horned bull.
This year is my first full season on a single speed, though, and I've never been readier to throw down. Except I'm the only woman in a field of guys, and will probably maintain my consistent losing streak on those golden hills.
But after I finish, and I will finish, I'll tip back the glass of inspiration this venue never fails to deliver.
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