It was Day Four of Randy’s seventeenth annual training camp. Fifteen were in attendance, but only five of them cared to go out in the drizzle for this morning session. Most of the attendees were from Chicago, where Randy had lived for over a decade working for Chicago’s Active Transportation Alliance while racing and coaching. We met when he recruited me for a bicycle messenger instructional video and discovered we had a mutual strong interest in racing and anything pertaining to the bicycle.
It was exciting to learn from his podcast that he was going to be in San Luis Obispo when I’d be passing through for its Carnegie library, and that if I timed it right I could be there for his Skills Clinic. Randy knows cycling technique as well as anyone, having coached Olympians and National Champions and World Championship medalists as well as being a National Champion on the track himself. When he raced for Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo while getting his masters, he made such a mark that the annual award given to its top racer is named for him.
He serves on the National Board of the US Cycling Federation in Colorado Springs, and also a cycling committee in Asheville, North Carolina, where he moved to several years ago for better year-round riding conditions, as has Christian Vande Velde. This deep immersion into all things cycling makes his weekly podcast always highly informative.
He is hard corps, mentioning on his podcast when the latest Polar Vortex hit Chicago, that he couldn’t remember bad weather ever preventing him from going for a ride, as I can say myself. He warned though if it was raining too hard for this Skills Clinic that he would have to postpone it. Luckily the rain was negligible this morning. All it prevented was including how to crash, as the grass was too soggy for that.
The seven of us biked a few blocks to a church parking lot that had a bit of a hill that he could use for a couple of his exercises. The first was sudden braking at speed. One bit of useful advice was thrusting one’s body back to curb one’s momentum, the reverse of thrusting forward at a finish line to nip an opponent. He also used the hill for accustoming riders to bumping one other. Everyone paired off and made several descents jostling each other, just being careful to not knock handlebars. Everyone also practiced leaning over putting down and picking up a water bottle to enhance balance, as was also part of the track stand exercise.
Randy invited me to stay over for dinner with everyone attending the camp at a friend’s house and also to throw my sleeping bag down on his hotel room, but I had to make it to Ventura, 160 miles away by the next night to meet another friend who would be leaving the next day, so I had to be on my way, though a rest day would have been most welcome, especially since heavy rain was forecast for the rest of the day. The rain was bad and the wind even worst, but as always, it was good to be out experiencing the elements.
There were no more Carnegies until the next day, but San Luis Obispo‘s was such a dandy that it merited a day to itself. It was one of those that elicited a spontaneous “Wow” when I caught a glimpse of it from a block away. It sat on a slight rise. It’s red brick with yellow stone trim brightened the gloom of the day. It now calls itself the “History Center,” though “Free Library” remains etched on its facade. A painted cow, one of an array around town as Chicago pioneered years ago, was on its lawn.
After a good dry sleep I began the day with Lompoc’s Carnegie, another that was lent extra dignity by a set of extraordinary towering arbors that even merited a plaque of their own. These were Italian Stone Pines introduced in the 1930s that thrived in these conditions. The plaque called them “treasures in Lompoc’s landscape” and that these “rare and historic trees receive global attention for their beauty.”
The day’s rain was light and misty, but most importantly the wind wasn’t against me. I had more climbing than expected so didn’t arrive at Santa Barbara’s Carnegie, 55 miles away, until after 2:30, an hour later than I wanted. I hadn’t the time for more than a quick glance inside this huge, renovated and expanded Spanish-Revival building that still functions as a library.
My timing was furthered hampered by two flats, my first in over two weeks, forcing me to to ride the final half hour in the dark once again, but at least I had street lights and a bike lane guiding me to Joanna’s house on the far side of her sprawling city of over 100,000. Joanna is a retired school teacher and sister of Jerry, a cyclist friend in Chicago who I came to know at the road rage murder trial of the driver who ran down a messenger friend of mine. Jerry and I, along with Tim, who has been playing tag with me on this trip, were among six cyclists who attended every day of the week-long trial some twenty years ago.
Jerry is another fully committed cyclist who is always doing good for others, including serving one day a week at a homeless shelter doing bicycle repairs for free. His sister too is an equally caring citizen who devotes a good part of her retirement to church work. I had to arrive by Wednesday as she would be spending the next four days and nights at her church with several dozen others in a twice-annual devotional to fifteen “pilgrims” from around the state.
She grew up in rural Illinois, but had lived in California since she got her teacher’s degree. Dinner was Midwest fare—a most delicious pot roast with boiled potatoes and carrots and corn and gravy followed by pastries and ice cream. I couldn’t have felt more at home. We talked until nearly midnight as if we were life-long friends. She sent me off with leftovers and a bag of turkey jerky. She did my laundry and kept asking what more could she do for me. She had no expertise in patching tubes, so I had to do that myself.
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