So the conversation as we were shooting the group photo this morning went something like this,
“If anybody gets lost today they’re an idiot!” Carter sniped, his British nose held high in the air of route planning superiority.
“But aren’t you putting out a change to the route card this morning?”, I tentatively offered – hoping not to bruise his tender self-esteem (it’s oftentimes a tightrope that I walk).
Picture shot, route change delivered, off we roll.
Today’s route took us through Santa Barbara and almost immediately onto the tough Old San Marcos climb – the historic stagecoach trail up and over the mountains. From there we rolled onto the 154 for a short way of dodging 80 mph traffic before we were to roll off to a safe and scenic stretch (which also happened to be the complicated route change that Carter “explained” to our first van stop in Solvang.
Now you’ve probably already guessed it – by the time we reached the turn the tiny details of his rambling changes were a bit lost. Seems there was a fork in the road – to the left was the obvious road, to the right was a long driveway. We went left – the driveway was right in both regards.
The road to the left was also a never ending, and significantly steeper climb – gaining another 1000’ and ending on a dirt road that could be better called a gully, which we naturally began to descend – cursing Carter with every rock, hole and trench.
After finally coming to the conclusion that this was clearly the wrong way – made painfully obvious as we looked over the hillside panorama at the miles and miles of trail leading eventually to the coast. Shouldering our overpriced mid-life crises carbon fiber “toys”, we began the mile long slog back to the road.
It was there that we found all but four of the 27 remaining riders – with Terry reciting a stream of colorful comments that would have left the saltiest of Longshoreman disgusted and running for the nearest church.
So, who were the four you ask – Steve Burke, Scott Waterman, Jeff Theaders, and you guessed it, CARTER!
This set up the little group for the surprise of the day – a 40 to 50 minute lead, and with some good teamwork the win for the day. Now for you Tour de France buffs, this was tantamount to Claudio Chiappucci's brilliant break in the 1990 race. American Greg LeMond was the heavy favorite for a repeat victory, having to spend the bulk of the race pulling back the time on his way to his toughest and most satisfying victory. Well, kids, the ToP favorites have a lot of hard riding to pull back the leaders.
I tried to get our breakaway champions to tell me who was the first one to the hotel, who was the strongest on the climbs, and who led out the city limit sign sprints – after all, the green, red and yellow jerseys are on the line. In what is even a bigger surprise of the day – NONE of them would bite, NONE of them would rat out the others, and NONE of them would claim victory. Very unsatisfying to me – but I’ll give them kudos for brotherhood.
Now behind them the feeling of solidarity was not so pronounced. In what has become extremely evident, the NorCal Assassins and the OC have come to the realization they are no match for the tenacity (and significantly slimmer and stronger Andrew “El Heffe" Lee – San Diego’s only hope at face saving after the past two years of being kicked about like poor Cinderella with her evil stepsisters). It was a game effort, but after 80-miles of continues one-two punches, Andrew finally managed to springboard ahead to take the stage among the favorites – of course the ill timed flat tire on Mike Armbruster’s part didn’t help their cause. But as Scott Duncan said early in the day, “live by the sword, die be the sword” – at the end of the day, all’s fair in the ToP.
Stay tuned tomorrow – another stage and all important awarding of day one’s coveted black jersey.
Ride leaders after Day One:
Yellow - Jeff Theaders; Red - Scott Waterman; Green - come on, none of these guys can sprint.
101.6 done (108.5 for we directionally challenged); 384 to go
6932 feet of climbing
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