The tour of California didn't come all the way to San Diego this year, so I had to go to it. My friend Barr and I took the day off work and met up in Corona where we jumped in my car and headed to Big Bear Lake. I had never been there before and was looking forward to the ride. The racers for the ATOC had started in Palmdale just north of the San Gabriel mountains and we were intersecting with the riders in the San Bernardino range. Our plan was to start riding about 25 miles from the finish and watch the racers come in then turn back and retrace our course. Big Bear Lake is a ski town about 25 miles north east of San Bernardio in Riverside county CA. The climb from the valley floor was fun in the Jetta and we reached the top of the mountain in about 30 minutes. I haven't been riding much so I didn't want to do a big climb. However, it turned out to be a perfect climb up over the pass before plunging into the Big Bear Lake valley. The descent was not too steep so touching the brakes was in infrequent activity. Those kinds of downhills are my favorite. We got to the race and grabbed a big burger and waited for the racers. They were still 50k out and so we looked around at all the booths and tried to get some stuff. Got a few things but mostly just samples of food. I did have to buy some socks because I forgot to bring some. Once the racers got close everyone started crowding to see and it was really difficult to see the final sprint. I didn't actually know who won the race until later that night. It wasn't important, we were just enjoying the scenery and the ride.
The ride back to the car was a bit longer than anticipated. I made a wrong turn that caused us about 30 minutes of extra riding (sorry again Barr). One day, I'll have a nifty GPS to guide me on my rides. This isn't the first time I've gotten off track. By the time we reached our car, the mist and wind had picked up and we could only see about 50 feet ahead. Finally, we reached the car and were glad to have the ride completed.
I really do want to ride a stage or two of the race next year in full length. I just think it would be very sobering to see much faster the pros do it.
