Steve Tilford

Yesterday was a busy day. For some reason it seems like there is never enough time to do everything in one day out here. I’m not sure why that is. I really didn’t have that much to do and the time disappeared.

I met Jen See, who is doing some free-lance work on the first MTB Nationals, at Aron Olson’s coffee shop, The Handlebar. It is funny I’ve never run into her before. She is an avid surfer, has a doctorate, and write articles about bike racing. Super interesting and really fun to talk to.

Aaron was there. I really never spent much time with him racing. He was super busy, says the shop is going great. He came over and sat for a bit and we talked a little about bike racing. He rode two years in Europe, did the Giro, so he has his credentials. It was a good experience all around.

After, Sue and I just got dressed and rode Gilbralter. It was already afternoon and the marine layer had sort of left, so it was hot. Gilbralter is only a 10 mile climb, but pretty steep the whole way. Most the time between 7 and 15%. There are hardly any houses on it and the road is questionable at best. But, the views are unreal. I like climbs where you can actually see where you came from. Gilbralter is like that. You can pretty much see Santa Barbara nearly all the time you’re riding. We just went over the top and down Painted Cave. It’s only 30 something miles, but slow miles. Up and down. Painted Cave is super steep and doesn’t flow well. It is cool though. After finishing Painted Cave, you cross a highway and there is Old San Marcos. That descent flows much better and takes you all the way down. I was passed by two guys riding super tricked out street motorcycles and I ended up descending a couples miles with them. It was pretty hard keeping up, which kind of surprised me. Normally a bicycle can descent with a motorcycle one on one, but these guys were pretty good.

Anyway, I have to decide whether I want to go do a criterium tomorrow inland from Laguna Beach, in Ladera Ranch. I’d have to tone down the riding today, which I’m not sure I want to do. Two good days of training, might be better than racing right now. I’m not feeling all that great on my bike, so maybe going around in circles fast isn’t what the doctor ordered. I might feel better today though, I never know nowadays.

This is Jen See. Very fun girl and nice person to know.

And Aaron Olson. He owns the Handlebar Coffeeshop.

The Mission in Santa Barbara.

Which bike do you think is more expensive?

At the base of Gilbralter.

This guy was going pretty good up the climb. It took a while to pass him. He said he was 72 years old. Seems like he ride the climb, shirtless, pretty much everyday.

The views are great.

The turn to Painted Cave.

This is Sue taking one of the super steep descent corners on Painted Cave. This has to be 25% or more at least.

There are a lot of these purple bushes here in Santa Barbara. I don’t know what they are, but they sure are pretty.

I decided not to race this afternoon. I kind of tweaked my left hamstring a few days ago mowing and am not sure if all this seated climbing has been hard on it or what, but it doesn’t feel that great. Just another thing. That’s okay, because the riding out here is great.

Yesterday I drove down to the Manhattan Beach area to try to track down my friend, Ed Bauman. He is pretty much one of the pivotal influences on why I started racing bikes back when I was 14. He worked at the local bike shop that imported European bikes and that is eventually where I ended up. Anyway, Ed is an elusive fellow at times. Sometimes he is nearly clairvoyant, happening upon me at the weirdest times. And other times he is like a mountain lion and can’t be found. I was lucky yesterday though. He didn’t answer the phone, but when I walked down the stairs to his basement apartment, he was standing outside, cutting comic strips out of the paper.

Anyway, hanging with Ed is always enjoyable. You never know what is going to happen. He knows everyone locally and a lot of the people he knows are just as interesting as he is. The guy next door is a super machinist, makes custom titanium things for Steven Spielberg as well as parts for F1 cars. He does this out of his basement in a residential area. Ed actually lives in El Segundo. It is a weird area along the beach in LA. LAX is to the north, the sewage treatment plant to the west and the whole place is oil storage and refining. That being said, it is still pretty cool. And expensive, of course, as all beach areas in LA are.

We went for a ride down south to Palos Verdes. It’s kind of a rest ride, because you have to ride down through Manhattan Beach, Hermosa and Redondo before getting to Palos Verdes. Palos Verdes is super exclusive, a peninsula with awesome views of both the ocean and LA. Once getting up on the hill, the riding is pretty great. The June marine layer was sort of coming in and out yesterday, so the beaches were pretty full, but not crowded. The ride was great people watching.

Today, instead of racing, we’re going up to Vista to go to a BBQ at one of Sue and Don’s friends house. There is a big MTB ride going, but I can’t do that yet. So, I’m going to go for a road ride up there. I guess the riding is pretty unreal east of I-15. Rice and Couser Canyons are supposed to be really good riding. I guess they were sort of undiscovered until Tejay or someone at the Tour of California this year did an interview and raved about how great the riding was there. After that, there was a influx of riders coming up from San Diego to ride. I’m coming from Kansas, so I guess it isn’t much difference. Okay, that’s the plan for now. Should be a pretty nice Sunday. I hope you have a nice one too.

This is my friend Ed Bauman.

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I saw these sterling silver pant clips at Ed’s place. I had a pair too. We won them at a parking lot criterium, at a shopping mall in Kansas City back in the 70’s. I wonder where mine are?