Live to Ride/Ride to Live

Since moving out to Santa Barbara, I’ve taken up road biking. There is probably not a better place in the country for biking than SB, which is why Lance Armstrong trained for the Tour de France here. On Friday, I found out that he often trained on part of my usual route. That made me feel cool.

Basically, that route starts at my house and goes pretty much straight uphill to the Mount Calvary Monastery. It’s just over a 1000 foot climb, which gives me a pretty good workout. The views from the monastery are spectacular—you can see two canyons, the highest mountains in the area, the shoreline, and on clear days, you can see the peaks of Santa Cruz and Anacapa islands across the channel. So it makes for a nice reward for all the huffing and puffing. Of course, the hardcore guys go all the way up the mountain (I think it goes up to abou 3800 feet). Last summer, I made it to about the 2000 foot mark, but when school started I had to scale down the amount of time I could devote to riding.

The picture above is my faithful steed. The first one below is the Santa Barbara Mission, which is just a few blocks away from our house. Once I pass the mission, the steep part begins. The rest of the pictures are views from the monastery, except for the last one, which is a shot of my leg muscles when I finish a ride.