I went into this camp thinking “we’re not riding 100 miles a day, what am I going to do with all my down time?” I couldn’t have been more off in my thinking.
I arrived at the Santa Barbara airport with some other campers in the early afternoon on Monday. We had to wait a couple of hours for someone to come and pick us up to drive us to Solvang. The time seemed to fly while we were waiting because the campers got to know each other, some of us were first-time campers, others were returning campers. It also helped that it was in the low 70’s so as we stood out on the curb chatting, we were taking in all the fresh air and sunshine.
The drive to our hotel was beautiful and sort of intimidating. The hills in that part of the country are like nothing we can see here in the midwest. Even the IMWI or Horribly Hilly courses do not compare with the hilly and rolling terrain near Solvang. I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into.
As we pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, a group of cyclists was taking off for an unorganized ride. There was nothing planned for a ride this day because most campers were just arriving this day. I hoped I could get into my room, put on some cycling clothes and get out for a ride before it got too cool and dark outside. I went to the hotel lobby to wait in line to check in. I was handed a Camp Guide and a list of all the attending campers. In total, there were about 65 of us, including campers and coaches.
I dragged my overstuffed suitcase up a flight of stairs to my room and I noticed my roommate had already checked in, but was not in the room. She had already staked her claim to one side of the bathroom sink and placed her stuff near one of the beds. The hotel was nice with a faux fireplace and flat screen television in each room. During the whole trip, that television was not turned on one time.
I rummaged through my suitcase to find my bike pedals. I ran downstairs to the mechanics’ trailer to ask them to put the pedals back on my bike. I found my bike easily on one of the racks they had set up in the parking lot. I looked it over quickly and it seems to have made the trip to Solvang with no incidents. A couple of VQ coaches had driven the bikes out to Solvang in a large rental van. The very thought of my bike squeezed in there and bouncing around with other bikes was a bit nerve-wracking. I was thankful my bike is titanium…holds up to just about anything.
One of the mechanics put the pedals on and I looked around and there really wasn’t anyone else to ride with. The other campers that came in with me talked about a ride, but just listening to them, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up. I was looking for another female camper to head out with, but the women campers were few and far between. I was bummed I took such a late flight, then decided there would be plenty of biking to do this week, so I shouldn’t worry about it.
I went to my room and unpacked some of my things and flipped through the Camp Guide to get an idea of what was in store for us. On paper, nothing looked that difficult. The agendas seemed short and I tried to plan out what activities I would attend. I noticed there was a talk on “Intro to PowerTap” happening in just 10 minutes, so I once again rummaged through my big suitcase to find the PowerTap and head down by the mechanics’ trailer to educate myself on how to work this device.
Though I was one of the first 2 campers to show up for this talk, other campers wandered over and I think about 10 of us were there for the presentation. There was a representative from Saris who was very knowledgeable and walked us through set up, display, setting intervals and basically answered any question we had. It was extremely helpful for me, because I never even read my PowerTap manual. I went back to my room, where my roommate returned from her ride (oh, was I jealous). We talked a little, and then it was time for dinner.
Dinner was in a large conference center set up in tables of 8 or 10. The food was set up buffet-style just outside the doors of the conference center, outside. It was getting rather cool outside and I wondered how the temperature would be in the morning for our first ride. As the campers and coaches filed in the conference center with their plate of food, the volume of voices steadily increased. The excitement was in the air and people were getting to know each other.
About half way through dinner, Robbie Ventura got up and put an agenda, projected from a computer, up on a screen (well, it was a wall, but what’s the difference?) He welcomed us and gave us a quick over view of the camp. We were assigned to pre-arranged teams, which would compete for points throughout the camp. Another coach came up and discussed safety protocol. Another one came up to talk about logistics and other basic frequently asked questions. Our teams then broke out to other areas to create a team name and practice pacelining. I’ve never practiced pacelining on foot, but I didn’t have a whole lot of pacelining experience, so I was trying to learn what was to be expected when we got out on our bikes the next day.
Cyclists are very particular about the way they ride and if you don’t follow the rules, you are opening yourself up to be yelled and screamed at. Most of the time, those yells and screams aren’t meant the way they come out, but it makes you feel like crap when it happens. Cyclists also have a very distinct “we” vs. “they” mentality. Know who the “they” are? Triathletes. According to many cyclists, triathletes are terrible bikers and we have no idea what we’re doing.
And in this very first breakout, one of the cyclists spoke up and said, “OK, who here are the triathletes?” Many of us raised our hands. He then proceeded to say, “Alright, all you guys stay in the back and try not to screw up our ride.” I rolled my eyes. This guy hasn’t seen a single one of us ride, but he’s already got us “screwing” up “his” ride. Unbelievable. I wonder if he realizes how much of an a-hole he sounds like. Probably not.
We went back in the conference center where the teams introduced their names. Robbie then got up and went over how the points would be distributed. Most of that was run through so quickly, it was confusing and we were all looking at each other like, “What did he just say?” But it wasn’t a big deal because we were all just excited to be out there to ride for the week. Two of the four teams had the option to sign up for massages the next day. I had to quickly review the agenda to make sure I didn’t schedule the massage over one of the activities I wanted to partake in. Then I just had to hope that time slot was available by the time I got to the sign-up sheet!
Each day, we were to upload ride information into the web portal. You can check out the portal by clicking on the “badge” here on the right-hand side of my blog. Or you can go towww.vqsolvang.ning.com. This site was put up to house all our reports, ride data, pictures, videos and messages regarding the camp. We were to log on to this site every day to keep abreast of new information and just stay connected to the other campers. Very cool site.
Some of the information we were to upload each day included time rode, miles, KJs, average watts, max watts, rider of the day, quote of the day and a few other things that I can’t remember at the moment. This information needed to be completed each day by 4pm. All this information was then collected and points distributed via some formula. There were 2 competitions – the team competition and the individual camper competition. Again, not sure how all this was computed, but we were told that it evened things out, so one of the weakest cyclists could still compete with the best cyclist in the camp.
By the end of all this, we were quite exhausted. It was about 10pm CA time, which is midnight Chicago time and I had gotten up at 5am that morning. I was anxious to get to bed and get some sleep. The first day was the time trial (most of it uphill) which would determine what groups we’d ride in. Once back in the room, I set my alarm and fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow.
