Day 6 was on Friday and it was time to saddle up for a 98 mile cruise.
Lompoc was cool and a little foggy, but that has pretty much been the routine for the 2012 ride. It's great cycling weather, but after 5 previous days it tends to mentally wear on you.
Lompoc firefighters fed us a great spaghetti dinner on Thursday night and they have several avid cyclists who I believe we will see on the 2013 ride.
As was our morning practice, we held a briefing each morning and concluded with a prayer of support or remembrance for our fellow firefighters or a loved one.
Leaving the city limits, we found ourselves on a road mostly to ourselves with open grazing land filled with oak trees and cattle.
Around mile 25 or so, we enter southbound highway 101 for a quick sprint to our first sag stop at the Gaviota rest stop,
Throughout this week, we could not have been successful without the tireless work of our support team. They never complained, whined or received any compensation other than an endless stream of thank you's.
Full of PB&J and loaded on electrolyte drinks, the wheelman & wheelwomen once again jumped on the 101 heading for Santa Barbara. The weather stayed cool and the breeze mostly at their backs made for a fast ride into the current fire department home of former Chief Mike Dyer.
Lunch at SB's famous east beach cafe was the midday break. It was a busy place as triathletes were picking up their race packets for the next days triathlon. Fitness was definitely king!
As afternoon set in, the riders set out on the final leg of the day to end at Channel Islands (Oxnard). It is a full 98 miles with 2 sag support locations. Most century rides (100 miles) would have many times that amount of support stations. Our folks got er done", remembering that today's journey was way easier than the one our firefighters fight in their cancer battle daily.
All cleaned up, we piled into the support vehicles and made our way to dinner hosted by Oxnard firefighters at one of their stations.
The "Pasta" again dinner was excellent and the warm welcome by the "Oxnard boys" is always one of our best evenings.
Following desert it was back for the final meeting of the final nite together. We reviewed the positives and the "can do better next time" items. The last item was the plan for the ride into the finish on Saturday morning at the Santa Monica Pier. Family, friends, tourists and Fire Chief Osby would be there to greet us when we rolled off Ocean avenue and onto the pier.
Time to hit the "rack". 0530 would come all too quickly.
Buck Buchanan
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