Archive for June, 2010

22

Santa Barbara – Gibraltar Road Climb


If you like to climb, you need to find your way to Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara arguably has the most easily accessible, tough and scenic climbs in southern California. I’ve already written about the Old San Marcos/Painted Cave climb – one of the toughest around – so now it is time to tackle Gibraltar Road.

To start, you have a couple of options. You can start at Tuckers Grove Park and give yourself a few miles of warm up. You can also start at the Santa Barbara Mission and give yourself no warm up. Either works for a starting location, but I would recommend Tuckers Grove – this gives you some rolling hills to warm up with and lets you finish with a great descent. If you start at the Mission you will climb immediately and finish with rolling hills. Anyway, the rest of this assumes you start at Tuckers Grove.

From Tuckers Grove, you head east on Cathedral Oaks. After passing 154/San Marcos Pass Road, Cathedral Oaks turns into Foothill Road/192. This whole time you will be climbing and descending – this is some rather rolling terrain. A couple of miles further and you turn right onto Mission Canyon Road. Pass by Rocky Nook Park on your left. Right after, turn left onto Mountain Drive. If you were to ride a bit farther on Mission Canyon you would see Mission Santa Barbara (definitely worth visiting – it is one of the most beautiful California missions). As soon as you turn onto Mountain, the real climbing begins:

From 2010-05-31 – Santa Barbara – Gibraltar Road & E Camino Cielo Cycling

This section of Mountain is pretty cool with an impressive rock wall spanning much of the length on the right side. After about a mile you will join up with Foothill/192. About 3/10s of a mile later you will turn left to stay on Mountain while 192 continues on to the right. This left turn is right before/at Sheffield Reservoir. Take a breather here and rehydrate as the climbing is unforgiving from this point forward. From here, ride a few hundred feet up before coming to a 4 way intersection. The left will take you along Las Canoas – a wonderful, albeit short, road to ride. To the right Mountain Drive continues along – also quite worthy of riding – lots of rolling hills with some decent climbs and amazing scenery along the way (if you have some extra time I would highly recommend exploring it). The middle choice, however, is your choice for today. This is the start of Gibraltar Road. The next 6.5 miles will give you almost 2600 feet of climbing with few breaks (your breaks will basically be sections that are not quite as steep as the surrounding sections). Anyway, the very start of Gibraltar:

From 2010-05-31 – Santa Barbara – Gibraltar Road & E Camino Cielo Cycling
From 2010-05-31 – Santa Barbara – Gibraltar Road & E Camino Cielo Cycling

Shortly after this section you pass by El Cielito Road – from this point on you do not pass another intersection until finishing the climb at Camino Cielo Road. Right after El Cielito:

From 2010-05-31 – Santa Barbara – Gibraltar Road & E Camino Cielo Cycling

Still some green on the hills from all the rains last season:

From 2010-05-31 – Santa Barbara – Gibraltar Road & E Camino Cielo Cycling

Lots of other cyclists on the road today:

From 2010-05-31 – Santa Barbara – Gibraltar Road & E Camino Cielo Cycling

A panorama from this section:

From HQ Panoramas

Make sure to click on the link to see the higher resolution version. From there you can click the Download tab and choose Download Photo if you would like to download the full size, original version of the panorama (8271×2670 pixels in size…so yeah, pretty large).

Read the Full Ride Report

Next Page

Random Posts Recent Comments

  • character Says:

    come by the whole shooting match is cool, I apprise, people you will not feel! The whole kit is cr...

  • significant Says:

    acquire everything is dispassionate, I guide, people you transfer not feel! The entirety is sunny,...

  • four Says:

    come by the whole shebang is detached, I advise, people you command not regret! The whole kit is f...

  • bring Says:

    It's hard to come by knowledgeable people for this subject, but you seem like you know what you're...

  • Nhà cái 123b Says:

    123b là m?t nhà cái cá c??c tr?c tuy?n ?a chu?ng nh?t hi?n nay. Trang web s? h?u các trò ch?i ?a d?n...

  • 69VN Says:

    69VN is evaluated as a reputable and trustworthy online betting website in the Asian and Vietnamese ...

  • nhà cái loto 188 Says:

    nhà cái LOTO 188, công ty cá c??c chuyên nghi?p, ...

  • 123b, Nhà cái 123b, Link 123b, 123bokvip Says:

    123b là m?t nhà cái cá c??c tr?c tuy?n ?a chu?ng nh?t hi?n nay. Trang web s? h?u các trò ch?i ?a d?n...

  • jun88 Says:

    Nhà cái Jun88 ?ã tr? thành m?t trong nh?ng ??a ch? ???c ng??i ch?i cá c??c tin t??ng hàng ??u t?i Vi...

  • VIN777 Says:

    VIN777 – vin777.coffee là cái tên không còn xa l? v?i ng??i ch?i, n?i mang ??n nh?ng d?ch v? ??nh ca...

Tag Cloud

2nd Street 33 Angeles National Forest Belmont Shore Buellton CA-84 Camino Cielo Cleveland National Forest Costa Rica Decker Deer Creek Double Metric Encinal Figueroa Mountain Glendora Glendora Mountain Road Glendora Ridge Road Happy Canyon Jalama Beach La Honda Loma Mar Long Beach Los Olivos Maple Spring Road Mt Baldy Lodge Mt Baldy Road Mt Baldy Ski Lifts Ojai Ojai Valley Century Old San Marcos Pass Organized Rides Painted Cave Pescadero Playa Flamingo San Bernardino National Forest San Gregorio Santa Barbara Santa Monica Mountains Santa Paula Santa Ynez Valley Santiago Canyon shared lanes Silverado Canyon Ventura Yerba Buena