I joined the UCSB Cycling Team in September of 2014. By November, I was hooked on long, solo adventure rides. Since I had yet to discover the concept of skipping class to ride (shh, don’t tell my professors), I did these mostly on Saturdays, and from there came the ride title for this one - Nice Little Saturday Adventure. I spent a little while clicking around Strava’s route builder trying to find something fun to do, then settled on this. It was supposed to be a nice, climb-y day with not a lot of people around but also not a lot of treachery in the route beyond what was cautioned as a rough-road climb coming off the 101.

Slight emphasis on “supposed to be nice.”

Of course I intensely enjoyed every bit of it afterwards, because it was in fact probably the most adventurous ride I’d done till that point and remains one of the most adventurous rides I’ve been on at all. But turn after turn it brought surprises of the less-than-stellar kind, and I was absolutely wrecked by the end of it. tl;dr up front, though, I would 100% recommend this. As is very much likely a common refrain on this page, a gravel bike would make this much more pleasant, and as long as you’re prepared for it it is honestly probably not the worst ride I could recommend around SB. This is actually a route I’ve done twice since, once in 2015 and once with my best friend in 2016, both times on road bikes. But we’ll get to that later.

This is what the route looked like:

I started at my dorm on campus and rode out to the 101, then headed up the 101 until Refugio. That stretch is as bike-friendly as a major arterial highway can get, I think, but still probably the most terrifying part of the route. The shoulder has rumble strips, and if you accidentally ride on those it’s moderately unpleasant. What’s more unpleasant is the 80mph traffic driving by, made up in large part of huge trucks. I would suggest going early - I think I started this ride at 7:30 the first time I did it, and even 7:30 on a Saturday might be uncomfortably late.

From the 101, you’d take the Refugio exit and start climbing. That little loop on the map was me not realising where Refugio was, which will seem very silly to those of you who have ridden or driven along there, but people who know me would undoubtedly testify that that’s very much par for the course for me. Anyway, there’s a nice little state beach/campground there, and they let you in without paying if you’re just on a bike. This is also one of the last places with consistent cell reception until the descent, so stock up on listening material here if you need to.

The Refugio climb is just as badly paved as you are led to believe, and worse. I mean, maybe in the four years since my last Refugio climb they’ve fixed parts of it, but at least as of 2016 it was not at all pleasant up near the top. Fortunately, it’s better going up than it is down, and our loop avoids going down Refugio.

So when Refugio ends, it trails off to the right a little. There’s a tiny junction with some shot-through No Shooting signs reminiscent of Gibraltar. If you keep going to the right, you’ll be on West Camino Cielo.

Camino Cielo runs from Refugio through to Gibraltar, although there’s a split for the 154 in the middle that we’ll come to (in ride terms and literary terms) a bit later. The East Camino Cielo section is paved and has some rather nice views (and perhaps still an indentation where I overshot a turn and went off the side of the mountain going an unreasonable speed in December of 2014, but that’s beside the point). West Camino Cielo has… fewer amenities. In that it is rock. That kind of rocky, sandy stuff that will be familiar to people who have done mild off-roading in the SB mountains, the kind that definitely isn’t gravel and definitely isn’t forest dirt but is also very much not paved road. Huge slabs of rock and a fine coating of sand, plus pockets of deeper sand everywhere else. WCC is exposed, unpaved, largely not a tourist attraction, and can get extremely cold in the fog.

Needless to say, it’s a lot of fun if you’re prepared, and I wasn’t. So I go down the road for a mile or two, thinking that it would eventually turn into pavement again and it was just a section that had eroded.

It turned into pavement again about nine and a half miles later, near the gun range on the part of WCC that touches the 154.

This is where bike choice comes in. I really, really love offroading my road bike. It makes me feel cool, it’s a way to see different things on my favorite bike, and there’s usually fewer people and fewer cars to worry about. A gravel bike would’ve make this, like, three times as efficient, and I’m not exaggerating. I think my average speed for the trip was 7.4 miles an hour, and that doesn’t even include the copious walking I did when I was just fed up or didn’t feel comfortable tackling rougher sections. I wouldn’t take a mountain bike, though, not even a hardtail, I think a gravel bike would give you the best mix of uphill speed and efficiency on Refugio while offering more safety on the dirt section. But I mildly digress.

If you get far enough into the dirt, sunk cost fallacy comes in and you’re pretty much sure to finish the ride (barring unforeseen obstacles), since going back through the dirt then down ill-paved Refugio then down the 101 again is mildly less palatable than just going the rest of the way on the dirt. Eventually you’ll get to the gun range (which you will hear way more than see), at which point the road starts being paved again and your descent kicks in.

The descent is lovely for the first little bit, absolutely terrifying down the 154 for that little stretch between WCC and OSM, then predictable down OSM and into town. I tend to enjoy a loop where the last real effort comes 14 miles before the end of the ride, and this is a prime example of that.

Worst parts: the 154 link between WCC and OSM (there’s a similarly bad part if you’re decending ECC to OSM, but at least there you can skip down through Painted Cave and only cross the 154 rather than descend it); rolling up the 101 in the morning trying not to let your terror make you skittish.

Best parts: the nicer sections on the dirt; the feeling of hitting the pavement again; the photos you get to look at after; bragging rights.

Like I mentioned earlier, this is a ride I’ve done three times now, with only slight variations. All three were on a road bike, though the first time around happened to be unclipped on a loaner bike from the team (the next two were on my normal setup with my lovely CAAD10). While I was thankful to never have needed a tube change during those rides, my ride buddy did get a flat coming down OSM that last time, and I would absolutely recommend bringing spares. Lots of water is also a must, but take a look at the weather as well. On my first ride, I remember it as all being rather sunny but mild in that November-in-Santa-Barbara kind of way. The second time, it was foggy down by the coast and then hot once I climbed above the fog on Refugio. Our third ride? Absolutely frigid. Fine coming out of SB, maybe a little foggy, but freezing and misty on the dirt to the point where major regrets were had about clothing choice.

I haven’t been back to Refugio in a while. Although I love clean loops and part of the ride are extremely fun, I don’t think I’d do the 101 again, nor would I jump at the opportunity to ride the 154. We climbed a significant portion of the 154 and then descended into Los Olivos as part of our December 2018 coastal bike trip, and honestly that’s put me off of highways for hopefully a very long time. However, I’d be down for the Refugio-WCC part and it looks like a part of the 154 split might be avoidable by ducking in to a residential road. Refugio’s a great memory of one of my very first adventure rides in SB, and those kinds of rides stick with you whether you do them again or not.