I left home just before 5:00 and rode to the har­bor in San­ta Bar­bara then out to the end of the wharf before head­ing for home. Here are a few shots in the dark of things that intrigued me in the beau­ti­ful predawn.

I’ve loved these guys ever since I first noticed them dri­ving by La Con­chi­ta at night. So since I’ve been bik­ing in and around dawn I’ve stopped to take pic­tures with my Sony cam­era a few times. But I’ve nev­er been able to hold the Sony steady enough for a clear image. So I bought a Joby Goril­la­Pod 500 tri­pod that allows me to wrap its legs around the top bar of the bike­way bar­ri­er to pro­vide a sta­ble base for the long, 265′ foot shot across the 101 to the neon palms in the dark. This morn­ing was try num­ber one and things swam swimmingly.

My best shot of the morn­ing.
The red streaks are car tail lights zoom­ing along the 101
(click to see the full size)

A cou­ple more shots where I like the effect of the tail lights fly­ing by

An espe­cial­ly beau­ti­ful morn­ing and won­der­ful to be out ear­ly, 5:15AM, to see the changes in the light over the next two hours and twen­ty five miles. Also inter­est­ing is the return to full site use along the Rin­con Parkway

I’ve been rid­ing ear­ly every oth­er morn­ing but find­ing after yes­ter­day’s ride that my mileage for the month was 177 miles I decid­ed to head out again this morn­ing to reach 200 miles for the month. Look­ing again I saw that if my total was 209 miles it would be my great­est in just over a year. So this morn­ing it was up and at ’em!

My first ride into San­ta Bar­bara in months. I was wor­ried, Covid-19 wise, about the nar­row Sum­mer­land Hill bike­way but my ear­ly tim­ing avoid­ed all oth­er rid­ers, cool.