Our hometown show was a wash-out.
The San Luis Obispo stop was supposed to be so cool, all my friends would finally get to se me play with this group. But as luck would have it, we were soaked out. The stage was soggy and the day was worse. The overhead tarp sagged in the middle and held a dozen gallons of water on top.
We set up a small acoustic band set up without the full drumset.The reasoning was that if it started to downpour, which it was supposed too, we could throw less equipment in a dry area faster. So we played in the rain. And none but two of my friends actually saw us play.
The race, I think, was better than our acoustic set. People lined the streets of SLO, one of the bigger crowds, and waited in the rain for hours to see these guys ride by for a brief second. It was truly amazing. The riders were coming down highway 1 through Big Sur from Caramel, which is an absolutely gorgeous area. But it was windy and raining almost the entire time. What was originally supposed to be a 5 and a half hour race turned into a 7 hour race. And it had the opposite effect on the crowd. Instead of people getting burned out from getting soppy and wet, they stuck around for the extra hour and a half. The anticipation was contagious, and allowed the crowd to grow even bigger than it would have had the racers came through already. The announcers did their best to keep everyone excited, and they did a pretty good job, considering they had to kill so much time. I remember hearing something like;
“He’s burning so much calories here folks, he’s gonna have to eat a burrito the size of a new-born baby!”
We watched the big screen, trying to pick out the scenery as the cameras followed them down the coast,
“They’re passing Cuesta right now, look!”
By the time they actually came through town, the crowd was worked up into a frenzy. One break-away rider, Dominique Rollin, had a massive lead at one point and when he came barreling down the line the place went nuts. It’s pretty exciting when the cyclists finally do show up. It convinces you that it’s worth having squeaky shoes at the end of the day.
