Thunderstorms!?

As we learned repeatedly during this training season, medium-term weather forecasts are notoriously unreliable during California's strange springtime. But if you've been following the AccuWeather forecast for our ride next week, you've seen this somewhat scary prognostication for Day 5 in Solvang:

High: 68 °F RealFeel®: 66 °F
Mostly cloudy with a couple of showers and a thunderstorm

Yipes!

I'm doing my best not to get overly excited over a forecast that's still 10 days out, and you probably shouldn't, either. But in my three previous ALCs, I've never had to deal with any precipitation worse than the usual light drizzle and thick fog that we get along Skyline Blvd. at the beginning of Day 1.

Remember that, even if it's raining, ALC continues. It would take truly severe weather or some other emergency to get us off the road, and that's never happened before -- although riders apparently were delayed due to fire during one ride long ago.

The most important thing now is to be prepared to pack your rain gear if the forecast holds. This might affect how much stuff you put in your luggage, since extra clothing takes extra room. The single most important item for me is a pair of shoe covers -- if it rains, unprotected shoes could become so wet that they would not dry out overnight, and that would be yucky.

Perhaps it is a good thing after all that many of us experienced that dreadful San Gregorio ride earlier this season!