Tuesday, June 10, 2008
The Ride: SF to LA in 7 Days.
This is the link to my Ride fotos on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/swedg/collections/72157607790012932/. They’re organized in sets on the right for ALC 7, Days 0–7. Too many to post here. Here’s a nice one, though, by Steven Rood, an LA rider, who caught me on Day 1, as I chugged up the hill on Highway 92. That looks like a smile, but you can almost feel the effort.
Day 1, Climbing Hwy. 92
I’m back! A little bit sore, and still bruised and abraded after my crash on Day 6, but everything is returning to normal as I reflect on this year’s Ride and how to summarize my impressions. On the whole I found it strenuous, much harder than expected or remembered. I struggled on the famous hills, and the distances, especially on the long days 2 and 4, seemed to stretch way beyond the endurable. At the same time, I am convinced I rode stronger than the last two times. My difficulty was probably more due to pushing myself early: I rode hard on Day 1, attacking the “rollers” on the Coast Highway, and passing everyone in sight. Joe Borgonia calls me “competitive;” on Day 2, after cranking it out over ninety miles, I had enough left to charge up a little hill approaching King City, and someone yelled “Showoff!” But I don’t see it that way: usually I just find myself edging up on riders ahead of me until I have to pass in order to have riding room. There’s also the exuberance factor: having spent much of my training time sweeping as a TRL, I enjoyed the opportunity to open it up. And the tailwinds! I hit 49 mph on one downhill and was still coasting as I flew by struggling riders halfway up the other side!
“Quadbuster,” the big hill on Day 3, defeated me this time; I had to stop and catch my breath even before I reached the turnout halfway up, and once more before the top. And the “Evil Twins” on Day 4, though I didn’t stop, were a real struggle. They hadn’t seemed so hard on previous Rides. And Day 5 produced three challenging climbs which I’d just forgotten about, either because they are still unnamed or because they had not been a problem before. (Throughout the Ride I kept having flashes of recognition, but most of the route seemed new and unfamiliar). And endless: by Day 4 I had fallen into a much more conservative (survival) style, content to coast a lot on the flats, pedaling just enough to keep up the momentum. My quads were sore to the touch; I was finding muscles I never knew I had.
The Morro at Morro Bay
Compared to my last time, two years ago, the Ride has grown enormously, and crowding is a real problem. Long lines for meals and showers and porta-potties (they did seem to move along, but required an effort in patience). We kept running into huge clots of riders, at stop signs and signals, and often for no apparent reason. It took fully an hour and a half to get out of Santa Cruz on Monday morning, basically walking our bikes, and the same in Paso Robles and Santa Maria. And I felt very much less a sense of community, rather a huge (and loud) impersonal mass of strangers. It was a good thing to belong to a team (Oakland Yellow Jackets were some 20 strong; we didn’t really ride or hang out together but bumped into each other frequently). There were a number of large teams: the “Funky Monkeys” who seemed to have a different team jersey for each day and even a team sweatshirt for camp. And everywhere we saw “Midnight Radazz,” “Team Bear,” “Team 100,” and others. Of course I tried to engage folks in conversation, in lines and at meals, but hardly made real contact (well yes, I met a nice young man, Tim, from Baltimore who was riding alone; Joe and I exchanged stories with a woman who was a “roadie” for the first time (she was keeping company with her daughter, who was riding), and later kept running into her at traffic control points; and I got to know some of my teammates better, including my tentmate Joe). I think my feeling was probably closer to nostalgia: I felt like an old-timer, a veteran rider looking at all the newbies and missing the old times and how it used to be (and that was only three years ago!) Incidentally, I never encountered Bert Shaw, the 80-year-old from Florida, or Richard from San Fran., the “most ancient” rider at 82.
Teammates
I observed a lot of rude (I thought) and reckless riding, perhaps a function of youth and numbers and impersonality; it seemed for many to be about “getting ahead,” rather than “caring:” racing past lines of other riders at stop signs, passing three abreast, even going out on the highway to get by, though most riders did call out “on your left.” My fall was caused by a rider who cut in too close, descending on the narrow shoulder of the freeway (where passing is supposedly forbidden). Fortunately I had slowed down on this stretch in order to stay behind the riders ahead of me. She was probably emulating behavior she had been witnessing and said later there was another rider passing her on the outside and forcing her over. I was incredibly lucky, suffering only skin abrasions (my jacket was shredded and my helmet, we discovered later, broken); and my bike was okay. She was so upset I had to hold her and comfort her for several minutes. She’s going to buy me an new jacket and pay for my helmet. Amazingly, it was Ron Starkey, my OYJ teammate on the Moto crew, who picked me up and called the sweep van, and Lisa Lestishock, another OYJ on the Medical team, who patched me up at Rest Stop 2, where my Oakland neighbor Josie Chapman was in charge. By another quirk, all the riders were massed here, waiting for the Highway Patrol to open the freeway, and my teammates came by to wish me well. It was almost providential: I felt like a celebrity and among friends. To top it all, Diana was there; she had driven down to meet the Ride at Lompoc (I discovered the pleasure of sleeping in a bed and eating out on the “Princess Plan!”) and was allowed to be my private SAG for the rest of the day (I could have ridden on, but was strongly advised against it). We found a bike store and acquired a new tire and helmet, and I got to rest up for Day 7.
Lisa
Speaking of eating out, camp food was great, served by friendly, encouraging, cheerful roadies (occasionally we got a peek behind the scenes and saw how hard they worked), though chicken and turkey sandwiches for lunch got old soon (and the “Powerade” we were offered to drink was awful), and it was tempting to pass it up for a hamburger & coke on the road. The shower trucks were better than the shower at Motel 6: plenty of pressure and hot water, and ALC even provided big bottles of shampoo! Joe and I enjoyed a walk-in massage on Sunday, wished we had waited till we really needed it later (we were allowed only one for the week), but it was a great service. I also made use of Medical, Bike Tech, Lost and Found services, and of course the Rest Stops, Bike Parking, Gear Trucks, Moto and Sweep crews and many others not seen. I even found foam rollers to stretch out my aching quads. Every conceivable need was met; organization and logistics were amazing. All staffed by volunteers. All we had to do was pedal.
The last day was more celebratory (yes, it involved a sixty-mile ride on the Pacific Coast Highway, along the ocean and over several challenging hills, but my legs were relatively fresh): I discovered I could maintain a speed of 17 mph, but 18 began to feel like pushing it. I linked up with teammates, Joe and David and then Welela and Teri and Ron and Wilma, but then found myself pedaling alone, endlessly, through Malibu while trying not to miss Gladstone’s seafood restaurant on the beach where the OYJ team had a rendezvous for lunch. We were supposed to ride from there together, showing our team jerseys, but got scattered again in the short remaining distance into LA. Diana and I missed the Closing Ceremony; she was finding it too hard to walk in on her aching knees, and I was unable to find my bike until all the activity at the Veterans’ Center died down. We had a reunion and spent the night with my old friends (and sponsors) Bob and Brenda in Santa Monica, and drove home Sunday on Highway 101, retracing much of the bicycle route. Oh, my backup computer wasn’t working, except to record total distance (odometer: 469.5 miles) and speed (max.: 49.1 mph). But the numbers seem really unimportant; I am satisfied with my performance, in spite of setbacks and my inability to ride every mile. I challenged myself and, in large part accomplished what I set out to do. On the fundraising side, donations are still coming in. Thanks to all my many donors, I’ve collected over $3,000 for ALC this time. Somewhat short of my goal, but not shabby at all. Together we raised a total of $11.6 million. Pretty impressive. We’ll see how it goes for next year.
