Day 6: I won the race!

Related posts:
Prologue: Dykes and Bikes
Day 1: A Ride Down Memory Lane
Day 2: And I'm faster than YOU, and YOU, and YOU...
Day 3: Back Pedaling
Day 4: I find a Fan Club and an Archnemesis
Day 5: Red Dress Day

I woke up early on Day 6 in order to hit the road early. All the holdups on Red Dress Day and the subsequent argument over how much pizza a human being has the right to eat had me feeling sullen and cranky, and I really wanted to get out there and see what I was capable of on my 6th consecutive day of riding. I still felt good, but everyone else seemed to have faded long ago and now they were cracked and peeling. Meg's friend, the heavy one, sagged before she even left camp (when I heard that, I was even more bitter about the pizza comment!). Meg would have problems later in the day. Shane was falling apart and just wouldn't admit it. "I saw Mdot girl in the med tent last night," he confided. "She was walking all funny and had her leg taped up." Alisa was in better spirits after her meltdown, but ready to get off the bike. Word on the street was that if you got too close to Trish she might explode. The only ones who still felt good were me and Lorraine. So while Shane decided to spend the day with Meg and Jess, I rolled out just as they opened bike parking and struck out on my own.

"Just to remind you, you'll be held at Rest Stop 2 until 9:00, so you might as well take your time!" a man was yelling over and over as he paced bike parking. It was 7:00 in the morning and Rest Stop 2 was only 25 miles away.


Coming out of camp we started to climb immediately. It was a long, long hill about 1,000 feet high and 16 miles long. It wasn't too challenging, never going above 5%, and I trucked my way to the top without much trouble. One guy that passed me on the climb said, "Hey, I know you! We talked yesterday. I'm Merc."
"From the cell phone chargers?" I said. Electrical outlets were hard to come by, and people tended to congregate around them to make sure their stuff wasn't unplugged. Now that I think about it, this man wasn't who I thought he was and I have no idea who he really was.
"What are you doing out this early?" he asked.
"Sometimes I ride with my friends, sometimes I want to beat the crowds."
"We call that, 'racing for the blue water'," he said.
"What? What does that mean?"
"In the Porta-Potties. You know, the blue water that no one's used yet." He had a point. I liked that. So even though they were going to hold me at Rest Stop 2, I raced for the blue.

Finally I got to the long, glorious downhill on beautiful, glassy pavement. The only problem was that we were on a sort of freeway at that point, and I was stuck behind a guy who was riding his brakes the whole way down, weaving all over the lane. "ON YOUR LEFT," I called as loud as I could. He continued weaving. He simply wasn't holding his line, and I didn't dare pass him going 35+ mph on a freeway. "ON YOUR LEFT!" I called again. Still, nothing. I came in a little closer. "LEFT!" ... nothing... "PLEASE don't make me ride on the rumblestrip!" I pleaded. Finally he moved way right for long enough for me to pass him. "THANK YOU," I yelled, adding a few impolite nicknames under my breath.

At the bottom of the hill, even before I'd lost the momentum from the descent, the rout spit us RIGHT onto highway 101. If you don't know the area, this is a MAJOR highway, and the best way to get to LA from all coastal points north. It's pretty and runs right along the water, but it's still a freeway and it's still scary as hell to ride your bike on. On top of that there was an UNBELIEVABLE headwind gusting up the coast. I'd never had to ride into a wind like this for any significant amount of time. In fact, I don't think I'd ever encountered a headwind like this until this week. When I got into Rest Stop 2 there were only about a dozen people there, and the roadies were still setting up. They were having a hell of a time getting the canopies set up in the wind, and it took me and another rider to hold one of the posts down while the roadie tied it to the bumper of his truck (the milk crates filled with full jugs of water weren't enough to hold it down). I still had 40 minutes to wait, so I grabbed a couple of Mojo bars and sat at the top of a 100' cliff to look at the ocean. A tall man, about 30 years old sat next to me. "Hi! What's your name?!" he said. He was so flaming, he would set off sprinklers.
"Claire, what's yours?"
"Joseph." Then he looked meaningfully into my sunglasses. "I want you to remember me," his voice dropped and he said it like it was really important. If he weren't the gayest man I've ever met (and that's saying a lot), I might have thought he was hitting on me. Now that I think about it, he may have been a positive pedaler not wearing a jersey. Either way, it was clear that he liked being the center of attention. "I haven't seen YOU here before..." he went on in a Cheshire Cat kind of way. I swear, if I didn't know better I would think he was hitting on me.
"I was here the other morning. Sometimes I ride with friends, sometimes I ride alone."
"Well I'm your friend now, honey!" he said.

At a quarter to 9 there were over a hundred riders in Rest Stop 2, and dozens more coming by the minute. I decided that if I wanted to keep my lead, I'd better line up now. I grabbed my bike from its spot right at the front of the rack and nosed my way to the front of the gathering crowd. Then I spotted Shane. "Come have snack with me!" he said.
"Like hell I'm giving up this spot!" I said. "Come here when you're done!" But when he was done I was surrounded by another hundred people. He found a spot about 20 feet away and we made faces at each other, since we were too far apart to talk. Mdot girl was there too, just a couple of shoulders away to my right.

The reason for the hold was that just beyond the rest area there was a narrow bridge with no shoulder. The CHP (California Highway Patrol) had agreed to close down a lane for us between the hours of 9:00 and 12:00 a.m., but no earlier and no later. As the crowd thickened, tension rose. Nine o'clock came and went, and there was still no sign that they were going to let us go. "C'maaaaaaan!" a guy right behind me yelled. "WHAT'S THE FUCKING HOLD-UP?!" I don't think he realized how far his voice was carrying. "It's 9:15 already! Let us GO already!" It was only 9:10. These obnoxious comments continued at regular intervals, whether encouraged or not. He would say something, maybe laugh at his own joke, wait about 15 seconds, and then say something else obnoxious. People around him (including myself) were starting to turn and give him dirty looks.

Riders waiting to leave Rest Stop 2 at around 9:15.

Finally, one of the roadies started moving down the line yelling, "We are just waiting for the CHP to come back and tell us that the cones are set and we will let you go. We can't let you leave before that!"
"That's fucking CalTrans for you!" (CalTrans = California Transit) yelled the obnoxious man behind me. "Fucking Schwarzenegger won't give any money to fucking CalTrans..." What the hell is he talking about?! He thinks just because ONE trooper is running late setting up some cones it's a giant government conspiracy?! This is hardly the Super Dome! I thought. It was like having Gilbert Gottfried right over my shoulder. More people started turning and giving him dirty looks.
"Uh oh, Jimmy!" he yelled to someone at the very front of the pack. "I think I'm starting to piss off the neighbors! Time to leave the neighborhood!" 'Jimmy' turned around and gave him a half snicker, half snarl and turned back to the guy next to him.
"What the fuck IS this?! Are we going to have to wait her all fucking day?! TYPICAL CalTrans, doesn't work for fucking shit..." he went on.

Mdot girl turned around, "You know, you have real bad energy about you, you know that?!" she said. "It's not like you're the only one waiting here, so why don't you just calm down."
"I got a real bad energy?! I got a real bad energy?!"
"Yeah, so why don't you just keep it down," she said. Alright, she was kind of a bitch, but at least she was actually SAYING what the hundreds of people around her were thinking.
"I should come over there and kick your ass!" he said. "I'll kick your ass and throw your bike in the ocean and show YOU who's got bad energy!"
She just raised an eyebrow and turned away. Still, Gilbert Gottfried didn't shut up.

At about 9:30 the roadies started making the rounds again with an update. "The trooper laid the cones only about this far from the barrier." She held up her hands about 16 inches apart. "We're going to have to wait until he re-lays them, then when he comes back here, we'll let you go.
"I could ride through something like that! Let us go!" yelled Gilbert Gottfried. "If you can't ride through something like that, you DESERVE to fall under a truck." Oh yeah, well why don't you go out there and try, then, thought a couple hundred annoyed cyclists. I'll drive the truck.
"Where's he in such a hurry to be?" I said to the guy next to me. I said it loud enough that I could be overheard. "He got an appointment in camp or something?"
"Some people just have to make asses of themselves, they can't help it!" he said. This guy was another Ironman athlete from the New York area and we bonded over triathlon, location, and rolling our eyes at each other every time Gilbert Gottfried opened his mouth.
He'd started to repeat himself. "If fucking Schwarzenegger weren't so busy blowing shit up and would put money into CalTrans..." What planet is this guy living on?! What is Schwarzenegger blowing up?! He may be Republican. He may blow shit up in movies, but he's hardly responsible for the war in Iraq..., thought hundreds of people around him.

The roadies were trying to make the best of a bad situation by inspiring us. "There are now roughly 2,000 cyclists gathered her right now. That is more than participated in the first AIDS/LifeCycle 7 years ago!" It wasn't inspiring anyone, just stressing us out that there were 2,000 of us and our bikes squashed into a tiny little Park & Ride off highway 101. I'd been lined up for nearly an hour.
"YOU SAID YOU'D LET US GO AT 9:00! WAS THAT 9:00 EAST COAST TIME?!" yelled Gilbert Gottfried.
Finally I turned around with the best look of disgust I could muster. "East coast time is 3 hours AHEAD, you moron."
He pretended like he hadn't heard me, but yelled, "I mean Hawaiian time?!" If this guy wasn't careful the crowd was going to pick him up and throw him over the cliff.

FINALLY at around 9:45 they announced that they would be releasing us in waves roughly 5 minutes apart. I smooshed forward to make sure I'd be in the first wave. They let us off, and I saw that Mdot girl was also going to be in the first wave. I got lost in the shuffle trying to clip in and she pulled out first, getting a roughly 50 meter head start on me. I made sure to say, "ON YOUR LEFT!" good and loud as I passed her, and surge ahead so that she couldn't catch me. Once I got up the momentum I kept it going. The headwind had died down a bit, but it was still strong. I didn't care. I was so sick of being around people that all I wanted to do was get AWAY. I hammered as hard as I could for the next 20 miles to lunch. Some people passed me, but not too many.

When I got to the bridge and the cones I couldn't believe it! The bridge was no more than 10 feet long, and there were only about a dozen cones laid out to block the lane! 40 minutes to do this?! Now that WAS silly. After about 10 miles on Highway 1, we hit Santa Barbara county and moved inland a bit. The road began to roll and I pushed harder. I saw a girl up ahead. She'd ridden away from me on the way out of Santa María and I hadn't been able to catch her. I was going to hang in behind her, but eventually momentum got ahold of me and I just passed her. I looked over and smiled, "Hi," I said.
"Hi."
Then I rode away.

As I pulled into lunch, I was among the first 10 or so riders into the stop. I looked around and didn't see any women. I stuck my fist up in the air, pasted the biggest, most triumphant smile I could on my face and yelled, "I WON THE RACE!!!" Of course, it's not a race, and this wasn't even any kind of finish line, just a rest stop, but it was a joke. Some people clapped, others smiled, others laughed, some looked confused.
I racked my bike and was walking right to the lunch table when a big guy in a t-shirt that said Media stepped in front of me. I froze. "Hi, I'm with the media and we've got a camera crew right over here and we'd really like to get an interview with a woman..." He stopped. My face was already ashen. "Not interested?"
"No. Thank you, but I am NOT interested!" I said. My mother will resent this answer for as long as she lives, but I knew that if I stepped in front of a TV camera I would just say something stupid. I wouldn't think to say anything about the charity, or to thank the supporters, or to say great things about the communities. I would probably get up there and start talking shit on all the other riders and how I was so much faster than all of them, even the boys. I don't really have a filter for what comes out of my mouth, so I just try to stay out of situations where it could get me in trouble.

I got my lunch and spent a few minutes refilling my bottles. When I sat down in a nice, sunny spot the girl that I'd just passed was at an empty table a few feet away. "Who do you race for?" she asked.
"No one. Just me," I said. "How about you?"
"I race against myself," she said. "It's more fun that way. You're a really strong rider."
"You too," I said. "You should race. You'd be good at it."
"Thanks." And then we both turned to our sandwiches. See? I'm not competitive off the bike. Not unless you're asking for it (Mdot girl! Cunt on a Pink Bike!).

Suddenly a guy started yelling from over at another table. It was probably Gilbert Gottfried, but I wasn't sure because even though I'd stood right in front of him for an hour, I never got a good look at his face. "Yeah, well if they ask you if you rode every mile, you can't say you did! You didn't ride every mile!"
He was yelling in our general direction. I looked around for someone behind me. She looked around too. "Who's he talking to?" she asked.
"No idea."
"What does he mean?"
"Hell if I know."

I was totally happy to be all by my self, wolfing down my sandwich in peace when a stranger sat down across from me and started yapping right away. He introduced himself, told me several details of his life which I did not ask for or listen to, and then finally asked, "Where are you from?"
"Boston, and yourself?"
"Boston? Really? What part?"
"About 10 miles north."
"What town?"
Nobody knows my town. People the next town over don't even know where my town is. There is absolutely no reason to go to my town unless you're one of the 25,000 people that live there, or need a Christmas tree or topiary from our huge garden center. You wouldn't even pass through my town if you got lost. Saying the name of my town usually shuts people up, because they've never heard of it and therefore have nothing else to say. "Winchester," I said. There, that should do it! I thought.
"Winchester?! Really?! I grew up in Winchester!"
No you didn't. You're lying to me. There is no reason why anyone from this far away would know Winchester. "Really?" I asked, disinterestedly.
"Yeah. I used to play at the Packer courts all the time." I stopped eating my sandwich and looked at him. The Packer courts are some tennis courts less than a mile from my house. "I used to live over by Lynch Middle School..."
"It's an elementary school now," I said in disbelief. This guy really was from Winchester, and it looked like he hadn't been back in over 40 years, and here he was sitting across from me at a picnic table in Santa Barbara, California. That didn't mean I wanted to talk to him, though.
He kept talking and talking, no matter how little feedback I gave him, until Shane turned up about 10 minutes later. Then he kept talking. Between words I managed to squeeze in a greeting to Shane. "Where've you been?"
"I left in the group behind you. I left Meg and them this morning. They were just going too slow, and my knees were bothering me too much. I just want to get today over with."
Meanwhile, the man from Winchester was still yammering on in the background.
"Well, I was just about to leave once I finished my sandwich," I said to Shane.
He looked at the man from Winchester still telling his life's story. "Hold on, I'll eat quick." In a daring show of gastric acrobatics, Shane gulped down his sandwich in a matter of minutes.
"Well, we'll see you around," I said to the man from Winchester, and we both got up and left him mid-sentence. We'd been around other people too much this past week to bother with manners.

Shane and I were among the first people out of lunch, but not THE first. We got caught in a group that was more competitive than they were good. Every time we would try to get around them, each individual would surge ahead to not let us pass. Plus there were lots of rolling hills and stoplights. The end result was that it was hard to stay together. I would surge on ahead, trying to get around the pack, only to be caught at a stop light or on a hill. Every once in awhile Shane would turn up again after I thought he was gone for good and heckle me as he passed. "You're not SPECIAL!" I would yell as I passed him back. I suppose we could have worked together to get out of the group, but we were both feeling like lone wolves at that moment, and we both wanted to prove that we were top dog. Eventually Shane was gone and I finally lost the pack. Now that I was alone, I missed him.
I asked him that night what had happened, "You guys were all surging all over the place and racing to every stop light. I don't know, it just wasn't fun. I was over it."

I guess I could have gone easier, but Shane and I were getting dangerously close to overdosing on each other. I was goading him too harshly, and he was saying more and more often how mean I was. "You know, I'm the only one of your friends who will put up with your shit," he said.
"No you're not! I have other friends!"
"Well I'm the only one who doesn't talk shit about you behind your back!" I know Shane well, and I know what he meant about people talking shit behind my back. I have a pretty good idea of what people say, and I deserve it. Sometimes I'm a bit caustic. Shane's comment was more meant to cut me down to size than it was true. I think we were jealous of each other. He was jealous because, even though he was doping and he was the one who rode his bike every day, I was still a slightly stronger rider. I was jealous because he wanted to do RAAM, and he was talking about trying to qualify next year. That was MY dream, and I didn't want him getting it first, especially since I'M the planner. He's always got his head in the clouds and coming up with hair-brained schemes: a commune in Costa Rica, a pyramid scheme, writing a book, buying real estate in San Francisco, starting a co-op. RAAM just sounded like another one of his hairbrained schemes, and I didn't want him talking about one of MY dreams like that. It made it sound cheap. It was probably better that we were apart.

The harbor in Santa Barbara. I'm going to live here someday.

For the last 30 miles I rode by myself. For the first ten miles after lunch we were riding through Santa Barbara, which is where I'm going to live when I'm a millionaire. They had us riding on a bike path, which was a pain in the ass because there were menacing signs everywhere that said not to go over 10 mph. I even managed to lose the trail once... okay, twice. Then, I came through a gauntlet of UCSB coeds handing out Red Vines and came upon a clearing with tables: they were giving away free ice cream and strawberries! I had a small cone of the most delicious ice cream I've ever tasted and stood at the strawberry table for about 10 minutes eating berry after berry. I couldn't believe Shane wasn't here by now (when he did arrive, he washed his hands for several minutes with real running water, not the hand sanitizer stuff that just spreads the dirt around!). I stood watching the cyclists come in across the street, and the only other person standing there was: Mdot girl! We were standing not 2 feet apart. We clearly knew each other, and we clearly weren't speaking to each other. Finally I said, "Have you seen Shane?"
"Is he the dude that rides with you guys?" she asked.
Duh! "Yeah."
"Nope. Have you seen Kim?"
"Nope." End of conversation. I stuck around for a few more minutes, and when he didn't come, I went on by myself.

Me looking fat and eating ice cream. This is Ginger. She came out every day to cheer us on somewhere along the course, wearing a different outfit every day. Shortly after this picture was taken someone asked, "Will Ginger be at the closing ceremonies tomorrow?" "No honey, Ginger is just for fun. Closing ceremonies are just to thank the riders. Ginger has no business stealing the show there." It was one of the most gracious things I heard all week.

The final 10 miles was a nerve-racking stretch on the shoulder of 101 along the beach. My ass was sore and the pavement was rough. The paint that they'd used to paint the bike lane logo on the ground must have been a half inch thick, because it rattled my teeth every time I rode over one. Every time a truck went by the wind would blast you off course. The headwind was strong, and I was lonely out there. Almost no one was ahead of me or behind me. For the first time I hit a low. I just wanted this to be over. I wanted to get off my bike and rest. I was checking my mileage every couple of seconds and it didn't seem to be budging. I started feeling sorry for myself.

Finally we got to the town of Ventura, where camp was. "Just 1.5 more miles!" a volunteer at an intersection told me. He lied. It was easily another 3.
Just then, a couple of guys rode up behind me. "Hey! Joseph, right? I remember you!" I remembered him because he'd asked me to this morning.
He didn't seem to care, he was talking to someone much more interesting: an attractive man. We were riding on a boardwalk again and there were pedestrians and more stationary obstacles everywhere. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!" Joseph screamed like a little girl. "Don't run over the cute ones!" There were a couple of 17-year-old jock-looking guys walking in front of me. I was not about to hit them. "I saw you, girl. You almost ran over those cute guys..." Joseph said, swiveling around in his saddle to check them out over his shoulder.
"Did not!"
We were only riding at about 15 mph, Joseph and his crush du jour about 5 feet in front of me, when a long-haired, bearded man busted out from behind a planter brandishing a cane. "SLOW THE FUCK DOWN, MAN!" he yelled, trying to smack Joseph with the cane. Joseph screamed again. The guy's face looked funny and he slurred his speech like he'd had a stroke, but he couldn't have been more than 40 years old. The lights were on, but no one was home. We sprinted away from him the final half mile in to camp.

The first thing I did when I got to camp was schedule my free massage. Every rider got only one free massage, and most people had the same idea that I did: to save it until the last day. Since I was among the first people in camp (except the sagged riders), there were still slots when I got there. When I got on the table my masseur asked, "So what hurts?"
I tried to think of something to complain about. "Actually, nothing," I said. "I just didn't want to pass up a free massage..."
"Nothing is bothering you?!" he asked. "Are you a rider or a roadie?"
"I'm riding. Well, I guess my shoulders are usually pretty tight. I mean, not right now, but most of the time," I offered.
"Alright..." he said, and had me lie down. He massaged my whole body. He did this thing where he put my knee in my armpit and my whole back cracked, but that was the most dramatic thing about the massage. When I was finished he said, "Wow, you really didn't have ANY tight spots or knots. You were right!" We were both surprised. It just didn't make sense. I hadn't even been stretching.
"Thanks!" I said, and hopped off the table.

When I got out, Shane had finally come back into camp. We'd both had low points today and we blamed it on the pizza the night before. We walked to the beach that was RIGHT next to camp. Shane's afraid of water (he discovered a dead body at the beach when he was 10), so he didn't go in past his ankles, but I waded in up to my waist. I had my cap and goggles with me, but the water wasn't all that warm. "How about I just dive under?" I said. "Just to say I did it."
"You're crazy," Shane said.
"It's been suggested." The next wave that came along I dove under it and ran back up the beach screaming like a little kid. "NOT THAT WARM! NOT THAT WARM!" I squealed. Once I got to our stuff I admitted. "It wasn't that cold either."

We weren't the only ones who had had bad days. Narine had gotten lost thanks to this one roadie who dressed up as a giant purple pill that said "YOU ARE MY VIAGRA!" and he would yell, "Keep it up! Keep it up!" to all the riders who went past his post. Today, it had been his job to wave us off the road and onto a bike path. "But when I rode by, I was so busy staring at this fool screaming in his stupid costume that I didn't pay any attention to what he was saying. I followed the road up that gigantic hill. Do you guys remember that? So I went up that big hill and down the other side, and eventually a sweep van comes up next to me and the driver says, 'Blazing your own trail?' I hate that stupid viagra guy." Apparently the rest of the old ladies had passed her in a pace line. "They come up to me like a freight train and Kim yells, 'Get on the back!' I wasn't getting on that thing! I'm here to enjoy myself and see the scenery, not blow through here like a tank engine!"

Meg had an even better story. She had been one of the last ones to come out of Rest Stop 2, and, as a slower rider, she got to lunch shortly before they were closing. They threatened to sag her if she didn't get out soon, so she wolfed down her lunch too quickly and rode away. Then, on the road after lunch her helmet strap was rubbing against her throat in a funny way that made her nauseous (I don't get it either). Suddenly, right as she was riding down a hill, she turned her head and puked... Only, since she was riding down hill, it splattered all over her. When the sweep car saw her, they were afraid that she might be dehydrated and wouldn't let her keep going.

In Lompoc I'd visited the Dedication Tent. The Dedication Tent was a closed tent where they played soft music and people could post pictures and messages for friends and loved ones who had died of AIDS. I went into that tent and read many of the messages. I stared at the pictures. There were people who had written lists of names a dozen names long. There were messages to brothers, fathers, sons, boyfriends, daughters, and friends. I came out of that tent crying and went straight to my tent.

In Ventura, the last night of the ride, we held a candlelight vigil. They gave out candles in clear, plastic cups and 3,000 riders and roadies went down to the beach and stood in a circle. The circle was about 4 people deep and roughly the length of a football field. The guys who dressed in drag in earnest (not the showy Liza Manelli types) wore their best skirts and wigs and stuffed bras. Everyone was quiet, looking at their candles. Even if you weren't into symbolic things like this, it was dark and quiet and there was nothing to do BUT look at your candles.

Then, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence came out. I don't quite know what the whole story is, but they are a whole group of gay men who dress up in nun costumes and kabuki-type make-up and do charity work at gay-centered events. I don't know if it's a San Francisco thing or if there are chapters in other cities. Apparently it's a really involved organization with a hierarchy and a whole system of moving up from a novice to a mont to Mother Superior. Anyway, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence came out with big candles and some sort of red banner and walked a lap around the ring of candles.
(Right: A Sister of Perpetual Indulgence on Red Dress Day)

Then, people started walking up to the waves and putting their candles out in the water. Only most people were wearing pants and shoes, and with the waves, it was hard to be in just the right place at the right time to put your candle out without getting your shoes wet. It was taking awhile for everyone to get to the waves at just the right moment. "Can't I just blow my candle out?" asked Shane.
"No, Shane! This is important."
"Oh, come on, half those people aren't even putting their candles in the water. They're just putting it out in the wet sand like a cigarette."
"Shane, if this were a memorial service for you, would you like to be put in the waves, or would you like to be blown out like a birthday candle? We're waiting for the waves!"
So we waited for the waves, then went back to our tent and went to sleep.

Day's miles: 87.68
Total saddle time: 4:54:07
Average speed: 17.9 mph
Total elevation gain/loss: roughly 2,000'