Day 3: Back Pedaling

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...

Shane's knees were still feeling bad on Day 3, so he got out of camp as quickly as he could and rode on alone. I waited for the Old Ladies and rode along with them. I had decided to stop bragging that day, and by mid-day no one had caught on, so I said to Lorraine, "Have you noticed I'm not bragging anymore?"
"Oh, you're not?" she said. "I couldn't tell." And she was kind enough to point it out to the rest of the crowd by lunch time. I tucked in behind Lorraine so that I wouldn't pull away from the group, but my noisy hub gave away how much I was freewheeling. "You'll ware out your brakes," Lorraine chided me.

The big buzz around camp was about Quadbuster, a "looooong, steep hill" at the beginning of the rout. There was supposed to be a photographer at the top to catch all of our panting, grimacing faces when we reached the top.

In the first 10 miles before our quads were to get busted, Alisa told me the story of what had happened to her the night before. She had gone looking for her 12-step meeting when she got distracted by an all-female massaging orgy. It was an easy choice of where to stop. When she walked back to her tent a big, butch woman in an ALC Staff t-shirt stopped her. "Ma'am, I'm going to have to search your bag," the Beast informed her. She started rifling through Alisa's bag and found a bag of white powder. I think it was Alisa's sports drink. She looked at Alisa suspiciously. Then she rifled around some more and pulled out a giant, 12" dildo. It wasn't clear by the way she was telling the story if the dildo was actually hers or if the big, butch lady was just fucking with her. I wouldn't have been surprised either way. Then the gorilla woman said, "I'm going to have to pat you down now..."
Alisa, never one to be bashful spread her legs, threw her head back, and proclaimed, "I'm ready, baby!"
And it was all in good fun until the gorilla woman made a lewd gesture with 2 fingers and her tongue and goes, "We'll do the cavity search later, baby!" That was too far. The fun was over.

We were passing whole groups of people easily on our way up to Quadbuster when a woman yelled out, "Hey, I recognize you! You're the woman with the giant dildo in your bag! I'm gonna tell your mommy!" I'm telling you, even when you're supposed to be watching the road, Alisa draws everyone's attention! None of the rest of us so much as appeared on the web site, but Alisa was in the days' recap photos twice, and also appeared in some video somewhere.

When we reached the bottom of the hill I asked Lorraine if I could go ahead and meet her at the top. "I thought you said you were done showing off!"
"I'm NOT showing off. You know how hard it is to climb at someone else's pace!" I whined. "I'll wait for you at the top, I promise!" She admitted that I was right and said she'd see me at the top and I rode off. Before the incline even started I saw a chick walking her bike, she had her thumb stuck out and for a moment I thought she was trying to hitch a ride until I realized she was giving the "I'm okay" sign for other riders so they wouldn't be asking her every 2 seconds if she needed help. I passed more and more people walking their bikes on the way up. What's strange was that on day 5, in which we climbed three similar hills, I didn't see anyone walking their bikes. It just goes to show how people can get psyched out by the hype, I guess. The hill turned out to be only a mile long and barley more than a 10% grade the whole way up. It was challenging, but not hard. My quads did not feel busted.

Lorraine and Alisa rolled over the top about a minute after I'd stopped, waved to me, and didn't even slow down to wait for me to finish taking off my jacket and re-mount. I had to haul ass down the hill to catch them, not like I'm complaining. I love descending. Shortly after I caught up with the Old Ladies we started seeing numbers painted on the ground. "We're doing part of the Wildflower long course," Alisa explained. We didn't do any of the hills, but I couldn't believe how rough the pavement was. It was that kind of rough pavement that makes your hands go numb and wares the skin off your butt in a big, fat hurry. I was regretting wearing my tri shorts (with the least padding) today of all days.

Lorraine was pulling, and I asked as politely as I could if she minded if I took a pull. "As long as you ride around 18 mph so that we can keep up," she warned me. "But I'm not chasing you if you go speeding away."
"I'll try to hold 18, I promise!" I said. "I know you ladies are old and fragile. I'd hate for you to get hurt trying to keep up." So I tried to hold 18 mph, but there was still a tail wind, and it wound up being more like 19 or 20. Dutifully, every few minutes I would look back to make sure Lorraine was still on my tail, and stop pedaling if too much of a gap had opened up. It was so pretty around there, and I picked up the speed to open up a gap so I could take out my camera and take a picture without anyone crashing into me.
I took the picture and slowed down to let Lorraine catch up. "You just can't help yourself, can you?!" she admonished.
"I wasn't dropping you! I promise! I just wanted to have some space to take a picture! Here, you take the lead." And I dropped to the back just to prove my point.

I think they forgave me, because Lorraine said to Alisa, "You know, Claire's a triathlete too." Alisa asked me what distance.
"I prefer the longer stuff. I'm not very fast, but I can keep going forever."
"Not fast, yeah, right, Ms. Speed Racer," Alisa scoffed.
"No, really!" I insisted. "I'm the most horrible runner you ever did see, aren't I, Lorraine?!"
Instead of validating me Lorraine said, "Do you know what she did a couple of weeks ago?!" She did a half ironman, and then she went and rode a century the next day."
"But it was my birthday!" I protested. Like that explained it.
"Why the hell would you want to do THAT on your birthday?!" asked Alisa.
"Cuz she's crazy," Lorraine laughed.
"You of all people are NOT allowed to call me crazy!" I protested. "Not when I do all this stuff because I'm trying to be more like you!"

Suddenly the rout took us onto Rte 101, which is a full-blown freeway at that point. The pavement on the shoulder was HORRIBLE. There were giant cracks and buckles every 10 feet like clockwork that felt like a kick in the ass each time you went over one. Right on the edge of the highway, in the 6" between the rumble strip and the white line, there was a tiny little window of acceptable pavement. We rode on that as enormous trucks (most of which were our gear trucks) flew past us inches away. Passing on the freeway was strictly prohibited, so when we came up on some slower riders, we slowed too. Not so some chicks that thought they were pretty cool. They just passed us right on the left as if pulling into freeway traffic were just like the traffic on any back road in any sleepy town.

We stopped for lunch in a tiny little town called Bradley that only had one schoolhouse for kids from kindergarten to 8th grade. God knows what they did when they went to high school. Got pregnant and dropped out, probably. The kids at the Bradley school were selling hamburgers, hotdogs, and veggie burgers to riders as a fund raiser. I paid $5 for a pin that said "ENDURANCE" in a 1st grader's handwriting, and the 10-year-old boy who sold it to me was strictly business. "You're a good salesman," I told him.
"Yeah, well I've been doing this for 3 years now," he said, like he were talking about selling stocks on Wall Street. "So I know how this stuff works."

After lunch we went back out to the freeway for several miles, and just like before the road had buckled regularly every 10 feet. My crotch was REALLY starting to bother me. Then we passed some riders who were just so impossibly slow, and HAD to pass them, which meant riding on the rumble strip. We made sure they knew what was going on, and gave them ample warning to move over, and then sprinted by over the rumble strip, which is WAY more severe than it feels in a car. That was the end of my butt. I was sure I'd never be able to sit on my saddle again, maybe never sit on ANYTHING again.

Coming in to rest stop 4 at around 50 miles they directed us down a road that seemed like it had been in bad need of re-paving since 1930. I took the whole thing standing up and I STILL think I knocked my brain loose. Rest Stop 4 is always the best, and today they were all dressed up in a Greece theme. Of course, there were about a dozen pink ladies and only one guy. Not only were they serving food, but they had out samples of shampoo and beauty products labeled "Beauty School Dropouts", and every half hour, they got on a stage with a Reidell High backdrop and performed a choreographed dance. It was hiLArious! And I have a video for you that I'll put up... just as soon as I can figure out how to get it off my camera...

In the meantime I'll give you a picture that didn't come out of Alisa, Trish, and me with one of the Pink Ladies.

On the way back to camp Alisa was tired and over it, and I wanted to get back quickly, since I'd be meeting up with my friend Crystal in Paso Robles and I wanted to get a run in with Lorraine first. We rode pretty hard back to camp, and Alisa was complaining about how thirsty she was. She was tired and we should have slowed down, but it was really hot, and we both just wanted to get back. Alisa stopped in Paso Robles to meet the other Old Ladies for coffee, and I went on to camp, thinking that Lorraine wouldn't stop (she did). I waited for about 15 minutes eating a 3-foot long piece of licorice waiting for her, but she never showed up, so I went to get my stuff. It was frigging BOILING out there, and people were walking around camp reminding us not to fall asleep in our tents, which would be too hot. Rumor was, a bunch of people were hospitalized that day for dehydration.

When I got to the gear truck I freaked out. My stuff wasn't there! Every morning you bring your bags and your tent to the truck with the same letter as your tent assignment, so we were in the P truck, then when the trucks got to the next camp ground, the roadies for the P truck would lay everyone's bags out in two long piles, one for black and blue, and one for all colors. When you got to camp you would drop your bike off in bike parking and then pick up your bags and your tent, which you would then pitch yourself. At each camp ground they would lay little tees with tent assignments like "addresses" in long lines by letter, so we were always between P-22 and P-24, but our across the aisle neighbors and back neighbors changed depending on the shape of the campsite for the day. The first night Shane and I tried putting out sleeping bags on the outside of the tent with our stuff piled up in the middle between us. This proved to be a mistake because during the night I wound up touching the person in the tent next to ours (or she was touching me), and Shane got soaked from the condensation on the tent. It was also loud and you could hear conversations and porta potties slamming all night.

I'm quite positive I did not mean to make such a stupid face!

So anyway, my bags were gone. What the fuck?! Had they left them in King City? Was I going to have to search all the other piles at all the other trucks to see if I found them there?! I asked the guy at the truck about it. "Colors are on this side, black and blue are on that side," he said in a disinterested voice. I'd figured that out, thank you.
"I have one of each," I said. "And I don't see either one here!"
"What's your tent number?" he asked.
"P-23."
"Oh yeah, some guy just came and picked them up. Yeah, I remember him, I'm sure of it."
Shane? I'd thought he was behind me. Camp had only just opened, and I know he hadn't come in after me because I'd watched everyone come in looking for Lorraine. I found our designated spot in the P section, and there the tent was, all set up, with both our bags inside. It was windy and Shane needed my stuff to keep the tent from blowing away, but still, it was nice of him.

I had been waiting for Lorraine for an hour and was all ready to go out running by myself when she finally waltzed into camp, so I waited another 15 minutes for her to get her stuff and change. "Where do you want to go?" she asked.
"I don't know, let's just run around the perimeter of camp and see what there is." So we did. We ran out the door and people yelled at us that we were crazy. Then we ran around the corner and people looked at us like we were crazy. Then we ran up a block, over a block, and found ourselves at a dead end.
"I'm hot," Lorraine said.
"This sucks," I said.
"Let's just go back to camp," Lorraine said.
"Good idea." So we ran about another block to the back entrance to the fairground and went to take a shower. We only ran for about 10 minutes. Then I showered and called my friend Crystal to come over with her baby.

It's weird seeing friends who have babies. Not that I think that my friends would be bad parents, it's just weird to see someone that you've seen drunk off their ass changing diapers and pushing a stroller. And it's no secret that I'm not a big fan of kids (for a laugh-out-loud funny post about kids, read Mindy's latest). My friends' kids are fine, I guess, I was having fun with the baby, but other people's children gross me out. I just want to squash them. I think what really turned the Old Ladies against me that first day was because Shane said something about kids. I said, "Eeew!" Shane knows how I feel about kids. He knows I don't ACTUALLY hate them... so to speak.
"You know you're sitting with a bunch of moms," Alisa said. I was vaguely aware that she wasn't getting the joke, but felt obligated to continue with my act.
"Eew," I said.
"Trish is a mother of three."
"Gross." I was getting uncomfortable with this game.
"Lorraine's got 2 kids."
"I know, disgusting, right?"
"I've got a son."
"And aren't you ashamed of yourself?" That's when it became clear that she didn't get the joke and I dropped it as quickly as I could.
When I got back to camp after playing with the baby for a couple of hours, the Old Ladies asked how it had gone. "The baby was so cute!" I said, then I gushed about all the cute things she'd done.
"I can't believe you just said a baby was cute," Lorraine said.
"What? You didn't think I was actually serious about all that, did you?!" I asked. "Sheesh, I'm not a monster." Well, okay, I was a little bit serious, but it seemed important to make a big deal about the baby considering my image right now.

And speaking of monsters, this was the first night that we tracked down our friend Meg. While Shane and I know Lorraine from working at the gym, Meg was more of a friend to drink and eat junk food with. She'd done the ride 3 years ago on minimal training, and even less training this time around. Meg was more into the not shaving, love your body the way it is, tree hugging, granola side of Santa Cruz. Meg is not stupid, but it's easy to make fun of her as if she were. There's something about her that makes you wonder if she should have a chaperon. We were sitting in her tent chatting when she said, "Hey, does this ever happen to you guys...?" When Meg starts a question this way, you know that she is about to say something really weird in a totally innocent voice like she thinks that this stuff happens to EVERYBODY. "I've got this rash on my leg... Wanna see it?" She rolled up her pants as she asked.
"NO! I do NOT want to see it!" I said. Like I said, it's easy to make fun of Meg. I took a quick glance at her leg and saw that she'd quit shaving and got grossed out before I ever saw any rash. Shane looked closer and looked even more horrified.
"And, well, I've let my armpit hair grow out and..." I already had a face of utter disgust on. Meg and I had had the body hair argument many times, I'd even managed to convince her to shave for a summer. She turned to Shane, "... Do you ever get... like a fungus... in your armpits?"
"NO!" Shane said, totally grossed out. Shane's into cleanliness too.
"Really?" This is the point where most people realize that their thing is weird, and get the hint to shut up. Not Meg, "It's like... orange, down at the tips of the hair, and kind of looks like... salmon eggs." Meg has a way of saying this stuff like it's all as normal as getting spinach stuck in your teeth.
"Gross! Can we stop talking about this now?!" Shane asked. He was still looking at her legs in horror. I also continued to look at her leg hair in horror for the rest of the conversation.

As we were walking back to our tent later Shane asked, "Did you see the rash on her legs?"
"No, I was too grossed out by her leg hair," I said.
"Dude, I've seen scabies, and that shit looked like scabies!" Of course it wasn't scabies, but the joke for the rest of the week was that Meg had scabies. Or it was the joke anyway, until in LA I got a rash too and insisted that it was prickly heat, and a bug flew out of Meg's girlfriend's hair and SHE became the gross one of the group.

Everyone seemed to be fading but me. Trish was feeling low and needed some Trish alone time. Alisa wasn't joking as much as she had been at the beginning of the ride. Shane was really disappointed about his knees and sick of being checked out by all the gay guys constantly. "Ugh!" he said. "Everyone thinks I'm gay, and no one knows you're a lesbian," he bitched as we walked by the porta potty line.
"Not anymore," I said. And again, all the people who were listening to our conversation started laughing.
Everyone seemed to be fading but Lorraine and I. The next day I decided to just wake up early and be one of the first people out. I really needed some alone time anyway, and having a whole afternoon to just chill sounded nice. So the next day I planned to get out early and ride the nearly 100 miles as fast as I could.

Total distance: 66.7 miles (I had Garmin off for about 20 miles)
Time in the saddle: 4:05:31
Average Speed: 16.8
Profile: Guess where the 20 missing miles are...
Map:

Love that dirty water

I was going to save this post till the photos from the race came out, but the web site is taking their sweet time with it, so I'm posting it now. But first, I'd like to apologize for disappearing off the face of the earth the last couple of weeks. I miss hearing about everyone, and I miss posting, but it's just been impossible lately. We're pushing like nuts at work to meet deadlines while we're one editor short, and all the other editors are going on vacation. I've been waking up at 4:00 every day to get in my workouts early, so I can go into work early, work through lunch, stay late, get home, try to get in another workout, and try (usually unsuccessfully) to fall asleep. I'll have my life back in a couple of weeks, and will get the rest of my LifeCycle posts out by then, but in the meantime please bear with me. Hope everyone's having a great training and racing summer.


I know I've used this youtube clip before, but this time I really, really had to use it.

Today (being last Sunday), against my better judgement, I did the Charles River 1-mile Swim. If you are not familiar with the Charles River, it is the "dirty water" that the Standells are talking about in the song. Twenty years ago, if someone fell in the Charles, the standard treatment was to give them a tetanius shot. Apparently they have cleaned it up a lot since then, but anyone who's lived in Boston for any period of time will make a face when you talk about the water in the Charles. The Charles River is synonymous with "yuck."

When Rachel from Masters sent out an email to people inviting them to participate in the second annual Charles River 1-mile swim it was at a time when I was worried about getting in open water practice. I figured that if they were putting the event on, the water MUST be safe. Maybe it was way upstream or something? But as I started telling people that I planned to do the race, they all started making the "yuck" face, even Rachel. "Yeah, last year I swam too close to the shore, where the duck poop is, and when I got home I actually had paint under my swim suit." I don't know how that works, but I believe her.
"When she got back, she really smelled," said Josh, her husband.

On Friday my parents came home from work telling me that "that race you're doing was all over the news. They're saying that the Charles is in EXCELLENT condition. Now it's swimable 62% of the time!" Quite an improvement from 20 years ago and the tetanus shots. I was surprised, the lake where we swim every Friday is only "swimable" 60% of the time, less than the Charles. Thursday, which was a hot day, I ran next to that lake and smelled poo the whole time. I kept looking around for dog shit, but no, it was the lake. I swam in it the next day. Rachel insists that the lake is clean in the middle, it's just gross around the edges and where it's stagnant.

But back to the Charles. The race web site was touch-and-go about whether they would be able to hold the race. If there was too much rain, the storm drains would overflow and it would be unsafe to swim in. I didn't know if that was comforting (because they really are watching out for our safety), or not (because, well, that means it still is borderline gross in there). But I'd paid for it, so I leaned towards the former.

Still, I was less than thrilled about this race right up until race morning. Right up until I was standing there on the dock with my wetsuit on staring down into the water. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I got there half an hour early, checked in, and found some people from my masters team. I was expecting to see at least a handful of people, but the only people from our local YMCA were Rachel and Alec. "That looks like way more than I mile," I said, looking at the buoys.
"Oh, it definitely is," said Rachel. "Last year it took me 35 minutes. I can swim a mile in 17."
"Those clouds off there to the right don't look too good," said Alec.

At the pre-race meeting she thanked a bunch of people, including the Charles River Water commission, who was responsible cleaning up the water enough so that it was "safe for swimming" (quotation marks are mine). She told us that the water temperature was in the mid-60's, the same as the air temperature. In the case of lightning we should swim to the shore or grab a kayak. "And umm... maybe it would be better if you swam to shore, so that that way you'll be OUT of the water," she suggested. Well, if we were going to swim to shore, wouldn't that be pretty much the same as finishing the race?

We lined up on the dock by number (which was assigned by age) so that they could count us, then they told us to jump in one by one. I stood with my toes poking over the edge staring at the water. "It's broooooown!" I said to no one in particular. As people were jumping in, their bubbles looked brown through the first few inches of water. I absolutely, positively did NOT want to touch the bottom of the Charles River. I turned to the girl next to me, "Can you do me a favor? Can you tell me when you jump in if you touch the bottom?"
Just as she was turning around to tell me that she had not touched I heard a voice behind me. "Do you want me to push you in?" asked Rachel.
"Absolutely not!" I yelled. She pushed me in anyway.

"It's warm! It's warm!" Everyone was chirping. It didn't feel THAT warm to me, so I made my own contribution to the pollution in the Charles to warm up my wetsuit.

When the horn went off there was the usual violence and mayhem. Rachel told a story of one open water swim she'd done where two girls got out of the water, STILL fighting and scratching at each other and bleeding. It wasn't that bad, but it took me forever to find a groove that didn't have slow feet or perpendicular hips in it. Someone was knocking my left arm back into the water every time I tried to stroke, and there were some toes kicking dangerously close to my head. I found a hole quickly, and tried to hop on some toes, but she was too slow. The next toes I tried to grab belonged to a girl that didn't know how to sight. She would stop swimming every few strokes and do the breast stroke until she spotted the bouy. I went around her too, and as I did I got a swift whip kick to the left ear that smarted for a good long time.

By the time I got to the first buoy I had one or two people to either side, but no one in front of me for a good 20 yards. That always seems to happen to me, I'm not fast enough to keep up with the guns, but I always wind up leading the second pack. Oh well. At least I wouldn't get kicked in the head again or have more water kicked into my mouth. My main objective was to avoid having water kicked into my mouth at all costs.

It took me a long time before I could see the second buoy, so I just followed the swimmers way, way in front of me. Number 46 was still next to me, but she was about 30 feet wide. When I finally could see the buoy again I kept looking at how far away she was, and then back at the buoy. It looked like I was on course, but she was so far away. I was on course, and I rounded the next buoy before she did, but that didn't last long. The third buoy wasn't one of those big orange triangles like the other ones, it was small and round and yellow. I could see lots of small, round, yellow things in the water, but they were all heads in swim caps. I just followed them. I never did see that yellow buoy.

When we rounded the last buoy to swim back to the dock, 46 was still right next to me. She did eventually pull ahead, but my stomach was hurting, and I wasn't racing, so I let her go. A few drops of water seeped into one side of my goggles and my eyes started to burn a bit, but that might have just been my imagination. The water didn't TASTE like anything. Then I realized it was pouring out. I could feel the rain falling on my arms in the recovery phase of my stroke. I thought about what the RD had said about lightning, and looked at the distance between me and the dock. If lightning struck, it's not like I could go any faster than I was going right now. It was going to take me at least 5 minutes to get out of the water, lightning or not.

Luckily I did not die and passed the finish buoy in 28:47. I have no idea how far I swam, but the course couldn't have been TOO much longer than a mile, since I usually swim a mile in about 27 minutes in the pool sans wetsuit.

On the deck swimmers were congratulating each other and getting a load of the faces of the people they'd been swimming next to for half an hour. "I was next to HER for the whole time," I said, pointing to number 46. Maybe number 46 wasn't a chick after all. I only glanced for a second, and in a full wetsuit and cap it's hard to tell. "Oh, I'm sorry, you're a dude," I said. As soon as it came out of my mouth, I knew I was wrong. She didn't even look like a dude.
"Actually, I'm not," said number 46. How do you recover from that. I was smiling a lot and trying to figure out a way to take it back when a photographer came up to us and asked for a picture. This would be a perfect place to post that photo, but as I mentioned, photos aren't up yet.

It was pouring so hard that hopefully all the Charles muck was washed off me right away. I picked up my stuff and tried to work out a way to not get soaked in the half mile walk to the T station. It seemed impossible. "Well at least I won't have that I-just-peed-my-pants look on the train," I said. I would be soaked in a matter of minutes no matter what. It was raining so hard that I'm sure all along the Charles storm drains were flooding and flowing into the river. I wondered how much of it I swam through.

They were doing some work on the subway lines, so I had to take a shuttle one stop. I was so excited to see a bus right when I walked up that I didn't even look at the direction. Of course it was the WRONG direction, so I had to go a stop, walk more in the rain to another shuttle, and ride back 2 stops, wait for the train to show up, and freeze my ass off on the train, which was still air conditioned. I wish I'd just never taken my wet suit off, I thought. I'd probably be dryer.

On the ride home my eyes were still burning a bit, I was sneezing, and I was afraid to put things near my mouth. I was even feeling a bit nauseous. I'm sure that it has nothing to do with the water. I'm sure that the water really was just as clean as any other nasty body of fresh water. But still, I get bragging rights that few other people get. Who else is crazy enough, or stupid enough, or bold enough to swim in the CHARLES RIVER?!

When the results were posted after several days, I got a REAL surprise. I won the under 40 wetsuit division! Now here's the suspicious part: there were only 3 girls in my division, and I KNOW there were more people than that wearing wetsuits, but my time was only good enough for 15th out of 25 in the non-wetsuit division, so I'm not complaining. But the REAL funny part was that in the results I'm listed as having won the gold (what gold? I didn't get any hardware!), some girl named Joanna who came in 8 minutes behind me got silver, and the girl who is listed as WINNING bronze, DNFed. Really! Oh. Yeah. When half the people don't show up, and the other half quit, I SMOKE the competition.

Wetsuit Category
Category	Overall	Time	#	First Name	Last name	Age
1	42	0:28′49.99	17	Claire	Badass Mofo	25	Gold
2	77	0:36′35.87	6	Joanna	Carey	25	Silver
n/a	n/a	DNF	27	Carey	Schwaber	28	Bronze

... And I'm faster than YOU, and YOU, and YOU... (Chapter 3)

Related posts:
Dykes and Bikes
A ride down Memory Lane
Alisa: "Do you know him?" Me: "No, I just liked his jersey."

"Claire! Your alarm didn't go off!" It wasn't quite light yet, but there was enough light to see that Shane was alarmed. We'd arranged to meet up with Kat for coffee at 5:30. Shane and Kat broke up 2 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's been any less drama between then and now. They hadn't hung out in months and he didn't want to miss the excuse to see her without having to break down and call her himself.

"FUCK!" I said, looking at my alarm. It was 5:15 and supposedly Kat would be here waiting for us in 15 minutes. That is, assuming Kat was up. Luckily she was up but still at home, which gave us a little while to pack our shit up and take the tent down. I don't usually drink coffee except for before races, but I figured that since I was on vacation, and technically this thing was like a giant race, I could have all the coffee I wanted. I didn't want to miss a chance for some real, good coffee.

When we got back we met up with Lorraine for breakfast, and when people saw our Pete's Coffee cups everyone wanted to be our friend and find out where a decent coffee place was. On the ride they were serving Maxwell House instant coffee. It might as well have been water. Food was prepared in a kitchen truck and served every morning and night out of giant aluminum pans under a canopy. At night the vegetarians had a separate line, but in the morning I had to get in line with everyone else and just say no to sausage and bacon. The plan was to ride with Lorraine and her crew, but somehow we got separated from them again. With 2,500 cyclists, that happens.

We pulled out onto the street and couldn't even clip in for a few blocks. Slowing. Stopping. Slowing. Stopping. Rolling. Stopping. There are 3 highways that lead out of Santa Cruz, and they all meet in one intersection. Our camp ground was only about 3 blocks from that intersection, and getting 2,500 cyclists through it at rush hour is something that someone should have thought of before now. Way back in the crowd we could see the light changing and changing, but no one was moving. People were getting impatient. As we got closer, someone saw that there was a roadie up there directing traffic and the word filtered back and we stopped grumbling. Well, everyone stopped complaining except for to one ass hole. "AW COME ON! MOVE PEOPLE! IT'S FRIGGIN' GREEN FOR CRISSAKES!"
"There's someone directing traffic," Shane said. The guy didn't hear him, and went on complaining. "There. Is. Someone. Directing. Traffic." Shane repeated. The guy made a few more snide comments, but eventually the guy next to him said, "No, dude, really, there's someone up there directing traffic," and he shut up.

I wish we'd taken a look at the rout before we left in the morning so that we could cut out most of the Slowing. Stopping. Rolling. Stopping. It took us even longer to get out of Santa Cruz than it took us to get out of San Francisco, and they chose some of the most trafficked, worst paved roads in Santa Cruz with some of the narrowest lanes to do it. The asshole was still behind us, and when someone rode by way out on the left he yelled, "I wonder if that yahoo knows that we've ALL thought of doing that!" Like that guy was getting away with something? Like Mr. Personality was supposed to get an award for outstanding behavior for waiting around with everyone else? In the safety video the Kindergarten Teacher had explained to us, "Remember, 1-1-1." (she shows her index finger 3 times for effect). " It only takes one rider, in one town, having a problem with one local, and it could be the end of the ride. So please, if you see someone who is not riding courteously or safely, please remind them: 1-1-1." We continued along at a snail's pace, and eventually the asshole DID try to break away, only to scare the shit out of someone in a pickup truck who flipped him off at the next light. The asshole flipped him off back.
"Hey man, you really shouldn't do that!" someone said.
"It's just reflex," the guy scoffed.
"Dude, I was about to 1-1-1 his ass!" Shane said later.

Now in our third town of Slowing. Stopping. Rolling. Stopping! we got to the Ugly Mug, a coffee shop that had sponsored an ALC team, including our friend Meg (who you will meet later). The Mug was offering free drinks to cyclists, and while most people stopped for a free drink, Shane and I pushed on ahead to get out of the madness and away from 1-1-1 guy.

Giant cut-outs of people somewhere near Salinas. These "people" must have been 20 feet high. I have no idea what they were there for.

Soon we were back on Highway 1, which goes clear around the Monterey Bay in a section called The Safety Corridor. They call it the Safety Corridor because it's not very safe. There's only about 1 lane of traffic going in each direction, and it's pretty much the only way to get from one place to another in those parts. The shoulder is narrow and people drive like jerks and there were semis everywhere, and I just wanted to get out of there. I didn't even know you COULD ride your bike on this street. The inland side of the highway is all strawberry farms, and brussels sprouts farms, and spinach farms worked by illegal immigrant workers. I couldn't believe the number of people who stopped their bikes to take a picture of the poor people at work. I waited for Shane at a farm stand where a lot of riders stopped to buy fried artichokes, and he was far behind. His knees were really feeling bad, so I rode on ahead.

After the not-so-safe Safety Corridor

Right before the next rest stop we had to ride for a few miles on a bike trail with gratuitous stop signs. I rode up behind a girl in a jersey that said something about riding across Alaska. "Alaska! Cool!" I said as I passed her.
"You're supposed to put your foot down at the stop signs," she sneered back. I'd come to a complete stop, but clipping out is such a pain in the ass.
"Thanks, next time I will!" I said, trying to hit the tone of voice right so that she would think I was serious, without while I would still know I was being sarcastic. Damned good thing, too. Apparently the "Safety Vehicle" was right across the street at the next stop sign writing down rider numbers for people who didn't put their foot down. I did just to make a point to stupid Alaska girl, but Lorraine's friend Trish wasn't so lucky and found a ticket on her bike the next morning. I assume the tickets work like warnings, 2 or 3 strikes and you're out.

I got into the rest stop just as Lorraine and her crew were leaving. "Nooooo! That's not faaiiir!" I whined, so Lorraine stayed back while I refilled my water bottles. I was surprised when we pulled back out again that I kept pulling away from her. I'd only ridden with her once 3 years ago, but I'd had to pull over for a breather on an uphill, and she'd dropped my sorry ass on a steep, technical downhill. I'd assumed she'd always be faster than me. I've talked about Lorraine here before. She's the ultrarunner who is older than my parents, a faster runner than I am, and (I always assumed) a better cyclist. Pretty soon we caught up with her crew and rode with them all the way to lunch.
"You guys are going slooooooow!" I whined. "Is that because you're old?" This is something that Lorraine and I can joke about. I just assumed that that kind of joking would be okay with the rest.

From left to right: Trish (mother of 3), Power Lesbian Shannon, One-Liner Nerine, Lesbian Alisa, Lorraine, Me, Shane

We all pulled in to lunch together, and Shane and Narine (another member of Lorraine's party) pulled in a few minutes later. Let me take this opportunity to introduce you to the cast of characters:
Me: Well, you already know me.
Shane: Who you know pretty well by now. He was one of my best friends from late college and thereafter. Our lives just seem to follow similar paths, and somehow we still manage to see each other at least once a year, no matter where we are living at the time.
Lorraine: Who alternates between role model, mom, and friend. She lives her life in reverse. She was serious when she was young, so now that she has all life's mistakes behind her, she's being young and having fun. She spends all her time running on trails, mountain biking, road riding, and racing in really beautiful places. I often channel my inner Lorraine to make important life decisions.
Alisa: Who you've met: the outspoken lesbian.
Narine: The master of one-liners. She was the slowest rider in the "Old Ladies'" group, but she was ubiquitous. I saw her everywhere. "Stop following me!" she said each time. I never got to know too much about her personal life. I DO know that she does Crossfit.
Trish: Trish was a mother of three and sweet as anything. She's one of those people that just seems so nice that I'm afraid to hang out with them because I'm just going to look like a jerk.
Shannon: I don't know how Shannon knew Lorraine's crew, but she knew Shane because Shane knows ALL the "power lesbians" in Santa Cruz. "Power lesbians" is a term that Meg (who you WILL meet soon) coined to talk about the L-Word clique of hot lesbians in Santa Cruz who all lead dramatically cool lives and have all slept with each other at one point or another. I recognized Shannon when we were introduced. She didn't recognize me. "Did you ever you never go to the Dakota?" she asked. Dakota is the dyke bar in Santa Cruz.
"I was there almost every weekend," I said. "It's okay, a lot of people didn't notice me there. I have hair."

At lunch I was pretty excited about being the fastest one in the group. I was genuinely surprised that I was faster than Lorraine and Shane, and enjoying feeling like I was competent at something. I did a lot of outright bragging, thinking that everyone knew I was kidding. I have a problem with that a lot, especially in California. I assume everyone knows I'm kidding, and everyone else thinks I'm serious and sits there stewing thinking, "What the hell is WRONG with this girl?!" I later found out that that's exactly what Alisa was thinking about me at that very moment.
"If she were really all that, she wouldn't need to brag about it," Lorraine muttered to Shane.
Meanwhile, I was off somewhere saying, "And I'm faster than YOU, and I'm faster than YOU, and YOU, and YOU..." When I heard Lorraine's comment I knew I'd laid it on too thick, but that wasn't for another day or so. I quit bragging right then and there, but I had to point it out after another day because no one had noticed. I guess they'd already decided I was a jerk.
We were already almost half way to LA when Lorraine said to Alisa, "Have you noticed that Claire stopped bragging. She wanted everyone to know that." After that people were nicer to me.

But for the moment I still thought I was the shit. We were riding through dry, dusty fields and there was a tremendous tailwind. As we were pulling back out onto the road I asked the Old Ladies, "Do you want to play my game? It goes like this..." and I reached out and poked Alisa in the ass. "Now you gotta catch me!" I called over my shoulder and sprinted off. I'd been playing that game with Lorraine and Shane every time I passed them in the last couple of days.
"There she goes," said Alisa. No one sprinted after me. High on life I let the tailwind carry me through the fields at speeds in the mid-20's. Between rest stops volunteers were holding out Red Vines and I grabbed them. It was a piece of cake! I was going to do those bottle grabs like a pro at Vineman this summer.

Do I have shit in my teeth? Noooooooo, because I just FLOSSED!

The next rest stop was at a vineyard. I was slightly disappointed that I didn't have to wait ages and ages for everyone to show up. As we parked our bikes Lorraine said something and smiled. "You have shit in your teeth," I said. I would want someone to tell me if I had something in my teeth too.
"So do you," she said.
"Really?" I said, curling my lips around my teeth. "Where?"
"Eeeeeeeverywhere," said Shane, waving his hand around his entire face to show that I had Red Vines stuck in my teeth up to my eyeballs.
"Well what do I do?!" I asked. "I can't swish with Power Ade, it's red!"
"I have dental floss," offered Power Lesbian Shannon.
"What? Like ON your bike?!"
"Yeah," she said, like it was perfectly normal and reached into her seat pouch and pulled out some mint floss. Talk about random...

Shannon convinced us that we HAD to stop at the next rest stop at a mission a few miles away. The mission offered free post cards and there was a banner for people to sign, but Shannon was most excited about the Otter Pops. "Two years ago when I did this I tried to ride with my Otter Pop in my mouth. Not a good idea. I fell off my bike going like 20 mph and got all cut up. So finish you Otter Pop before you get back on the bike!"

When we got to the Mission we laid our bikes down in the dusty lot and Shannon went to get an Otter Pop, while Lorraine danced with some bears in skirts. I followed Alisa, Trish and Narine into the Mission where we signed the banner and wrote some postcards in the cool shade.

Lorraine dancing like a crazy lady with some bears. Look how hard the wind is blowing!

Back out on the road I started to pull ahead again and was surprised to see that Shannon was keeping up. Shane I could understand because he's doping, but Shannon? She was right, you're stronger if you finish your Otter Pop before you get back on the bike. I slowed down a bit to talk to her and she told me that the next stop would be skinny dipping. I was ambivalent. "I don't know, I've been single for a long time, and there are just certain things you let go when you've been single for that long..." I said.

Then we turned a corner, and the wind that had been at our back was now blowing us off the road. It was crazy! It must have been over 20mph, and it kept grabbing our bikes and throwing us at the field next the road. I'd never ridden in a crosswind so strong. I almost lost Shannon for a little while, but then she caught up at the swimming hole. When we got to the skinny dipping river, it was down a steep gorge with a bridge over it. A roadie stopped us and made us wait before crossing the bridge. In a minute a school bus crossed, and then another one. The kids on one side of the bus were smiling and waving at us, but the kids on the other side were still trying to see over the edge of the gorge and giggling. They'd seen something in the gorge that was WAY more entertaining than a bunch of bike riders. I would hate to be the principal of that school the next day when all the angry phone calls start coming in!

Lorraine was waiting on the other side of the bridge (I forget how she'd gotten in front of us), and we decided that the water was definitely not deep enough to be worth it. There was some doubt about whether it would even cover our tits if we were to sit down in the deepest part, and climbing down that steep grade in bike shoes didn't sound like much fun. So we rode off together through the final 10 miles that were like a roller coster, a whole series of quick downhills that pushed you all the way up the next uphill. "I see you slowed down," Lorraine said to me, in the sarcastic tone I expected for all my bragging.
"Well, I got lonely," I said. "And Shannon was kind enough to keep up with me."
"You've slowed down now, but I almost puked trying to keep up with you before," she said.
"You did not!" I said. I was pleased. Someone had almost puked trying to keep up with me! Someone had clearly thought that I was worth almost puking to keep up with!

Worth noting was Rest Stop 4. The guys who had been dressed as badminton players the day before were now dressed as beauty queens. They were all in wigs and prom dresses. One had stuffed her belly and her sash said MISSed MY PERIOD. Another was dressed in an orange jumpsuit and a mullet wig and was holding handcuffs. Her sash said MISS 20-40.

We got back to camp so late that day that by the time we'd pitched the tent, showered, and eaten, it was almost bed time. I sat up for awhile talking to Lorraine, while Alisa went off to find the 12-step meeting that someone had arranged in camp each night. How cool is that?! Alisa and Trish knew each other from AA. Alisa never wound up making it to her meeting, but that's a story for tomorrow...

Total Distance: 105.4 miles
Total Time: roughly 5:51 in the saddle (I don't know for sure since my Garmin ran out of batteries)
Average Speed: roughly 18 mph

Map:In real life we rode all the way to King City. My Garmin didn't make it that far.

Elevation Profile:
Splits:
Related posts:
Dykes and Bikes
A ride down Memory Lane

A trip down Memory Lane (ALC Chapter 2)

Day 1: San Francisco to Santa Cruz

We woke up at 4:00 in order to be in the Cow Palace by 5:30. I had slept badly and insisted we stop for coffee on the way. It was early, but Shane insisted that Starbucks would be open. We were in one of the cultural centers of the United States, after all, and where there's culture, there's coffee. Of course Starbucks would be open. When we got to Starbucks there was a man sitting at a table out front, there were baristas inside, and I waltzed up to the door which was... LOCKED! "They're not open yet," the man grumbled. "I'ont know why not. Says right there on the sign they open at 5:00."
I looked at the sign. "It says they open at 5:30." I said, trying not to be rude.
"They're supposed to open at 5:00!" he insisted.
"It says right there, that they open at 5:30," I said. Maybe he hadn't seen the sign. People in San Francisco are crazy, especially the type that sit outside a Starbucks at 5:15 in the morning on a Sunday. Maybe he hadn't checked.
"No it doesn't. It says right there, Monday-Friday 5:00 a.m-10:00 p.m."
"Yeah," I said. "But it's Sunday." He looked stupefied. "Congratulations, you have the day off!" I said as I ducked into the car and out of his reach. He didn't seem to be rejoicing that he still had one weekend day left.
"Well, they'll have coffee for sure when we get there," I said. "They wouldn't have people show up somewhere at 5:30 and not give them coffee." Would they?

We picked up Shane's friend Lidia (who was there to take Shane's car home in exchange for getting to keep it for herself all week), and since my bike box was taking up the whole back seat, I sat in a complete stranger's lap the whole way to the Cow Palace. I hoped I didn't smell bad. I was wearing an old jersey, I knew that smelled bad.

When we got into the Cow Palace Shane and I dropped off our stuff at the gear trucks and went inside. They were serving breakfast, but NO COFFEE! I couldn't believe it! I asked one of the volunteers how in the world an event like this could have us show up at 5:30 in the morning, serve breakfast, and not serve coffee?! "I guess they just don't want people having to... GO... in a big hurry," he offered as an explanation. I grumbled as I walked away with my banana bread, but every time we saw someone with a Starbucks cup I would conspire with Shane to mug them (no pun intended).

They kicked everyone out of the bike racks at 6:00 for the opening ceremonies and herded us into the stadium (which still smelled like cow dung). Someone made a speech about those who had been lost to AIDS. I wanted to soak it up, but most of the speech seemed so trite, and he must have used the term "exhausted and elated" two dozen times, so I tuned it out and started watching the people around me, making up stories for some of them. There was an older couple right in front of me who hugged and cried during the moment of silence. I imagined that they had lost a son to AIDS. All around us there were people in "Positive Pedalers" jerseys with phrases on them like "eliminating stigma through positive public example", and "we all have AIDS if one does". These men (because they were almost all men) didn't look sick. I liked to imagine that I was in a way responsible for this because maybe they got their treatment through the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. As they started playing a song that I didn't recognize about loss and people proceeded through the center of the arena with banners with messages from riders to friends who had died of AIDS, it really, really dawned on me how lucky I am. I think that AIDS treatment and prevention is a great cause, but I've never been close to someone HIV+, or someone who died of AIDS. The number one reason why I did this ride was for the challenge. I'd seen the banners and markers lain out on a table at orientation yesterday. "Do you know anyone to write something to?" he asked. I shook my head. "Me neither," he said. So we walked on. Now I looked at all the people around me, many of them were men who were about a generation older than me. Most of them were gay. They were survivors from a time when they probably HAD lost not a few friends, but many of them. Some of the older ones might have known people who died totally alone, when people still didn't understand how it spread and treatment was virtually nonexistant. A lot of them had probably sat through the time when people were screaming that this was God's retribution on homosexuals, back before enough straight people were infected to be noticed, back before it was cool to be gay. I got misty-eyed and tried not to let Shane see that I was crying when he handed me the sunscreen.

When the ceremonies ended I sniffed back my snot and tears so I wouldn't get caught and Shane and I made a bee-line in our clipity-clopity shoes to bike parking. We were lucky. We were among the first let into the racks, and our rack was close to the exit. We only had a couple of hundred people in front of us, and so were able to ride out in about 15 minutes, but the people in the back must have taken hours to get out the door.

Just out the door, waiting for the hundreds of people in front of us to get through the traffic light at the exit.

This is not actually the rout we took, but it'll have to do. My GPS won't show me a map of the rout for some reason.

Slowing... Stopping...Rolling... Slooooooooowing... Stopping... Rol-Slowing!

We didn't hear much other than that for the first hour or so. I've never ridden with a group of cyclists so obsessed with yelling out a narration of their every movement. There were tons of traffic lights and tons of slow people, and we had to at least look like we were trying to stay single file. It took us about an hour to go the first 6 miles.

And there were people of all different abilities (mostly, not very good) all mixed together. It made passing dangerous. Not 2 miles into the ride as Shane and I were passing a group a woman came up on a pothole and swerved to miss it, crashing right into Shane and taking him out. She stayed upright and rode off. Shane was able to clip out but his bike went down and it took him a couple of minutes to get rolling again. "Is everything okay?" I asked when we were able to pull back into the road.
"Yeah. I don't think I've ever clipped out so fast in my life!" he said. I felt validated. I keep my clips as loose as possible for just such an occasion.
After another mile we crested a hill, and there in front of us was a woman lying in the road, holding her arm and crying. She must have just fallen. The men around her were holding their arms crossed above their heads, signaling to aid vehicles that it was a medical emergency. "Let's get out of here!" I said to Shane, and we started hauling ass to get to the front of the pack.

We hit a hill and the crowd slowed to an impossible crawl. It was a wonder they didn't tip over. "On your left!" Shane and I called out every once in awhile as we passed a steady stream of people. We couldn't be expected to call out for every single one of them, could we?!
"Call it out, please!" someone would say every once in awhile, so we started calling out more.
"You're not supposed to pass on the freeway/on a hill/on the road/on a day that ends in Y!" some of the more disagreeable riders called after us. I wanted to tell them to learn to ride their frigging bikes before they told me how to ride mine, but they were ancient history anyway.

Shane remembers that drinking water is important.

Gargle, gargle, gargle.

After the first aid station where we hit the porta-potties, the food, and then the exit, we started climbing Skyline Drive. It was a long climb, lasting several hours, and Shane and I weren't fooling around. I can go slow on the flats, I can brake behind someone on a descent, but it is so hard to go someone else's pace on an uphill. Go too slow and you lose momentum and it gets harder than climbing more quickly. So we started passing people like crazy again. I was breathing hard, but I still managed to call out "On your left!" several times to every group. Shane kept dropping back. I would wait for him when it flattened out and he would show up again heaving and wheezing. "I smoked for so long, I forgot I have asthma!" he gasped. That excuse didn't make much sense to me, but whatever, I could hear he was having trouble breathing. I didn't mind slowing down a few times every hour to let him catch up.

Finally we crested the hill and started going down. Before we picked up much speed I passed a couple of guys riding two abrest and chatting. "On your left!" I called. I wasn't a yell, but it was loud enough. When we talked about it later, Shane said that he could hear me, and he was riding behind me.
When I passed them the guy on the outside yelled, "Call out, or I'm going to hit you and it's not going to be pretty!"
"I did! You should listen to what's going on around you rather than flirting with your little boyfriend," I yelled back. Okay, the boyfriend part was in my head, but I was seething. I wanted to give him a piece of my mind, but settled for making him look like a tool. I'm a good descender by American standards, and I sped away so fast that he would see that I was a serious cyclist and I meant business. I hope this made him feel like a tool.

The scenery was beautiful. At the bottom I took this:
... and this:
... and this:
The lunch stop was on Highway 1 (what is called the Pacific Coast Highway in southern California). Just because it is the coast, though, doesn't mean that it was flat. The climbs aren't long, but some of them can be pretty steep.

Sometimes Hwy 1 is flat.
But sometimes you see this to your left, and to your right is a 300' cliff down to the ocean. Sorry about the quality of the pictures. The majority of the road shots were taken at 20mph.

Lunch was right before one of these steep hills... at the bottom... meaning it would be the first thing we rode when we got back on our bikes.

See it there in the background? Maybe it doesn't look like much, but let me tell you, on cold legs after eating a huge sandwich, it's A LOT!

We got to lunch early enough that there were still picnic tables avialable, but by the time we left people were everywhere, all over the ground, picnic tables, and the beach. It sure was chilly when you stopped moving, so once we'd finished our meals, Shane and I hopped right back on the road. That hill SUCKED, and I tasted my sandwich more than once muscling up it, and the next one too. For the next half hour or so, my stomach just ached. I slowed down a bunch of times to let Shane catch up, but he never showed. I figured I'd wait for him at the next aid station, which was about 20 miles from camp. I was waiting for what seemed like forever on the road outside the aid station. I saw dozens of riders ride by, and whether they went into the aid station or kept on pedaling, the volunteer at the entrance clicked a little counter for each of them. I guess this is how they make sure no one goes missing.

Shane finally rolled up, and he was not a happy camper. "Where have you been?!" I asked.
"That hill... upset my stomach," he said. "I gotta go to the porta potty." He made a sour face. At least the porta potties were pretty fresh. We were near the front of the pack now. As we were getting ready to leave, Shane's friend Shannon pulled in. She was having stomach issues too. Stupid hill.

I thought Shane would be able to keep up once he'd 'unloaded', but when we started rolling again he dropped off right away, so I was riding alone. I went to UC Santa Cruz, so this rout had been part of my regular training rides. I knew the road very well, and was surprised at how much better I felt riding it now than I did 3 years ago. I passed the big pothole that had once torn a huge gash in my tire, and I'd had to call Lorraine to drive 30 miles to pick me up. I didn't even know Lorraine at the time, she just happened to be the one at work that day when I called desperate for help, and she just happened to have a bike rack on her car. I wished I'd known where the heck she was in this crowd to point it out to her. Later, coming into Santa Cruz, I passed the spot where I hit a nail during the Big Kahuna and got a flat... which subsequently lead to me switching bikes with a spectator... which made me feel horrible the whole race, because I was borrowing Lorraine's beautiful carbon fiber bike. Where WAS Lorraine anyway? And where was Shane?

I stopped again at the entrance to Rest Stop 4 (they always have the best rest stop) where there was a whole group of pretty boys with badminton rackets, red spanky shorts, and tank tops and headbands in a brilliant Tennis White. I waited, and waited, and waited. Finally Shane turned up. "I'm going to ride up to campus just to see our drinkin' spot," I told Shane. "Do you want to come?" The UCSC campus is at the top of a pretty serious 2-mile, 700-foot hill.
"My knees are hurting me. I might just go ahead to camp," he said.
"Okay," I said. "See you there."

A few miles down the road I turned off to go up to campus. Just as I was afraid would happen, some idiot followed me. "This isn't the right way!" I said. He was still there. "I'm not going right to camp, you should go back that way!" I called over my shoulder. He didn't go away. I slowed down and turned to yell it in his ear if need be. "YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG... SHANE! What are you doing here?"
"Well, camp doesn't open for another half an hour or so anyway, so I figured I'd come along," he said. When we started climbing I pulled ahead. We both knew what trying to climb at someone else's pace is like. I hit the first red light and turned around. Where was he? Next light: still not there. I figured he must have gotten tired and gone ahead to camp. I rode the rest of the way up and stopped to take some pictures.
Our senior year Shane and I spent way too much time up here in our cars drinking and talking. It looks out over all of Santa Cruz and the Monterey Bay, and at night the whole town is lit up and you can see the stars. We used to come up alone, too. One day I bought a 6-pack and brought some reading for a class up here planning to have some nice, quiet Claire time. When I pulled in there was only one other car there. It was Shane's car, which is pretty hard to miss– it's lime green. When I went to knock on his window he had a 6-pack on his passenger's seat and he was reading a European history reader. I wished he were up here with me. It would be so cool to be back here, both of us together, on our bikes rather than in our cars (he took up riding after I left), now that we'd both quit drinking and smoking and didn't have nearly as much angst to talk through. I finished taking my pictures and was getting ready to mount my bike again when who comes rolling up the hill with some UCSC student on a mountain bike, but Shane! "Dude! My seat's fucked up!" he said as soon as I was within earshot. "I didn't tighten the bolts enough and it's been sliding all day long! No wonder my knees are so fucked up!" Sheesh, he should have known better! When we put my bike back together, we didn't tighten the handlebar bolts enough, and I wound up riding with the handlebars practically upside-down the last few miles back to his house.

So I got my picture of us back together in our drinkin' spot. I love how you can see the reflection of my arms holding the camera out in his sunglasses.
It turns out that Shane's knees were royally fucked up, though. They would be bothering him for the rest of the week. We showered and hung around camp for a little while waiting for other people to come in. Shane got his knees checked out and I wrote for a little while. We eventually tracked Lorraine down, but everyone we knew on the ride, including her, still lived in Santa Cruz and went home to sleep. Shane and I walked into town where all the crazies and hippies hang out and talked about old times. I also tracked down my old friend, Chris, who was the only person I managed to see in Santa Cruz that was NOT affiliated with the ride.

I was glad there wasn't much night life in the camp. As soon as everyone had eaten dinner and the sun went down, pretty much everyone just went to sleep. Shane and I put in ear plugs and turned our headlamps off around 9 o'clock. Right before we went to bed I held up a piece of paper. "I HOPE THEY HAVE JUICE AT BREAKFAST TOMORROW!" it said.

Total distance: About 84 miles (as I mentioned, my GPS wasn't working quite right)
Roughly 4:40 in the saddle
Average speed (for recorded time) 18 mph (including all that b-s in San Francisco)

Related Posts:
Prologue: Dykes and Bikes

Prologue: Dykes and Bikes

More than 2 weeks have passed since I started the AIDS/LifeCycle, and my memory isn't as fresh as I hoped it would be when I promised to write this whole experience down. Depending on how you look at it (or how much my long posts exasperate you), that could be a good thing or a bad thing. I'll do my best, but this account will probably not be sequential, and some of the events may take on more flourish with time, especially since most of the witnesses 3,000 miles away. Hopefully it'll keep things interesting.

San Francisco:

I got into San Francisco late, late at night (by my body clock anyway), and famished. After paying a not-so-outrageous price for my ticket, and then $100 to put my bike on the plane (one way!), they could at LEAST feed me more than some orange juice and a bag of pretzels! I hadn't eaten anything else in 12 hours. We stormed a burrito joint as they were closing, lugged my bike box up the 3 flights of stairs to Shane's apartment, and unpacked the bike. By the time we got the bike put back together and I'd dug my pajamas out of my duffel bag, I'd been up for over 24 hours.

Even so, I woke up at 5:00 with Shane the next morning, and by 6:00 we were riding through Golden Gate Park on the way to his office. I'd planned on getting some coffee and prancing through the city while he was working, but the coffee shops didn't open till 7, and a quick check in with my sense of direction told me that if I wandered off by myself, I might never find my way back. I finally found some coffee, which was SPECTACULAR for about an hour, but then I crashed a little bit and spent the afternoon sullenly waiting for Shane to go to meetings so I could play with his computer.

When Shane finished his work for the day we took our bikes back out to run some errands in the city. He took me on something called "The Wiggle", which apparently gets its name because it "wiggles" around all the big hills in San Francisco. So we "wiggled" down to one bike shop looking for a new saddle for Shane and more CO2 cartridges for me. I was standing in the middle of the shop waiting for Shane to pump up his tires when an employee came over to me. "That's a really nice bike!" he said. "That's great that they made it in your size. It seems to fit you perfectly."
"Thanks!!!" I said. I had ridden crappy bikes for so long and taken so much shit for it, that it was one of the greatest complements I'd ever received. I beamed like the fat chick who comes back skinny and beautiful after summer vacation and now all the boys want to date her.

Shane didn't find a saddle he liked there, though, so we "wiggled" on down to another bike shop. Shane is used to riding in the city, and he has cleats on his shoes that are easier to clip into than mine. We hit every single red light in the city of San Francisco, and at every single one he left me to eat his dust. Once I finally got clipped in I would have to stand up and sprint my guts out to catch up to him, only to stop in a ridiculously hard gear at the next stop light. I hated San Francisco. Plus, Shane's a guy, so he's got more explosive power. And he's doping. Well, sort of anyway, he's got a legal prescription for a drug that's been banned as performance enhancing anyway.

Leaving the second bike shop, proud new owners of a saddle, some CO2 cartridges, and various Clif products, we were in a bit of a time crunch to get back to Shane's apartment. "Is it okay of we don't take The Wiggle?" he asked. I'd already been dropped at dozens of lights, I was not going to admit that I was apprehensive about San Francisco hills. Shane takes his bike everywhere in the city and he's always talking about these crazy hills he has to climb over a million bajillion times a week. He's also always talking about how he's doing speed work and getting up to about 30 mph on the flats. I believe that maybe his bike computer needs adjusting, but I believed him about the hills. "Don't worry, there's only one hill," Shane promised. I agreed but thought, Only one hill, but how many "bumps?" What's NOT a hill in San Francisco, Shane?! So he took me on one of those 4-lane roads that goes directly under the freeway for several miles, and I thought I was going to die. I almost got run over about a million times in the narrow little lanes filled with glass and all kinds of pointy shit. And I still hadn't faced The Hill. When we finally hit The Hill, I clicked down to a mini gear a little too soon and dropped back before we even started, and Shane pulled on ahead. We went up one block, and then another, and then... it was over. (The hill in the picture is not the hill we climbed).
"That was IT?! That was the hill?!" I asked? People in San Francisco exaggerate. Shane exaggerates. I mean, it was steep...ish, but it wasn't anything I couldn't find at home. And then we didn't hit any more hills the whole way back to Shane's apartment. I was almost disappointed.

For the rest of the day I was crabby and tired. We met up with our friend Kat and wandered around the city for the afternoon. I remembered why I don't like San Francisco. I always feel like I should like San Francisco, but I just don't. All cities have crazies, and in a sense it wouldn't be a city without them. But in San Francisco the lunatics seem to be running the asylum. I think it has to do with all the fogginess that's around all the time. Seriously, how can someone stay sane in that kind of murkiness?!

We went out for sushi for dinner and I had a seat facing the window. Suddenly all these bikers started going by. First they were the bike messenger types and the hardcore roadies and "one less car/un coche menos" types, then the real characters started coming through: people on BMX bikes, people on hybrids with tires that were 90% flat, people on tall bikes (this was a new one for me), people in costumes, people on kids' frames that they had somehow fit large tires on to, people with sound systems on fenders or in baskets on their bikes, hippie types on decrepit mountain bikes, and every minute or so, a police escort. This was Critical Mass, "Only in San Francisco" meets "Un Coche Menos". On the last Friday of every month bikers from all around San Francisco meet and ride around the city (on an undisclosed rout that changes from month to month). The sole purpose, as far as I could gather, was for bikes to take over the streets and make things miserable for the cars for about an hour and a half every month. Fuck you, motorists, Viva la bici!

Shane was excited too. He's lived in the city for years and keeps forgetting to show up for Critical Mass. "See! I told you!" he said. "I bet they follow those roses we saw all over the city!" Shane's all into graffiti and he'd seen a girl tagging roses on signs all over the city in pink marker. He knew she was in the upper echalons of the San Francisco bike counterculture and was way more excited about his discovery than anyone else at the table. He avoids other riders socially, but he watches them all like a hawk.

Orientation:

Before we had to show up at the Cow Palace for orientation, Shane and I rode a couple of miles to Trader Joe's to get some lunch. When we came out my back tire was flat. What the fuck?! "Oh well, this way at least I'll get some practice changing tubes on this bike," I said. What I was thinking was, We're going to miss orientation because I got the first fucking flat of the summer. Why now?! I bet this is a sign. Fucking fabulous, Claire, now you're going to miss the ride. These things only happen to you.

Once I pumped up the tire, though, both of our bad moods went away. Neither of us had ever used a CO2 pump before. "Woooooow," said Shane. "That didn't even take a second!" He poked my tire, "And it's so haaaaaaard!"
"Lookit the nozzle of the pump! It's all frosty!" I squealed. "Oooooh! Look at the valve stem, it's all white and steaming! Cooooooooooool!" And it turns out that we weren't even that late anyway.

I love saying I went to the Cow Palace, Cow Palace, Cow Palace!

The first thing that they did when we got to the Cow Palace was to take our bikes away. They stuck a sticker with our rack number on our handlebars and a matching sticker on our shirts so we could find the bikes later. I tried not to be weirded out by the fact that the guy had put the sticker squarely on my boob. Everyone here is gay, Claire, I reminded myself. You are among friends. Of course not everyone who was involved with the ride was gay, but it was a ride to end AIDS, and we were in San Francisco, so... what do you expect? As soon as we walked down into the main area it was like walking into a magic fairyland and * Poof! * everything was rainbow. There were swishy, limp-wristed men hugging and kissing each other hello and tough, confident-looking women with short hair and wide stances everywhere. Immediately, I didn't feel gay enough. I'm not really butch, and tend to be "straight-acting" (a new term I learned on my summer vacation), and I tend to feel pretty confident in most aspects of my life (except meeting women). But every once in awhile I'm surrounded by a whole bunch of homos I don't know doing a whole bunch of homo things that I don't do, and suddenly I'm self-conscious. I have too much hair. My pants don't have enough pockets. I don't have any visible tattoos, let alone rainbows or pink triangles. My voice is not deep and gruff. I fly miles under the gaydar. This is how I lost all my hair 2 years ago (a condition I'm still recovering from - see the picture to the right... if you don't know me well, let me tell you that I look ridiculous). Instantly I had a crush on every single woman I saw, and wanted to look like them so that they would look at me.

Except the lady with a mullet, an oversized t-shirt, and tapered knee-length jean shorts. I didn't much care what she thought of my hair. I didn't think much of hers.

We found Lorraine and her crew (who I will introduce later) and went in to watch the safety video. I thought that the safety video was going to be the most boring half hour of my life, but they managed to make it entertaining. After a few hollow thank yous, and several reminders of how important safety is to the success of the ride Lori Jean from the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center gave her schpiel. She was like a kindergarten teacher, but funny in that way that people are when they talk to adults like they're a kindergarten teacher. She held up hand-colored cards to illustrate her points with things like happy faces, sad faces, and a hot dogs ("no hot dogs - the human kind") on them. Then the straight-laced cop came on to give his 2 cents. He reminded us that we were sharing the streets with motor vehicles, and should follow the same traffic rules such as:
~Coming to a complete stop at a Stop sign.
And the video cut to a whole group of drag queens on bicycles touching their stilettos to the pavement.
~Only passing on the left.
A woman with a dozen different colored zip-ties sticking off her helmet like a gay pride porcupine passes another rider.
~Always pull over to talk on your cell phone.
A muscle queen in the most FAAAbulous bike kit you've ever seen stands at the side of the road straddling his bike and flapping his wrists around like crazy as he tells some juicy gossip into his cell phone.

... and so on.

Leaving the Safety Video we got the first of several arm bands. This one orange, meaning that we had watched the video. Then we went to registration where they banded me again with a green arm band that was my ticket to special vegetarian meals, and a red(ish) arm band that meant I was riding for San Francisco.

We still weren't done accessorizing yet. We still needed our tent assignments, so we got on THAT line. Lorraine had forgotten to put us on the list for group tent assignments, so Shane and I got in the much longer line alone to get our tent. When we were alone Shane (who isn't good at keeping his voice down sometimes) asked, "Is she a lesbian?"
I gestured to the crowd full of short-haired women, "Which one, Shane?" A bunch of the people around us laughed.
"Lorraine's friend. The blond. With the short hair." Among Lorraine's group there was a woman whose name we hadn't caught yet who was very outspoken and charismatic. She was the type that whenever she was in a group, everyone's attention naturally turned to her, and she knew what to do with it. Meet Alisa (uh-LEE-sa).
"Yes, Shane. She is a lesbian."
"Well, sometimes you can't tell, you know. Sometimes they're just... soccer moms... with short hair." More chuckles from the people around us. Shane used to have better gaydar than I did. How do you live in the gayest city in the world and have your gaydar get worse?

On Day Two I would have my first real conversation with Alisa. It went like this.
Whole group: "Blah, blah, blah, conversation about stuff and things blah, blah, blah..."
Alisa to me: "Are you straight?" Matter-of-factly, just like that. Out of nowhere.
Me, a little taken aback, not knowing how to respond: "Uhhhhm... No. I'm not."
Alisa: "Oh, cuz I couldn't tell."
That conversation will give me a complex for the rest of my life.

After waiting for the better part of a year we finally got to the tables and got our tent assignment. "Can we be as close to G as possible?" I asked. Lorraine's crew was in G. The guy came back with P-23. The highest letter possible was Q. Oh well. They gave us two blue P-23 tags each, one to put on our bags, and one to put around our necks, an orange tag for our tent, and lots of little chains (the kind they use for cheap key rings) to attach them to our bags and ourselves.

And just when I thought that they couldn't hang more information off my body a woman called us over to her table. She had a whole bunch of chips with numbers on them. "Is this your first ride?" she asked us.
"Yep, we're virgins," I said. I just wanted to get out of here. Who was this woman and why wouldn't she leave me alone?
She handed each of us a chip with a 1 on it. "Put this on your necklace, and if you have any questions you can look for someone with a high number around their neck. They're the veterans." This did not seem like the cool thing to do, but I did it anyway.

Finally we found our bikes at the racks and put our numbers on before saying goodbye for the evening. They would stay in the Cow Palace waiting for us until tomorrow morning, when we would have to be back here at 5:30 in the morning for Opening Ceremonies and Day 1.

Related Posts:
A trip down Memory Lane
...And I'm faster than YOU, and YOU, and YOU...

I'm not dead... yet

Hi everyone. I'm back from California, and other than turning a different color I'm completely unscathed. It was the most perfectest vacation ever, and I plan on telling all y'all all about it soon, but give me a few days to catch up on life before I get around to posting again and poking around on all your spaces.

Things to look forward to:
A week of porta-potties
Thousands and thousands of drag queens, as far as the eye can see
Why I'm going to start doping and become a male gymnast
The weekend that was "All about Claire's butt" (Mayra's words, not mine)
Scabies, sweat, vomit, prickly heat, bugs in people's hair, and other secretions and bodily mishaps
Rocketpants and Claire take on LA, and win!
and The Great Ice Cream Disaster of June 2008

...among other things...