OK, it has taken a month to recover from this years ride, well maybe recover isn’t the right word, maybe get caught up is better. I had delusions of posting an update on our adventures and our fundraising shortly after we returned from Los Angeles.

First, some statistics for you about the ride, you may find interesting. There were approximately 1800 riders this year and 400 roadies (compared to last years 1400 riders and 425 roadies.) The total raised was over $8 million, up from $6 million last year. They announced that this was the most successful AIDS fundraiser in the country.

The original sixteen members of Different Spokes Team #120 raised $11,580 from fellow members and freinds. That amount was shared by the sixteen of us who formed the team, and it helped us each towards our minimum fundraising amount, $2500 per rider.

By my count, there were 25 club members and friends participating this year as 22 as Riders and three as Roadies in the Traffic, Medical and Advanced Setup teams, and three club members who were unable to do the ride but did raise money. The total raised by this group was over $89,000, which is just amazing!

If you are interesting in some morte statistics, you might want to check out Fun Facts; for example, we consumed two tons of oatmeal. So on to the last 4 days.

We started out Day 4 in Paso Robles, where it appeared that one of us had his bike stolen. A bit more checking and he found out his bike had been pulled to a holding section, and he had to go see the man in charge. Turns out this rider had been spotted in a pace line (with several boys from LA). A paceline is one of the actions that can get you expeled from the ride. Fortunately, he got off with a warning, and a complement, as he was in “good form.”

On this day, we covered 96 miles on the way to Santa Maria, and the day begins with the Evil Twins on the way to the “official” halfway to Los Angeles point.

From there, it is a nine mile downhill to Highway 1. Lunch was at El Chorro Regional Park at mile 50 outside of San Luis Obispo, where someone commented that they were starting to feel a bit like a squirrel hoarding nuts for the winter (as they proceeded to pull out package after package of Planters Honey Roasted peanuts from their pockets.) I think many of us found that at the end of the day, we had extra food in our jersey pockets, I know I collected several Cliff bars, and I know someone ended up with a 4 or 5 apples in their bag too.

The next 10 miles were quite warm, approaching 90 degrees I’m sure, until we left rest stop 3 and turned a corner on the way to Pismo Beach, where the ocean breeze cooled things down comfortably. A group of us stopped for coffee in Pismo Beach, before continuing on towards Guadalupe and rest stop 4, but not before a tough little (at 76 miles) climb after mostly flat road and rollers. This 8/10th of a mile climb is on a narrow road shared by good size trucks, who were quite considerate of the cyclists slowly climbing to the top. After rest stop 4 in Guadalupe, it was only another 12 miles to camp at Preisker Park in Santa Maria.

Day 5 is Red Dress/Dress in Red day, so it was quite festive to see a number of Spokers in red tuts.

It’s a relatively short day as miles go, only 44 miles. But it is day 5, and we have already traveled nearly 360 miles in the previous 4 days. It gets a bit tougher to get back on that bike seat (at least for me) by day 5. And day 5 isn’t without it’s share of climbing either, as we circle Vandenberg AFB on the way to Lompoc.

Rest stop 2 is in the town of Casmalia at the Winifred Wollman School, where the grade school children have prepared letters for riders. Leaving Casmalia, you go back thru the town (all of three blocks, that is) to the blaring disco music and the sight of cyclists dancing in the streets. Between here and the lunch stop are the two major climbs of the day, the first as we leave Casmalia, a 1.4 mile climb. The second climb begins at a right hand turn onto Highway 1, which to my mind it seems we would be heading north, the wrong direction. Now that I can see the route from the GPS routing, I do see that we did turn onto Highway 1 South. It’s still a tough 1.3 mile climb. The LA Gay & Lesbian Center board members are at the top with red & black vines, M&Ms and cookies; they always seem to find a good place to camp out waiting for us toc ome by. Lunch was just on the outskirst of Lompoc, and we finished the day with lots of time to relax before dinner.

Leaving Lompoc on Day 6 we begin the day right away with two climbs as we head for Ventura. At mile 18, we are back on 101 heading towards the coast, and this stretch of 101 is much busier than that section we dealt with on the way to Bradly on Day 3. The CHP has closed down one lane of 101 for one bridge crossing after rest stop 2 fortunately, just too narrow for us to cross safely. Lunch was in Tucker’s Grove Park in Goleta and finally we got a bit of sun. We stopped quickly at Rest Stop 3 to get layed, um, I mean leied and use the portopotties before heading to Paradise Pit.

Every year, the local community in Santa Barbara provides riders with ice cream, cookies & brownies, this year they even had massage tables set-up and riders are lined up waiting (or lucky enough to be getting one.)

Someone had mentioned to me earlier on the Ride that there was a climb not long after leaving Paradise Pit they disliked, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember it; that is until we turned the corner at mile 60. I was glad I only had one serving of ice cream, and I won’t say how many brownies, but sufice it to say, it was slow going up this hill. Fortunately it was only 24 more miles to Ventura. The campground is at San Buenaventura State Beach, within walking distance of both a Marriott hotel (where we are on a mission for margaritas) and an In-N-Out (where one of us a second meal, and then dessert back at camp, I believe.)

Day 6 concludes with the candlelit vigil on the beach. It is still difficult for me to believe that it has been 25 years since june 5th, 1981 when the CDC reported an unusual outbreak of Pneumocystis carini pneumonia (PCP) among young gay men, followed by the New York Times in July reporting on the appearance of a rare cancer, Kaposi’s sarcoma, among 41 gay men in New York and California. And in 2005 1.1 million Americans are living with HIV, with an estimated 25% unaware of their sero-status. That is what this ride is all about.

Our final day, Ventura to Los Angeles, and Day 7 promises to be a fairly easy day. We have decided to meet at the lunch stop at Malibu Lagoon State Beach and ride the final 15 or so miles together as a group. Nevertheless, there are still 60 miles to ride, but leaving Ventura it is all flat. Not until we leave rest stop 2, do we start with the rollers; Pt. Mugu, Leo Carillo, Zuma Beach, Escondido and finally the Pepperdine climb. We leave the lunch stpo at 12:45 so as to time our arrival in Los Angeles at 2pm, where Bill, Jon and Tia will have hopefully met up and will be there for our ride in.

But not before a stop at Starbucks, or course. Well, actually, it was so a one of us could catch up with the group, having riden ahead to get a rental car, for a quick getaway after Closing Ceremonies.

And so at about 2:15pm on Saturday, June 10th 2006, we arrive in Los Angeles, having completed 553 miles and 24,000 feet of climbing in seven days.

Online registration for AIDS/LifeCycle 6, taking place June 3-9, 2007, is now open. At last count, there are a half dozen of us having already signed up or committed to it. How about you?

Maybe I should have been a tad more reassuring in my description… Maybe slower spokers would have been encouraged to join, and not leave me alone with those three cruise missiles. In any case the turn out was four times higher than my first edition of this same ride 🙂 mostly due to slightly nicer skies. But it was a constant struggle to keep up with Bill, Erik and Raymond, even weightened by my secret french weapon: the quatre-quarts I forced them to eat before starting.
In any case it was a pretty nice group to ride with sweep. I had a disppointment in Pescadero, because the line to get sandwiches at the bakery here was so long that we had to fall back on breads, croissants and rolls. There are some advantages in riding in the rain…
West Alpine Road kept all its promises. This 3000 foot climb (if we include the climb on Pescadero Rd) from Pescadero to the top of Page Mill Rd is equivalent to a mountain pass and the end can be a bit tough in the heat, the shade becoming pretty sparse towards the summit. Fortunately the temperature was not too painful that day.
After that the descent to Palo Alto and the ride back on Caltrain would have made the last part a breeze, if it hadn’t been for the real breeze gale we had to face in the last stretch from the station to my place, on Geneva Ave , exactly where ALC 5 had started two weeks before.
Some more details on motionbased.com and a few pictures in the gallery.

Well, three days down, 4 to go. At last count there were 23 (members and friends) of us riding and 3 Roadies. With this large of a group you can imagine it’s not easy to get us all coordinated and riding out together. But we’ve run into each other along the route and in the morning before breakfast or at dinner.

Day 1 from the Cow Palace to Santa Cruz was uneventful, although foggy along San Bruno to Half Moon Bay and southward, it cleared up around Pescadero, and ended as a beautiful day in Santa Cruz.

Day 2 started foggy and riding thru the streets of Santa Cruz, Aptos till we hit the first rest stop was slow with commuters and on city streets. As usual, the walls of wind presented themselves from the north for the west to east crossing not too fun. After that, it was tailwinds to King City.

Today was King City to Paso Robles, not a long day, but it got warm heading to the little town of Bradley, and stayed in the high 80s or 90s all the way to Paso Robles. While we still had a 5 mile stretch on 101 before Bradley, this year we did not have to get back on 101 on the way to Paso Robles, nice routing.

Here’s an interesting photo from yesterday’s ALC photocast….

The idea for this ride came from a previous ride I did, lead by Tony Moy, over Labor Day weekend two years ago, where we met at Orinda BART and did a loop thru Moraga to Canyon/Pinehurst and Redwood Roads to Castro Valley, and back to Orinda via Danville, Walnut Creek and Lafayette. So why start in Lafayette this time? Well, it’s where I grew up (and it’s a few miles less for me to drive to from Hollister.) So how to make a 52 mile ride longer? Well I played around with the program called Klimb and figured that we could head out to Sunol and return back to Castro Valley by following Niles Canyon to Palomares and then retrace our route to Lafayette. This would be the first time to use the program to prepare a route for a ride, and it estimated 78 miles and 5,370 feet of climbing.

So nine of us met on this sunny Sunday morning at the Lafayette BART station: Bill B., Jeff P., Scott S., Randy D. (making five ALCers on the ride including me), Mark P., Erik L. and Les D. Now it’s embarrasing when the Ride Coordinator forgets the waiver, but I did (note to self: put blank waivers in the glove box for future reference), so the ride became an unofficial DSSF ride. We headed out about 9:2o, Lafayette has some nice bike paths and it’s a quick jaunt out past the reservoir and on to Orinda. In Orinda, we headed up to Moraga, a gentle climb, and then headed on to Canyon, Pinehurst and Redwood Roads.

After a regroup at the Willow Park Public Golf Course, where Rico pointed out that the golfers at the driving range were using floating golf balls, which we didn’t belief at first, but as we headed out past the reclaimation pond, sure enough, floating golf balls.

Arriving in Castro Valley, we made our way to Paloverde Road and then up and over the Dublin Grade down to Foothill Boulevard. Foothill Boulevard took us all the way to Sunol, which was a good thing as I had looked at a Google Map and it appeared we would have been better to cut over to Pleasanton-Sunol Road, but we never saw Sunol Boulevard but it worked out. There’s not much to Sunol, I figured (hoped) there would be a deli or cafe, and Mark had eaten at one on a ride with Victor & Kyle several weeks earlier at the Sunol Coffee House & Cafe which was like something out of Fried Green Tomatoes without the southern accents.

Lunch in Sunol marked the 40 mile, halfway point, so the rest is all return. We started back west on Niles Canyon Road, the five miles to the almost always missed sharp right turn up Palmares Road. Going up thru Palomares Canyon the Garmin Edge 305GPS bike computer lost the satellite signal several times. And on the five mile climb this was the only stretch of road we did with any sign of slides or damage to the road from the seemingly never ending rains of the spring. In fact, all the roads were quite nice the entire 80 miles, making the downhills even nicer, not having to worry about badly rutted roads.

In Castro Valley, Rico & Scott left us to catch BART back to the city, and so off we set on the climb up Redwood Road another 5 mile climb like Palomares, but tougher after having done Palomares already. For the most part, almost all the climbing was spaced out fairly well, and it was nice that the last few were shorter, up Pinehurst, where Bill & Erik were waiting for me, and notice an ominous sign on the side of the road, like something out of an old western.

On Randy’s suggestion, we returned to Lafayette via Orinda, rather than continuing all the way down Moraga Way as I had planned; the stretch from Rheem to Lafayette is windy, narrow and not so good, so that bumped the total mileage to just over 81 miles. Jeff caught BART back to the city in Orinda, and we continued on to Lafayette and Starbucks before heading home.

Oh, and the final ride statistics varied. The Polar HR monitor measured 5,580 feet for the ride, and the Garmin GPS read pretty close to that before uploading the data. But after uploading the data it varied, 6034 feet according to the Garmin software, or 6,823 feet here at MotionBased.com where you can see the route and details of the ride. Thanks again everyone! See you next time.

Murphy’s Law No. 17: You are certain to get a flat tire the one time you forget your bike pump.

Part of my bike ride to work takes me through Golden Gate Park. The 3 miles through the park are the best part of this urban, asphalt-rich, traffic-dodging commute. I enter near 46th Avenue by a small playground where I exchange “Good mornings” with a group of Asian seniors doing tai-chi. Traffic is usually light, and the air is often cool and misty.

Today, half-way up the bike path on the border of Speedway Meadow, I got a flat. Well, I know flats happen, but I still let out a quick “#$%@” before getting to work. But when I want to lightly inflate the new tube to get it set inside the tire, I let out another “#$%@” when I see only the holder for the frame pump, empty, no pump. The mind starts racing backward. Did it fall off sometime on the ride? Is it lying on the ground? Where the hell is it!

I’m pretty anal retentive about being organized – I was a Boy Scout, after all – so I was suddenly less bummed about the flat and more irritated about my carelessness. Well, somebody has to come along, right? I pass a fair number of bicyclists on my morning commute. Today, of course, they all decided NOT to use the bike path. Today, of course, everyone decided to ride their mountain bikes with Shrader valves. So, it’s back toward 46th Avenue – on SPD-clicking feet – to catch the 18 MUNI bus back home.

But lo, an angel appears in the distance. He or she is clearly on a bike, and looks hunched over as if riding a road bike. “Please-oh-please, have Presta valves!” I pray. The Good Samaritan not only does have a pump, but he offers to pump the tire up for me. Everything is fine, and I’m ready to get back on the road. But then I need to decide: Do I take the chance to ride to work and risk another flat – I’m thinking about all the broken glass I see along Page Street – or ride a few miles back home. Even if my pump is not there, I can grab the Ultraflate I never use. I opt for home.

On the way, I continue to think what happened to my pump. It suddenly hits me. Once or twice a month, I give my bike a thorough cleaning, removing the bottle cages and everything…including the pump holder. Yep, I forgot to reattach it a couple days ago. Sure enough, the pump is sitting on the work bench next to the container of Wet-Ones, degreaser, brushes, and disposable gloves.

Eventually I got to work, a bit later than usual, and with the resolve to always check to make sure the pump is attached before each and every ride. And to buy some Kevlar tires!

I was looking forward to Strawberry Fields Forever again this year, an organized ride in Santa Cruz & Monterey counties with themed rest stops! Western, Turkish and so on; last year the Italian theme stop had an expresso cart at in a strawberry field! So I was looking forward to doing it again.

Mother nature, and Accuweather, both insisted that it was going to rain, off and on, in that area. But at 7am, it was only cloudy, no rain yet. So Bill B. and Jeff P. and I met and decided to go to the first rest stop at 15 miles, going up Soquel-San Jose Road to Summit Road and the fire station. A bad mud slide this year meant that this rest stop was a turn around point coming back right past the starting point (instead of continuing on Highland and down Eureka Canyon Road to Corralitos.) So it made the first leg and out and back. Good thing, it started raining about 4 miles into it and did not stop till we got to the rest stop (2300 feet in 15 miles.)

You can imagine the downhill from there, wet and very cold, as we began the long descent. Fortunately, it is a road (one of the few, after this winter’s storms?) that is in good shape. Of course, it started raining again. And then I lost the bite valve on my Camelback and promptly filled my right shoe with water (not that the rain wasn’t doing a good job of that on it’s own.)

When we got back to the start point we all opted to bail. A fellow cyclist took this photo, she was headed off to find a bike shop to buy a rain suit, just because.

On my drive home, headed south the direction we were to go, it poured! Tom B. also reported that he and his friend doing the 100k got rained on out in the southern section of Santa Cruz county, where we would have headed to next, and they also bailed at 30 miles. Oh well, there is always next year.

Victor, Kyle, Jaime, and Paul rode up the old railroad grade up Mt Tam to the West Point Inn on Sunday. We left our road bikes at home, and wiped the dust off our mountain bikes for this ride. Actually three of us did. Paul gets the butch boy award for riding up a Mt Tam mountain bike trail on a touring bike with moderately narrow tires! Not only did he do it, but he did it really well! The route is the former Mt Tam Railway that ran up the mountain from the late 1800’s until 1930. The weather was perfect with beautiful blue skies, and warm temperatures. As we climbed we had some breathtaking views of the city and the bay. Finally we reached the top and had a wonderful panckae breakfast at the historic West Point Inn.
Back in the 1800’s if you wanted to go to Stimson Beach you took a fairy from San Francisco to Sausalito. Then you took a railroad from Sausalito to Mill Valley. Then you got on to the Mt Tam railroad. You climbed up Mt Tam on this railway route we rode, and tnen took another line down to near Muir Woods. Then you took a stage coach or hiked the rest of the way to Stimson Beach. It was a full day journey! The West Point Inn was an origonal stop on the railroad. Today, it is still a fully operable Inn that you can only hike or mountain bike into. There is no public road to it, and no electricity. Just gas lamps and gorgeous views of the Bay Ares!
We had a great ride with good food, good views, and good company.

After eight years of trying to convince Spokers at least to try this ride, which IMO is one of the most interesting I know, finally they came. What makes Mt Hamilton Challenge nice is the fact that most of the route is in very remote scenery. Notwithstanding those silly first (and last) miles visiting Silicon Valley. Otherwise, at least 70 miles of the rote are spent in areas where no developments have taken place.
Yet.

As usual I have put the GPS information on GPXchange so you can get the exact route.

One of the drawbacks of this century is that it starts by a long climb, which tends to spread apart any group that may start together. Which might explain the absence of any spokers in my photos.
In other words, I was by far the slowest and never catch up with the rest of the group.
Joe was already turning the corner from the start with Doug when I arrived, so he must have finished when I had lunch. His boyfriend Mark left after me but quickly passed me to catch up with him, which was even more impressive. Bart and Bill left us at the beginning of the climb and I kept up with them for time to time only because they had decided to make the most of the rest stops (and even off the rest stops, since they decided to enjoy Junction Cafe). How they manage to stay together is a mystery that I will leave to People’s readers.

So, most of the pictures I have taken were pretty cyclist-less. But the views were beautiful, especially the last part of Hamilton, riding above the clouds and amongst the wildflowers , an exceptional sight on San Antonio valley, due to the heavy rains these last months.

There is a variant of the ride, the Mt Hamilton ascent, which consist in clibing to the top and getting back by retracing your steps. That the option that Doug and David chose. How reasonable.

The only thing that bugged me was running (twice) into other cyclists doing the Devil Double Mountain.
You dont’ want to know.
All right…
It is a double century including Mt Diablo, Morgan Territory, Altamont, Mines Rd, the back side of Hamilton, Sierra Rd and Palomares. I told you, you asked for it.

I felt like such a slacker…

Four Spokers – Jeff P., Raymond P., Rico N., and Patrick H. – rode the Jersey Ride route from McLaren Lodge today. With the great weather, it felt like the first official ride of spring. Even before the ride started, legwarmers and jackets were removed. At the bridge, we met the huge group of people who were marching to draw attention to the conflict in Darfur. Many cyclists on the bridge. We decided to do Conzleman early rather than later to avoid the afternoon car traffic.

On through Sausalito and up and over Camino Alto, then up and over Paradise. Those on the Jersey Ride a couple weeks ago saw the eroded hillside that had reduced Paradise to one lane but was still passable by car. Now, the road is completely closed to car traffic near the slide on either side, permitting cyclists to ride a little more freely without having to share the road with cars.

We stopped for a brief break at the usual corner spot in Tiburon. (Patrick thinks that café has the best pineapple-bran muffins.) Instead of sitting at the tables, we enjoyed the view of the sailboats, the bay, and the SF skyline from the benches. The fence along the water has slats that resemble a bike rack, and Raymond was wondering if the design was intentional, or if it is coincidence that the slats make prefect bike holders. A bumblebee flew into Jeff’s chest and stung Mr. Pekrul on his left pec.

Back through Sausalito and then we exited Alexander at Fort Baker. Patrick prefers this way to get to the bridge. It is maybe a little longer, but there is next to no traffic (especially on the portion under the bridge which is closed to traffic.) If you’re unfamiliar with this route, on the way to Sausalito, from the west-end of the parking lot at the north end of the bridge, you go downhill for a 1/2 mile or so, and you come to Fort Baker and the Discovery Museum. The road connects with Alexander. On the way back to SF, take a right following the sign for Fort Baker. It is a nice alternative and you get an interesting view of the bridge from underneath.

On the way back, the bridge was a bit chaotic with the slower tourists on the rental bikes being leap-frogged by the faster roadies. Rico left us at Cabrillo to go home, and Jeff went home via the road by the tennis courts. Raymond and Patrick continued through the park, then to La Playa and Sloat where they split up to go separate ways to their homes.

It was a perfect day for the Alpine Dam Loop. Cool and overcast. Knowing how hot in can be over Ridgecrest, it is good to do this ride on a relatively cool day. At the start, we had Dave G., Michael Schmu, Patrick H., Michael Suss., Rob V, Dale, Tina P, Les. Bill B. joined us at the Bridge . We left at 9 sharp trying to roll out before a large ALC training ride.

Early on, the group decided to change the original route from the “hard” way to the “easy” way. We started out as nine but plans changed quickly. Tina decided that she was more in the mood for the Tib Loop. Rob and Patrick turned back before the top of Mt Tam (Patrick was having chain problems). The day was cool with intermittent clouds and that meant that people kept on their windbreakers even during the climbs. It was the first ADL for both Michael Suss and Les and they climbed like champs! We didn’t linger at the dam — deciding it would be better to have a leisurely lunch in Fairfax. We hit Fairfax about 1pm.

We had a nice long lunch in Fairfax which was overtaken by cyclists — LOTS of ALC riders. On our way through San Anselmo we passed Liz, Anne and Chris headed north. They had done the Tib Loop, considered heading to China Camp but there was too much traffic. Instead, they decided to combine miles with java and head to Fairfax. Before we got to Camino Alto, we lost Michael Suss. He made a U-turn and started heading north. He waved liked he was OK. After waiting a while, we figure he headed for the Larkspur ferry.

We the remaining five us crossed the bride about 3:15pm. It was a great group.

from left: Les, Patrick, Michael Sch, Dave, Michael Suss, Tina, Rob, Dale. (Not pictured: Bill B)