ALC7 is over and i'm writing this shortly after arriving home. during the week, it went very slowly, but now it seems like it went by in an eyeblink. i don't remember much apart from endless cranking into headwinds, LAGLC CEO Lori Jean's funny speeches every night in camp, dessert with milk & honey, and attempting to get up at 4.30am every day. so here goes... (click on the pics for larger versions, which open in new windows)
Day 1 - SF to Santa Cruz - 80 miles
try sleeping when the alarm clock is set for 3.30am and you're set to spend a week riding over 500 miles and camping 7 nights with 2,499 other people. i probably got about 90 minutes. in any case, we got to the event in time to dump off our gear and grab something to eat before the opening ceremonies. i'm not much one for this kind of stuff, i'm just there to raise money and ride, so we ducked out early to get a good place in line to get to the bikes. also we somehow lucked out with bike parking on orientation day and we were in the first pack out after the Positive Pedallers led the way. the peloton wound its way through Daly City and eventually thinned out when we hit the first hill on Skyline as the riders' different paces started to show.
the plan in general for the ride was to take it easy. i had pushed the pace on the training rides in order to take fitness out of the equation and ensure that i *could* do the job. but for some reason the sight of a line of people going slowly up a hill is like a red rag to me and i can't help but steam past them as fast as possible. however this has to be balanced against the fact that i'm no longer 25, cold rides prevent me warming up properly, and cranking while cold is a recipe for injury.
Celeste is as hardcore on a bike as i am, but she's slower on the hills, so her job was to make sure that i didn't go too fast and burn out, or at least take a breather at the top and wait for her. for the most part, this strategy worked out OK on day 1. in addition, the faster pace caused us to be ahead of the pack at rest stops, which means less queueing and a faster in-out time.
all the while the wind continued to whip at us on Skyline, then gave out a little coming down before the junction with 92. the stretch of 92 out to Half Moon Bay was the only real hill on day 1, and i was suitably relieved to discover that the 10 mile climb on Skyline added last year due to road works wasn't included. (C said that the hill wasn't so bad and at least it was shaded from the sun - she missed that section with its great views from the top etc).
roadside support is a big feature of ALC and going up the hill was made significantly more fun by the drummers who had installed themselves at the top. it's hard not to change up a few and stand for the last hundred yards when you have an audience. over the top and we encountered one of the big characteristics of distance biking in California. the sun bakes your back going up the hill, then a Mach 2 headwind robs you of the descent. sometimes it's enough to make you want to quit riding! this drop to the coast was a great example. normally this would be a fantastic high-speed run with long sweeping corners and a nice wide bike lane. on this occasion, it was a nightmare even trying to stay on the bike, with winds coming from all directions (except the rear, naturally).
then there was 50 miles of pure crankage down the mainly flat highway 1 to Santa Cruz. highway 1 always has magical significance for me when it comes to biking, as i've driven it many times and wondered what it would be like to bike those stretches. well, on the ALC, you get to find out! ...and here's where the plan broke down a bit. C was supposed to either follow my lead or set a moderate pace, but instead she accelerated after lunch and it was a real challenge keeping up. later she claimed that good tailwinds were responsible for this, but i was doubtful... maybe the chocolate-dipped strawberries rumoured for later in the ride were drawing her in. in any case our pace was really fast, and we had to hang out at rest stop 4 (which was badminton-flavoured on day 1) for a bit in order to avoid arriving at camp 1 before it opened (!).
being a newbie i had no real idea what to do once in camp, but the routine turns out to be quite straightforward - get gear bag and tent from truck, put up tent, take shower, chill, eat, listen to some entertaining speeches from various ALC luminaries, maybe eat a bit more, then get to bed at about 9pm.
camp is strictly alcohol and drug free, and given my propensity for drinkies here, there, and everywhere, there was some fun surrounding my challenge of remaining dry all week. i was going to sneak a flask of good scotch in with me, but C talked me out of it, and i'm really glad she did. unless you're a superhero, you really have to be on top of the nutrition, hydration, and sleep situation to successfully complete the ride, and drinking anything - just a beer a night - would significantly tip the balance against.
the end of day 1 was the only time where i had doubts about my ability to come through. my traditionally bulletproof legs were sore from cranking while cold and attempting to keep up with C on the rollers after lunch, and not only had we 470 miles remaining, but the following day was the longest at over a century. additionally, it had been a while since i slept in a tent, and i had a rather inconvenient claustrophobia attack after we retired for the night, which didn't bode well at all.
in keeping with these rather negative feelings, i decided to do something positive - sign up for ALC 8! this way we will have nice cool low rider numbers.
Day 2 - Santa Cruz to King City - 106 miles
the northern California climate really has everything, from humid tropical rainforest heat to vicious unrelenting arctic freezing cold. well, not really, but with the frequency with which it changes, it definitely feels like it, and 5am on monday morning certainly felt like the latter. so much so that we literally couldn't get out of bed until 6am. this turned out to be a mistake, as we caught the pack at breakfast, then got stuck in rush-hour traffic leaving Santa Cruz.
i should say something here about the much-vaunted ALC camp "time warp". it takes 2 hours from leaving your bed to leaving camp - no more, no less. nobody really knows where the time goes, but that's the rule. next year i plan to film a documentary to find out what's going on with this, and i expect something mysterious to happen to the footage.
to be honest, the grind through the city was in some way welcome. it afforded the opportunity to acclimatise to the partly sunny partly frosty weather, and get the engine warmed up gradually before the long dusty crank ahead. in many ways it was like day 1 - a peloton followed by the traditional slow & passing lane formation once the route opens up.
it's easy to imagine that once the road becomes free of stop lights and congestion, you glide past hundreds of slower riders, announcing "on your left" each time, and the way looks clear of riders ahead, that you're in the lead group. then you arrive at a rest stop and find that approximately 500 riders got there before you, and you realise that nothing could be further from the truth. unless, again, you're a superhero, and you're chomping at the bit ready for the off at 6.30am when the route opens, and you're faaaaast, you're not in the lead group. i think they relax the no-drafting rules for those guys, and that makes sense. see you there next year.
day 2 is long but there are no serious hills or other challenging road features. however, there is plenty of the endless cranking over uncertain terrain that really soaks the strength from my legs. it can really suck your soul to turn a corner and see the road stretch straight ahead and mildly uphill for 5 or 6 miles, accompanied by a solid headwind. at many times during this day i was wondering whether an aero bar on the bike would have been a really good idea.....
fortunately however day 2 has a saving grace. after 90 or so miles of grinding, with punctuating vicious crosswinds (some of which blew fellow Mancunian Graham off his bike and forced him to SAG to the next stop, much to his annoyance), there lies 15 or so miles of high speed rollers with suitably strong tailwinds. this, ladies and gents, is what riding is all about. you crank to the top of the first rolling hill, then aero your way down the other side, and use the momentum and tailwind to cruise up the next hill. repeat times 10 or so, and there isn't any purer form of riding pleasure. i hit almost 50mph down one of these things and effortlessly cruised on that for a good while. doing 90 miles to earn that experience was a bargain.
somehow, physically and psychologically, and i don't know whether this was anything to do with the high-speed rollers, Lori Jean's speech, or the dessert, but i felt significantly better at the end of day 2 than i did at the end of day 1. i took this sign and ran with it...
Day 3 - King City to Paso Robles - 67 miles
the AIDS ride in its various incarnations has been going now for 14 years. being a newbie i don't really know very much about the earlier versions but the fact that the job remains basically the same means that the whole thing now works like a well-oiled machine. looking at the mileage for the various days, you might be forgiven for wondering why the distances are split the way they are. well, i'm here to tell you.
it's no coincidence that the 106-mile day 2 has no hills. a century with hills, like perhaps the GPC, would be a significant challenge for even committed cyclists, and the ALC likes to maintain its accessibility to people who only cycle annually. extending day 2 would mean the inclusion of a significant hill. extending day 3 would mean two groups of major hills on the same day. therefore day 2 and day 3 are constrained in their length by the terrain.
i'll leave the other days' features for their entries, but day 3's challenges are the infamous Quadbuster hill just outside King City and another more gradual ascent later in the day. Quadbuster carries with it the rather grand reputation of worst hill on the ride, and the debate about whether that's the truth won't end anytime soon.
i encountered an old friend from badminton days in new guise as an ALC TRL. her name is Denise and i recall her story about the first time she did the ALC. she had heard that the route had many hills, and so she did mainly hill training. then on the actual ride itself, she discovered that the bread and butter of the ride was endless cranks on mainly flat terrain, and resolved to do more such training in future. that's certainly true. however, upon encountering every hill on the ride, i continually thanked my resolve to include as many hills as possible on my solo east bay training rides - not to mention, of course, the many hills in Marin encompassed by the organised ALC training program.
Ben insists that Quadbuster is similar in scale to White's, and has charts to prove it. i saw the similarity in the graphics before i experienced either hill, but having taken White's many times and Quadbuster once, IMHO they're not even in the same ballpark. White's has an abrupt start and is almost disappointingly short. Quadbuster is noticeably steeper, has a long gradual start, and never seems to end. it's not an impossible hill like Claremont, Centennial, or Marin, but it's definitely worthy. (i'm excluding Marshall here because i think it's a much easier hill than the ALC makes out.)
before the ride, i was planning on really kicking Quadbuster's ass. i thought about taking it on the top chainring, or doing it multiple times. the latter is something of a chest-beating testosterone tradition: apparently some of the Schwab team guys did it 5 times this year. hence Lori Jean's comment in camp later that those guys have really small dicks! heehee.
on the day though, i decided not to try anything foolhardy on the climb. it was early in the day, i wasn't warmed up, and i really didn't have that much energy to spare, especially when there were 85 more miles to cover after the hill. i settled for cranking up in the usual climbing gear at a decent clip, overtaking 30 or so people on the way up. good enough. now i know what i'm dealing with, though, maybe i'll try something daft next time.
day 3 included the inestimable delight of lunch in Bradley. this town is tiny, never sees outsiders, and has exploited the ALC to the max for some years now. child labour is pressed into service BBQing burgers and sausages and producing ALC souvenirs in return for cash which is then utilised to provide better futures for their elders. someone should be notified and then we'll have a nice FLDS style cleanup there.
Day 4 - Paso Robles to Santa Maria - 98 miles
whichever way you slice the ALC mileage, there is a whole lot of it to cover, and even though challenging terrain would ideally be mitigated by shorter routes, days of less than 80 miles just add to the deficit to be earned back later. sometimes the deck is just stacked against, and day 4 is a good example - a century with some of the hardest climbing on the ride in the shape of the Evil Twins.
there are compensations, though. the summit of Evil Twin 2 somehow (and probably not too accurately) marks the halfway point from SF to LA. there are some conveniently arranged rocks to stand on and wave your bike around while having your picture taken, and the spot acts as an unofficial rest stop. there were even brownies. another compensation is the feeling that the back of the ride is broken after day 4 - the ride is really starting to make inroads into that huge distance.
probably the best compensation though is the 10ish mile downhill which follows the Twins. of course this was accompanied on this occasion by the inevitable headwinds, but even that meanness couldn't take much away from the sheer glee of going ridiculously fast for a ridiculously long time.
the rest of day 4 was unremarkable, with the exception of being given the bird by a hick truck driver who had carelessly pulled out in front of me going into Guadalupe. well, i'd be unhappy living there too. also towards the end of the day i decided on a whim to leave my group and go off cranking again. i'm not sure what caused this. the only thing i really remember was passing a group going out of rest stop 3 and realising that the group contained Denise and Graham. Denise always gives me shit for riding fast and so she called out something suitable, and Graham shouted out "go England!", so i thought why not...
...and it all had to come to a stop just outside the last rest stop in Guadalupe, due to extreme crosswinds. i literally had to pitch the bike at a 60 degree angle in order to stay upright. then a truck would go by and i'd find myself dangerously unstable and headed off into the weeds or worse! fortunately we turned away from the wind after the last rest stop and it helped us out very nicely with the last 10 miles or so.
we found out later in camp that others had not been lucky on that stretch - multiple emergency room visits logged. nasty. road biking is too dangerous, i think i will retire to offroading for the rest of the summer...
Day 5 - Santa Maria to Lompoc - 42 miles
being an ALC newbie, i was happily practising some self-deception regarding day 5. i knew that the big hills were behind us, the distance remaining to cover was dwindling, day 4 was the hardest day on the Ride, and day 5 was the famous Red Dress Day. therefore, it follows that day 5 at 42 miles is effectively a rest day. right?
wrong. i didn't remember the rationale for how the mileage is divided. day 5 is short due to hills. plenty of them, and although not major, challenging when taken together.
well, partially right. day 5 is at least regarded with something of a party atmosphere due to the dress requirements, and there was a definite atmosphere of taking it easy from the start.
apparently, day 5 started as Dress In Red Day, and the idea, as far as i can make out, was to have the stream of riders ride a specially designed route and paint an AIDS ribbon across California's midriff. however, with this crowd being what it is, the idea quickly morphed into what it is now -- a huge conglomeration of female (or intended for female) garb of all shapes, sizes, and tastes, forming a blood red train of transvestitism steaming through what must be some of California's most conservative areas. since the route is largely the same each year, i wonder whether the locals wonder what we look like on the *other* days....
before the ride, i decided that i had enough to worry about without the additional burden of trying to find something appropriate (ie tasteful, like me), and just got a red biking jersey. then later i thought screw it, i'm thinking a top-of-thigh sequined thing, fishnets, and an OTT makeup job. then suddenly mid-March warped to late May in an eyeblink, and i realised that i wasn't going to have the time (or the money) to put a good outfit together. i did make a token visit to Celeste's excellent local thrift store, but i came away with camp wear instead of sequins. in the end, somehow the subject of the lacy panties i got in an underwear swap with an old girlfriend came up, and C pointed out that as they were bright red, they would make a great component for an outfit. bright red goes great on top of your regular black riding shorts, so ultimately the panties *became* the outfit. and it was much appreciated by other riders, too.
i thought that the end of day 4 would be a great time to get my one allowed camp massage, but i'm glad i put it off till day 5. my legs *really* needed me to be on the ball taking care of them after the rest day turned out to be a session of winching our way up various cliff faces.
this day is remarkable for another reason -- Lompoc runs shuttle buses from camp into town, so you can encounter the outside world if the dinner menu doesn't take your fancy. we decided to hit the restaurant C had discovered last year again, and seriously, i can't think of another time i've been out for dinner since i was about 16 when i didn't have a hard drink. somehow i managed on lemonade throughout. then in a very surreal moment, we encountered some high school cheerleaders performing for ALCers waiting for the return shuttle. just when day 5 couldn't get any more bizarre.
we hightailed it back to camp and since we hadn't liked the sound of the restaurant's dessert options (banana split layer cake? only in remotest hicksville California), picked up some camp cheesecake, milk, and honey, and caught the end of the entertainment program. then crashed hard.
Day 6 - Lompoc to Ventura - 86 miles
it's often been said that the ALC is more 25 rides of 20 miles each than 7 rides of 80 miles each. to a certain extent that's true - if you leave camp early enough, then you can hang out at the rest stops for ages, recuperating, enjoying the entertainment, and sucking down Clif Bars, bananas, and Powerade, until you feel like taking on another 20 miles.
this strategy would work fine if you're spinning your way through the ride and/or don't like cardiovascular exercise and/or enjoy living in danger of being SAGged or swept. for bikers, it's all about the ride, and the more time spent at rest stops the more difficult it is to get the engine restarted. hence we usually limited stops to around 15 minutes, with maybe an hour for lunch (which is easy to do, lunch has a time warp factor just like camp).
however we made an exception for rest stop 4 every day. it's easy to miss, as sometimes 4 is as close as 10 miles from camp. but missing it would be a big mistake, as the crew of this stop is dedicated to providing high quality entertainment. on the first day there was a badminton theme, complete with net and oversize equipment (fnar) to handle the wind. later in the week there was a Grease theme, complete with choreographed song & dance routine. on day 4, there was a Top Gun theme, which came with runway markings painted on the entryway. on day 6, it was Studio 54, with half-naked glittered-up dancers. top job, guys, it was often hard to be cheery after 80 miles of cranking up hills and into the wind, and you ensured everyone was a suitably fine mood for camp.
the day 6 route involves a significant distance on highway 101, as it's pretty much the only highway following the route from Lompoc to Ventura. in theory there's another route south to LA, but it's way inland and involves the grapevine, which we won't talk about in the context of bikes. in theory riding on the freeway might seem like a really bad idea - after all, car drivers can't even control their machines even when bikes *aren't* around. but in practice it's not so bad, at least when the shoulder is reasonably wide and there are two other lanes for drivers to go crazy in. and it's a little exciting in the fast stretches, especially the long hairy (and windy, of course) downhill through the canyon into the Santa Barbara area.
the ALC is ripe with stories of vendors helping out with the effort. good examples would be the gasoline vendor who chopped 20% off a $2600 bill for truck fuel, and various bike shops dotted around the route providing replacement pieces at cost. a more direct-to-rider example would be the coffee shop on the way out of Santa Cruz which is free on ALC day. an even better example of that would be the ice-cream stand in Paradise Cove near Santa Barbara, set up especially to dish out freebie sugar to anyone with a number on their helmet. riding in this area is hot and sandy, and the psychological effects of an ice-cream cone in that environment must be experienced to be believed. heroes.
Day 7 - Ventura to LA - 61 miles
if day 5 was laid back, day 7 was frenzied by comparison. the camp in Ventura is almost on the beach, which makes for some nice sea noises during the night. unfortunately our tent was immediately adjacent to a gravel path, and i could hear bags being dragged along it as early as 4am. some people really wanted to finish the ride!
the route for day 7 shoots east from Ventura to Oxnard then directly south to pick up PCH. from there it's a straight shot along the coast down through Malibu to Santa Monica. wherever you were in camp, people warned us of the traffic on PCH - seemingly because rich people care nothing for the safety of anything apart from their money, and often bikers come off by far the worst.
happily, this stretch turned out to be trouble-free for us. in general the ride down PCH, sometimes literally on the beach itself, was a blast. i did have a slight altercation with a Porsche driver who seemed to think that queueing for entry into his exclusive beach club was more important than keeping traffic flowing along the road. this is where i wished for my mountain bike and the skill to pop up onto his hood to deliver some severe admonishment, but whatever -- it's doubtful anything could have cut through his skin of oblivion.
the route along PCH ends with a bike/ped tunnel under the road, and after this, i could feel that those riding close to me were sensing the end. there was an urgency to the pace as we cranked up the steep section of Ocean Ave and flowed up San Vicente. in fact the excitement overran good sense in some cases -- ALC traffic control outside the VA were in a pretty bad mood after plenty of riders had ignored their directions.
the very last route section twists a bit to avoid major intersections and as a result takes in a short steep section, just before the final turn into the VA. there was a rider up ahead of me, and i saw him speed up a little before the hill. i thought OK, we can both do this, so i pulled out, changed down a few, and came up off the saddle. for about half of the climb, we were alongside each other, mashing like crazy. then he must have faded - i pulled ahead, and he started giggling. i kept going hard, but started laughing maniacally as well. what a ridiculous thing to do! it might have been my favourite on-bike moment of the ride.
i took the last corner and realised C wasn't with me, so i pulled over to wait for her before heading into the crowds welcoming the riders. she took the corner really slowly and then announced she'd had a flat for the last half mile or so. seems that tyre could handle 537.5 miles, but that last stretch was a bit too much. no matter -- we parked the bikes, collected victory shirts, and sat in a patch of shade under a tree to relax. later we hit Santa Monica to party with fellow ALCers and LA friends. fine times.
Day 8 - LA to Oakland - 430 miles
i'm a newbie so i don't know very many people connected with the ALC. of course i did recognise some TRLs and fellow riders from the training program, but these are largely chance meetings and trying to actually find someone is akin to the needle and haystack problem. hence as i said before, the ALC went by in a flurry of cranking, gulping down Powerade, and trying not to hit the snooze button too many times at 5am.
it took the 12 hour Amtrak ride to calm me down, give me an opportunity to zoom out a bit, and consider the ALC from a higher perspective. we had just spent a week in an almost utopian world where people of all shapes, sizes, colours, and persuasions had united to perform a very difficult deed in order to provide resources to combat a malignancy which threatens us all equally.
it occurred to me then that the ALC is a microcosm representing how we should be combating AIDS. riding 545 miles on a bike is pretty hard. in theory, you could to the ALC alone - you could book a B&B in each camp spot, and stop for refuelling in appropriate places along the way. i would bet that only hardcore long-distance bikers would complete the course. the only reason that almost anyone can do it is the community. everyone is in this together, and even though SAGging is a fact of life for many people, an announcement that someone has had to retire altogether feels like a cut in the side of a living organism.
if the ALC can not be completed without the benefits of community, then similarly as a species we can not successfully combat AIDS individually. the ALC is wildly successful, raising over $11 million for AIDS research and rehabilitation every year, and raising awareness and tolerance via its participants' fund-raising efforts. i think that global powers should get over their obsession on short-term political expediency and use it as a model for combating threats to humanity in general.
see you for ALC 8.
