blog written from one night on the ride

Posted by: Veronica Ng (Rider #6731), 3rd Year Public Health
Vote Yes on Freeway Restoration Act 56!


Man, I gotta pee!!
This perpetual thought is due to the fact that I've probably drank more Power Aid in these past few days than my whole life combined. I'm surprised my pee isn't ice-cold and Mountain Blue.
"Eat before your hungry, and drink before you are thirsty," the mantra of this whole week.
Today I woke up at 5:45 and started the everyday routine: shiver in line to use a Port-a-Pottie, brush my teeth at the shower trucks, pull on my damp spandex shorts that aren't done drying from yesterday's wash, eat a warm breakfast, get on my bike, and see California in an AMAZING way!!!
The ocean views, flat lands of wheat-looking plants, perfect rows of grape vines, and assortment of road kill such as birds, small rodents, and yesterday I even saw a huge dead snake! No matter how sore my behind is, I just look up and around and I remember one of the reasons why I signed up to do AIDS/LifeCycle. I feel the wind in my face, every bump in the road, every incline, and every downhill slope. The route took us on the freeway today.
It's always been one of my life goals to ride my bicycle on a freeway. But this freeway, as I was discussing with a fellow rider, needed some serious "vote yes on freeway restoration act 56." It was so bumpy! And unlike mountain bikes, road bikes don't have shocks to absorb anything! At least mine doesn't.
I love the bike I am using. It's a black and silver Cannondale given to me to borrow with love from a kind stranger named Jodi who I meet on a weekend training ride. She saw me riding my big heavy mountain bike and told me I could borrow her bike to use on the ride because she was going to buy a new one! There are some crazy nice people in this world because I would have never been able to buy something like this!
Anyways, we are halfway down to L.A. and I'm getting hungry. So I'm going to go eat some Salmon Filet, I guess that's what's on tonight's menu, and then shower off this one inch layer of dust and sunscreen. Lights out at 9:30. Peace out.

At home again

Hello Everyone!
I am back in Berkeley now, back from riding my bike 545 miles to L.A. from S.F! I've been meaning to make a news letter of some sort to put all my thoughts, experiences, and photos in one place, but I realized that I keep adding things because I remember things at different times. The solution : become a blogger.
This is my first official blog site... except for aidslifecycle.org/6731 where I blogged about some training rides. But that site was already set up for me, so this is my first self started blog...wait...xanga...ok so this is my 3rd blog site.
Well, I am at my friend's apartment right now and everyone is watching a freaky movie. I don't like scary movies, so at times like these I usually go home and be lame, but I decided to use the computer until the movie ended.
Oh, the movie is over...I will be back tomorrow to start the story of my biking adventure- complete edition- days 1-7, color photographs, plus special bonus -orientation day and after the trip!

Orientation Day

Orientation day was the day before we began our bicycle journey.
All of us riders and roadies went to San Francisco’s Cow Palace to turn in paper work, get our tenting assignments, turn in our bicycles so we wouldn’t have to bring them the next morning, and watch a safety video. Between the power point slides telling us to always wear our helmet and stay single file, police chiefs and Hollywood Stars popped in and out of the video scriptedly wishing us a safe time on our “race" to L.A.

My tent mate was Shauna. She spent the night at my house after orientation day and my parents drove us back to the Cow Palace the next morning.

Day 1

Ok this is our route sheet for day one. We rode from San Francisco to Santa Cruz. I don't know why the picture isn't showing up, but you can click on it to see the HILLS and that we climbed. Every day we got a route sheet and I clipped it to my bike so I could look at at while I road. I picked up this tip from the seasoned riders from the training rides. You take a small binder clip and clip the sheet to the break wire tube things right next to the hand breaks.

My super nice parents woke up with Shauna and I at 4 am and drove us to the Cow Palace. It was still dark outside! This is by far the earliest I've waken up all year. Shauna is the girl in the front. Her back pack is made out of all recycled material! Sweeet

These are all the luggage trucks. They are filled with some of the happiest people awake at 4 am, volunteers who helped load our tents and bags every morning, and unload them every evening at camp. Each truck was labeled with a letter. I was letter C.

After we put our gear away, we headed into the main arena where a few people on the stage led us 2,500 riders in mass stretching warm-ups.

Shauna and I

On the way to Santa Cruz! Here is some lovely scenery. The girl on the left is Lisa. She is part of the Cal team too. Lisa, Amelia, and I trained together before AIDS/LifeCycle. The girl on the right is Ashleigh. Shauna and I randomly asked her for a ride to the BART station after Orientation Day and she rode with Amelia, Lisa, and I throughout the week. :D

Lisa and Ashleigh eating lunch on prickly grass. We are trying to stay on top of cardboard, but the prickly weed plants keep pinching us through our spandex. Good food. Lunch was usually sandwiches or wraps along with chips, cookies, power aid, fruit, and sometimes pasta salad. I had a greed wrist band, which is how they knew to give you vegetarian lunch or not. yum hummus.

Amelia and Ashleigh- we are taking a break to look at the view and stretch our legs.Day 1 was crazy. It was 80 miles long. The longest ride I had been on during training was 60 miles. I rode out from the Cow Palace at 7 am. It took an hour to get out of S.F. because of all the traffic lights. I arrived in Santa Cruz at 5 pm.

At camp, I stretched, showered in a truck, ate, and went to sleep. Lights out every night was at 9:30. We rose with the sun and retired with it too.

Day 2

My butt hurt so bad from the first day. But surprisingly after sleeping, I was fine for the rest of the week. I think the most pain I suffered was not even much pain, just a soreness in my wrists and hands from gripping the breaks and leaning over for so much of the day. The lovely chiropractic team helped me out a lot though and I felt pretty good the whole week. Also, another secret to no pain, I attribute a great amount of credit to chamois butter, pronounced "shammy butter. " I think many, if not all, used it on the trip- except for Ashleigh- it's because she does yoga. ahahah i don't know. But, anyways, you rub the cream into your padded shorts and then you just ride your bike! And it's like your are riding on air! It's not greasy or anything. People told me to get a soft seat for max comfort- but actually you want a firm hard uncomfortable seat because it will support you better throughout the day. Just get some padded shorts to even it out.

We rode from Santa Cruz to Kind City. It was mostly flat with some rolling hills at the end. Below is a picture of us at the top of a hill. See the semi parallel lines on the left side of the picture? The line to the right is the road we were on at the bottom. The picture is taken from the top.This ride was 105 miles!!!! So long! There was a man standing at the hundred mile mark to help cheer us on and let us know that we had ridden one hundred miles!
This was the day that I woke up late and left at 8:20. Every morning we have a window to leave between 6:30 and 8:30. They were threatening to sag us if we didn't leave in time. Being sagged meant getting thrown in a van and being shipped to the next rest stop. This could be for having mechanical problems, being injured, tired, or too slow. I think it stands for something but I am not sure.
Since I got a late start, I was always rushing to the next rest stop before it closed. The whole day I was chasing rest stops. If I didn't make it to a rest stop on time, I would have had to been sagged. Hooray for never being sagged the whole trip!

We rode by many artichoke fields in the beginning of the day.This rest stop was so pretty! It was at a vineyard and there were flowers everywhere. When you get to a rest stop, there is food, water, Power aid, port-a-potties, wonderful volunteers who help serve us food so that germs aren't spread. There is no running water at rest stops. Actually there is no running water anywhere except for when we take showers in the shower trucks. All week I only washed my hands once a day. The other times, I just made use of the massive bottles of Purell Hand Sanitizer and Wet Wipes. Every rest stop is themed too! You will see in my coming up pictures from the later days.

Here we are at camp. Shauna, who is super speedy everyday, gets to camp 5 or 6 hours before I do. She is a racer and is sponsored by Cliff!!!!!! So crazy!!! She set up the tent before I got there everyday. In the morning, she would wake up--sit up, and then grab a cliff bar and start eating- and then she was off!

In the morning I usually drink water when I wake up, but all my waterbottles this week were always filled with Power Aid. Mountain Blue is not the best first thing to taste in the morning. Sleeping in the tents was very comfortable because all the camps were on nice soft grass.

This is Natasha and Kirsty. They were our tent neighbors, also part of the Cal Team.

Tents are set up in grids. We were all letter C and therefore set up our tents in section C everyday. Our address was C36? I think.

Day 3

We went from King City to Paso Robles. It was 66.7 miles. We rode up Quadbuster today. Everyone kept saying how hard it would be, but I think the people who trained with the East Bay rides were ok for the most part. There are lots of hills in the Bay Area to train on. I didn't think it was that bad. Some guys rode up it multiple times, helping people ride up it by pushing them from the back. The hill was a 1.3 mile climb, and the rest of the day was pretty manageable.

Left to right. Me, Anna, Anna's friend. This was the rest stop at the bottom of Quadbuster. Below is the last rest stop for the day.- Rest stop 4.- It was always the most entertaining stop. In this basket were complimentary body washes.

So, as I wrote earlier, EVERY rest stop was themed! The volunteers dress up and decorate the tents and the port-a-potties. At the Adam's Family Rest Stop there were face spiders in the port-a-potties!! This rest stop was Grease. Below is a Pink Lady. ...or Pink "Lady" They put on a skit/dance to a medley of Grease songs!Decorated port-a-potties are below.

I forgot which night, but one of the nights during dinner, we got to watch all the news clips being done on AIDSLifeCycle. Some of the hills we rode had names- like the Quadbuster, or the Evil Twins..etc. One of the news reporters reported on cyclists climbing up Heart Attack Hill! Which she just made up becuase there is no heart attack hill. hahahhaha

At night there is the news- in which we get to hear the weather for tomorrow, and what happened on the road today- if there were any major injuries or anything. One of the days, I think on Day 1, someone had to be helicoptered off because of injury- or dehydration???

Day 4

This is what mornings at camp look like (or is it evening? nevertheless): People hauling luggage to trucks in spandex shorts and helmets. And port-a-potties are always around somewhere. can you spot them?

Above: at the top of evil twin number 1.

We conquered the Evil Twins today on our way from Paso Robles to Santa Maria. YEEEE

I made it to the top! elevation 1762

Wind is such a big deal when biking. I don't remember if it was day 4 or 5, but it was super windy and we all had to pedal at least twice, if not a million times harder to fight the head wind, and went super fast if it was a tail wind. "May the wind be at your back." Anyways, at one of the rest stops, the wind started blowing so hard, and this guy turned to me and laughed..."Good! Blow my a$$ to Santa Maria!!" and then went into the port-a-potty. On the windy days, the porta-potties were a little island get away: Warm, and well shielded inside from the wind.

Day four... Today we reached the halfway point to LA! We peddled up this giant hill and then on the sweet ride down there was a turn out where all the bikers pulled over to take pictures in front of the crazy big pacific ocean!!!! This was the beautiful halfway point. I already felt like I made it all the way. So I stood in line with kirsty to stand on top of a big rock and lift my bike over my head. THIS WAS THE HARDEST PART OF THE WHOLE TRIP!!! Trying to balance on top of the rock with my clipless peddles and lifting a bike over my head. goodness. ahahahahhaKirsty here obviously new what she was doing. I must work on my upper body strength.

ABOVE: See the ocean in the background?

BELOW: The ocean in the foreground!!!SO MANY BIKES!!!! 2500 riders=2500 bikes!!!!

When we get to camp, there is a line of people there to cheer us in! This whole week was full of cheerful people. There were people who came out and parked their cars by the side of the road cheering with posters and pom poms and noise makers! At camp there is bike parking. Rows and rows of metal bars that we hang the bike seat on. It is very efficient! Each row has a name like Good Charlotte, Hearts, B-7 Bombers, or something like that and you remember the name and get your bike in the morning.

After dinner Lisa and I went to stretch out on the FOAM ROLLERS. We rolled out all our lactic acid. SO PAINFUL! Others choose to live with the soreness. I don't know which is more painful, being sore and tight or trying to roll out the soreness. I also took advantage of the amazing CHIROPRACTIC, and SPORTS MEDICAL tent volunteers! I went to chiropractic to get stretched out. They are so nice and spent more time on me than my normal doctors--who I have to pay!
Click "Older posts" (bottom right) to see more pictures!