señor taco’s travels

Day 0, registration and orientation. After last year’s day 0 I suggested that the group get to the Cow Palace early to be done with the event that is registration. Apparently everyone else had the same idea as lines were much longer than last year.

I picked up Chris and we met Sal, Kevin, and Robert at Pixar to carpool over to San Francisco. When we arrived the parking was already very full and the line to wait for bike parking was wrapped around the corner of the building. We eventually got to park our bikes and then got in line for registration. We had missed the first safety video so we were going to have to wait at least an hour for the next screening.

After getting through registration we were only a few minutes shy of seeing the 10:30 safety video screening, so we set in for the hour wait. This year safety was a much more emphasized for two reasons, there are more riders and the ride needs to make sure it’s doing all it can so that it won’t lose the permission of different municipalities to have the ride pass through.

Once we finished with the safety video we had all we needed (both wristbands) to get our tent assignments. Thanks to the hard work of James Dashe we had a reserved block of tents so that we could all be together. After that we put our numbers on our bikes and said farewell to our mounts for the night.

The registration process took longer than I think it should have. Maybe more staggered screenings of the safety video would have helped. Had a lot of us not needed to get things done for the Ratatouille wrap party that night we could have gone later and had a much more relaxed time of it all.

Overall I was now starting to get really excited for the ride again. I kind of missed that build up from last year when the whole thing was totally unknown to me. I saw a few first time riders from training rides and I swear I could see the same wonder and question on their faces I had last year. “Will I be able to do this?” “What have I gotten myself into?” Questions like that.

Well, it’s Friday evening and I’m preparing the last few things for AIDS/LifeCycle 6. I’ve got all the clothes and all the gear ready to go. Donations are in and I got almost to $5k, which is cool enough for me (albeit sans a jersey). I’ve been resting this week and I’m itching to get back on the bike.

Overall the week has been really hard. Polly got sick and is still needing to be fed with a tube. I’m very tempted to not go on the ride as I feel like I’m abandoning her, but she is getting better and she’ll be in the best possible care with Keith and Cortney helping out.

For those that want to you can follow along on the web with the official AIDS/LifeCycle Experience. You can also send messages of support (I’m rider #4142) and I’m going to try and keep an updated voice journal via the gabcast service, which you can find a player linked on my ALC homepage.

Well, it’s all coming down to this last week of training. I rode five days straight last week for about 110 miles total. I took Saturday off and it really helped as I had a great ride on Sunday with Chris. Had we had a lunch break I could have kept going another 40 or so miles over our already 55ish miles.

I’ll just leave you with this, I know I needed to change my tires before the ride, and I was going to do that this week, but on Sunday we stopped after about 40 miles and I looked down to see this:

Yeah, yikes! I’m just lucky I had a good tire with a kevlar belt in there. I took it easy getting home, no crazy downhills for me. When I replaced it last night I found a large piece of glass embedded near that damage. Good tires these . I did the calculations and I think I had between 800 and 1,000 miles on that tire. That’s some training there. I’ve now got two new tires, ready for the ride. They’ll have around 100 or so miles on them so they’ll be perfectly ready on Day 1.

Thanks to my very generous house mate Keith and my bike expert friend John I am now back on two wheels again. So, I cracked my carbon bike frame. Keith has a slightly larger Cannondale that he loaned to me. Keith’s gears are very aggressive compared to what I normally ride so John helped be strip down my frame and then he swapped the parts needed onto Keith’s frame (and by all that I mean he did almost all the work).

Yesterday I went for a short and easy ride along the water trail to make sure everything was adjusted correctly. I tweaked the bars a little and got a feel for the seat position.

This morning I got out early and went to the top of Grizz/Sky and back. The temprature was already in the mid 70’s (we’re in for record high tempratures today) and there was a stiff wind out of the East that made the hills a bit harder (what since I was heading East).

For sure I need to move the seat forward a few centimeters. Other than that the frame fits well and I feel comfortable riding it. It’s a different feel when riding for sure. The frame makes different noises going over some bumps. It’s a little stiffer than the carbon frame, but it’s a great bike to be riding.

Now I need to pack up my frame and ship it for repair (ugh). More info a things progress.

Well, Sunday was Day on the Ride where the ALC staff provides rest stops, a lunch stop, and has sweep vehicals. We rode from the Presidio to Sausalito, Larkspur, Fairfax, up to Nicasio, and out to CA-1 and up to the Marin French Cheese factory for lunch. We then turned around, went back through Samuel P. Taylor park and on Sir Francis Drake Road and back the way we came. In all it was supposed to be between 75 and 80 miles.

I had to stop at 73.25 miles when at the top of the last hill right before the Golden Gate Bridge my chain came off, wrapped around my bottom bracket, and brought my ride to an end. I got swept back to the Presidio to meet my friends and came back home.

Once at home I detangled my chain and started to inspect my bike. The right chainstay is cracked (it’s a carbon frame), probably from the tensions when the chain got wrapped up. Now I need to figure out what to do to get back on the road and for the ride. I’m still trying to figure out if I can get the frame repaired. More updates as they come.

Today, Friday, I have the day off of work. It’s nothing grand, they’re just moving a lot people around at work and I’m one of them. In order to get it all done by Monday we have the day off today. As a result my morning ride started a little later today. Yay for sleeping in.

I did the normal morning ride in full today. From Rockridge up Tunnel, to Grizzly @ Skyline, along Skyline, down to Joaquin Miller Road and then turning around and going back the same route. On Wednesday I did almost the same ride, but it was very foggy, cold, wet, and windy, so I didn’t go down to JM and thus was two miles shorter in distance.

Wednesday Stats:

Friday Stats:

Tomorrow is the Day on the Ride. I’ll be on the 80 mile route and it’ll be nice to have rest stops and a lunch stop with staffing again. That’s something you just don’t get when riding on your own.

I’m feeling great and I’m really looking forward to the Ride itself. Chris is out of town right now but he gets back on Saturday evening. I’m so going to call him on Sunday and get his butt back out on the road.

Today I got up and met Sal, Tia, Heidi, and Bill at the Orinda BART station. I had only gotten about four hours of sleep because my allergies are going nuts right now and causing a lot of drainage. That moves into my lungs and kept me up all night coughing.

I felt okay when we started, but the lack of sleep quickly caught up with me and I could really feel it on the hill climbs. Overall it was a good ride. You can see the route over at bikely.com. If you click on ‘Show > Elevation Profile’ you’ll see it was 3700′ of climbing. That normally wouldn’t have been so bad, but as I said, I just started to get really tired.

While the bikely.com route says 42.5 miles I actually rode more to get to the Rockridge BART station, but there’s not a way I’m aware of on bikely to show a broken path like that. On to the stats:

If you haven’t already please consider donating to my ALC ride.

I got up this morning with the best of intentions of riding at least 20 miles before it was supposed to start raining. There it was, the alarm, buzzing at 05.17 hours. I got up and started in on my routine to get ready to be out the door by 06.00. Sadly, about two minutes into my routine I started coughing. My allergies have been acting up the last few days and it’s causing nasal congestion which is becoming chest congestion while I sleep (yeah, yummy, I know).

I ended up coughing for about 20 minutes. Mostly it was productive, but at the end I was worn out. I just fell back into bed for another hour and a half. Hopefully I can ride tomorrow if it’s not too wet. It’s also supposed to be raining on Saturday and Sunday, which means I might have a wet ride on my hands one of those days. I guess that’s the way it goes.

Through a stroke of luck I had Friday off from work. I took advantage of it to do an AIDS/LifeCycle training ride. I really need to get on the bike more. Between moving, work, and weather I don’t feel like I’ve been riding enough. I’m now starting up on the morning rides again and I think I’ll be fine. The ride yesterday was about 60 miles and I feel great, there was no part that was too hard and I didn’t get worn out.

Some stats:

If you haven’t already please consider donating to my ALC ride.

This last Saturday Chris and I went and rode in the ALC Cat 1 ride from Orinda. He as a rider and me as a ride leader. There was a good turnout of about 30 people. Chris was kind enough to put together a map and elevation profile. Yup, it’s 4200 feet of climbing.

The ride was good, tiring, and needed. I know I felt great after it was over. I kind of wish Chris didn’t have to stay with me (we drove over together). As a ride leader I ended up hanging out at one of the stops a bit longer than I would have liked as a rider and I could tell it wasn’t ideal for Chris. I did get to concentrate on my pedal stroke and as a result my Achillies tendons didn’t get sore at all, I think I’ve fixed whatever it was I was doing wrong a couple of months ago when I strained them to the point that for a week walking had a pain to it.

At the end of the ride a wheel was found in the parking lot. I took it home and thankfully got it back to the owner on Sunday. I’m looking forward to more rides, especially durning the week in the mornings. Sadly tomorrow is supposed to be rainy. Wednesday it is then!