señor taco’s travels

Over the summer I obtained two wool cycling jerseys, the first as my Team Luxo jersey for AIDS/LifeCycle and the second an ALC edition jersey I bought on the ride. The Team Luxo is from Swobo and it’s fantastic. We were highly complemented on the sharpness of our team this year. The ALC jersey is from Woolistic and it too is great. Last night Keeth (the evil one) showed me a jersey from Earth, Wind & Rider, I’m going to order a couple from them real soon now.

I’m going to slowly convert my cycling jerseys over to all wool. I’ll still have a few synthetics around, but the wool is the way to go. They are more comfortable, breath naturally, and actually don’t stink when you’re done riding or after a few days in the clothes hamper.

Swobo is also making a polo and t-shirt from the same high-quality New Zealand wool. I can’t wait to try them out. The wool gear will be more spendy for sure, but I think it will be more worth it in the long run. I can carry fewer jerseys on the ALC next year if they’re all wool. I’ll just have to be careful getting near my mom with any of this wool gear as she’s allergic to wool, sadly.

There an article in the New York Times titled The Bicycling Paradox: Fit Doesn’t Have to Mean Thin. It’s a short article with an interesting conclusion that a person’s size isn’t going to be indicative of their cycling performance. Sure, me and my gut don’t climb as well as if I was 50 lbs. (22.7 kg) lighter, but I can still climb.

“When I first got into cycling, I would see cyclists and say, ‘O.K., that’s not what I perceive a cyclist to be,’ ” said Michael Berry, an exercise physiologist at Wake Forest University. Dr. Berry had been a competitive runner, and he thought good cyclists would look like good runners — rail-thin and young.

But, Dr. Berry added, “I quickly learned that when I was riding with someone with a 36-inch waist, I could be looking at the back of their waist when they rode away from me.”

Hopefully one day I’ll have people staring at my 36-inch (91.4 cm) waist as I pull away from them. I mean, I’m pretty sure I pulled away from people on the ride, but it’ll be nice to be passing people a little more than I do now¹.

Update: As Chris has put it: “Ayup. Clydesdales rule.”

(via drunkcyclist)

1. mostly I just get passed on the hills↩

I went out on Saturday and this morning for a short ride to the top of Old Tunnel Road.  Today I road with Chris who hadn’t ridden since ALC 6.  We both did fine and spun easy to the very foggy top.  Sadly I felt very nauseated by the time we got to the top, but I was much better after I got home.

These rides will continue.  They must, I’ve got to keep up my riding up and try to improve¹.

1. although the best way for me to improve is to drop body weight↩

Somewhere along the way on the AIDS/LifeCycle I broke one of the retaining pads on my left cleat¹. It would have been great had I not been a dum-dum and left my spare, still in the wrapper, cleats at home. As it was it wasn’t so bad, I just had trouble pulling up on the pedal on my left side. I’ve ridden a few times since then, but tonight I finally replaced my cleats with the spanking new ones. The reason? I intend to be up early tomorrow morning to ride. I’m actually looking forward to it.

1. you can see it on the left side in the picture above↩

I am now the proud owner of a very sleek single speed bike¹. I was going to convert an old 26er MTB that we have, but the cost of the new parts for it were nearly the cost of the entire bike. The other benefit is that the bike is a road bike so it’s more similar to my other bikes than the 26er would have been.

I’m using it to commute to and from work mostly, but now that I’ve bought a lock that can’t be picked by a cheap plastic tube I’ll start running errands with it too (I made sure to get a lock that’s going to be able to lock up any bike I want, thus it’s heavier, but I don’t care).

It’s been fun so far. There are occasions where I will still need my car, but for the most part I won’t have to drive or wait on the bus, I’m on my own schedule. I just need to get some fenders before it starts raining (that’s a while off) and I’ll be good to go.

1. Not a fixie, although it does have a flip-flop hub so I could make it a fixed gear if I were nuts. It’s made by Fuji via it’s brand SE bikes. It’s not a high-end bike at all, but it’s solid.↩

A few weeks ago, right after the AIDS/LifeCycle, I ordered a wool cycling cap from Walzcaps.

Photo Copyright Walzcaps © 2006

I started wearing a cap shortly before the ride and ended up wearing the cap more than the skullcaps I had been wearing before (under my helmet mostly). Right now I’m using the Walzcap going to and from work. I haven’t worn it on a longer ride, but I probably will soon. I love it because it’s comfortable and I really want to order some more. The wool cap fits awesomely and I talked to James and we might try to get them for Team Luxo next year.

Well, I finally sat down and typed up all the daily journals (about time!). The period after the Ride is an interesting one. On one hand I found myself very tired and little unable to focus, kind of like jet lag, but not. Due to the chest congestion I gained a really nasty cough. It took me a couple of weeks to really kick it and get my lungs cleared out.

The Monday after the ride Sal, Kevin and I went and picked up our bikes. The next weekend I spent a few hours cleaning it. The drivetrain was particularly nasty and covered in filth. It felt good to clean everything off. To take the chain and really make sure it was de-gunked. Cleaning the road grime from the frame and making sure everything a was in good working order again.

After feeling a little bit better I went out for a ride two weeks after the Ride. I felt like I rode stronger than before, but I still haven’t replaced my cyclometer so I really don’t know, but I felt better doing it.

In total I raised $5,307 for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. I’m really happy with that amount, it wasn’t as much as last year, but it was more than double the minimum amount.

In case you missed any of the daily entries you can find them here:

• Day 0 - Orientation
• Day 1 - San Francisco to Santa Cruz
  
• Day 2 - Santa Cruz to King City
  
• Day 3 - King City to Paso Robles
• Day 4 - Paso Robles to Santa Maria
  
• Day 5 - Santa Maria to Lompoc
• Day 6 - Lompoc to Ventura
  
• Day 7 - Ventura to Los Angeles

Finally, the day we’d been working to was here. The last day of riding with a “short” 60 miles ahead of us. We got up and left as a group. Like Day 5 we really wanted to stay together as much as possible.

We started riding and there’s not a lot of ways to get to LA from Ventura except being on the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH or CA-1). We rode past the waste treatment plant (peeew!), the military bases, the ocean and on and on.

We finally got to Malibu and the hills there. They’re not bad, there’s just a lot of them. Lunch was at the Malibu Lagoon State Beach. I met up with Tia, Thomas, Chris, Steve, May, Kathryn, and Arena there. We ate, Thomas violently opened a bag of chips and hit Tia right in the eye, we lounged a bit, and then we took off. We stayed together as we knew we were within 15 miles of the end and we wanted to ride across together.

The PCH is very scary with lots of cars both on the road and parked. Once you get into LA you move over to the beach path for a bit and then you have to cross under the highway via a pedestrian tunnel.

Getting back on your bike you go East a little bit and then turn right and hit the last major hill of the entire ride. It was great when there was a large group of people cheering at the top of the hill. You then have a nice bike laned road to go for a few more miles, negotiate some turns, and then you see it, a short uphill, a right turn and massive amounts of people! You’re done. Tia, Thomas, Steve, Chris, and I finished together. The emotion from having all those people cheer you on is staggering. I was so overcome that I almost missed Kevin and Sal who had finished well in front of us.

Another year done and I felt great at having ridden 550 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles. We all went out for Brazilian food after and then Kevin, Sal, Robert, and I caught a late flight with about 100 other riders back to Oakland. It was good to be back in my bed and sleeping soundly for the night.

I woke up this morning to a dead bike computer which means I get to ride “zen” and not know milage or time while pedaling away. It’s actually a much more fulfilling experience to ride that way since you just ride to ride, not for speed or time.

There is a climb of about 16 miles out of Lompoc. It’s not hard, just long. You ride and ride and get to the first rest stop near the top of the hill. From there you go up and over and down, down, down, to rest stop 2. The CHP is kind enough to close one lane of traffic on CA-1 right at rest stop 2. They do this because the lanes on a bridge are so narrow that there is no other way for us to get past and it’s not safe as there is no shoulder.

I rolled into lunch in Goleta and it seemed to me that I got there faster and much easier than last year. I ate quick and then headed out because the community run Paradise Pit was ahead in Santa Barbara. Yummy ice cream was had. I rode out of PP with Chris. At this point I had been coughing for a day or so. The combination of dry and hot days with exertional asthma and allergies led to some chest congestion. I felt fine, I was just coughing.

At rest stop 4, which is beautiful and along the water, I was really ready to get off the bike. I pushed on the last 11 miles or so, but I was just not happy, and that leads to not having fun on the bike.

It was a long day, 85.5 miles and Chris and I stuck together all the way to San Buenaventura State Beach, the best camping spot on the whole trip. That is partially due to the In-n-Out Burger across the street. Thomas topped his 6×6 from last year with a 7×7. Yumminess with a chocolate shake and fries was had.

Every year on the AIDS/LifeCycle they have one day that is significantly shorter in duration than the others. That is Day 5. It is 43 miles and the tradition is to dress in red (or, wear a red dress depending on whom you talk to). Day 5 is also a very hilly day and the collective effect of a couple of thousand cyclists dressed in red is like a red ribbon flowing down the road.

Today my ankle was in a lot more pain than it’s ever been in before. There was one point in Vandenburg Air Force Base that I wanted to get off the bike and throw it off the hill and call it quits. I didn’t, I knew I couldn’t because that’s not why I was there. Thousands of people living with HIV and AIDS don’t give up and neither can I.

Our entire group stayed together for most of the day. I was the slowest one so I caught up with the folks at the lunch stop, where we didn’t eat lunch. From there we all rode together to Lompoc and into town to eat at the Budget Dinner. We had a great assortment of burgers and pancakes and like last year it was a great time.

After lunch Sal, Kevin, and I rode further into town to find the Walgreen’s to pick up some needed supplies for the group. Getting back to camp so early, even with the detour into town, is always a great time.

At dinner we got to witness a rocket launch from Vandenburg. We saw it before we heard it. It was nice to be able to witness something like that.