Ah, so much to catch up on! The AIDS Life Cycle ended a few weeks back and I still miss everything about that awesome week. Except for maybe the porta potty lines and the excessive Cliff bars. 545 miles, 7 days, San Francisco to LA, hot hot heat, strained tendons, and confused bowels. I don't even know where to begin. The rides varied daily from 60 to 100 miles. One day was only 40 miles, but that was Red Dress Day... An extraordinarily fun day where everyone wore red, and most wore dresses (see Jared, left). And one girl wore red stars over her nipples. The food was provided for us and it was probably about as good as it could have been considering it was catered. But we were so hungry, and consuming upwards of 4000 calories a day, so we really didn't care what the food was, we were eating it. I definitely miss being able to eat 3 guilt-free dinners. It sounds like a very difficult thing to get up at 5 am to ride almost a century, single file no less.
Most frustrating moment on the ride: 2 moments tied for this, and it's kind of hilarious that they're opposite feelings. THE QUADBUSTER, the hardest, longest hill on the ride. It may not have been so bad except for the 500 people I passed on the left each time wheezing, "On your left." So many people on the ride didn't know how to switch gears and were mashing down on their pedals so hard that it was painful to watch. Maybe the people running the ride should have put up signs that said use your low gears (they had signs on hills to remind us to shift down and use brakes). Some of the people on the ride had obviously not spent a whole ton of time on the bikes they were riding as well, which must have made it even harder. THE DAY I COULDN'T RIDE, I ignored an achilles injury for 2 days and by the third day I could barely walk. I couldn't once I went to the medical tent and they wrapped up my ankle. So I sat out, luckily it was probably the best day to miss since I got to spend the day next to the beach lying in the sun icing my ankle.
The last day I pushed through and we rode the last several miles after lunch together as a team passing everyone on the left since they were all riding smashed against the side of the road. The best part was showing up for closing ceremonies and seeing all of the midnight ridazz roll up on their freak bikes. They brought jump ropes and beer and once the police asked us all to leave they rode us home.
