after picking up the panicked little thing, we gently tossed it into dirt, but it looked just unhappy. intuition kicked in and seemed like the soil was too hard so found some damper stuff to move it to. presto! in seconds our little dirt scuba diver was self-buried in moist topsoil and happy. hunter points out “bird food…” but it’s a warm and furry mammal creature!!

donors to my AIDS LifeCycle8 bikeride!

I took about 500 photos myself during the seven days of riding. Hunter also took about that many photos, too. I will make a combined album soon and edit a video as well and put links to them on this site.

However, for now, you can see    ~100 of my best photos on my public albums here:

Photo album (1 of 2)

Photo album (2 of 2)

We finished just before the course formally closed, yesterday (saturday) around 3pm.
(A lot of us were late due to two accident-caused road closure/delays and then Hunter and I decided to sneak off course a block to reward ourselves with Peets mocha freddos just before riding in.   We flew from LAX to SFO and then BART-ed and were home just after midnight.  Was sooo nice to see the kitties again and get things airing out!

Some interesting summary thoughts:

• Day 6 got entirely cancelled and we had to be bussed from camp to camp. We originally thought it was due to the uphill and downhill being deemed “too dangerous” in the rain by the CHP, but it was actually because that pass got closed temporarily due to rain related accidents and only ~250 riders (~10%) made it out on the rainy road before the “hold”. We had a 3 hour permit to cone off a single lane of route 101/1 on this narrow “no shoulder” bridge, and by the time the pass was reopened, not all the riders were likely to make it through the pass. CHP didn’t want to extend the times so they asked us to cancel that day. *First time* that has happened in 16 years of LifeCycle / AIDSRide !   Of course, the irony is that the rains stopped early in the morning by about 8am, and Hunter and I (and the riders who have similar pace — at least 50% of the riders) could have easily made that road closure for a really wonderfully beautiful perfect biking weather day.
• Although the weather was a bit ominous at times, we only got about three 5-10 minute very light sprinkles of rain while biking or in the nonsleeping hours of camp.  It did rain one morning pretty good — causing a lot of tents to flood.  We prepared a bit better with a tarp under our tent (and had a thick air mattress) so we didn’t get tooo wet.
• I was slightly crabby or something Day1 (due to lack of sleep and foggy wet start) but every day pretty much got *more* beautiful and better as it went on.  If fact, I loved every day but day6 (which wasn’t awful — just disappointing that the route got cancelled.)
• This year the biggest difference was the fact that while last year was hot and dry nearly every single day, this ride was a slight bit cool (though nicely never cold at all) and *very* humid (comparatively) every day.  Strange this time of year!
• Day 5 was a big change of course this year.  Last year was a total cakewalk (or “champagne ride” as the pros sometime call last day of Tour de France ) at only 43 miles and limited hills (w/ so so scenery).  This year was a noteably tougher nearly 70 miles where the ride to lunch was *jaw droppingly* gorgeous (riding wine country a al the movie “Sideways” into Solvang for the first time in ALC history) and fantastic.  However, after lunch was quite challenging where we headed directly westward for Lompoc — which meant the picking up strong wind was all headwind on flats and downhills and we were working hard on a *lot* of uphills.  So there was “no recovery” period from lunch to camp.  

Overall, once again an utterly fantastic ride!

We knew so many people this year it was like a rolling party of socializing and eating (well with determined-to-finish work on the bike in between ).  It’s soooo nice to have found this wonderful community of people who care for others and everyone in the Ride.  I’ve been thinking it’s a lot like the communities people find in churches (having grown up Methodist but now non-religious).

Rumor is now day may be cancelled
and will have to bus 2000+ riders
and bikes. We will see…

Today’s highlights are Santa Barbara,
Hopefully dolphin coastal sightings,
And an ice cream stop — it’s
Normally super hot today!

Yesterday’s day 5 “red dress day” was
A blast even though it was a bit of a
Hard finish with hills and headwinds

Thanks all for your support, interest,
And comments!

Hunter is doing well too. Each day seems to get more social and more fun. We know and keep meeting more wonderful people

What a fantastic event!

Training Ride Leaders

and share a little of what they’ve learned

It’s OK to be a TRL

tracey bike accident -- walks away scraped but OK

ouchie!

A steel cruiser bike roared blindly out of a blind drive and ran into me.  The impact “taco-ed” (crumpled) my wheel and pitched me over the handle bars and the 2nd bike. I hit the pavement, but managed to not break anything or hit my head. I scraped up my fingers, tore up 4 fingernails, and scraped my elbow and knee. Later we’d learn it was all surface stuff and only my front wheel needed replacing. Amazingly lucky to have had so little damage!

I was prolly doing 10-15 mph; other rider maybe 7-10.  All of this happened right in front of Hunter’s horrified eyes!

More pictures on public Facebook album.

This is the debut of my first and only purchased domain/website!

How do I feel? See this

clip from Hunter’s ALC7 Video