AIDS/Lifecycle Days 1 and 2: The Learning Curve
Day One: Daly City to Santa Cruz
I woke up in a sweat, a good fever breaking sweat. I felt much better though I had to admit to myself I was definitely sick, still had a sore throat and a congested nose. I couldn’t back out of so many layers of organization and planning though. As far as I was concerned, I was on a one way train to Santa Monica whether I got there on my own pedaling power or on the SAG car. I took care not to breathe or otherwise interact with my teammates too much. My mantra for the day, as all days really, was “keep going until you can’t”. It applies whether I’m sick, dehydrated, tired, overheated, or not feeling it. I’ve ridden enough to know that how you feel at the beginning is not how you feel in the middle and is not how you feel in the end. The first day was going to be 80 miles in a freshly sick body which I have never even attempted but I wondered… what’s the worst that could happen?
The energy at the starting line was infectiously high. I think the sheer adrenaline from the mass start, hundreds of spectators cheering me on my way out, banished the sickness right out of me for at least those first 20 miles. Every day would have four rest stops, more or less evenly spaced out throughout the route. So when I got to the first rest stop I thought “why not take a little break”. This turned out to be a huge mistake as basically the entire ride stops at this rest stop. I could have turned right around and left, but the salty dog in me refused to leave after I already “invested” 20 minutes into the bathroom line. I swear it must have taken me 40 minutes to leave which was a little absurd for being the first stop of the day. That was my first AIDS/Lifecycle lesson: Never stop at the first rest stop.
There was some climbing at the beginning of the route, it wasn’t hard but with all the riders having left at once and with the mandate to stick to the shoulder of the road things got very crowded. It was like being in a traffic jam where you kept having to leapfrog past other cars. What I noticed though was in this section and in the next before lunch as long as I kept going I didn’t feel the symptoms of my illness. My body was too busy pedaling to worry about fighting the cold I had contracted. This was so alleviating; although I’m sure I wasn’t performing at peak capacity, not being able to breathe or having a lingering cough while exercising would have been a much worse experience. Then of course once I stopped moving I felt the symptoms come back. At lunch I thoroughly enjoyed eating my sad packed sandwich meal that they had prepared for us while overlooking the ocean at San Gregorio Beach. As I felt the solids in my nose quicken however, I decided it was time to leave. One of my team members was departing around the same time and I rolled out with them, only to be unceremoniously dropped after a mile or so. Given the climbing and my waning health this was just par for the course.
I never truly rode alone though since there was one unbroken steady stream of riders the entire way to Santa Cruz. This was a unique aspect of AIDS/Lifecycle. With over 2000 riders participating I was never far behind or too far in front of anyone for very long. It warps an individual feat into a greater accomplishment. The stronger riders, the slower riders, the roadies, the rest stops all form some sort of collective cycling consciousness whose sole goal is to move all of its body parts from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Being a cog in such a glorious machine is comforting since all material concerns and objectives are replaced with one defining motivation “keep going”.
I kept riding down the coast, which this was my first time ever riding north of Santa Cruz and the views delivered that same magical California coastal vibe that we get all the way down to Long Beach, so I never felt far from home. It was overcast but the temperature slowly started to climb. By the time I got to the last rest stop (“seamen” themed) I was not feeling 100%. My sickness had come to roost, or my body was catching up to pushing too hard in the morning. I almost skipped the stop, but I wanted to load up on oranges and vitamin C to fight the cold. I pulled into camp around 4 pm which I thought was a great time. But on Day 1 I was going to have to figure out the ropes about camping on the ride so there was going to be a learning curve.
It goes like this: You pull into camp and park your bike at the bike parking. Once you park, take everything you need off your bike, collect a chocolate milk from a handy cooler by the exit and get to the cargo trucks. The truck I left my stuff at in the morning was the same truck I’d be picking up from at camp. From the truck I collect my giant bag of stuff which I regretted bringing because sometimes the walk from the truck to tents was long. The first thing I did when I got my stuff was take off my cycling shoes and put on my Crocs, which quickly became my favorite part of the day. Then I would wander in the direction of the tents trying to find my “site”. My teammates did this on day one and never again, opting to place their tent wherever they could get away with and was convenient for them. But I doggedly adhered to the rules every day, not really having the mental capacity to consider actual options after I finished. Assembling my tent sucked, but it was better to get it over with immediately, so I actually had a place to relax. Putting the tent together on an empty stomach made me feel woozy as I wrestled with the hooks, flaps, and the wind. That first day was the hardest. I was so tired from the 80-mile day, the struggle with the tent and my illness that I just lay down in the tent and tried to process everything. My stomach began to rumble. I knew it was time for dinner but before I could eat, I needed to figure out how to shower.
I’ve never used a shower truck before, but it was kind of like the locker rooms at school or showers at a gym. It was a great feeling getting rid of the gunk from the day and the shower is a good way to signal my body to relax a.k.a. start the recovery process. It’s not lost on me that if I was doing a real self-supported bike tour, showering every day like this would be a huge luxury that was unlikely to happen. I tried to keep that clarity of mind as I realized the hot water in my stall wasn’t working. The cold water was bracing, and it woke me the hell up from the stupor I was in.
Finally, I was in my comfy clothes, and I could just relax and desperately try not to think that the next day was the most challenging single day out of the whole ride. Dinner was something carb heavy and bland that night, I can’t even remember now but I’m sure at the time it was a blessing. Our group had a little team meeting inside one of our member’s tents, but I excommunicated myself to the outside as I was still trying to fight off whatever cold I had. We discussed the plan for tomorrow which was going to the be the same plan for the rest of the week: try to meet up for breakfast and leave together. Afterwards I went to my tent to just try and let my body rest, and to actually sleep early so I could wake up early the next day and get out of Dodge.
Day Two: Santa Cruz to King City
I woke up feeling like crap. Had a stuffy nose which didn’t let me sleep very well, that and my body was still getting used to the inflatable sleeping bag mat. I sighed and got to work deconstructing my belongings, my tent, and my life. I was grumpy at the Jairo from yesterday who threw around all his stuff as he was trying to shower and get dressed for dinner. I was able to more or less pack everything the way I had the first night. It’s sad how taking down a tent is so much easier than putting it up, “the universe really does favor moving towards entropy”, this was my pessimistic thinking as I groggily rolled over my belongings to the truck. I needed coffee asap, then a light breakfast, and I would be able to start around 630 am to allow for spending extra time on the road if I had to. At least that’s what I thought but I learned some more ALC lessons that morning.
The sheer logistics of getting 2000 riders fed and onto the road was staggering. I saw the line for breakfast and knew I’d had to throw my planned start times out the window. Even the line to just get coffee was absurdly long in case I wanted to skip breakfast. I waited patiently as more of our team showed up and we began to chat. I decided to just get food and skip the coffee line but once we put our heads together, we divided and conquered. I sang exalted praises underneath my breath because I would have to otherwise stop somewhere during the day for this delicious elixir, adding logistical overhead I didn’t want to deal with. Then when we were done eating, I realized we made a huge mistake. The bikes were stored in a baseball field with a very narrow entrance and exit. It wasn’t a problem getting them in since every rider came in at different times based on their pace, but now that almost every single rider was trying to leave at the same time it created a huge bottleneck. It was a traffic jam from hell. Everyone’s instincts in this situation were to get in a line and wait their turn but even that proved chaotic because the number of riders and bikes was enough to wrap around the field several times over. A zig-zaggy queue formed but it was clear that the further back you were the later you would start due to people hopping into the line wherever their bikes were instead of dutifully walking to the end of the “line”. This morning I played it straight, but I took mental notes for the next day about what would be morally permissible, at least from a line-ethics perspective. I got out around 7:30 am, an hour gone just like that due to the challenges of moving bodies at scale.
I tried to make up the time by implementing the lesson from the first day and completely blazing past the first rest stop. It was a honey pot for basically every rider that didn’t get to use the restroom before leaving and also there wasn’t enough time from the start to spread out the massive column of riders into digestible chunks yet so it was crowded when I rode by. I knew I made the right choice and surprisingly I felt much better on the bike and pedaling than I did when I woke up. It’s like the symptoms of my cold had become subservient to the goal of finishing this ride. My sickness and my body were putting aside their differences to meet the proverbial gauntlet. This part of the course I had actually ridden previously as well on a Santa Cruz to Big Sur century so I knew I was expecting lots of farmland and crops. It made it easier to ride the 32 miles to the first rest stop without pause, and what a stop!
As if it was the culmination of all the vegetation I had seen up until that point the stop was Pezzini Farms: an Artichoke farm that had a dedicated shop with artichoke themed merchandise and food. It was crowded but not obscenely. I was able to enjoy an artichoke cupcake and grilled artichoke. As it turns out I don’t love artichoke, but the frosting was delicious. We very quickly came to rest stop 2 at mile 40 where the DJ was playing some throwback music that lured me to stop and eat a banana just to soak up the vibes. Then before I knew it, Bam! Lunch at mile 50. Not sure why the rest stops were bunched up but I could never say no to lunch so of course I stopped and ate some sandwiches under a tree with my cohorts. It was meditative to lie there and relax, I can see how the Buddha reached enlightenment that way, but before I reached Apotheosis I had to get on with the next 60 miles.
Time was waning and we left Salinas and away from the coast through neighborhoods and more farmlands. Stop #3 at about mile 70 was yet another park, I saw the fabled cookie lady delivering homemade cookies to all the starving cyclists. I couldn’t deny myself the pleasure! The temperature started to climb as we left the overcast coastal vibe of the morning for a more sun-drenched valley situation. To sour the deal we even had a steady headwind that had slowly snuck up on us. This was the hardest part of the day when you threw in some elevation and the high mileage count. Our bodies were exhausted and mine was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I pressed on and eventually came upon the otter pop stop, which offered otter pops to cyclists on this last stretch of a hotter day. I took one look at the never-ending line of sun kissed riders and peaced out, it was tempting but this day was dragging on and if I didn’t get to camp pronto I’d be setting up my tent in the dark.
It was about mile 90 when I came to an interesting sight, I crossed a bridge and there were dozens of bicycles on the side of the road seemingly…abandoned? All day I had heard people talking about the “secret” skinny dipping spot unsanctioned by the ride itself of course, and yet all these bikes left next to the bridge could only mean that the secret wasn’t so secret. Our group wanted to check it out, so we dutifully left our bikes propped up against a hillside wall and clopped down to the side of the river. I had no intention of dressing down or even getting wet but I wanted to be part of the experience. I will say this, there were a lot of people there and plenty of appendages soaking up the sun. This was the perfect time to indulge in some Beaver nuggets I had brought back from Buc-ee’s on a recent trip to Texas. If you look at the sugar content on those things, a 100 mile bike ride is just about the only way to justify eating them. Before we knew what was happening the Sheriffs arrived to break up the party. Apparently innocent families had chanced to look down at the river while crossing the bridge and what they saw had been burned into their minds as indecent and criminal. The Sheriffs told everyone to leave immediately or they would take all the bikes. Of course we got out of there, “not the bikes!”. It was better this way, I was definitely indulging in killing time when I should have buckled down and just gotten to camp.
Finally, we got past all the climbs of the day and like some sort of token victory from the universe the wind changed direction and all of a sudden I was flying towards the “privilege” of setting up my tent. I was doing so well that I ignored the last stop somewhere around the 100 mile mark. It was time to eat dinner!
That night I was so tired from the day that all I could was slowly set up tent, shower, and scarf down dinner. My cold was waiting in the wings, biding its time until I got off the bike to make its presence known again. I went to bed early, still sick, still tired, and now aware that every day brought its own set of challenges. In the morning, that challenge had a name: The Quadbuster.
