AIDS Life cycle ride

[Trek420]

well, it's getting down to the wire. I've been sending updates to my sponsors on the AIDS ride about once a month since October when I registered. Now it's down to last minute preparation and tune up the fitness, try to keep up the momentum. But i thought to my self "self" I thought "wait a minute, my TE community has made this all possible. Those gals taught me so much" so:

Hellooo TE friends,

I'm riding 585 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles in June. I'm
dedicating this ride to the memory of Brad Wall, and of course my Dad, Jack Rudinow

training is going well so far or…"what does not kill me makes my legs
stronger" ;-)

My endurance feels better than last year. I need power for those hills. Spazzdog designed a program to build strength. Thanks Spazz, I think it's working.

Last year my training rides were 30 miles and 1 long ride, the Cinderella. I decided to do some harder training rides this year. The Primavera climbs East Bay hills including one local cyclists call "the wall". It was a challenging but beautiful scenic ride. I felt fine the next day.

TE folks all know I got a late start and didn't do the metric on that one but I'm glad I did that ride.

I'm lighter than last year, haven't lost muscle. Nothing makes the
hills easy but there's less of me to haul uphill. I'm down 4 pants sizes and yes, I'm eating.

This is waaay cheaper than buying lighter parts for the bike, but less fun.

I **Love my job** I'm using it get used to riding multiple days. My
ride to work is 2 miles, home can be 12 miles (scenic & safer route).
The week before the ride all training stops, just rest and eat a
balanced diet, plenty of water.

I love that part of training ;-)

Preparation .... getting ready for the ride
Last minute preparations include flight back, making
sure Mae (faithful dog) has a place to stay. I'm
tenting with rider Bike Goddess, she's a very strong and fast rider. I want to be her when I grow up ;-)

Where we're riding
I've been asked a lot about the route:

Day 1 San Fran to Aptos 87.5 miles
Day 2 Aptos to King City 100.7 miles
Day 3 King City to Paso Robles 77.2 miles
Day 4 Paso Robles to Santa Maria 98.7 miles
Day 5 Santa Maria to Lompoc "only" 43.5 miles this is the hardest day.
Day 6 Lompoc to Ventura 88.3 miles
Day 7 Ventura to LA 82.4 miles

You're invited to opening and closing ceremonies:

Northern California is at the Cow Palace this year, if you're going
just ask me for time, directions, info. or check the web.

If you're in Southern California the closing ceremonies are Saturday,
June 11, 2005
Wadsworth Theatre Grounds
VA Center
11301 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90025


You'll be able to follow the ride from the internet! From June 5th till
June 11th just go to
www.aidslifecycle.org. they will be putting up pictures daily.

I'm the one with the mermaid on her helmet ;-)

You also can send an e-mail message of support/encouragement to a rider
from the site, just reference your riders number:
mine's 5650
Bike Goddess is 5481
annerol??? we need yours.
Anyone else here?
We'd love to hear from you, it's so encouraging to get those.

We won't have e-mail access to respond. Our crew prints these out and we
see them in camp each night.

Keep it clean folks, everyone in camp reads reads them ;-)

off to the indoor trainer I go

byeeee!

TREK

[Melody]

*\o/* Cheers for Trek! *\o/*
*\o/* Cheers for BG! *\o/*
*\o/* Cheers for Annerol! *\o/*

*\o/* Cheers for EVERYONE who is doing this! *\o/*

You are ALL awesome :cool: :)

Mel

[CycleGiant3]

I think what you are doing is awesome. One of the main reasons I wanted to get into cycling was to participate in the AIDS and Cancer cycles. I am on the east coast and unfortunatly I have not been able to find any rides. I am continuing to look though! I will follow along on the web, I think it is so exciting! Good luck and have a great time. :D

[Trek420]

thanks Giant! the support and good wishes mean a lot.

I think there was a Florida AIDS ride, don't know if it still exists, there are several on the East Coast, a family friend in his 70's does one in Maryland each year or....fly out here and ride with us!

[spazzdog]

Trek420 dahling,

In case I don't get to chat before you go Good Luck!!!! I'm proud to have contributed to your training. You'll do great!

I've been busy at my part-time gig, but am another step closer to my super secret possibly coolest job in the world. I will let you know Deets, even if it means sending a telegram to the ride :D

Lots of hugs and kisses and good tunes to play in your head as you ride.

spazz

[Trek420]

Tunes in my head? Annerol, Bike goddess, watch out! I sing on hills and it's whatever comes to mind so can be a little odd.

[spazzdog]

Row row row your boat, gently....

99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer...

I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener...

Feelings... (sorry) :D

spazz - just trying to help

[slinkedog]

I hope you have a wonderful ride, Trek. My husband did the Alaska AIDS ride in 2001 with a group from our church and had a really wonderful experience.

I hope you will ride with us on Memorial day. It would be great to meet you in person and give you a proper send off... meaning good food and some sort of *beverage.* :rolleyes:

[SadieKate]

Ok, laugh, but I grew up on the New Christy Minstrels (just substitute something else for "cigarette trees" like perhaps "bicycle wheels").

Big Rock Candy Mountain

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright
Where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars are all empty and the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees
Where the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs
The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay
Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew and of whiskey too
You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin
And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in
There ain't no short handled shovels, no axes saws or picks
I'm a goin to stay where you sleep all day
Where they hung the jerk that invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

[slinkedog]

My grandpa on my mom's side used to bring his guitar to all of our birthday parties and sing this song when my sister and I were little living in Las Vegas. Thanks for the memory, SK!

[SadieKate]

Oh. how fun! Makes the song even more special! I only got to hear it on one of those weird black plastic platter size disks. :D

[massbikebabe]

there once was a man from Nantucket...oops, never mind, family forum, just an old catholic school girl song... :o

karen

ps-you go Trek. Stomp on disease and infirmary for me...I'm pulling for you!!

[Trek420]

CycleGiant3 "I think what you are doing is awesome. One of the main reasons I wanted to get into cycling was to participate in the AIDS and Cancer cycles. I am on the east coast and unfortunatly I have not been able to find any rides. I am continuing to look though! I will follow along on the web, I think it is so exciting! Good luck and have a great time."

well folks, y'all can congratulate me when I finish ;-)

I surprised myself last year, although I bonked on day 3 (not fun) the rest of the ride i did well. My goal was then and is now to do every mile but last year Day one was the longest ride I'd ever done, day was 2 my first century (what was I thinking?) and there are two of these on the ride....oddly I found that after day 3 I just felt stronger each and every day. I think that's the spirit on this ride.

I've trained more this year, I'm a lot lighter, I hope to do well, just eat, drink, ride safely.

cyclegiant, I found http://www.thesmartride.org/ which is in Florida, found that ride and lots more on www.thegoodcyclist.org which is a site that lists charity bike rides in every state and lots of countries too, you go girrl...or come out here and ride with us.

[CycleGiant3]

Thank so much Trek for looking into that for me!! I am going to register for that ride. It is only a 3-4 hours drive for me. After that, i will fly and ride with all of you for the next ride.

[DeniseGoldberg]

...www.thegoodcyclist.org which is a site that lists charity bike rides in every state and lots of countries too, you go girrl...or come out here and ride with us.

The url in the message above wasn't quite right - I'm assuming that http://www.goodcyclist.org/ is the site that you mean, right?

--- Denise

[Trek420]

oops, yep, good catch, just testing if you'd catch that...yeah right.

[Bike Goddess]

Thanks for all the songs! I'm sure we'll need them along the way to keep our spirits up when the going gets tough!

BTW- I have suggested we do a Ride of Silence for an hour on one of the days when we have a shorter ride. Can you imagine 2000 cyclists riding through town in utter silence? I'll let you all know at the end if it happens and what it was like!

Between TREK and me we've raised over $10,000! :D :D

Be sure to look for pictures of the ride as we wind our way down the coast and inland areas of California with each of you behind us! :cool: :cool:

[Trek420]

Bike Goddess posts "Between TREK and me we've raised over $10,000! :D :D "

don't be modest BG, that's mostly you. I've met my pledge goal, and not at the very very very last minute like last year. Last year I was way behind, kept plugging away and checked online the night before registration and one of my sponsors had posted a large donation that put me over the top.

Bike Goddess blasted the pledge goal outa the park to borrow from another sport.

Annerol, how ya doing? Can we get a group figure, and more important a group portrait! We'll have to meet up, before, during, after the ride. Let's do breakfast together. We've had some talk about riding out together on Day 5 which I think is "red dress day".

[slinkedog]

You guys rock! I'm totally looking forward to keeping track of you as you blaze down the coast! Maybe you could start a new thread with all the contact info and sticky it to the top of the forum so everyone can easily keep track of you guys and send lots of virtual encouragement!! :)

[Trek420]

thanks Slink, and thanks to everyone here for all the support.

I don't know if I'll be "blazin' down the coast", Bike Goddess is likely to be in the first clump of riders, I'm in the back of the pack, where the fun is ;-)

It's not a race, I'm just glad to be able to do it again this year. But yeah, good idea I'll post all our numbers.

Between the 3 TE'ers we've raised approx $13,165.00 :cool:

I'd like to see a thread where we keep track during the season of the ammount TE members raise on *all* fundraising rides: from Team Amici starting us off this year and the MS rides, to ALC4, to Bike Against the Odds in October. I bet the combined figure would be staggering. :)

[Bike Goddess]

Well, we've got 13 days before the ride- I say we should make a goal of $15,000 between the 3 of us! I'll bet we can do it!

If anyone wants to contribute to the cause, just look us up on the AIDS LifeCycle page and type in one of our numbers. As I have told all my sponsors, whatever you want to put in the pot, it all goes to a good cause. I have $10.00- $250.00 contributions from people who are sponsoring me. I'm not going to stop fundraising until I can't talk anymore- which is Day 1 of
the ride (at least on the internet)! So if I seem a little pushy here its because I AM! :p :p