6/26 ride report 17 miles, flat, avg speed 4.5 mph

I decided to ride to BART for the Pride parade today.

I'd read that Lance and the team including gorgoeous George do at least 3x the miles of the tour de France in training. So one of my goals for training this year for the Lifecycle was to put in 3x the training miles of the 585 mile AIDS Lifecycle ride.

As I clicked in and rode away from home my odometer on the bike went to 000.01, that's 2,000 miles. Probably had something to do with why I
did better this year. Ya think?

Thanks TE gals for the rides and encouragement.

I got off at Embarcadero station and there were lots of Lifecycle riders there, which was a good thing.

I forgot to bring directions to where I was supposed to meet up so i followed them.

I could not resist a ride on Market St and Mission, it's not often the busiest streets in San Francisco are closed to car traffic. It's even LESS often that I get to ride them between what seems like endless blocks of the womens motorcycle contingent. Nice bikes.

I found the other riders and it was a bit like old home week. We all miss the camraderie and kindness on the ride. There was another Mondonico on the ride this year, we would bust into Italian whenever we saw each other on the road. He showed me that cracked the frame in a crash, did the ride anyway because he thought he had to ship it back to Italy fix. That takes months. I expressed concern that the crack would grow more severe and he should take care of it right away. I told him that my mechanic can get it fixed in LA and gave him Chris's number he was veeeeeery happy about that.

Also got some nice pix of the Dusty's twin on the ride.

Nearby a bike messenger had a flat and 3 Lifecycle riders just swooped
over and helped him fix it in a couple minutes, instant pit crew.

The messenger asked "you just do this for other riders?"

yep, we do.

Assembling around us were a mottley crew of other groups; gay chearleeders from LA, SF and Edmonton Canada marching together, A Traditional Chinese Lion Dance School, an all male review that's a tribute to Madonna
and...and....I'm not sure what these folks were on rollerskates in costumes I can only describe as looking like huge human chrysanthamums made of balloons but they were real neet.

You can imagine the noise, three cheer leading troups, Chinese cymbals
and drums of the dancers, Madonna in drag cover band on the trailer al being danced to by the balloon things and then the parade begins ..... on time as always, really!

I've been to every SF Pride parade 'cept 2 since about 1975 yet I
still get goosebumps when the womens motorcycle contingent fires up
their engines and roars by.

I wasn't prepared for how emotional riding in the parade was this year probably because I wasn't prepared for how emotional doing the ride
again and completing it would be this year either.

My ex, Leslie and her partner, well wife really 'cept it was annulled (that's the ex I'm good friends with) spotted me and called out, I rode over to them and they shouted "you're our hero".

Aw shucks folks, I dunno about that ;-) My hero's still the crew.

Everyone liked my "Impeach Bush" Cycling socks, even while stopped some people in the crowd said they liked 'em, and several women
on BART. Got them years ago, thought I'd be done wearing them by now. Available at fine local bike shops near you.

After the ride I hung out in the Civic Center for a bit, ran into a few friends from work, had a bite to eat, perused the various booths, Different Spokes bike club tried to recruit me (yes it's true folks, we recruit!!) then headed home.

After the parade the the ride always feels officially "over" to me. Kinda like closure so I headed home to my dog Mae

what an adventure Trek - I could just see the cheerleaders and the Dragon! and I Loved the messengers' pit crew! Sounded very exciting, fun, full of laughs, and poignent!