TE AIDS Lifecycle Team

[SadieKate]

Spazz, you may be a potential Pulitzer winner here. Thanks for all the reports and passing on the words of cheer. Tell Dita that we're greatful for her continuing boobage research.

[Hill Slug]

Great job reporting just the facts m'am!!!

And let her and Bike Goddess know they are the BOMB!!!!!

[spazzdog]

5:30 am PST - sent the following as my morning wakeup msg:

Hallelujah! It's Day 7 and you are almost home!
Saddle up grrl, it's time to close the rodeo.
Ride tall in the saddle. You done good!

Will keep you posted as I receive news. It's a 60.8 mi stage to LA. If you're in that next of the woods, go greet our TE sisters!

11:00 am PST - got a call from Trek420. She's at Pit 2 and assessing her energy level. Despite the feeling that she may have to SAG in today, she's feeling really great about her performance. As she put it " I've gone faster and further... flown higher than I did last year and I feel great!"

To that I say, She most certainly has! Congratulations to you Trek420, whether you ride or carry your bike across the finish.

1:00 pm PST - Trek420 is STILL pedaling. She's at the lunch stop with 15 mi to go. Keep chanting TE... keep chanting!

2:49 pm PST - Yee-hah!! Trek420 has finished the 2005 San Francisco to Los Angeles Aids Lifecycle.

She's at the finish area, probably looking for the other TE grrls that rode (5481 Bike Goddess, 3370 Annerol, 5292 Amondala) Bigs cheers for all of them gang!

And that's it for me. Reporting from Massachusetts, this is spazzdog, returning to my usual routine.

[aka_kim]

The TE ALC Team, and their intrepid reporter, ROCK!

[jobob]

Many congratulations Dita & Nancy & Annerol & Amondala !!!

You are all worthy recipients indeed of the She-Ra Princess of Power Tiara


Here're some fun photos on the ALC website from day 5 - obviously that was Red Dress Day.

http://experience.aidslifecycle.org/...ay5/index.html

[SadieKate]

Yipee and bravo! Good ride, one and all!

[Trek420]

BG, a Southwestern Airlines plane full of tired sweaty stinky riders and I have arrived back home.

Reading Spazz's reporting and my TE sisters words of encouragement brought tears to my eyes (much of it laughter).

I'm off for a hot soak in the tub, I hear they've invented indoor plumbing since I left. Much details and stuff to catch y'all up on.

I could *not* have done this without you all.

Special thanks go to the Mt. Diablo gang for teaching me how to descend in the drops, and "coach" Spazz.

Note to Sadiekate: BG and I tried to get the Team Amici temp tatoos on to wear to closing ceremonies, they wouldn't stick. Note to myself: when/if I do this again bring sponge for temp tatoos.

[Trek420]

I wrote: "Last year Tracy Chapman rode, did I ever tell you the Tracy Chapman story? Remind me when I get back. And when I crewed on CAR4 Gregg Louganis rode (both did not camp, stayed in hotels)."

Well, I'm back and gathering my thoughts will be starting on a journal of the ride so check my homepage in about 3 weeks I'll let you know as new pictures are uploaded. Just taking a moment between washloads, and before i go pick up Mae (can't wait!) got tons of stinky bike clothes to wash so before i forget to tell the aforementioned Tracy Chapman story. It's kind of typical of the humor of the ride.

One gets familiar with your "neighborhood", your block in the tent city and last year on Day 1 I was talking to the couple next to us about an unusual experience she had on the road to Aptos. Seems she was riding along, just minding her own business when a rider calls out, passes her, looks back to see that he's clear, prepares to merge back to the right (sounds good so far, eh?) and then stops dead in his tracks right in front of her (yikes, she avoided the crash) points at her and starts screaming "you're Traci Chapman! You're Traci! They told me you'd be on the ride! You're..."

In a voice quite calm, she just says "uh, no, I'm not Traci." Convinced or not of that fact, he rides on. So that night telling us this her husband joked "and we're going to sign her up to sing on talent night and PROOVE without a doubt that she's not Traci" we all got a laugh.

So I think it was the night 3? 4? I'm standing in the dinner line and the guy behind me starts snapping pictures wildly. "What's up?" I ask. "It's not every day you're 4 feet away from Traci Chapman" he says. "Yeah, right." I think but then I look and dang, it IS Chapman (who looks magnificent but NOTHING like my neighbor other than they both are black and have dreds). And that night, she sang a beautiful solo concert to us.

Anyway by now my neighbor's story is around the camp, and we know Traci Chapman IS on the ride (Traci? are you here? she passed me many times, everyone does but she's a real strong rider, nice cadence, good pedal stroke). And by morning we are seeing a few folks with plain white t-shirts that are hand lettered "I'm not Traci". It seemed to start in the morning with a few of the women of color riders, but literaly by lunch the fashion statement is spreading; from huge hairy bearded white men "I'm not Traci" to older riders (our oldest is Bert Shaw, good to see him back at 77) the more rediculous the person ie: could not possibly be Traci the better.

Where is the AIDS Lifecycle jersey that says 'I'm not Traci"? ;-)

[Bike Goddess]

I think you all have probably heard a lot about this ride from TREK, so I won't go into the many details of the everyday parts. Suffice to say, I was glad I wasn't at camp the night of the sprinkler incident as I have a down bag. The next day, when I put the tent up, we had to literally drain all of the puddles of water out of it which meant turning the tent upside down and watching the shower!

I was deeply moved by the support we received both on the road and on the internet. Every town we passed always had people cheering us on often with signs and candy. On our 1st day towards the end of the ride, we were even treated to free coffee, ice cream, etc. by a local coffee shop. And then later on (Day 3) homemade cookies (she starts a couple of months before the ride), and then in Santa Barbara free ice cream and strawberries. (Food was a major incentive on this journey ). And, of course, the children were something else again. I've got some pictures of one group I'll put on this forum for all of you to see.

I can't tell you how much I appreciated your comments and support. Although I didn't look at the computer every night, when I did, I felt so honored.

Now for the fun part! For me, a lot of the ride became a mystery to solve. On all but one day we had 4 rest stops and a lunch stop plus sometimes water stops inbetween. I would check my odometer to see how far it was to the next stop and then see how fast I could get there! And what a reward that turned out to be! They set the stops up with the same team at the same number each day. Turned out, each stop had a theme with costumes and music galore! Sometimes, I could figure it out, other times I asked. One of the funniest ones was on day 3 (I think). Women were dressed in high heels, and different outfits- Monica (white on her navy dress), Cleopatra, Peggy Bundy (doing her Bundy dance), Courtney Love, and a Hooter girl. How could we be grumpy with all this humor around! Pretty hard!

The Rest Stop 4 gang has evidently done this ride many times. They were off the charts! When you approached their stop, you were often greeted with the Burma Shave signs. One day, they did a CIA mock up - the signs warned you that you were being watched. Evidently at one point during the day they had a fake bomb scare which meant massive porta potty evacuation and than a check of everyone's bikes with mirrors. They all had on black suits, white shirts, and ties! They had a hard time keeping a straight face as we laughed our way through the food and beverage line.

The same group treated us to a puppet show on the Sound of Music theme. They had matching outfits made from fake rags as they danced their puppets behind the homemade theatre.

As the days wore on and we all got pretty tired, the rest stops became one happy spot to lift our spirits. If you knew there was a rest stop at the top of a hill or just beyond, it made that hill so much easier to do.

On some of the longer hills, there were groups of riders cheering you on as you got toward the top often with musical accompaniment! Often some of the stronger riders would ride back down and push people up! What a team!

The emotional parts of this ride were memorable as well. Seeing the HIV POS Pedalers with their flags identifying them riding along with the best of us, really touched my heart. When the going got tough (and it certainly did)' I found myself reaching deeply into my body and literally willing it to get beyond that next hill, or next rest stop. I kept reminding myself that what I was doing was temporary, I was fortuneate, I got to go home at the end of 7 days.

It was a caring community, an example of a possiblity of living in a world where its not about you OR me, but about you AND me. We became a moving spirit and what we looked like or what our beliefs were didn't matter. I am proud to have been a member of this special community. It was an experience of a lifetime that I shan't ever forget!

[Trek420]

I think she's up to a half an hour now ;-)

Here's a write up of Nancy aka BG on the lifecycle website:

http://experience.aidslifecycle.org/...ay3/index.html

[CorsairMac]

Welcome home all! what an experience and thank you all for taking us along with you!

[Trek420]

thanks Corsaire, I was glad to do it and glad that i can. But Auntie Em there's no place like home, there's no place like home....

[jobob]

BG, you looked quite fetching on Red Dress Day

- Jo " I've seen the picture " bob

[Trek420]

she was stunning!

Annerol , amondala, whatdja wear?

[Trek420]

gradualy getting pictures back and putting them on the homepage. Let's try the attachment thing, see if this works.

This is Amondala and I, I think it's day 2.

The blond is "Dolly Parton" & I day 1 at rest stop 4.