More Bears! More Bears! More Bears!

DAY 2 107.6 miles to go.

Waking up is by far the hardest part of this adventure. It’s cold. Everything is stiff.

The morning routine:

1. Wake up when your neighbors alarm goes of at 4:30am.
2. Listen to people who think they are alone in tent city make out.
3. Mental pep talk about why it's wrong to punch your neighbors.
4. Mental pep talk about why you have to get out of bed.
5. Get out of bed.
6. Get dressed in usually still moist and cold bike shorts (ew) and fresh jersey.
7. Read encouraging note from Rooster.
8. Pack up gear bag and take to truck.
9. Pee.
10. Eat.
11. Find Bike.
12. Inflate tires.
13, Ride out between 6:30am – 7:15am.
Breakfasts are terrible. Oatmeal and scrambled eggs, every day. I have to force myself to eat that early in the morning. Most of the time I can't eat much, so I look forward to rest stop 1.
I left at 7am on Day 2 after waiting about 30 minutes for a bike pump.
The first leg of the ride is always about warming up and getting all the muscles and joints working. I tended to start sluggish and heaving and tired.
Rest Stop 1 becomes critical for stretching and hydrating and, as I mentioned, eating again. Bananas and Goldfish at 8am, why yes, yes I will. Oreo cookies for breakfast? Don't mind if I do. AND rider crack for good measure. Srsly, this is awesome.

Here I am at Rest Stop 1 . . . having ridden 20 miles before most people I know are out of bed.


I only look happy because I took three pictures before this and realized that I wasn’t smiling in any of them so, for the record, this is forced. Honestly, this is exhausting, and it's only Day 2.

I also fixed my hair.

The ride on Day 2 was absolutely beautiful. All day through farm country. We passed the strawberry fields first and for miles before and miles after the air smelled of fresh cut strawberries. Then we passed cilantro and lettuce fields so if you closed your eyes (which you would never do because it’s really dangerous) you could imagine yourself living in a giant and delicious salad, instead of riding your bike for over a hundred miles. Mmmmm. Salad life.

At one point we passed a cactus farm, which I told myself was harvesting agave, even though I know that’s not true.

Because we were on back roads in relatively flat country, we ended up with miles and miles of very bumpy terrain and howling winds. The bumps were by far the most uncomfortable experience of the day because your whole body is impacted – your hands end up hurting the most from trying to maintain grip. Your lady parts also end up, well, angry and full of hate and black and blue. I strongly dislike it when my eyeballs jiggle independently of the rest of my head, it’s disorienting. And we had over 80 miles of this. Elaine (she's the tentmate) ended up with a broken hand from the vibrations. In another context, I'd applaud that effort.

The howling winds brought about my favorite single moment on the bike though . . . that is, I was all by myself by about a minute on either side riding in between miles and miles of farms on either side of the road. The wind was blowing in such a way that it was actually making noise – like a howling cat. At one moment, I was coming up on a farm and the wind quieted. It was almost silent save the sound of my tires on the pavement. And then I started to hear a very faint low “whooooooooooooooooo” which got louder as I approached the farm. As I passed the farm I realized that the wind was catching an open mental mailbox and much like you can blow over an open coke bottle to create a tone, the mailbox and the wind were singing. I could have lived in this moment forever, it was so cool.

I spent the next several hours in deep contemplation of all the unintended side effects of human interaction and natural phenomenon, wondering how many amazing moments like this one go unnoticed, unappreciated by anyone, if any other riders would have heard this and if any of them would have cared at all.

At some point, we crossed a river which is a popular photo op. I was feeling ahead of my pace so I took the time to stop and take a few pictures of the seals.

Seals:
















Where I came from pre seals:




















Where I was headed post seals:
















Exciting right? All this before 11am.

Lunch was a much needed stop, somewhere around mile 55. I was tired.

Did I mention that Day 2 was 110 miles?

After lunch I expanded my knowledge of my gears and shifting techniques and was super proud when a rider told me I was pacing very well. Until I found out this was code for 'thanks for letting me draft you for the last hour'. Jerk.

At rest stop 3 I ate some Gu which I credited with making me fly for many miles. I mean, I was making great time at about 19 MPH. I eventually figured out that the Gu was not so impactful as the tailwinds were. I was actually having fun though, that’s the important thing. I was enjoying riding my bike . . . fast.






The highlight of Day 2 was the water stop between rest stops 3 & 4.

Bears. Cowboy Hats. Otter Pops. I don't think I need to tell you how in love with this I was.


I know, right? And then, oh and then, someone would just scream "MORE BEARS!" and out of nowhere like 30 of these bears in tutus would start running in circles and dancing with riders. It was pretty much the best ever.

More bears:



I could have stayed here forever too. Except that I have heard rumors of skinny dipping and someone named “Cookie Lady” prior to rest stop 4, and of course, we all know how I feel about rest stop 4.

A little ways down the road we come to a bridge that crosses a river in which many participants choose to shed clothing in order to swim in. I opted to keep going. This has been happening for years and I am told that this is the first year that someone has complained about the hundreds of naked bodies below the bridge. Just because you’re driving a school bus full of kids over the bridge and it gets stopped for an extra 20 minutes as riders pass . . . ha!

Past the bridge is a fairly annoying hill, except that “cookie lady” is at the top of it. Cookie Lady, as it turns out, is just a good person who likes to make thousands of cookies the week before the ride and feed them to hungry riders.

Cookie Lady.


Look how happy that rider is. This might be the best vacation ever because every where you go there is free, delicious, fattening food. The average rider will burn about 3500 calories on the bike, on top of the 1400 or so burned off the bike so we’re told to eat as close to 5000 calorie a day as we can get. Guilt free. Awesome.

Rest Stop 4 was themed Extreme Home Makeover: Recession Edition but ended up looking more like Bob the Builder and friends.

I felt a little discriminated against because every time a boy got up there to have his picture taken they posed very inappropriately. Of course for me they were like – here hold the sign. Haha. I was jealous. Please note the Hellions love and the purple fanny pack.

The first 5 miles out of rest stop 4 were all 30 mph crosswinds and this was by far the least fun thing I’d done so far. I actually had to use my right hand to push the right handle bars forward while pulling with my left hand to go kind of straight. Big gusts of wind would relocate me a good 7 inches to the right, without my permission. This was frightening. However, I was feeling on top of the world because I was mentally in the zone, kicking that wind’s ass. I was literally yelling at the wind, and telling it that it would not defeat me or blow me off the road like it was doing to other little girls. AND what’s even better is that once you break the wind and turn the corner, you get 10 miles of tailwind over rolling hills, which is by far the most fun 10 miles of the ride. Reaching a top speed of 40 mph, I was actually still enjoying riding my bike, after 90+ miles. Silly.

I parked my bike for the night at 5:30pm.

Ride bike 100 miles in a day. Done. Take that bucket list.

People are always cheering you in as you ride into camp. There is one guy that is always saying “smile” as you ride past. I wanted to punch him. I'm starting to feel like I want to punch people a lot. I'm non violent, really. I felt incredibly accomplished and equally exhausted. My body was completely spent. And, I was dirty. Not tan, dirty.



I ate dinner that night with a Moto and his Roadie Wife. Moto actually apologized because he was grumpy from being low on calories. He said that the day was successful and no one was badly injured. His proud moment was going on a rescue mission for 9 riders who got about 9 miles off course when the accidentally followed a recreational bike rider from the city instead of the ALC rider in front of them. Suckers!

For camp news I sat next to a gentleman, who when asked about his day spent a good 10 minutes telling me all about his diarrhea . . . we’re not friends.

Unfortunately bowel movements became a hot topic in camp because a strain of gastrointestinal something was going around . . . most likely cause is not properly disinfecting hands after using the restroom . . . challenging since there is no running water anywhere and everyone is applying butt butter all day long . . . starts with dizziness, vomiting and ends with really unfortunate stuff. I didn’t catch it. I also didn’t touch anyone.

Some final thoughts from Day 2.

Don’t stop pedaling – as a rule, was a good idea. I repeated this phrase to myself countless time throughout the day when I would get tired, feel stiff, or want to take a break. It’s a very easy rule to translate to everything you want to accomplish in life. Just keep moving forward and you’re going to get where you want to be . . . the route changes, there are fun surprises and seemingly insurmountable challenges, none of which matter if you just keep trying.

No two things can hurt at the same time. When you have little aches and pains, it’s a good thing. You figure, your butt wants to hurt the most so when your wrists and hands start to throb because of crappy roads, you actually welcome it because it means that you ass wont hurt for the next twenty minutes. In fact, as long as you don’t focus on the pain, you ass eventually goes numb.

I learned after 70 miles, it’s actually more comfortable to be on the bike than off simply because you lose feeling in your ass.

I ran over a caterpillar. I felt really bad about it. Sorry Caterpillar. I’m sorry.

Mama Mia got me over all the hills today. Specifically “Mama Mia, here we go again, my my just how much we missed you.” Chances are these lyrics aren’t even accurate, but they were all I could remember and I sang them out loud to myself for over four hours.