Day 3 - King City to Paso Robles

On the third day I began to get my groove.
I got myself, dressed, fed, stretched and ankle taped by 6:40...
Although not the clearest scan - above is the hill profile for the day...the area marked as 1. is a hill known as "Quadbuster."
From this photo, you can get a sense of how long and steep the hill was.

Day 3 was filled with me loving my bike, loving cycling and loving the AIDS ride. I was really pushing the limits of what my bike and body could do...and loved being out in front with the early rising riders. I only counted about 5 of us with time-trial bikes...and in my mind I started a kind of club with all of us crazy aero-riding cyclists as members.

I became more and more comfortable in aero-position, and found, to my delight, that different muscles in hamstrings kicked in, allowing my quads to rest briefly. We stopped for lunch in the little town of Bradley, where the local school had a fundraising BBQ, and cheered us as we arrived.

Getting the early start made all the difference. I was so much more relaxed, and was able to enjoy the people and the space around me. I had some good chats with other riders about bikes, and gear and speed and the cleansing nature of the AIDS Lifecycle...how one guy found that every year he did the ride he felt cleansed, and ready to start the year fresh - how I hear a lot of people describe Burning Man.

Rest stop 4 was only 12 miles away at Mission San Miguel...the boys were already camping it up with a production of "Greased LIghtening" number from Grease....

I had a nice chat with one of the "pink ladies" about how hard they work at the rest stops, and how much I appreciated it...he said that we were the ones that worked hard...we ended up agreeing that ideally we get to do what we are best suited to doing - I can sit on my bike and ride, no problem, but setting up and breaking down and being "on" all day would likely kill me.


Although I'd imagine I could ham it up in a Pink Ladies performance piece until the cows came home.

There was no reason to rush the 11 miles to the Paso Robles Fairgrounds - it would be too early for camp services to even be open...so I lounged about at the lovely mission drinking powerade and enjoying the day.

Once at the fairgrounds, bike parking was wide open - one of the volunteers said "Ok everyone, line up I have something for you...he then handed us a little card.Saying that one of the riders was a 4th grade teacher and her students had made them for us. I started to feel my eyes involuntarily moisten.

One beautiful black cyclist walked away from the line, and the volunteer nearly yelled at him"Hey, take one of these, they are FROM THE CHILDEREN! He replied, "I know they are from the childeren, if I take one of those I am going to cry, and I don't feel like crying right now.