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The new American Idol was born, the last episode of Seventh Heaven aired. So, this is it, final countdown to ALC 5 has officially started and the season finale of Bicycle Diaries is here!
I did two short and easy rides on Saturday and Sunday. This is not the time to do any tough ride, just need to stay relax, get rest and hydrate! I will be leaving for SF on Friday morning and will attend the orientation on Saturday morning.
During the ride, I will have limited access to electronic devices, so most of the time I will have my cell phone turn off and will not check my emails. If you would like to send me message, or a note of encouragement and support, you can try http://experience.aidslifecycle.org/ and leave a message for rider 6915, I should get it upon my arrival at the camp sites. (I’m not sure how this website/function works, but you can try during 6/4-10.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you each and every one of you, for your generous money contribution and moral support. With that said, to date I’ve raised more than $5000 for ALC 5, double the minimum pledge requirement, and $2000 more than my original goal. On behalf of the beneficiaries, I would like to say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart.
I would also like to share with you an email that I received from a friend of mine who’s HIV positive:
“One thing to keep in mind about we who live with HIV/AIDS is the enormous cost associated with the medication required to keep us alive. As health insurance costs rise, many small and medium-sized companies are cutting down on the coverage that their insurance plans offer in order to keep costs low per employee. The cost of my medicines on a monthly basis without insurance is almost $2000!!! Last I heard, neither the State of California nor the federal government are being of much help in assisting with these astronomical costs; especially not for those who are in the ‘working poor’ category. Although I am amply compensated at my job, I still cannot afford to shell out $2000 each month for medication alone!
This is just one other thing to share with those of your team who are riding for this cause. I appreciate all that you and your fellow riders are doing to help out; rest assured, your contributions and efforts are of immense importance to us all.”
I want to share this with you, so that for those of you who have never come across with HIV/AIDS issue or never had the chance to speak with someone who’s living with it, know that your contribution does help make a difference!
Some friends asked me, what’s next? Am I going to do it again next year? Honestly, I want to, but I have to finish ALC 5 first. Of course, I want to hear from you, that you will continue support and sponsor me next year, if I decided to join ALC 6. As for my “Bicycle Diaries” it will come to an end (for this season). I’ll share some stories about the ride upon my returning from SF.
There will be an AIDS ride until there is no AIDS! 
Final ride with the Chain Gang, safety speech by Jim.
Tony is giving us some packing tips.
Every red ribbon represents someone we loved.
Rick holding the cloth pinned with lots of red ribbons.
Pony ride at Griffith Park, they have as much fun as we do.
Sunday ride at West Hollywood Park.
Brentwood Community Fundraising Run - the professional runners...
The average and family guy runners...
...and the future runner!
Bike parking at rest stop one in Brentwood.
That's right, I will be staying in tent during the 7-day ride.
Busy taking photos every where to share with all of you.
I did it, we did it! 105 miles, climbed over 6600 feet, the Mulholland Highway Challenge on Saturday was a blast!
This annual ride was organized by Different Spokes Southern California, and considered as one of the toughest ride. We started from Juan Bautista de Anza Park in Calabasas and traveled through some of the west valley cities and neighborhoods.
The toughest part of this ride, of course, was the 7.5 miles climb over Mulholland Highway at mile 81. The scene was beautiful (somehow forgot we were in LA) but the hilly part was killing. My legs (and butt) were getting uncomfortable, but keep peddling till the top. It was hot (but they said 10 degree less than last year) and I kept drinking water (which was the right and good thing to do), kept myself hydrated. It was nice to see the pit stop and the volunteers who worked tirelessly.
What goes up must come down. The part I still hate is going down hill, especially those steep one, I had to break a lot and hurt my thumbs. I will have to improve that down hill technique.
So this was my 2nd full century ride, beating last week’s 103 miles, by far this is my longest and toughest ride ever. They said if we could do Mulholland, we would have not problem doing ALC. I gained confidence and am ready for the up coming big challenge. Yes, believe it or not, 2 weeks to go.
Didn’t ride my bike on Sunday, but went to the after-ride party at one of the TRLs Jon’s house. Besides enjoying delicious barbeque hamburgers and chips and lovely desserts, the TRLs – Jon and Chris gave us the newbies some packing tips, it was really nice of them to do this, very informative and helpful.
After riding first 15 miles, still looking good...
Lunch stop - mile 56 @ Banyan Park
Most creative pit stop - Hawaii theme, get the energy before we climb up the 7.5 miles killing hill
See, I'm not kidding, it's a real hilly ride
Keep up riders, the last hill (is still ahead)...
Can't believe we did it, after getting to the top, we just love this pit stop so much
Back to the park, my cycling buddies Suzann & Micky
Other buddies, Cynthia, Pam & Evelyn
Yes, I did it! (after all, lifting the 17 lbs Dragon seem like another challenge)
After ride party + packing information session on Sunday, all of them rode 45 miles before the party, except me
Happy (belated) Mothers’ Day! Good news – finally I made my full century ride, 102.7 miles to be exact; bad news – we got lost in OC. It was the most adventures ride I ever had, I named it “Mothers’ Day Special – Tour de LA – Lost in OC” ride.
The weather on Sunday was gorgeous, about 20 rides showed up for the “Almost a century tour of two rivers” ride. We met at the San Gabriel River trail in Irwindale and I was really looking forward to this mostly flat, yet long distance ride.
None of my cycling buddies came to this ride, so I decided to make some new friends, rode with Lee, Tim, Tai and some others. One of the TRL, Katie didn’t show up, so we only had Brian as our sole TRL, which was fine since everyone has been training for months and pretty much can take care of each others.
The first 30 miles of the ride was nice, until we reached Anaheim and looked for Wilshire Ave., and couldn’t find it. That’s right, it was off the map and the TRL were not aware of that. I was told all TRLs should know the route, either he or she planned it or did the route before, but it was not in this case.
Luckily we stayed together (right, we get lost together, too, but it was weird, everyone rode at different speed and was kind of falling apart from each other, but some how get back together when looking for the right way to go) and tried to figure out what to do, how to get to our destination. I stopped at a hair salon and asked a lady, she was very helpful, yet the direction she gave wasn’t clear enough. Finally we had to get help from the police!
While we were happy to find the Santa Ana River Trail and rode on it for a couple miles, there was a construction near the Angels Station, so we had to detour (again). None of us really familiar with OC and we asked from direction from the police for the 2nd time. After getting back to the trail, we had to deal with strong headwind before reaching Huntington Beach at mile 56.
After a very long and unexpected ride, we stopped at a small burger place along PCH. We were hungry, exhausted, tired, and thirsty, you named it. The chicken sandwich that I had was SO good. I wish to take a nap after that, ha ha.
We continued our ride on PCH, but due to some rode construction, we had to use the detour bike route along the beach (yes, another detour). Then we continue on the San Gabriel River Trail that runs along the I-605. When we get close to the Whittier Narrows dam, once again, we were lost in the middle of no way. After making several calls we finally get to the right direction heading back to the parking lot where we started. The fun part of this ride was not complete without a final call from the park rangers.
Yes, by the time we got back to the parking lot, it was ten pass six, as soon as we got to the car, we heard a park ranger spoke over a speaker “the park will be closed in 2 minutes.” Wow, we almost missed it, wonder what would happened if we didn’t make it back to the parking lot on time, would they hold our cars and we would have to ride home?
For some riders, it wasn’t so pleasure as they had to deal with knee pains and soreness, some were piss off. Overall this was a nice ride with lots of unexpected detours. I did pretty well at the end and was happy to finally get my actual century ride, I was so happy to see the 100 digit on my odometer.
A: Hey, do you want to go to Santa Barbara?
B: Sure, but gas price is so high.
A: I know. That’s why we’re not taking the car; we are going to Santa Barbara on our bikes!
Yes, that’s right. I did my back-to-back double centuries this weekend, from Santa Monica to Santa Barbara. About 120 riders participated in this annual ride organized by Shifting Gears, a cycling group with really nice and cool folks.
We left Helen’s in Santa Monica around 8am Saturday morning. Thank to the overcast weather, we didn’t get a lot of sunburn. However, the headwind against us was killing. We cycled along PCH, part of the 101 and some local streets, passing small towns, farms and plantations. Everyone was excited about the 2-day event.
We arrived in Santa Barbara around 5pm, checking in at the El Prado Inn. 4 of us shared a 2-bed room, including me, John, James and William. After a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant, we went to bed before 10. On Sunday morning, we ride out shortly before 8am; State Street was so quiet and peaceful. Guess what, in front of a café, I saw LA ex-mayor Jim Hahn! After a full 6 hours of riding (excluding stops for water, toilet and lunch) we arrived in Santa Monica around 4.30pm. We did it! I did it!
This event was very successful. All staffs worked so hard to make sure everyone has a great experience. I like the massage service the most! The massage team was at every pit stop and worked all day long to keep us “feel good.” They were our heroes! To my surprised, they were still there at the end of the ride; make me think about those musicians in the movie Titanic, who played till the very last minute. I don’t mean about the sad ending, instead, the dedication and passion they have in common.
Oh yea, this is the funny part. On the nigh that we spent in Santa Barbara, I had a dream – we finished the ride, everyone was so happy and friends came to cheer for us. While in the joy of celebration, I woke up and found myself in bed, still in Santa Barbara! (Damn, still have 95miles to go). I never had a dream like that.
I’m glad to finish this longest ride without any major incident. Of course riding with and knowing some nice people are another gains. I know I’m ready for the ALC 5 challenge! I also had the chance to test ride 2 Cannondale bikes, the six 13 and Synapse. I liked the six 13 better, but will be riding my R 700, which I named “Dragon” because he’s amazing and he’s flying!
A month from today, I will be flying to San Francisco, getting ready for AIDS/LifeCyele 5. Today, I am sitting in front of my laptop, sharing another episode of my “Bicycle Diaries.”
First of all, for those of you who woke up Monday morning, enjoying a cup of coffee (or tea or hot chocolate in my case) and looking for the latest issue of “Bicycle Diaries,” I would like to apology for the delay. Everything is OK, just a minor problem – my camera went out of order half way through my ride on the weekend, so I had to ask a cycling buddy, Aaron, to help take some photos.
Last Saturday, the day after my birthday, I attempted to do my first century ride from Simi Valley to Ojai in Ventura county (well, it turn out to be only 94 miles, although it was 6 miles short, but trust me, it felt like a century ride, very much). I’m not exactly sure about the elevation of the hill that we climbed, but from the google search that I did, it should be around 3200 to 4000 feet.
We started from the Regal Plaza by the 118 freeway, and I rode with Suzann and Aaron. The view of this ride is really nice, very country style, passing farms, ranches, waterfalls, you named it. At one point, I called the mountain in front of us “Brokeback Mountain” or “Cold Mountain” just to relax a little bit.
Lunch stop at Soule Park (mile 46) in Ojai, there were delicious sandwiches and fruits waiting for us, many thanks to Mom & Dad of Team Ventura. Never thought a pbj sandwich could be so delicious, maybe I was just exhausted and way too hungry. After a brief yet nice lunch stop, we all get ready to head back to Simi Valley.
On this ride, we had to climb two major hills, plus other smaller rolling hills, and we had to do all these twice! At mile 73 we started to climb over the “deadly” Ojai Valley with the elevation (believe to be around 3200 to 4000 feet). My legs and mind were not cooperative to each other. Legs started to pedal slower and slower, down to 6.5 mph; sweat went down my sun-screened face and finally ran into my left eye. Oh gosh, It was the most painful thing ever, I could not open my eye and yet I did not want to pull over, I was afraid that once I get off the bike, I will not get back again. As a result, I peddled with one eye open for about a minute. I was so happy when we got up to the top.
At lunch break, we thought 94 miles was just too close to a century ride, as 3 of us would like to see the “100” digits on our odometer, we planned to do some ‘extra miles’ at the end. However, by the time we got back to Simi Valley area, we all knew that ‘enough is enough,’ although we were 6 miles short from a century ride, but we don’t care anymore. It felt like a century ride to us! I set my all time longest ride – 94 miles in 6 hours 40 minutes.
Didn’t ride my bike on Sunday, instead sent the bike to Helen’s for tune up, getting ready for this coming weekend’s Santa Monica-Santa Barbara double centuries ride. If you happened to visit Santa Barbara or will be traveling along the 101 or PCH, feel free to cheer for us, we’re expecting 120 riders for this ride, organized by Shifting Gears. Stay tune for the next episode of “Bicycle Diaries.”
Tony is giving us some packing tips.
The average and family guy runners...
...and the future runner!
Bike parking at rest stop one in Brentwood.
Busy taking photos every where to share with all of you.
