"My Story of California AIDS Ride 4 [1997]"
or
"Seven Days of Tailwinds"
or
"Government Statistics"

Part 2 of 2     Go to Part 1

That night in Santa Maria the tent rows were all so insane and chaotic several people removed their flashing Vista-Lites ("butt-blinkers") from their bikes and affixed them to the tops of their tents. These ran all night long, so that after a midnight trip to the potty, it was a lot easier to return to the correct tent. It was like orienting by the stars. I had to just walk directly towards the farthest light, and when those three lights formed an equilateral triangle around me, then I was home. Worked!

Pit 2 crew

One crew member gets respect!

There were five other pit crews, but Pit 2 was head and shoulders and bosoms above the rest. We never knew who or what they might be from one day to the next: trailer trash, Carmen Miranda, Tank Girls, or big breasted women. It was Pit 2 that went out and bought local fruit for us, so that we could really enjoy California without any effort on our part.

The mileposts of each day were the six pit stops and two or three additional water stops. Each pit stop was full service with water, Gatorade, Power Bars, fresh fruit and other food. There were porta-potties, a mechanical crew, a medical crew and that most-dreaded area: a bikes-to-be-sagged zone. A bike left in this well-marked area meant its rider had given up and couldn't finish the ride that day. The rider might be over in the medical area, or he might be slumped on a curb feeling outcast, or he could have been in the sag wagon, already on his way to camp while his bike sat back here waiting for the truck. No matter how crowded, no matter how push-and-shove, no matter how far away you had to park your bike, the bikes-to-be-sagged zone stayed free and open. It was a Forbidden Zone. Those who wandered into it were regarded as quitters. Any bike leaned there even for a moment was at risk of being swept up and hauled away.

The water stops were mini-pits. They had all the same facilities as a full pit stop, but no mechanical crew. They were all smaller, too. These were a new thing this year, after last year's near-disaster with temperatures over 100.

When early Spanish explorers first saw the area near where Lake Cachuma is located today they were delighted with the fertile, rolling hills and the nearly constant fresh wind blowing west to east. The natives of the area were fat, wealthy, healthy and peace loving -- in other words, gorgeous. Many of the Spaniards settled in with the natives, producing the sturdy offspring who have to come to dominate the area even today, the offspring who we know today as "The Dutch." Some of these tough Dutch migrated to Europe, where they managed to establish a small colony by draining and filling lowlands. They went on to become a major sea power.

But the original Dutch continue on in Solvang, a neat, clean, tight little town with a bakery every ten feet where you can get huge, fat, cream-laden pastries, strong coffee (no Starbucks) and whole milk. Beer is not unknown among the Dutch, either. Because all of these life-giving necessities are present in such close proximity in this one little place, Solvang is the only town that we passed through twice.

The first pass was optional. The day we traveled from Santa Maria to Lake Cachuma was only 50 miles, and the route misses Solvang by a scant five miles. A simple right turn into that fresh headwind, followed by a really nice downhill, got us into Solvang. Our first task there was to get a bungee cord for Michael. His had broken, and we had been looking for a bike shop for a few days. I had offered him one of my several extras. Being a prepared cycle tourist I travel with more than just one used bungee cord. But no, my cords were either the wrong color (red would look just nasty on that green frame) or they were (ick!) soiled. We found the bike shop. The shop's regular day to close was Thursday and this day was Thursday, but the Dutch are great business people, and also full of the spirit of charity, so what would a good Dutch bike shop owner do on the day that 2000 cyclists were to come buzzing around? Who knows? This guy stayed closed. My guess is he was a member of one of the other beloved ethnic groups that makes this beautiful land so strong!

Parkin' it in Solvang

Broccoli field

Bungeeless, we rolled on to a central bakery location. We found a pastry shop adjacent to a beer garden. Bikes were leaning everywhere, people in outrageous colors were slurping and munching all about us. You would have thought that the pastries provided by OK's Cascade had somehow not quite hit the spot.

We found a very small, dried up tree that had not been totally killed by other cyclists and leaned our bikes against it (ya know, trees are incredibly vulnerable -- I don't know how they ever reach adulthood). We chose the pastry shop, eschewing the beckoning beer garden. Now as I sit here on a gray, snowy New England day recalling that hot, dry, sunny afternoon in Solvang I can't remember one damn reason why we made such a stupid choice. Maybe it was that I knew the final approach to Lake Cachuma involved a death defying climb up a road so narrow with traffic so heavy and rock slides so frequent that all my alertness would be required to avoid running into the slow, creeping cyclist just ahead of me, who was trying to avoid doing the same to the slow, creeping cyclist ahead of him. To pass a cyclist on this climb required icily accurate timing decisions, deep reserves of anaerobic energy, the ability to take charge and communicate with nearby cyclists clearly, the strength to make a monster acceleration uphill, and enough glucose in the brain to realize when you had to get back into the line of creeping cyclists because the next batch of cars was getting close. That's all. So that's why I passed only twice on that climb.

We headed into the pastry shop, where sales were being handled by a lady who, while she wore the traditional Dutch costume quite well, was another of those descended from a different cultural heritage which has its own rich and unparalleled history in making this strong land so beautiful! She was a crab [no offense to the citizens of Maryland]!

We customers were being quite cooperative. We all lined up nicely. We approached her one at a time. We spoke in even tones. We said please and thank you. Nobody yelled or shoved. Nobody short changed her. Her simple task was to take the requested pastries and put them in a bag or put them on a plate. A waitress would deliver the plate to your selected table, take your beverage order and take your money. Simple, eh? But the woman at the counter was verging on hysteria. I can only guess that she used to be a state employee, retired to Solvang and took this afternoon pastry job thinking it would be an easy way to add a few dollars to her pension. But faced with a steady stream of easy, but endless, work was more than she could handle. By the way, I say "state employee" only because we all know that federal pensions are so generous that we never have to worry about picking up a few bucks here and there to get by. In fact, we suck up the fat of the land with such strength there are measurable seismic effects.

A military chapel, no longer in use, that was alongside one of our pitstops. Click for a larger version of this photo.

Outside in the bright sun we inhaled our plates of fried dairy fat and lard with whipped cream quaffing our glasses of milk with vigor, hardly casting a single eye on the beer garden next door.

We visited the spotlessly clean and cool public restrooms right in the center of town between the free public parking and the main street. Ran into Vance there and stood around catching up on the gossip from the front of the ride, watching the calorie-seeking cyclists buzz from one pastry counter to the next, just like the hard working bee in a field of wildflowers. In fact, I think we could have rivaled the hard-working image of the Mormons, another group of Americans who, while never being a sea power, have brought unparalleled development to the West.

Eventually it came time to ascend from Solvang to Lake Cachuma. While it was indeed a five mile climb with heavily-laden guts to return to the AIDS ride route, we had a strong tailwind and the best Hawaiian sugar for power (oh, those beautiful Hawaiians and all the riches they've brought to this strong and prosperous nation -- and they were a sea power, too!) so we had no trouble. We passed through an area that had very recently been hit by a fire. There was scorched pasturage in all directions. We followed the slow cyclists on the hilly route to camp and had two dinners each to help the pastry settle just right.

One of the riders was a proud Cal Poly boy.

Morning dawned at Lake Cachuma, but we were already up packing. Camp breakfast was light for all the sane people. It was ten good downhill miles to Solvang, so we could skip all the usual fried delights in camp. Descending the narrow, heavily trafficked, rock strewn road was much worse than ascending the day before -- mostly because this was bike rush hour. We were all packed together and there were some who thought every descent had to be negotiated at 50 mph, although that would be suicide on this stretch with all the vehicular traffic heading to work.

Arriving in Solvang all in one piece, Michael and I checked out the coffee shop where we had grabbed cappuccinos two years earlier, but it was mobbed already and didn't have anything too huge in the way of pastries. We moved up the road less than a block to find another place equally mobbed, but with a vast selection of rich, grotesquely huge pastries -- and no line for the restroom!

We waited in the long burbling line of happy, happy cyclists who after a ten mile warm up, anticipating a cup of seriously real java and then a long, long ride along the Pacific shore simply could not contain their joy. And the staff at this bakery were real honest to gosh Dutch. They were fat and rosy-cheeked and laughed at everything we said. They never stopped giving us food and we never stopped giving them money. It was Solvang at its absolute best!

We shot out of there and stopped again at the edge of town where pit stop one was at the intersection of Route 101. We did this just to fill up on water. Then we headed up the entrance ramp and merged with the high speed four-lane highway traffic on 101. This was the stretch where two years before they gave us warnings and special instructions on how to deal with the narrow bridges where our shoulder completely disappeared. The narrow bridges are still there, but there were no special instructions this year. All 2000 of us got through it alive anyway. Common sense kicks in pretty powerfully when you hear an 18-wheeler coming up behind you and your lane disappears 20 feet ahead. Sometimes my common sense made me wait, and sometimes my common sense said that all those pastries back in Solvang weren't for nothing as I poured fuel into my thighs to successfully outrace a truck across a narrow bridge.

This cyclist told me he was riding for his very young nephew who has AIDS.

Fort Hunter Ligget, another pit stop.

Route 101 from Solvang climbs and climbs even as it heads toward the Pacific. There's a great ridge to be gotten over. Two years ago this had seemed a terrible hill, but this time, knowing just how long it was and that it never got too steep and that just over the crest would be the steepest longest safest downhill of the whole ride made us just whistle and smile (not necessarily simultaneously) all the way up. We did, however, get warm and stopped a couple times to shed clothing.

And then came the crest, which like all California crests is real. No fake tops in California -- well, no there were a couple on Heartbreak Hill, I think. Who cares. Over the top we went and then it was big, smooth, two lanes plus a shoulder and only very, very light traffic all the way down, just twisting and flying to the Pacific, except I did stop part way down to try to get a photo of a beautiful WPA tunnel for the northbound lanes where they cut right through the mountains. I had spotted this two years before and just sailed past regretting the light wasn't good enough in the morning for a photo. Well, this year, the light wasn't any different of course, but I stopped for a photo anyway. And then (being vewy vewy careful) I accelerated back out into the highway and floated the rest of the way to the bottom.

The rest of the day we rode through Santa Barbara and Carpinteria to eventually arrive at Ventura (San Buenaventura State Beach). The two highlights of our evening there were dinner at the In 'n Out and a surprise dessert back at camp. Local supporters had gotten together and made sufficient Rice Krispie squares so that every rider could have two of 'em. Yes, your math is correct: that is 4000 Rice Krispie squares. And they were big ones, too. The supporters walked through the crowd handing them out at the evening entertainment (which was slight, in order not to disturb all the residents on the muddy slopes hanging above the campsite).

The porta-pottie scene.

The Trek service crew.

Sometimes even your favorite world-weary, jaded, cynical, been-there-done-that AIDS rider is struck by a surprise. Such was the case in the previously easily forgotten, nondescript Carpinteria.

We had stopped for lunch on the campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara. It was the usual scene. A few local people were around to show their support or to visit with friends or family who were on the ride. But it was mostly businesslike, eat up, hydrate and get out of this sun.

From there we proceeded along the extensive system of bike paths until we got to the site of the 1995 Miracle Of The Jacarandas. This year there was no miracle, since we were about two weeks later in the season. Only a few trees were still in bloom, and those few had scanty flowers.

Then we proceeded on regular roads through the quite lovely and increasingly wealthy Santa Barbara. The route had been revised slightly so that it went directly by the bike shop where we had stopped to buy new tires two years ago. This time we stopped so Michael could score a bungee cord. A little farther downtown we stopped at a real coffee shop (not a Starbucks) just to use the restroom and not to buy even a single shot of caffeine.

When the route hit the shore, it went left and cruised along the beachfront. There was a pit stop there, but we didn't even stop. We were well hydrated already. The route began to climb a bit and traveled along a former car road that had been fenced and converted to a bike path when the ocean had taken away most of the supporting ground under it. This went past some of the fabulously wealthy.

The water supply at a pit stop.

Carpinteria welcome

The overall impression we get passing through Santa Barbara is of wealth, tolerant conservatism combined with a pro-bicycle attitude, and sunniness in atmosphere and personal disposition. And from Santa Barbara we go a little ways and begin to pass through Carpinteria on the same route we followed in 1995. After the glow of Santa Barbara, Carpinteria looks like a more working class town that may be converting to a bedroom community. The busy main street is a hodge podge of gas stations, restaurants and bars, small retailers, some chains. The signs are about 50/50 Spanish and English. The grade school and police building are small, but new, suggesting prosperity without the vast wealth of neighboring Santa Barbara.

As we leave Carpinteria the road rises slowly as we pass a few small high tech companies. We begin to parallel Route 101. Up ahead we know we will make a simple left and right and ride along bare, hot sunny Route 101 again for awhile. This is one of those stretches of the AIDS ride where you just put in the miles and think of the next break.

But ho! What's this? Up where we should be making our left turn amidst bare, burned dry earth are some high pennants snapping in the (ubiquitous) tail wind. And there are some vehicles. Vans and RVs and trucks and lots of cars. And lots of people. Like, lots of people. Checking our cue sheets, we saw that they had added a water stop at this point. But a water stop is just a second-rate pit stop, three or four people at most, only one or two vehicles. We were looking at something like a county fair. What was going on?

Bike parking at camp.

And then we begin to catch the music that was being blown away with the wind. This wasn't the usual sort of weak music we were used to at our pit stops. This was really professionally loud dance music. We rolled up and here were genuine AIDS ride crew people who we knew and loved waving us in, so this must be the water stop. But there were big welcome signs from the Carpinteria Kiwanis and the Carpinteria Masons and the Carpinteria dance music FM radio station, and the Carpinteria Eagles (the fraternal organization, guys), and a Carpinteria sporting goods store was giving away (GIVING AWAY!) every kind of sport nutritional bar except Power Bars, which is a sponsor of the AIDS rides. And the Carpinteria TV station (the broadcast kind, not just local cable access) running their cameras and reporting on all the silliness to the locals. The Carpinteria Rotary was there, too, along with the Carpinteria Chamber of Commerce. And further along were other Carpinterians giving away food and sodas. Sodas in a variety of flavors!! On the AIDS ride we only got soda in camp, and then we had a choice of only five varieties: Coke, sugar or diet; Sprite, sugar or diet; and orange soda, sugar. On the road we got only water and Gatorade (a sponsor of the AIDS rides), we didn't care what flavor it was.

Worker for OK's Cascade.

And there was more (like free hot dogs!), but there are so many hours in a day and we had to get moving. But first there was the line dance through the parked bikes (rather risky). Then we had to smile and wave at all the zillions of locals who were there with signs of support or just having a good time.

The mind boggled. Never had I seen such a large, broad-based show of real support from one of the communities along the route of either the California or the Boston-NY AIDS rides. And that it came from this previously unimpressive town and sat up at a bare brown hot dry-blown interchange with Route 101 made it all that more unbelievable. We rode away wondering if we had really seen all that. But that night in camp our addled memories were confirmed as Carpinteria got a standing ovation during the evening's announcements. Sorry the whole town couldn't have been there to see it!

After every day's ride there was camp. And every camp was always the same. Except they were all different. In Santa Cruz we were on baseball diamonds in a city park, while the showers and security were set up across the street in an empty field behind the Costco. In King City we were in a lovely city park with lots of trees everywhere, but still not a long walk to a nearby shopping area with every chain store we could want. In Paso Robles we were in the bare naked sunny, dusty county fairgrounds with the showers and dining facilities clear at the other end of the fairground. In Santa Maria it was a new city park with an actual pond. At Lake Cachuma it was Lake Cachuma, a state park ten miles from Solvang, the nearest town, but with great views of nearby mountains (okay, big hills). Ventura was another state park, but this one was a beach on the Pacific. Routes 101 and 1 ran alongside the camp, so genuine urban life was happening nearby.

The Tank Girls at their pit stop.

There were lines.

We fell into a pattern at camp as the most efficient way to deal with long lines, long walking, being constantly dusty and being just all relaxed from a day of fending off California drivers. We would roll into bike security and leave our bikes; go find our gear truck; grab our stuff and a tent; assure ourselves we have a good grip on all this unwieldy stuff and then walk a long way in our bike shoes to the tent area and roll our eyes in amazement at how they had surrealistically laid it out this time; we'd pick out a defensible tent site; set up the tent; throw our bags in so that the high winds wouldn't move the tent too far; then one or both of us would put on more comfortable shoes and do a soda run; then the showers; then back to the tent for a thorough de-packing. After that we have nothing to do but go watch the other riders come in until dinner starts at 4:00 PM. They keep coming in for a long time after 4:00 PM, but we don't watch them when we could be eating. If our bikes needed any mechanical repair we would have done it before dinner.

After dinner, well we could go watch the riders still coming in, or maybe we could just lie around our tent and wonder if the wind would simply shred the seams and send it all away. Fellow riders might pass by and ask "Hey, how 'bout that hill?" or, more likely,"On your left!" That'd keep ya busy until the evening's entertainment started at 7:30.

And lines.

A typical flat California highway.

There would always be something every night that would look like real entertainment. The best of it came in Lake Cachuma when they had talent night. We discovered that not only were our fellow cyclists great cyclists, but they were also all waiters from Los Angeles! Such singing! Such dancing! Such jokes! Such gymnastics! But who really cared. After an entire day of riding the AIDS ride, eating the AIDS ride, drinking the AIDS ride, resting the AIDS ride and pottying the AIDS ride, we only wanted to be entertained by the AIDS ride. And this is where we introduce Lorri Jean.

Lorri Jean is a great stand-up comic from Los Angeles. You probably haven't heard of her yet, since she's still waiting for her big break. While she's waiting for that break, she's getting by working as the Executive Director of the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center, better known to you as the beneficiary of the California AIDS ride. She would get up in front of us every night and tell us outrageous lies about how easy the day's ride had been and how no one had any trouble She'd slip in a true fact here and there. And she made it all sound hilarious. It was up to us to try to figure out which were the true facts later.

This day is like no other day. This becomes the day you say good-bye to a couple thousand people who you've been living with, sweating over hills with, helping fix flats with, eating with, showering with, sleeping with, standing patiently in porta-potty lines with. It's the day that even though you are in the metropolitan area already, you are going to ride all day and still not get downtown. It's the day you get to see some riders for the very first time ever, because today it has been impressed on them that the deadline is not sunset, as it usually is, but 3:00 PM. We have all got to be into Beverly Hills High School by 3:00 in order to organize for the closing ceremonies (aka "The Big Enya Dance") in Century City. Also on this day we pick up a few celebs, those Los Angelenos who while filled with the greatest and most sincere generosity of spirit and oneness with our cause, cannot spare more than a single Saturday for a bike ride.

A descent on Route 101 begins.

The bottom of the Route 101 descent.

Morning security would open today half an hour early, in order to try to give every possible advantage to those riders who even after six days of everything California had to offer, were finding it too much of a challenge to maintain the minimum pace. Michael and I, however, would leave camp at our usual time. This meant that out on the road we mixed with some people who usually would have been behind us all day.

We rode along the ocean through Oxnard, Malibu and Santa Monica before we turned inland towards Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. Along some of these stretches were some of the most fun riding we had. The route was mostly rolling with some bigger climbs. Along our right almost continuously was the gray, surging Pacific; along our left the ubiquitous mud cliffs and expensive homes. The road, mostly Route 1, was four lanes with ample shoulders in most stretches.

Michael and I encountered an annoying problem that had occurred on previous days, but which became chronic this day as there was a greater density of motor vehicles and riders, and there were almost no long flat stretches. On downhills or short flat stretches groups of young, apparently very healthy riders with very new and expensive equipment would pass us. No big problem, but as soon as we came to the first rise, their speed would drop and we would have to negotiate traffic in order to pass these now slow cyclists. Then they would see-saw back past us on the next descent. They simply didn't have the brains or strength to maintain an even pace. After this had happened several times I began to get irritated. I pulled up to the front of the line and picked up the speed just a bit. A pace line formed up immediately, against AIDS ride rules. My intention, however, was to gradually increase the speed to keep those youngsters from passing us again. It worked! As we got faster and faster (and I had more and more fun) they began to fall off the back in ones and twos. Michael was able to stay with me, of course, along with one other rider, but we didn't encounter any more annoying young cyclists that day. In the process of dropping them we got to experience some of the most exhilarating and focused riding of the whole week.

Only 122 miles to go.

The In 'n Out

We pedaled through the socialist state of Santa Monica on San Vicente Boulevard, noticing lots more supporters along the route this time compared to 1995. We cut over to Olympic Boulevard and rode up to, through and under Century City. Then there was a quick drop and a sudden left into the "holding area" at Beverly Hills High School. The "holding area" is the last pit stop of all pit stops. It's where riders trickle in over the hours and wait until everyone has arrived. Then they organize us a little bit and we ride as a mass to the closing ceremonies, creating the illusion that we have been riding as one giant color-coordinated, curb to curb carpet of bikes ever since the moment we left San Francisco.

Beverly Hills High School's greatest claim to fame (you may dispute this) is that it is the school with the movable basketball floor that covers the swimming pool which was used in the 1946 movie It's A Wonderful Life. The floor is still there, but they didn't let us swim there or play basketball or even dance on it. Other than this distinction, BHHS looks like a million other high schools in a million other towns. A bit short-funded and worn; oil well notwithstanding.

At the holding area our bikes went into security, just like at camp, except this security area was the BHHS athletic field. And my my my! Who is this here helping Michael and me situate our bikes? It's our rider rep, Laurie! The rider rep is a staff member whose job it is to help me over the little rough spots that might discourage me from actually raising $2500 and riding to L.A. Laurie had been immensely helpful, flying out to Boston at least a dozen times to show us how to fix a flat, how to fill out a pledge form, how to find the UPS office, how to signal a left turn, how to adjust a helmet, etc. etc.

The Chiropractc tent; one of several service tents set up every evening.

I pose in front of one the blessed, ubiquitous UPS trucks.

Actually, this was the first time I had ever seen my Laurie (where had she been all week?) and only the second time I had talked to her. But she remembered us and acted delighted to see us. You should have seen her face when I told her we had just flown in from Boston and were all set to ride to San Francisco. It's so easy to bring great emotional turmoil to a staff member after 7 sleepless days.

Bikes secured, we went forth on The Greatest Mission Of All AIDS Riders, i.e. getting the long-sleeved AIDS ride t-shirt. These t-shirts, provided by Banana Republic, are available only to riders and crew who have completed an AIDS ride. Both Michael and I got red again, same as 1995.

After that it was just waiting until 3:00. We could lie about on the bleachers, or we could visit some of the booths set up by supportive retailers. The people who make Fresh Samantha beverages were there giving out freebies. Whole Foods (aka Bread & Circus) was there giving away slices of organic watermelon (a truckload disappeared real fast). Our sponsoring radio station, Groove Radio 103.1 of West Hollywood, was there giving out keyrings (of all things). If you are ever within listening range of 103.1 and want to fry your brain cells on a quick rush of pap at 160 bpm, Groove Radio is for you. I loved it! Somebody was selling flavored ices at $1 a pop, all proceeds going to the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. The line was a million people long in an instant. Besides all this there was a giant tent to keep the hot sun off, but there was very little sun as it was mostly overcast. And there were the last of the tons and tons of ice melting. There were a few, painfully few porta-potties. Why this sudden shortage? The result was . . . well, now you probably don't want to know the result -- but after seven days of the AIDS rides the only way to tell the difference between the girls and the boys was the way they positioned themselves in the bushes. Did I tell you about the bushes at BHHS? No, cause there aren't any.

It seemed the first thing the crew did at every campsite was set up signs like this one. They were scattered around camp and bore quotes from Dan Pallotta’s little book of quotes. I think the intended audience for these was media and visitors to camp. They got a bit tiresome when what you really wanted to know was where are the showers, where are the sodas, but they didn’t have time to put up those signs yet. This is one of the better ones. By Eileen Caddy, it says "Live and work but do not forget to play, to have fun in life and really enjoy it."

One of the heavenly shower trucks!

We ran into Todd Rego, a staff member from the Boston AIDS ride office. He wasn't here working. He told us he had raised his $2500 to ride, but had been too late registering, so they said thanks, but no thanks. They are tough like that. So what he did was donate his $2500 anyway, and then rode the same route as we did, but he did it one day ahead of us! It would be very rude to ride along with us if you weren't a genuine, bona fide, registered AIDS rider. This meant he had to carry all his own gear and came out all on his lonesome. Well, maybe it wasn't lonesome all the time.

There was a giant sound system playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony fourth movement, along with a few more popular items. It mostly drowned out conversation in the potty lines.

We were bored. Is that clear?

And then 3:00 arrived. They began to line us up according to t-shirt color. Oranges went first, then reds. We went out to grab our bikes and then joined the line on the running track. And then we stood while the other colors were called. It was still boredom, but of a different sort. Some people sang. Took a few photos. Wiggled our bikes. Adjusted helmets. Polished glasses.

And then they led us out, but we went only a block until the head of our line got to Olympic Boulevard again. Then we stood. Somewhere not far away the closing ceremonies had already started. We knew that somewhere there was a crowd wanting to see us, just us, and there would be Enya music playing and there would be professional speakers whipping them up into some sort of bike-loving fever. But we just stood on a little residential road waving up at the blue-haired folks in the apartments along the way. Somebody passed around some brownies. Some even ate Power Bars.

Somebody at the front got the signal and we rode out for real. Here we had police with us, so we got to take up a full half of Olympic Boulevard as we climbed back towards Century City. We took a left and a couple of rights and we found ourselves on the huge boulevard that goes over Olympic Boulevard. They split us so that the oranges were at the front on the right side of the median. The reds went to the front on the left side. Then we stood again. There were a scattering of spectators on the sidewalks. We were in a skyscraper canyon with the Fox tower being the biggest and closest. We looked pretty vast and huge in our color bands. After a few more moments of nervous boredom a hush went through the bikers. We could hear faint Enya music coming from just over the rise ahead of us. Our cue! Up front we could see the orange pennants on the bikes of the Positive Pedalers wiggling, indicating they were definitely moving.

Getting rolling out of camp early in the morning.

A rare photo into an OK's Cascade truck-borne kitchen

Then we were off and away! We reached the top of the very slight rise and then saw the huge crowd that had gathered for us just as the amplified Enya hit us. A stage had been set up that spread across the entire boulevard. American flags lined the way. We coasted carefully down into the crowd and stopped when we could go no further. After dismounting we could look back and watch the other colors coming over and the rise. I was totally impressed by the effectiveness of the illusion. It really did like look like a river of cyclists who had just arrived all at once from San Francisco and were now cascading over a great waterfall. They never seemed to stop. Where did all these riders come from? We had never looked so big out in the great midst of California, but now jammed into this urban area we looked like we were a couple million strong.

People got up and made short speeches. Lorri Jean talked. Somebody sang. Dan Pallotta didn't say anything. We saw Allen Baki and Neil Babitch in the crowd waving at us. We waved our bikes in the air and sprayed water around in the usual traditions. They introduced the crew, which came running up the median between all us bikers. Somebody made a teary heart-string-tugging speech.

And then.

It was over.

No more AIDS ride.

Except we had 2000 riders and how many hundreds of crew who had to crowd down one street, through one gate to find their gear. Oh, and did we say there were porta-potties anywhere around the gear trucks? No we didn't. And we had been standing and waiting a long, long time after eating that organic watermelon and that flavored ice and watching those stacks of ice melt. The result was like, uh, see above. Oh for a lemon grove -- or just a line of eucalyptus trees.

A pit stop with a surf view somewhere north of Malibu.

Malibu bids us welcome.

Nonetheless, Michael and I got our gear and I felt like we were the only sane ones there because everyone else had to balance all their gear and their bikes simultaneously for the first time all week. Michael and I, in our first step toward riding to San Diego on our own, pulled our panniers out of our duffel bags, did some re-arranging and packing and shoving, and voila! We were self-contained, self-powered, and eager to get on the way to some loaded touring. But first we had to shove our way out through another single tiny gate.

Out on the streets, weaving a bit as we adjusted to our too-heavy bikes. A couple of lefts and we were on Santa Monica Boulevard at rush hour heading for West Hollywood. The car drivers were fantastic. Not a single close call. Not a bit of harassment. We were occasionally passed by other AIDS riders in cars who tried to slap our hard working butts.

In West Hollywood we found our hotel, which was called Le Parque. Let me say that if you ever stay in the West Hollywood area, please stay at any other hotel. This place was so badly managed, I thought they had contracted out to the U.S. government. A travel agent in the West Hollywood area had booked blocks of rooms in several hotels in the area for AIDS riders. That's how we had gotten our rooms at Le Parque. Fortunately, Michael had the great foresight to have called Le Parque directly from Boston and reserved the room for late arrival using his Amex card. Every other AIDS rider who thought they had a room there was getting bounced out when we arrived at about 7:00 PM. Seemed obvious to me that someone (the hotel? the travel agent?) had totally screwed up. Someone should have alerted someone that all of these arrivals would be late, since we knew we all had to be at the closing ceremonies and those would run past 5:00.

Waiting in the holding area we got to visit with all the friends we had made all week. This one is Randy. My, but doesn't he look clean cut! Looks can be so deceiving. You can hide a lot under those bike clothes. In the showers he was the center of conversation. Lives in the east bay (that is the east side of San Francisco Bay), supporting the employees of an apparently very profitable tattoo parlor. Rides a mountain bike with Great Big Fat Knobbies. When we started to give him our bald-is-better lecture he cut us short and asserted that since he rode California AIDS Ride 1 (we draw back in awe) with knobbies and never got a flat, that he was just damn well gonna do California AIDS Ride 4 the very same way, thank you very much. Despite our deep, deep respect for anyone who braved the road on the very first of all the AIDS rides, we still just loved to blow him and his fat knobbies off the road whenever we got even half a chance. Yeah, and he's younger than us, too.

Michael writes postcards while waiting at the holding area at Beverly Hills High School before the big closing ceremony.

The sidewalk was a bit of a mess with bikes and luggage and flaring tempers and taxi drivers who had no English and hotel employees trying to stop taxis from unloading anything.

Fortunately, we slipped right in, but found our room in sorry shape. Two phones in the room, both broken. One worked a little. We complained to the desk and got nothing. The maid left not quite enough linens for one person. There was a coffee maker, but only one coffee cup. There were two good points for this hotel. One was that there was a coin operated laundry in the garage so I could wash our week's worth of clothing while I read the Sunday L.A. Times the next day. The other was the stereo in the room could tune in Groove Radio 103.1 very well, and we could melt all the brain cells we had over and over.

This was our one rest day. We slept late. Neil joined us as we languidly ambled over to Santa Monica Boulevard where we lazily considered where to get coffee. We settled on a faux French spot with lots of butter on the menu. The waitress exclaimed over our AIDS ride t-shirts and wondered what one would cost her. For $2500 she could have had mine.

We meandered one way along Santa Monica, then strolled back the other way on the opposite side. We saw many of our fellow riders doing the same. It was warm and clear and a day to do nothing. We stopped in to look at a gym. Michael went for a massage. We shopped for clothes we didn't need and didn't buy. We found another gym called Todd Tramps, where the men were quite big and the outfits quite small. We finally got back to the hotel where we slowly inspected the rooftop pool. Then I did our laundry in the basement while reading the L.A. Times.

We packed up things we would no longer need and hauled them over to a local business who would turn them over to Our Glorious Brown-Clad Sisters And Brothers In The Fight Against AIDS: UPS for shipment back to Boston. The next day we were going to set forth under our own power, without the help of any gear crew. We had to minimize our weight.

Today we were going to Palm Springs. We were out of our hotel and heading along Santa Monica Boulevard in the pre-dawn duskiness way, way before rush hour. What looked like a quarter inch on our L.A. urban maps was a pleasant, but solidly urban, ten miles. Along the way we passed some branch parts of the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center that Michael had visited years ago when he was still a resident of that vast, vast city. We passed near Dodger Stadium, too, but I couldn't see it due to the terrain. The sky was light by the time we reached Union Station, but not light enough to produce good pictures.

After riding through downtown San Bernardino we happened across a great breakfast spot. Besides HUGE portions, they also served ostrich meat! Fantasizing that these might be some of the same creatures stupidly protected by that dog that chased us two years before on the ride from Ojai to Santa Maria, I considered ordering a one or two hundred ostrich burgers. But the day was going to be hot (as deserts in southern California are wont to be on clear days in June) and we knew we were starting with a long climb. So I just had pancakes. Bellies packed full, we headed out into the sun again.

The end of the AIDS ride was certainly not the end of our tailwinds. The routes between LA and Palm Springs all traverse a pass just west of Beaumont, with an elevation around 2500 feet. The valley that contains Palm Springs is fantastically hotter than the Los Angeles area west of the pass, as I'm sure you're well aware. One of the results of this is that a huge volume of air is pumped up and over that pass from west to east. Once it reaches Beaumont, it pours down more than 2000 feet to Palm Springs. In short, it is one screaming mighty dependable wind -- tailwind in our case.

So it was after a long, slow tedious, dead-air climb from San Bernardino (we passed at least two completely artificial fishing ponds that were higher than we were) that Michael and I were delighted to find ourselves in Beaumont. We went south on Cherry Avenue, then left(and east) on Ramsey. There was a warm breeze on our backs. We stopped and refilled our water supply as we were about to head into real desert. Banners advertising the cherry festival just past were fluttering in the breeze. Bits of trash and dust tumbled slowly east. As we moved eastward the road began to tilt down more and more. The warm breeze that had puffed at our backs began to push more steadily. Eventually we were delighted to find ourselves on smooth, slightly descending roads with a tailwind that continued to gain speed. We thought it was great, but we underestimated how great it would be.

This is me at Beverly Hills High School. You can see some of the thousands of bicycles parked on the field behind me.

Interstate 10 is the only paved route along some of this stretch. In those parts we would ride on the emergency lane, which was smoothly paved with fairly new black asphalt. It was almost completely free of debris, too. On 10, elevated a few feet above the desert floor, smooth, straight, gradually descending, a powerful tailwind pumping at our backsides we experienced our greatest flat-road speeds ever! I discovered that the fastest I could pedal my Cannondale was 37 mph. At speeds above that I couldn't catch up with my wheels even in my highest gear. I repeatedly reached down to try to shift into a higher gear, only to be reminded that I didn't have any higher on my nearly-pedestrian touring bike. My fastest speed ever on a downhill was 43 mph. But here on Interstate 10 I looked down at my speedometer to see that I was matching that speed on a nearly flat road without even pedaling! My panniers were acting as sails to carry me to Palm Springs. I simply sat up, did nothing and flew! I'm suggesting that future RAAM riders consider attaching panniers to their bikes for this part of the ride.

The banner at the closing ceremonies.

Some of the guys at the closing ceremony.

Trucks that would usually pass us in a blur, passed us slow enough for us to look up at the drivers. Sight of a road repair crew ahead of us blocking the emergency lane panicked me for a second, but at our speed we were able to move out into a regular traffic lane and fly right past them with no trouble.

Along the way we did manage to touch our brakes once or twice to enjoy the local scenery. The best stop was Hadley Orchards. This fabulous purveyor of dates and everything related to dates (and lots of other high calorie foods that have nothing to do with dates) is a spot you have got to visit. It's a sort of 1930s Stuckey's, but with good food and no stupid junk . . . and no gas pumps, either. In fact, I can't think of a single thing it has in common with a Stuckey's. I think the California AIDS Ride ought to be re-routed just so it can go by Hadley's and use them as a pit stop. We admired and ogled all the goods but finally just picked up a couple of packages of fresh, just-picked dates. Do you know how much fiber there is in dates? A damn lot, let me tell you!

In no time and with no effort, we reached the Route 111 turnoff for Palm Springs. The wind continued, but as our route curved around the bases of the mountains, the turbulence would sometimes create a cross or headwind. Only when we got well clear of the hills could we count on the return of a steady tailwind. By now, of course, the temperature of that tailwind was well above 100 degrees and I wondered, during this new experience, how much heat my tires could tolerate. They gave me no trouble, though, and we rolled right down into Palm Springs with nothing to talk about except the greatest tailwind ever.

We were welcomed warmly (there is no other way in Palm Springs) by the host at the guest house where we were staying.

The requisite bike lift at the closing ceremonies.

Once we had cleaned up and arrayed ourselves in proper Palm Springs attire we joined the rest of the guests over a little wine and cheese. We weren't the first AIDS Riders to show up. Already a couple of others were there, but they had come by automobile, if you can believe that! We told these two that our ride from San Bernardino to Palm Springs surpassed any single day of the AIDS Ride in terms of beauty, challenge and speed! We told them that repeatedly until they were convinced we had suffered some heat disease. Since the other guests were already a bit tired of hearing the AIDS ride story from the two guys ahead of us, they were more than happy as we regaled them with lies about our little hop over from L.A.

It was during this draining of the California red and the making up of tales that several of the guests would, one at a time, confide in me that they certainly thought my "lover" was really built, or that my "lover" must be a great biker, or wondered how long my "lover" and I had been together. After too much of this I explained (slowly, so they might understand) that Michael was not my lover and that I brought him along only as bait for farm dogs and mosquitos. For some reason these animals are more attracted to Michael than me, so I can ride in peace.

As the sun dropped behind the mountain the temperatures dropped to a brisk 99, and we felt it was safe to bundle up and walk downtown for dinner. We stopped in at a Mexican restaurant where the hostess exclaimed over our AIDS Ride shirts, saying she had ridden it the previous year, and was going to ride it again. After dinner it was refreshing to walk home in the dark, 95 degree air, staring up at the star-filled sky spreading over the little town. You could almost feel the frost coming, but even so we turned on the A/C when we got back to our room, just in case a heat wave came into town while we slept.

I retrieve a lemon with the tolerance of my good buddy, whathisname.

The orange is captured.

The grapefruit succumbs.

One thing (and about the only thing) I regretted after completing the California AIDS Ride 2 in 1995 was that I never stole any citrus fruit right from a tree while I was there. Don't misunderstand me, I didn't steal any from store shelves, either. So I was really excited on the last day of the ride when I saw that Pit Stop 1 was right in the midst of vast lemon groves! There was quite a crowd of cyclists already there, filling the narrow space between the highway and the line of eucalyptus trees. Naturally, rather than fight up through the crowd to the few porta-potties, Michael and I intended to just head into the grove and help the crop along. But just behind the eucalyptus trees were alert and vigilant crew members whose task it was to thwart our good intentions. "Don't pee on the trees!" they shouted nearly continuously as they scurried to chase the riders away.

I, feeling the need to steal a lemon more greatly than any other need, went up to the nearest crew member and explained my humble and needy status. I drew a word picture for him of a region of the country where citrus groves do not blanket our valleys, a place where the weather can be harsh and cruel, a land where the Kennedys live. I could see he was a true Californian at heart and my touching story had reached him. He said sure, what did he care if I stole some lemons, his job was just to keep us from peeing on them. I promised not to pee and rushed forward to steal just one.

We thanked the crew member, hugged him, got pictures. then as we were walking away we asked since he was only protecting the grove, would it be okay if we peed between the eucalyptus trees and the highway?! Great-hearted Californian that he was, he said sure, what did he care, we could do anything we wanted up by the highway, his job was to protect that grove. (Probably a government worker, eh?) So we did our watery thing just outside the eucalyptus. Another crew member spied us and began to object. We referred her to our own personal beloved crew member nearby. He announced quite loudly that what we were doing was okay where we were doing it. Lots of other riders overheard this liberating statement and things began to break loose! I shoved my lemon into my bag and we got on our bikes quick to got out of there before the brouhaha began.

Michael with Neil in West Hollywood. Neil, another rider, is from New York.

The Metrolink bike permit and my ticket for the train from Los Angeles Union Station to San Bernardino.

Michael waiting on the boarding platform at Union Station.

But that isn't the simple end of the story. No sir! Before that pit stop I held the same reverent respect for private property that all of us warm-spirited patriots feel. But that one exciting moment of trespass and theft was the worm that began to work away at my heart. Just two days later Michael and I were riding to Palm Springs. We were passing through Loma Linda when we began passing alongside large groves of orange trees. We were on a big, busy road with some residences and businesses around so I had to satisfy my temptation quickly. Tossing the bike in the ditch I ran over to the trees, grabbed one fat orange, dashed back to the bike, stuffed it in the bag right next to the lemon (which, yes, I was still carrying), and then we scooted down the highway looking as innocent as any two kids out for a ride.

Not many miles later we had just started up the gradual grade of San Timoteo Canyon when we encountered a grapefruit grove right at the road leading to the county landfill. My heart raced. My palms became clammy. This was just a little road with no buildings in sight, but it was curvy so a vehicle could appear without warning. I leaned the bike against a utility pole and grabbed the nearest grapefruit I could: a pale, slightly greenish, medium-sized thing. It was at that moment that the dark, nasty worm of envy, theft and stealth ate out my heart entirely. I was a scoundrel with no respect for the hardworking farmers of this great land. We skittered out of there fast before the dogs could catch us.

That evening at the guest house in Palm Springs I brought out our load of citrus: 1 orange, 1 lemon, 1 grapefruit, 0 limes. Cut 'em up. The orange was good. The lemon smelled very lemony, but I didn't actually taste it. The grapefruit though! That grapefruit! That dusty, pale, slightly greenish, runtish thing was the veerrry best grapefruit I ever tasted! It was sweet and mellow and rich! It peeled easy, too.

Next time you're in Redlands, California, head up San Timoteo Road, which starts just off of Bryn Mawr. Soon you'll come to a spot where the road turns left and directly ahead of you is the road to the landfill. Stop there. Walk back fifty feet to the gap in the line of grapefruit trees on what is now your left. Go into the second row, turn right. That first tree.

That tree is, I am sure, the daughter of the very grapefruit tree that the Magi gave to the baby Jesus nearly two millennia ago. [And, by the way, we all know the next millennium starts on January 1, 2001, don't we? If you think you disagree, or are otherwise confused on this point, just call my mom and she'll learn ya somethin'!] But this is not to give short shrift to to the other major religions of the world. Remember the story of God delivering the tangerine tree to Mohammed (before Our Glorious Brown-Clad Sisters And Brothers In The Fight Against AIDS: UPS)? Of course you do! And the lemon, with its multiple uses, comes from a conglomeration of Hindu gods. Its descendants live there by Pit Stop 1. And I'm sure those oranges in Loma Linda can trace their lineage clear back to Abraham's little grove. If we had found a lime grove (they are so hard to distinguish from groves of unripe lemons), I'm sure they would have been Buddha-like in their placidity. Limes always are. Clementines, in their seedless, easy-peeling ways, are doubtlessly heathen in origin.

108 miles. Two climbs above 4000 feet in real desert. Full panniers. Dr. Zhivago.I earned my bragging rights so here goes.

Palm Springs. They day dawned like every other. Clear and hot, promising to be hotter. Our fabulous hosts at Inndulge got up early and brought us coffee, fruit and muffins way, way before anyone else was up. They certainly didn't have to, and we didn't expect it. But they are great guys.

Aboard the Metrolink train heading for San Bernardino.

I debark the train at San Bernardino.

We were out the door by 7:00, probably a little later than we'd intended. We rode over to Route 111 and turned south, heading through Cathedral City and Rancho Mirage to Palm Desert. The highway was smooth and fast and, much to my concern, consistently downhill. In Palm Desert we were to pick up Route 74 and head westerly into the mountains. Every hundred feet we lost on the way to Palm Desert would have to be made up as soon as we got onto 74.

And then we were there at Route 74. An innocent corner like many others. Nothing stopped us as we turned right. But we knew we were committing ourselves to some miles of hell. But just exactly what hell we didn't know. Michael had even asked the proprietor of the B&B in Julian where we were headed about the terrain between here and Julian. She admitted she had never been to Palm Springs and had never driven the one route between the two towns. We had asked the same of the owner of Inndulge, and he admitted he had never even heard of Julian.

The road began to climb immediately. And then it got steeper. It was dead straight and before long there were none of the scrubby bushes and trees that can sometimes provide a little desert shade. We just put it in our low gears and churned. After some miles the town ended and the highway began to make switchbacks as it climbed into the San Bernardino National Forest. We took that opportunity to stop and supply a bit of much needed water to a few roadside cactuses. I was surprised to see how much we had climbed already. I could see all of Palm Desert laid out before me. It must be a fabulous hill to ride down! But we continued up into our passage between the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains.

Our HydraPaks were working overtime. We were each carrying the fullest load of water possible: full HydraPaks, three large water bottles, plus additional liters in our panniers.

It is at this nondescript corner that the RAAM route joined our route to Palm Springs…or vice versa.

In the desert on the way to Palm Springs a tyrannosaurus rex suddenly leaped upon me as I was snacking.

We launched into the switchbacks. They went on forever, but they were never bad. The road surface was great, the view was the best, traffic was light. It took hours. We stopped frequently to admire the widening view and to reserve our strength for the steeper stuff we expected ahead. We were still thinking as New Englanders, where the peak of a climb is heralded by the very steepest parts. Not so in California where the steepest parts come first and the peak itself is an anti-climax.

As we climbed we could see Cathedral City and then Palm Springs. Eventually we saw the entire valley including the windmills north of Palm City and the Salton Sea far to the south. Below us we could see motor vehicles snaking up the road. Sometimes we saw them 15 or 20 minutes before they could get up to us. Ahead of us we could make out the road weaving its way across impossibly high rocks. Oh, we had thought Mount Diablo was something. Mount Diablo was a kid's playground compared to this.

During one of our stops we encountered some young German tourists who clambered all over the rocks with careless abandon in order to get a photo with Palm Springs far in the background. If I had been able to remember my German for "rattlesnake" we would have seen some real clambering. Higher up we stopped at a spot with a great panoramic view southwards. Some delightfully chubby middle-aged female tourists in a mini-van had stopped to admire the view. Most of our climbing had been done in complete silence. Except for the occasional motor vehicle there was nothing to hear but our chains, our breathing and the threats of the nearby cactus. So at this rocky vista point it was a real moment with nature when the women left the keys in the van and the doors open so we could hear the continuous electronic beep reminding them that they were careless assholes. If they had been truly thoughtful they would have left some McDonald's litter for us to admire. We moved on too soon.

The Boston Market spreads its ubiquitous tentacles near Palm Springs.

Eventually we knew we were approaching the real top of the climb. There two ways to know this in California: First, the wind begins to pick up. In this case, it was a head wind. Second, the California highway department will put a huge gonzo sign on the opposite side of the road picturing that mythical truck careening down a 45 slope.

But now that we were at the top, we didn't get a rewarding downhill, because all we had been doing was climbing from a desert valley up to desert highlands. We cruised along with little rises and drops. During the climb and at the top we passed in and out of a National Forest and a National Scenic Area, as well as some state protected areas. Along here at the top the National Forest Service had built a scenic vista overlook with interpretation of the local flora and how the natives had used it. Michael and I were beginning to run a bit low on our water and we were much concerned about where the next supply of fresh, safe water might be. So it we considered it great good fortune to find a National Forest Service ranger at this scenic vista overlook.

Now I want you to understand this was an actual National Forest Service ranger out on the road in her pickup truck, on the job, in uniform. That we were in a National Forest when we met her. And we all understand that the National Forest Service is part of the Department of Agriculture. It is not a part of the Department of Interior like the National Park Service. The National Forest Service has as its main goal the preservation and protection of forest lands so that they can be harvested and used commercially. If they can be simultaneously enjoyed by tourists, well fine, but that isn't their goal. In all National Forests fire is a primary concern. Not only protection from wildfire, but when to ignite controlled fires. Surely, a primary element in fire control is the fire fighting companies. A ranger concerned with preserving her National Forest from wildfire should know where the nearest firefighting companies and their sources of water are.

The exciting Hadley Orchards store on I-10 approaching Palm Springs.

Palm Springs is entered. On the horizon you can barely make out the shadowy outlines of some of the vast wind farms.

Okay? All understood?

So it was with confidence that Michael and I asked this NFS ranger where the next source of water might be in the direction we were heading. Oh my, she had to think about that one. After quite a bit of cogitating, she said that in a few miles we would encounter a restaurant, that the restaurant was closed, but there was a crew there rehabbing it, and surely they would have water they would share with us. It didn't sound like the best, but it would do for us. We chugged on. Within just a few miles we spotted the restaurant and it was, indeed, under construction. We could see a water tank from the road so things looked promising. But what is this on the opposite side of the road? A county fire station! It's open! It's staffed! There's a garden hose attached to an outside spigot and there is actually a little water on the concrete apron! No matter where you are, every cyclist knows a fire house is a great source for water. It's just too bad the National Forest Service doesn't know about this fire house right in the very midst of the National Forest itself.

We rode up to the fire house and leaned in the door to ask permission. They said sure we could fill up on just as much water as we could carry. They were all friendly and stood there with us talking about terrain and hills. They spotted our Hydrapaks right off and said they had recently adopted Camelbaks for use during their firefighting. I was forced to point out that while Camelbaks are something of a standard, that our Hydrapaks had a much faster flow than Camelbaks. Even so, we stayed on a friendly footing. They told us we were already above 4000 feet and we would be up to 5000 before long. "Have a good day!"

Michael as we prepare to depart from Inndulge on Grenfall.

I show my backside to all of the Coachella Valley.

We trudged along on small roller hills, every climb seeming to promise that that altitude would drop on just the other side, every drop just leading to another climb. It was tiring, and the stark landscape of brown rock and scrub in all directions were only occasionally broken by a surprise vista back at Palm Springs, or by an outcropping of some bright wildflowers.

Eventually we came to our first intersection since leaving Palm Springs. Route 74, if we had continued on it, would take us to San Juan Capistrano, a spot that look deliciously downhill from where we were. Instead of that, we turned left onto Route 371. Right there at the corner was a small restaurant and a produce stand. The restaurant was closed, but the produce stand was still open. He had only a tiny dorm-sized refrigerator with cold drinks, but to make up for that he had the freshest California produce at rock-bottom prices. I picked up a very overflowing pint basket of first-of-the-season apricots for $1.50! I thought of the undernourished, sallow, chilled New Englanders who would pay triple to get a similar quantity of pasty-flavored old apricots. It made mine taste twice as good!

Our timing was excellent. Five minutes after we had made our purchases it was noon and the produce stand shut itself down for the day. We left and rode up a climb on Route 371. At the top we found our long-awaited drop as we entered the fertile Anza valley. We sailed along with ease, encountering another 4000 foot sign on our descent. There seems to be a rule in California never to post a 5000 foot sign on any route that I ride on. In the town of Anza we found the most fabulous Circle K store. They stocked a great variety of Gatorade flavors and sizes, as well as all the flavors of Powerbars. But imagine my amazement when I saw they also carried all the major competitors for Gatorade and Powerbars, and they sold real bicycle parts. I came out of there with a big load of liquids and calories.

The cyclist's favorite sign!

On the other side of Anza, as we continued our descent through the Cahuilla Indian Reservation with its now-ubiquitous tacky casino and bargain-priced cigarettes. On the last part of our descent we were making great speed as we approached the end of Route 371 when suddenly a big black BMW headed in the opposite direction ignored the fact that it was in a No Passing zone (and ignored the fact that Michael and I were currently using the lane at about 35 mph) accelerated rapidly and jumped over to pass some slower vehicle. Michael was about a tenth of a mile ahead of me at that point and had to react fast. Boston traffic had given us good skills. I had more time to move to the very right edge of the pavement. Usually I do nothing to intentionally provoke a driver since they have a great big weapon in their control, but this time I would have gladly flipped off the driver as he passed -- except I thought I needed both hands on the handlebars to guarantee good control of my loaded bike in a touchy situation. So I had to trust to the driver's ability to lip-read.

Route 371 ended where it intersected Route 79. Here the unprecedented happened. Michael and I whipped out our maps to try to completely re-evaluate our route. I'm always up for looking for an easier way, but I can't remember Michael ever admitting to such a desire. Our planned route would have us take a left on 79 and eventually climb back up to 4000 feet. A right turn on 79 (our only other choice) could have eventually taken us to Oceanside. We decided to stick with our plans.

Passing 4000 feet.

Route 371 ends and we begin to wonder if there is a downhill or flat alternative. There is not.

Route 79 travels along the backside of the mountains where the Palomar Observatory is located, but we saw no sign of it. What we did see were occasional ranches, and a couple of gas stations with oversized quick stores attached. We entered San Diego County for the first time. We passed by an Immigration & Naturalization Service temporary building surrounded by two layers of razor-wire topped chain link fence. The little installation was probably only 100 feet by 50 feet and looked totally out of place in the midst the great free open spaces we were riding through. No one was home when we passed, but we cast it dirty looks on behalf of our friends who are illegal. We were 2800 miles from New York City, but we felt light years away from the Statue Of Liberty.

We passed a U.S. Navy Seals training site. We offered to let one of their top grads ride one of our bikes back up to 4000 feet, but he paled at the offer and quietly declined the challenge. We passed a Boy Scout camp, but it was just a bit too early in the season for the boys to be scouting around. We rode for miles along some sort of watershed testing zone that was lined with very threatening signs. It was dry pasture for cattle as far as we could see. We passed a busy glider port.

As we began to enter a little town called Warner Springs we spotted a couple of high school boys smoking a joint heading off into some rare woods along an even more rare creek. They hadn't heard us approaching and reacted with some surprise when we got within about twenty feet. Warner Springs, locals had told us earlier, has been taken over by some resort facility (maybe something like a dude ranch). We saw the resort office and several electric golf carts shuttling nicely dressed, older people around. The only language we overheard was German. There was no retail of any sort that we could find in that town.

At least I've made it to San Diego County, but I'm still a day away from San Diego itself.

Mailbox along the road to Julian.

Where Route 79 joined Route 76 the roadway was crossed by our first cattle guard. Back during the 1995 California AIDS Ride we had to cross several of these and learned the skill well. But since we were on loaded bikes and we thought maybe our skills could have become rusty, I walked mine across. And then I bonked.

It had been a really long day so far, and I had consumed vast amounts of liquid (I was still showing all the necessary signs of good hydration), and I had gotten lots and lots of calories, but maybe just not enough. We stopped for quite awhile at this point. After we got moving again I had very little strength for climbing, but I was more concerned with my mental acuity. I saw that I could still keep the bike steady on a line, and I reacted correctly to passing cars and barking dogs. I wasn't hallucinating, or anything like that. I had just lost a lot of strength. It was only 14 miles from there to Julian, where we had a reservation, but they were probably the longest 14 miles I had ever done.

Route 76 ended at Route 78 where we would turn left for Julian. We could see a steep climb starting in just a few hundred feet. We talked briefly about going right and riding to Ramona. Ramona was farther, but I guessed it would be less of a climb. We had no reservations in Ramona, either, but it was a larger town and might have a chain motel. We decided to stick with Julian. The initial climb turned out to be not very long. After that I was drained, though. Jamie King, back in Boston, had biked into Julian once and he had told us Julian was in a valley, so we expected to climb some and then get a drop. It turned out Jamie's memory got the better of him. The road to Julian to my perception was mostly flat with occasional slight rises and drops. I couldn't figure out why I had to put my bike down in the lowest of granny gears just to keep moving. We stopped a couple of times to rest. I would be covered with cold sweat and my pulse was racing. I was nauseous, too.

The next morning as we re-traced this route in the opposite direction we saw our perceptions had been terribly wrong. The seven miles of road approaching Julian constantly rises to get back up to 4000 feet. We didn't realize how much it was climbing probably because we were too tired, we were getting low sunlight from our backs, and because we had gotten used to steeper hills all through the day. And I wonder, being a sea-level kinda guy, how far do you have to climb before you notice the decreased oxygen? Am I just trying to cover up for not having trained quite hard enough, for having about 10 pounds of fat I could have lost, for not getting enough sleep? Am I just being too modest to mention the time and stress that went into organizing short, slow (but damn steep) training rides for the Boston AIDS ride? If I were trying to hide anything here, then this wouldn't be something I'd write; and it wouldn't be anything you'd want to read.

Ultimately I concluded that since I had the reddest bike on the road, and my panniers were bigger than anybody's (yeah, anybody's), I must be the strongest, hottest biker on the road then. Easy to see, huh?

We made it to our guest house in Julian at about 8:00. We had called ahead from Warner Springs and the guest house had called a restaurant and asked them to stay open until at least 8:30 so we could get a meal! Even though I was just barely this side of spewing, I went with Michael to the restaurant. If I missed a meal after a ride like this I knew I wouldn't be able to even get myself up onto the Cannondale tomorrow.

At the restaurant (look, I've forgotten the name; but it's the steak restaurant 50 feet north of the intersection) we were quickly greeted "Oh, you're the boys who came in on bikes! Where'd you ride from?"

"From Palm Springs."

"Palm Springs. Yes. But where'd you start this morning."

You know those restaurants with the used books along the walls that are there to create that sort of Edgar-Allan-Poe-Coulda-Died-Here faux formal comfort decor? But you look close at the books and it's 5032 copies of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries in different color binders, with a mixing of 19^th Century texts on digestive health and Christianity. Same here at the steak house, except . . . hold! Real books! Here just half an arm's length away was Dr. Zhivago! Michael and I, having just recently shared in slow motion every detail of the previous 14 hours of our complete and total existence were just a bit talked out. So Pasternak it was! And do you know how flabbergasted I was to discover that the opening of the movie, the part set in the modern Soviet state comes at the end of the book! While the movie is all a flashback, allowing Alec Guiness to speak with desynchronized lips, the book is (relying on the information I gathered while using my Bob Flannery School Of Speed Reading technique) not.

I was quite satisfied with my fully total and 100% complete understanding of all of Dr. Zhivago when the waitress brought the food. She asked if we weren't those guys who biked in. We said we were. Where did we ride from? Palm Springs. Yes. Palm Springs. But where did we ride from this morning.

I had steak. At those moments of total exhaustion and trigger upchucking, it's a big heavy steak that settles it. Couldn't eat pasta and think of all those Italian mountains and twisty roads and rough coastlines and fast little cars. Wanted to visualize big, steady plains; placid black bovines moving slowly across. And then, I don't need to tell you, it was apple pie time, 'cause

Julian is the apple pie capital of the world!

If you go away remembering one thing, please remember that. Because it is all Julian, little Julian, has. Well, that and hummingbirds. But just those two things, okay? During our slow and tediously painful climb to Julian we passed a half dozen places where the apple pie was invented. There were another ten orchard stands that had shut down just before we approached. There were apple billboards. There were Welcome to Julian / Apple Pie Capital of the World signs. But you knew that already. And we didn't see one damn single apple tree. We don't demand a whole orchard. Just a tree! We saw horses, pine trees, pastures, rocks, stream beds, dirt yards, mail boxes. Plenty of room for one apple tree.

And that pie at the steak restaurant was really good! Honest. I don't care if they fly in Washington apples on cargo jets. They sure know what to do with them.

Tummies all better we returned to our great big, all wooden construction bed and breakfast which would have been a fire hazard in the 19^th Century, but is now praying for enough wet weather to just let it make it to the next century (1/1/2001). We had a phone and next to it was a sheet of paper explaining that the switchboard shut down at 9:00 PM and the possibility of you using the phone after that hour was less than the possibility that I would slap the lights on my bike so I could go out and ride up into the mountains looking for those orchards. "But" the page went to explain that we were not completely cut off without phone service. All any of your friends back in the slick city hellhole you came from need do to get a message to you is to call the county Sheriff and he would be obliged to send a car over to Julian and have an officer pound on your door at any hour to give you your message. And guys, there were no cell phone antennae there. Got it? If you didn't have a shortwave you were just plain there without even Web access!

We didn't go looking for the night club. It was nodding time.

In the morning we breakfasted on about 12 dainty bowls of Cheerios and 14 tangerines along with our fellow B&Bers. Oh, the couple at the next table with a couple bright young kids wanted to know weren't we the young men who rode bikes in last night. Uh-huh. My! How far? From Palm Springs. Oh, Palm Springs. But where did you start yesterday? I got the idea everyone in Julian felt Palm Springs was that city full of Hollywood perverts, Bob Hope and such like. The miles of mountain and desert between Julian and Palm Springs was a very welcome, if not quite sufficient barrier holding back all that glitzy slick living.

At our table a retired couple from San Diego sat with us. They say: we heard some guys biked in. Was that you? Yes, it was! And where have you been biking? [more open-ended question, see] Well, we started in San Francisco 10 days ago, did the AIDS Ride, rode to Palm Springs, and then yesterday morning we started in Palm Springs and we rode here yesterday and today we're a bit bushed so we're only going to ride just to San Diego, 'kay? Around the room jaws dropped, people got the willies, murmurs passed among them, the toaster stopped ticking. The man at our table admitted how he was a cyclist himself, but it had been a while since he'd ridden so far.

Michael and I admired the window beside us where two hummingbird feeders were busy busy busy with hummers. Somewhere on every ride Michael and I go there is always a hunk of nature that just ignores us and walks up right into our faces. Here it was again.

Our strength just barely restored after the previous day's exhausting ride we were delighted beyond measure to go sailing downhill for miles right from the parking lot of our B&B. We followed Route 78 west, reversing our route of the night before, but at a much more fabulously fitting speed. There were still no apple trees. We stopped for a moment at a memorial to the fire fighters who had died fighting a gigantic forest fire many years earlier. Could this have marked the end of the apple trees?

It was seven miles back to the intersection with Route 76, where we first began the climb to Julian the day before. Now we continued west towards Ramona. After a seven mile descent from Julian, what could Mother Nature lay out for us on the sixteen mile stretch to Ramona? It coulda been mountainous climbing, coulda been flat desert with headwinds, coulda been! But would that happen to us on our very last day of biking? Nossir! We got sixteen miles of downhill that made the seven down from Julian look like a kiddy slide. It was sixteen miles of downhill that were so good we had to just throw up our hands and laugh and smile the whole way. We ran a couple of BMWs off the road in the process. Here we were getting back all of the vertical feet we had bought on our climbs from LA to Palm Springs and from Palm Springs to Julian.

At that point on the road where we could begin to admire glimpses of Ramona itself far ahead and far down in the valley, we encountered a road crew. They were so happy to have us coming to town they had rushed out to make perfectly smooth the very last and very steepest and very finest downhill so that we could make a suitably grand and burning entrance into town with brass band accompaniment. We paused a moment to acknowledge and thank the road crew. Then they waved us on. Nothing ahead of us (the road crew had seen to that) and no one behind us trying to pass. The road became just a glassy blackness that unwound and carried us through rich California ranches and orchards until at the very last bend we burst directly into Main Street, Ramona.

On our left I spotted an antique gas station that had been converted to an espresso stand -- not a Starbucks. With a nearly choreographed shrieking of brakes, we brought our speed under control and U-turned directly to our table. This being very southern California, everything is al fresco. We got a couple of giant extra large, extra shot cappuccinos along with some gigantic pastry items. It was the breakfast to make up for the breakfast in Julian, which would have been more suitable for a grandma with colon troubles. Thank goodness we hadn't been forced to move the pedals more than a half dozen rotations in the last 23 miles.

Thus well fed and energized, our outlook totally improved, any memories of yesterday's ride melted from our brains. We leapt to our bikes, aching to whisk ourselves across the remaining miles to San Diego, to the ocean, to Black's Beach! But first we had to ride through the remainder of Ramona. What a fine town this looked to be! A prosperous, mid-sized agricultural center with chain motels. Next time we ride from Palm Springs to San Diego we will spend the night in Ramona. Or better yet, you, our faithful supporter, will stand at the intersection of Routes 111 and 74 in Palm Desert; you'll flag us down, telling us "Guys! Go back! Have a cool drink! Rent a car and drive to San Diego! Take it easy!" That's the kind of support we need, but instead we repeatedly find ourselves out on steep, hot roads riding bikes like fools. Who's not holding up their end of the deal? Huh?

From Ramona we followed Route 67 which turned south and took us directly towards San Diego. We passed through some rough terrain, but the few climbs were not steep, and were more than offset by large descents. We took a right on Route 54 to pass through Poway. Here a rare conjunction of signs gave us more information than we are accustomed to having on the road. One sign indicated that we were just dropping past an altitude of 2000 feet. Then just a few feet farther on was a sign welcoming us to "Poway - Altitude 500 feet." Then we saw the valley ahead, but not very far ahead at all. A 1500 foot drop in just a couple of miles, if the signs were to be believed. We believed them.

Unfortunately there was a small problem. We pause here for a short discussion of California roads and highways. My experience with California roads and highways is such that I put complete and total faith in them. No California road has ever completely surprised me (okay, the intersection of the Capitol Expressway and Route 101 in San Jose two years before was a bit jarring -- but it worked out). If there is ever a lane drop, you are notified well in advance. Surfaces are smooth and predictable. Shoulders are wide and mostly clean. If you are on a steep, twisty descent you can count on no surprises all the way to the bottom. And I'm not even talking about the drivers, who are nearly perfect.

Therefore, you can appreciate my utter astonishment and fear as I discovered that Route 54 into Poway, Route 54 which descends 1500 feet in a very few miles; Route 54 which carries lots of heavy truck traffic, Route 54 which winds along a mountain face, is built to the same standards as a Missouri county road in 1959 -- only worse. On twisty descents in California they like to put white reflector buttons along the outside edge of the travel lane. This presents only a small challenge for cyclists, since there is usually one of those generous shoulder lanes outside the white buttons. The only challenge, normally, comes when you decide you need to be in the traffic lane (life, frinstance, if you want to pass some really slow cyclist). You have to jump from the shoulder into the traffic lane within the space from one button to the next. You don't want to be hitting one of those buttons at 45 mph. This usually works fine, although if there are cars nearby, the drivers can be unnerved by such a sudden movement by a cyclist.

Route 54 had these reflective buttons, but only an unpredictable or non-existent shoulder. I first became aware of this problem when on one long, fairly straight descent I was riding outside (to the right) of the reflective buttons in the narrow shoulder. Approaching from behind me was a milk tanker truck. Oncoming traffic was steady and heavy. I could see that just ahead, just about where the dairy truck would be overtaking me, the shoulder dwindled to a complete zero as the road curved left. What to do? If I just continued forward I would hit dirt, then the guardrail and go airborne down several hundred feet of cliff face. I could jump the reflective buttons and move into the traffic lane and wait to see how the possibly heavily laden milk truck on a 55 mph descent might respond. I bet that faced with the choice of running his truck head on into a dozen cars in the oncoming lane, or taking me out, he'd take me out. Or, I could accelerate! But I was already doing about 40, and from my experience riding to Palm Springs I knew I couldn't pedal faster than this. And I didn't relish the idea of maneuvering my loaded bike on hairpin curves at something like 50 mph. Call me sissy.

So I chose the one remaining alternative: I applied my brakes! I actually managed to bring the bike to a complete stop before the shoulder ended. Have I praised Shimano brake pads yet in this thank you letter? Shimano Brake Pads! There. Buy lots of 'em.

I waited for the dairy truck and a short of line of cars to pass. Then I proceeded in the traffic lane. After that the shoulder would re-appear and disappear, so I never trusted it, keeping myself out there with the cars and trucks, just like I would in Massachusetts. It was easier when the road curved right. In those places, traffic cutting the curve short had smashed all the reflective buttons, giving me clear surface clear to the edge of the pavement. I could let vehicles pass me here, but, depending on the terrain, I sometimes had to watch for rock slides in my path, too.

About two-thirds of the way down to Poway there was a turnout for a vista point. Michael was there waiting for me. We just stared at each other with big eyes and shaking hands. No words were necessary. Oh, where can you find a nip of Tanqueray when you really need one? With nothing stronger than water, we continued our descent, eventually reaching the point where the road leveled and widened.

I finally make it to San Diego.

We rode into Poway, which was obviously a bedroom community for San Diego. It had every chain you could want. We took a left on Pomerado and did a little hill climbing to get closer to San Diego. For many miles the road went alongside the vast Miramar Naval Air Station. Along here the road was lined with eucalyptus and quite pleasant. But when we crossed Interstate 15 its character changed completely, and so did the habits of the drivers.

The road became a split, four-lane strip. The left side of the road was the Naval Air Station (dozens of lonely sailors waved to us as we rode along), while the right side was continuous strip malls. The drivers began behaving erratically, insanely, aggressively, in short, like Boston drivers, but not quite so bad. San Diego must have more immigrants from other states than other California cities. That's the only way we could explain the difficulties we had getting along with these drivers. I don't want to blame it all on the Navy, but until I hear a better explanation . . .

We rode on, eventually passing through a giant interchange with Interstate 5. We would have considered that a challenge, but we've ridden along the Long Island Expressway in Friday rush hour traffic.

Then a bit of curving around the campus of UCSD and a glimpse of the Pacific, the very end of our road. A sharp descent, a right, a left and there we were at Vance's house, just a block from the beach. Vance was there preparing his bike to be shipped to Boston for the Boston-Provincetown ride which was coming up in just a week. We rested, but not too much. Before sunset we drove to the glider port to check out the approach to Black's Beach. We wondered how long it would take us to climb the cliff. Ten minutes down, about twelve up, but we're old guys and we hadn't been practicing our hiking muscles and we weren't entirely familiar with this route, etc.

Meanwhile, Vance (remember Vance?) has just been taking it easy at home in La Jolla.

The next morning we put our bikes on Vance's car and drove them (using gasoline!) over to a bike shop in an area nearby where several shopping centers had gotten together and reproduced, forming many offspring shopping centers around them. For an astonishingly small amount of money they took our bikes and were willing to disassemble them, box them, give them to Our Glorious Brown-Clad Sisters And Brothers In The Fight Against AIDS: UPS. We had them sent to Belmont Wheelworks back in glorious Belmont, Massachusetts, where they would put them together for us. Ten days later when we picked them up, Michael got an extra charge for "removing red dirt." We remain mystified as to exactly what this meant.

It was an overcast cool morning, so we were resigned to doing not much at all, but at about noon the clouds began to break up, so we threw some stuff together fast and drove back to the glider port. We hiked down to Black's Beach, went right and hiked far enough and then spread ourselves out. We had nothing to do the rest of the day but watch the Navy jets and the gliders. Occasionally a San Diego police helicopter buzzed along. Some ground squirrels poked around and fought over scraps of food. It was a tense situation, let me tell you.

That evening we drove into the Hillcrest neighborhood to see what could be seen. Our radar managed to lead us to a sign-up table on the sidewalk; a sign-up table with water bottles sitting on it! Organizations in San Diego and Long Beach were going to have (get this!) an AIDS ride! Although they couldn't call it an AIDS ride, since that's trademarked, service marked, copyrighted and patented by Tanqueray and/or Dan Pallotta, whichever catches you first. So it was called something else, but it was an AIDS ride. It was to be a loop (somebody's thinking!) from San Diego to Long Beach and back. The big attraction (to my mind) was a night of camping in Camp Pendleton, a Marine base.

You can bet those volunteers at the sign-up table spotted us right fast. They knew a bike leg when they saw one (or four). They assumed we were locals, so we said no we were in California just to do the California AIDS ride. Well, they just about knocked the table flat trying to hand us a pen to sign up. And then our casual, off-handed mention that we had biked here from L.A. via Palm Springs and Julian had them fawning at our very feet, kissing our biker ankles, begging for the opportunity to sign us up for their ride. Having worked them to a frenzy we regretfully declined their generous offers since they had scheduled their ride to be on the very same weekend as the Boston-NY AIDS ride in September, and our deep loyalty to the Fenway Community Health Center in Boston would prevent us from coming out to assist on what obviously would be a fun and exciting ride. We walked away laughing and feeling extremely full of ourselves.

Very early the next morning we grabbed a cab to the San Diego airport. The first leg of our flight took us back to Salt Lake City, and half of the passengers on board were either young missionaries on their way home, or beehived matrons. While changing planes at SLC I couldn't understand the strange looks I was getting until I remembered my hair color. No one had given me any particular reaction to my now-pink hair since Paso Robles. Not in Solvang. Certainly not in West Hollywood. Not in San Bernardino. Not in super-conservative Palm Springs. Not in little, old-fashioned Julian. Not in agricultural Ramona. Not in suburban La Jolla. But amidst the beehives of Salt Lake City my hair drew attention!

Young lady admiring us as we ride along.

Maybe you're wondering what biking plans I have for 1998. Maybe you're wondering if you're going to be able to pay your rent, or am I going to invade your savings account again. 1998 remains undecided. California is wonderful and New England takes second place to no one. But there are lots of places I've never ridden. It'd be nice to find a place big enough and varied enough to do a good long ride without getting bored. An area that includes scenic rolling hills, but not too many killer mountains. But it should have a saltwater coastline, too. A few big cities to ride through would keep it interesting. And most important of all, it's got to be a place that's filled with a great diversity of warm-hearted, open and tolerant people. If there are some friends or relatives already there, that's a real plus, cause then we could suck some free housing out of 'em. Impossible and conflicting standards? Maybe. But I have some ideas. In fact, I have one pretty good idea for a place that has a heart as big as . . .  well, you can count on it that I'll let you know whatever I decide.

To Michael Cady for letting me use his scanner and printer without limit. To Corel WordPerfect, an island of balance and craft in an insane world increasingly filled with Microsoft's incompetent buffoonery. To Iomega for their ZipDisk, without which this monster could never have existed. To Danny Clenott for never letting me just forget it. To all of you for providing me with more inspiration than you know.

End of Part 2 of 2     Go to Part 1