Numb Toes and Tabouli

Today was Day On the Ride-- a day that is supposed to simulate what a day on the "real" AIDS ride is like. Except the ride was kinda short for that. And ours was even shorter.

We did not want to ride across the Golden Gate Bridge, plus we were still getting used to the new trike, so we opted to start our ride in Sausalito and ride to Lagunitas. Part of our ride was with DOTR riders, which was fun.

We stopped at the first rest stop, which was staffed by the Positive Pedalers, so got to see lots of friends. Rich Prendes took a couple great pictures of us in action, which are great to have.

After we hung around the rest stop for about a half an hour, we got back on the trike and pedaled up White's Hill, our longest, steepest climb yet. Funny to say yet-- it's only our third time on the trike, but we are doing incredibly well.

White's Hill was slow, but very doable. Our biggest difficulty with climbing is having our feet fall asleep. They are up above our hearts, so the blood is leaving them and not being pumped hard enough. What we will probably do is take breaks to get our circulation back. We didn't do that today; I think we wanted to do White's Hill without a stop, which felt great.

We then pedaled down to Lagunitas and stopped at the market. They have delicious organic French roast coffee, so I had a cup, accompanied by a small cup of tabouli. I really do like their tabouli. It's mostly bulgar with a smattering of parsley and tomato, but maybe it was the ride, but it tasted great. Jerry had some chili, then we got back on the bike.

We rode back to our car and trailer, which was coincidentally where the next rest stop was. We saw Stephan Gaudreau, who, with his wife, Lilli, runs a trapeze school. This is his first year riding. He rarely can ride on Saturday because of work, so it was great to see him. He is strong and will be one of the leaders on the ride, I suspect. He's raised more than $5000 so I look forward to seeing him in his jersey.

Not so sure Jerry and I will earn jerseys this year. Neither of us have even raised our minimum. But we'll get there.