I See Red People

Day Five

The famous "Red Dress Day." A sea of red. A sea of glitter, platform shoes with cleats, tutus, men with dresses, men with skirts, men with boobs and hairy chests. A gloriously spectacularly photogenic day.

Jerry and I were kind of toned down this year. No tutus on the recumbent, and Jerry didn't want to wear his spangly top because the spangles would dig into his back. He did wear a skirt, and we both wore fishnets and elbow length red opera gloves with the fingers cut out. The fishnets stood out nicely over our black legwarmers. But otherwise, we were pretty invisible.

The route changed this year, so it was 20 miles longer and a lot hillier. Wouldn't have been a big deal on another year, but on the trike, as always those hills were time killers.

Also, we did not go through Casmalia, a town that generally has a barbecue fundraiser and we dance in the street. The combo of the additional hilly miles and no dancing in the street made this, for me, not the Red Dress Day of my dreams. My understanding is, it was Casmalia's decision not to have us. I heard a couple of version as to why, and perhaps none is true. I heard they had a new principal at the school and he didn't want all those homos in his town; I also heard that school was still in session so the principal didn't want an event to disrupt the school day. Whatever the reason, I really missed Casmalia.

So, instead of dancing in the streets in Casmalia, we dined under a tent on a dusty field in Solvang. Nope. Not the same.

The afternoon was long, although we did get back to camp at a decent time. This year, perhaps there were more shower trucks, but I never had to wait in line more than five or 10 minutes for a shower. That was a real plus. But as the week went on I became more and more tired of my long hair, counting the days to get home and cut off about a foot. I can still put it in a ponytail, but it's so so much easier to deal with... But I digress.

So while Red Dress Day was fun and some people preferred the route, I heard more grumbling than not about the longer length and more hills, and no chance for a lot of stuff strutting as there always was in Casmalia.

So, as usual, we got back to camp, showered, had dinner and retired early. Except this was the first night in many years it rained, and many people woke to find most of their possessions floating on

Day Six

We were on a fairly thick air mattress, so we stayed dry and our suitcases are water tight, so we did pretty well, But our bedding was wet, or mattress was wet, and the tent was definitely soggy.

What to do, what to do, when we began to stir at a little before 5 am. The rain was coming down fairly steadily, easing up a bit, then coming down a little heavier. Jerry and I realized all 2100 riders couldn't possibly be sagged, plus we were riding the Behemoth, a very difficult cycle to move. So we got up, put on our bike clothes and headed to breakfast. One of our wheels was out of true, so it was at Bike Tech and it had not been covered with the thin ponchos we had been using. They were still in the trike's trunk, which was actually fortunate. We put them on, and at about 7:30, we rode out.

As we left, we noticed a lot of tents were still up, and we weren't exactly sure what the day would bring. But we soldiered on.

After riding around 10 miles, Robert, one of ALC's biggest cheerleaders, drove by in his truck, pulled over and waved at us. We stopped, and he told us that there had been a big accident (cars, not bikes), the route was closing and we should head back to camp.

By now the rain had almost stopped. We had, as usual, climbed some big hills, but we took it easy riding down them as the roads were still pretty slick. And the rain must have washed up a lot of debris, because we, along with probably 30 or 40 other cyclists that day, got a flat. We had a spare tire and tube with us, and Jerry, my hero, changed the flat.

The roadies and staff who figured out the logistics of transporting 2100 riders, their bikes and 500 roadies did an amazing job. As we waited for buses, our lunch was delivered, our bikes were loaded on gear trucks and hauled to the next campsite. Considering nothing like this had ever happened before, it was nothing short of a miracle.

And while the rain stopped and the sun came out, no one faulted staff for deciding not to let us ride. We only had to think back to Day One, when it was misting and roads were wet. There were several accidents, and one very serious one. David is still as SF General and we are all praying for his recovery. We just heard that while he still cannot speak nor is he fully conscious, he can respond to some commands. That is very very good news.

What we were sorry to miss was Paradise Pit in Santa Barbara. Volunteers serve us ice cream, have massage tables set up and last year, beside porta-potties, they even had sinks! While we didn't get ice cream, they did send home made cookies to the camp.

We got to the campsite in Ventura around 4, so we had plenty of time to dry out our mattress, sleeping bag and assorted other soggy items.

Ventura is where we have the candlelight vigil on the beach, but I decided that I was going to skip it this year. I was trying to make the ride this year much more about life, and while I realize the vigil, in memory of all of those whom we've lost to AIDS is important, I just felt like it was not where I wanted to put my focus.