I spent all day Friday with Kari marking the route with arrows from GG park all the way to Petaluma and back. I never realized how much time and effort that really takes even when you're in a car! I had to find the most logical place to place the arrows and either staple gun them or tape them to poles along the way. Luckily I ride the route regularly so was familiar with the "normal line of sight" that a rider might take. The arrows pointed right, left, slight right, slight left... and everything in between. I don't think we got very many riders lost-- and if they did get lost it had to have been because they were not paying attention or didn't take a route sheet!!
Saturday morning I got to GG park before the butt-crack of dawn. It was nice to be there early so that I had a prime parking spot right across the street from the start point. I got checked in, set my bike up with numbers and such, then parked it in the official bike parking. After that I just hung out waiting for folks to get there, and then for the official announcements to begin at 7am. After thank yous, a great big donation check for $100,000 from Fed Ex, and stretching done by Wonderkurt, it was my turn to review the route and recite the safety speech. After getting everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) to be completely silent and listening, which I hear was a first- I read the safety speech, included some "show me what I mean" hand signals, did my red flag warning about descending White's Hill into Fairfax -- what to do in an emergency and we were officially off!
Just like day 1 on the ride, we were let out in small groups so as not to overwhelm the streets of SF with 600+ riders. A good thing too because even with our small groups out at a time, we got backed up in different places. It was still a lot of fun, the energy and excitement really made the day worthwhile.
I had put on a pair of really nice warm cycling knickers for the morning but by the time we reached San Anselmo (our first stop was in Fairfax), I decided the day was going to be way too warm to keep them on so I did a little unofficial pit stop at home to change into shorts. I'm glad I did! Soon after I was at Rest Stop 1 in Fairfax, less than 2 miles from home...
Beth, Me and Kari at RS 2 in Fairfax.
Beth, Me and Kari at RS 2 in Fairfax.I rode most of the day with Tom Yetter, a "newbie" rider but not new to ALC. Tom has been a roadie in Bike Parking for a few years and finally decided this was the year to ride. Tommy and I rode off and on with Cami, Rowdy and Anuj throughout the day.
The route went from Fairfax to Nicasio Valley and up and out to the Cheese Factory in Petaluma for lunch. The hill on the way to the Cheese Factory which we have named "le alpe du fromage", was a long a warm climb. At the "almost top" of le alpe were my 4 friends, Tammy ("Gu Girl"), Kelly, Shayne and Bob in superhero costumes-sort of . They hung out there cheering folks on and handing out red vines and overall making people happy. It was great!
Tammy, Bob, Kelly and ShayneWe have all done previous ALC rides together (in fact Tammy was my tentmate on my first two ALC rides and we originally met on a training ride back in ALC 2) but this year they are unable to ride, but love being cheerleaders anyway!
They later drove in to the Cheese Factory and gave us rice crispy treats and strawberries too, yum!!
Soon we were off toward our next destination... Sir Francis Drake Blvd, just outside of Samuel P. Taylor park. We were bummed that we were not able to ride thru the park due to permit issues, so we rode the length of Sir Francis Drake to Lagunitas--- which is the worst paved and probably the most dangerous part of the ride. Luckily it was still early afternoon, so most traffic was traveling northbound and we were traveling southbound so it was not as bad traffic-wise as it could have been. We made it in to Lagunitas and stopped at the market, downed a coke and headed back to Fairfax to rest stop 3.
On the way over White's Hill, I noticed several vehicles pulled off to the side and people on the side of the road motioning us to slow down. There had apparently been a rider who went down, and emergency services were attending to her... I slowed waaaay down, pulled into the shoulder and proceeded down the hill at a really slow speed.
I hate it when that happens. No matter how much I warn people about it- starting out slowly descending on any hill you are not familiar with--- the odds of 1 or 2 people out of 600 not heeding the warning is inevitable. I think there was also either a pothole or some sort of debris that was in the road that added to the danger of that descent. In reading other riders blogs in the last couple days, everyone was now aware of why we are so strict in our safety rules and how different it is riding with more than a few people on the road.
We rolled in to Fairfax, rest stop 3 and our final official stop before heading back to GG park. I made a quick pit stop at the porta potties, said a few hellos and got back on the bike and rode out with Talia, Anuj & Tommy. Somehow I dropped Talia on the bike path, then lost Anuj before the bridge. Tommy and I made our way across the bridge and then thru the Presidio and back to GG Bridge where we stuffed ourselves on pasta and salad...mmmm good!
Not sure if you all knew that was my sister Cindy attending to the cookies... the official cookie lady of the day. She came out to volunteer for DOTR too.
All in all a pretty good day, long-- but a good taste of what the week in June will be like!
