Day 3: King City to Paso Robles

the day opens with Quadbuster, the scariest hill on the ride. Thing is, it's not scary at all. You see, a lot of the people that do the ride are actually training in places like LA or elsewhere, with little or no hills to their avail. The SF folks instead have a plethora of such hills to train on. Hills that are actually a lot worse than Quadbuster. The latest training ride I did was on the steep side of woodside mountain, from old page mill road to alpine drive and it already was a lot worse. We won't mentioned the scary century that Matt and I did a few weeks back, which actually began with a climb of Mount Tam!

Our lunch stop was in the little town of Bradley, population 100+.... the aids ride is the biggest event of the year for those folks and they were out there cheering us up and cooking us hamburger. Actually overall, pretty much anywhere we've been the response has been overwhelmingly warm and emotional. This is turning out to be all the experience that I thought it would be.

A lot of the problems that we face today in the fight against aids are tied to the stigma that is still associated with the disease. People that find out that they are HIV+ face a new path of rejection, shame and guilt that - when things turn good - culminates in the realization that there are others who share those same experience, that there is a loving and accepting community of individuals that reject that stigma (this ride is a wonderful example), and that people can finally live productive and longer lives than ever before thanks to the advances of science. On the ride this year the team of HIV+ riders has decided to make a statement to the abatement of this stigma and wear clothing and biking apparel that clearly identifies them: not to single them out but to announce to the world their irrefutable and unignorable presence. To them today goes my respect and my empathy. I've been biking and sharing stories with but a few of them and I feel I gained a lot of perspective already. The evening today was dedicated to celebrating their efforts and acknoweldging their statement. Emotions are very high all the time here.

Got to bed at 9:30 and woke up at 5 to start riding the next day. I am still sleeping a lot more than on a usual work week. My cold is better and worse. Now I have a cough as a derivative of the cold. I have a funny story about that but I'll leave that for tomorrow.

One more thing: most people were exhausted today riding through the really hot california countryside. My thanks and acknowledgements go to the unidentified rider who taught me a wonderful trick which I've been trying to spread ever since: turn your arm warmers inside out, fill them with ice and tie them around your neck. I went through the hottest plains and i didn't even sweat.... Great! Time for bed, i'm a day behind with blogging but thursday is a short day so I'll catch up then.