ALC8 Day Six: Rain and a Knight in Scion Armor
June 5, 2009
Throughout the night between day five and six the rain was just pounding on the tents. I’m talking waked-me-up-it-was-so-loud pounding. Granted, I think being in the tent amplified the sound (and thereby amplifying our concern) but still… it was raining. Now I came prepared for rain. Chris and I did the Pon Memorial ride with the Positive Pedalers (a group comprised mostly of HIV+ cyclists) and that two-day ride was so bad they had to cancel the second day and sag us all home.
(sag = when for whatever reason you can’t complete a ride so the organizers pick you and your bike up in a vehicle and drive you the rest of the way. Also see loss of all glory for more information)
Anyway, through the Pon ride I had purchased a waterproof jacket, full fuzzy finger gloves, toe covers, and wool socks. So when I woke up on day six I was ready to have a Pon repeat. I even had toe warmers I put in my bike shoes!
Originally the plan was for a group of us to get out early, hit a coffee shop, and then wait around until they opened the 101 section for us. Basically all riders were going to be held at rest stop one (I believe) until 9AM because we had to cross this bridge on the 101 that had no shoulder, so they were going to close a lane for us for a specified amount of time. And obviously they weren’t going to let you go over it before they closed the lane. So me, Michael, Topher, and Ryan all started together in search of coffee. And in the cold drizzle we made our way to the start of the gradual climb to rest stop one and, hopefully, coffee.
Unfortunately, it was a full-blown war zone out there. Bikers left and right were getting flats and the rain wasn’t going anywhere.
You may be wondering why the rain would cause soooo many more flats. The answer (as best I know) seems to be that generally there’s a lot of crap on the side of the road. Pieces of glass, nails (you’d be surprised how many nails I see…where do they even come from?!), sharp rock shards, etc. Over time those things are sort of covered in dirt and more bike friendly crap. And, because of cars, most the really heavy evil stuff gets pushed to the very right of the shoulder. However, the rain seems to uncover all those nasty sharp critters and pull them up a bit from the far right side. Thus, you get a LOT more flats.
Well the Google crew was not immune from such a horrible flat fate and it seems I was picked, nay chosen, by the flat gods to be the Google sacrifice. Right on the first descent I felt like my back tire was a little funky. I slowed down, lost the Google guys, and as some random guy was passing me I yelled “Excuse me, could you please look at my back tire. Is it flat?!”
And, sure enough, I had a flat.
Now, I’ve never actually changed a flat on my own (don’t judge me) – so I was pretty nervous. With a zillion bikers nervously wobbling by me in the rain and flats happening right and left (there were three people about ten feet away from me trying to fix one), I was feeling pretty overwhelmed. So I started taking my back wheel off while sticking my thumb down (which is the sign for “I need help!”)
Now in theory a friendly biker was supposed to see my thumb, pull over, and help me… but alas, no luck. I think people were too flustered to really grasp that my thumb was down. And then, after grasping it, to actually decided to pull over. Luckily, soon enough a sag vehicle saw me and pulled over. I explained that I could use a bit of help with my flat but the nice woman said she wasn’t a mechanic and could only sag me to the rest stop. I was NOT interested in sagging (see definition above) so I started fixing it myself. As I was working on it another biker came out of the sag vehicle and tried to help me. We got it all set up, went to pump the tire, and nada. Nada. Apparently I had a bad tube. So there was really nothing for me to do but sag. They reminded me we did what we could and that it was only a few miles to the rest stop. So I got in and right away the nice guy asked if this was my first time sagging. Right when I went to say yes I started crying (which I think gave him his answer) so he gave me a hug.
Once I was dropped at the rest stop (at the rest stop there are bike techs set up that have extra tubes and whatnot) I saw my very friendly bike tech dude! So I went up to him told him what happened, got all teary again, and got some big giant bear hugs. Really, the hugs help. He then told me that all bikers were being held at the rest stop because there was (according to rumor) a big accident on the 101 so they couldn’t close a lane for us. There were loads of bikers all using those emergency blankets waiting for news.
I told him I’d be right back and called Chris crying. “Hunny?? Something terrible has happened [insert sobbing]” I then explained how I had to get sagged to the rest stop and how my world had pretty much ended. He tried to be supportive but I think he was so relieved to hear the “something horrible” wasn’t a bike accident it was a bit difficult for him to take me too seriously 
But, to make me feel better, he told me what was going to be a surprise – he started driving down at 7AM and would be in Ventura in time to see me roll in! But, at that moment, I found out they had cancelled the rest of the ride (CHP shut it down) and we were either to wait at the rest stop for a bus or bike back to camp (15 miles) to wait there. I decided to bike back and Chris was to meet me there and be my personal sag vehicle to Ventura!
Soon enough Chris arrived and picked up me, Michael, and Ryan. We stopped by Carl’s for lunch and then made our way down to Ventura… to our hotel rooms!!
The rest of the night consisted in a big group of Googlers going out to a nice steakhouse for our last dinner together and then everyone hitting the sack pretty early. I was sooooo happy to see Chris and finish up my week long adventure!
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Dude where’s day 7? The world wants to know about how you finished second.