The Bike Geek

I’ve posted a few pictures, and my good friend RL created an awesome video about the LiveStrong Ride. How was the LiveStrong Experience? For starters, I’m not much of a fundraiser, I was grateful that I was able to raise the minimum of $500 to ride the century. The LiveStrong Challenge site had very good pointers on how to raise the funds. I basically used emails, this website and relied on my friends and family to pony up some money.

The passing of Bobby, my brother-in-law really inspired me choose the 100 mile ride, I knew it was going to be tough, but it wouldn’t compare to what he and his family had gone thru. I started using my bike commutes to prepare for the ride, I also rode some hilly terrain to get me in decent shape.

I was somewhat disappointed that the LiveStrong people cancelled the training program that they were going to provide. I was also disappointed on the release of the route details. They can always improve this for next year.

As the day finally arrived, my family faced a dilemma, my daughter had a dance recital AND a luau party to go to. I left it up to her to decide if she wanted to go see dad at the end of the ride or attend the other events. I had no idea at what time I was going to be done, I rode my last century in 7 hours with breaks and with help from my friends.

Once I arrived at the starting point, I picked up my packet (I still can’t understand why they couldn’t mail the darn thing, everyone else does), affixed my number on my New Mexico Jersey and a picture of Bobby on my number. I picked the New Mexico Jersey because Bobby, my wife and his family are from ‘The Land Of Enchantment’.

RL and his daughter arrived 15 minutes before the start of the ride. They took a few pictures, hanged out for a while, I was really glad they went to cheer me on. After a few speeches, a ’stretching session’ off we went. I saw a lot of people with pictures of their loved ones on their jerseys and I met one survivor. Everyone was riding for a cause that was dear to his or her heart.

The route itself was really ho-hum, a lot of street riding, a lot of traffic lights and a lot of stop signs. It seemed that we were never going to get out of Irvine, I must have seen the ‘Welcome to Irvine’ sign at least 7 times.

Once we headed south to Laguna Beach, the scenery changed a bit. We got to ride along a bike trail that was going along the beach. Man, it was nice and cool along that stretch of the route.

As we headed back North, we headed to Santiago Canyon Rd. It was about the 70 mile mark, 98 degrees, the road had a gradual incline and I was riding against a headwind, it really kicked my ass.

Once I reached the ’summit’, I was relieved, downhill baby!!! But here’s where the worse part of the ride happened: I had my jersey’s zipper all the way down so I can cool down, then, OUCH WTF!!!! I felt these multiple stings in my stomach!!! I stopped, threw the bike down, and took my jersey off. I though I was going to find a bee, but didn’t find anything. I was two miles away from the next stop, so I got on the bike and hauled ass. I went to the first aid, got cleaned up, put some anti-bacteria ointment and 5 band-aids, yes! 5 freaking bites!! We assumed that my front tire must have kicked up one of them nasty red fire ants and it got in my jersey.

The rest of the ride was uneventful, except for that nasty pain on my left knee. As I hit the 100 mile mark on my odometer, I checked my GPS and realized that I still had a bit to go. Man, I had only trained for 100 miles! I sucked in a GU, and started riding with a pack that caught up to me. After 105 miles I could finally see the finish line, I also saw my family along the side of the road holding a sign ‘Go Daddy’ it read. I stopped, hugged my family and kept on going to the ‘official’ finish line.

I was so looking forward to the finish line party, the food, the drinks but when I got there… No music, a couple of buckets with sodas, and snacks. Where’s the freaking food!!! I was starving!!! I guess I must have missed it.

Would I do this ride again? Yeah, but not the century. I’ll do the 40 miler or maybe the 70 miler. I want to get to the finish line when there’s still food available.