Should I?

Well in the interest of full disclosure, yes, Andy and I bought red tutus for 'red' day of ALC 10. We actually wore these on day 4 of the ride along with all other cyclists. I figure this is going to get out eventually so here you go. Andy and I looking stellar in our female apparel. Gulp. No legs were shaved in the making of this photograph.

More orientation day stuff...

Here are couple of pics from orientation day. I was number 5298. The tag on my bike had a bar code that the organizers scanned every evening before securing all the bikes in place for the night. We had to leave our bikes at the Cow Palace in SF where the ride was to begin the next day. Here is the room of bikes...all 2,300 of them.

ALC Orientation Day

Today was orientation day. Drop off bike, sign some medical forms, get tent assignments, buy gear and watch the safety video. They had entertainers during the orientation while waiting in line. One of the entertainers were a group of hoola hoopers. This is, of course, my favorite picture from orientation...

Weather

It became sort of a running joke that Andy and I were turning into local weathermen as we found ourselves checking the local weather for the first couple days of our ride. Some select pics from one of our many weather.com checks... We had also received a number of weather based eails from ALC organizers about making sure we came prepared for rain, etc. As it turned out, we never had a drop of rain for the entire duration of riding on the trip. Only rain we had was overnight during the first camp.

Saturday breakfast

Andy rocking it again for breakfast. Start a cooking show already, Andy.

A random bridge

A couple of my favorite photos I took of the Golden Gate Bridge while riding around in the city.

Tooling around SF

I arrived in SF on a Thursday evening. On Friday, while Andy was a work, I finished getting my bike ready, grabbed a local breakfast and then did a light 20 miles around the city to keep the legs loose and iron out any potential bike issues.

Chef Andy

Nothing better than rolling in to SF and having your friend cook you a great welcome dinner. Nice work Andy.

It Starts

And so it begins. Left today for SF to begin the 3 week trip to California that would include a week of AIDS Lifecycle 10 (a charity bike ride of 545 miles from SF to LA) with my friend from college Andy, Joshua Tree National Park, Yosemite National Park, Marin County, Lake Tahoe, Death Valley National Park, Las Vegas and finally the Hoover Dam. I arrived at my friend Andy's house in SF where he and his lovely wife Courtney graciously hosted me for a few days. I had sent my bike in a box to him a week prior. These pictures are of my bike as I was putting it back together.