Peaceful sounds of wildlife and few to no cars:

A hot day in sunny California. The rainy season will turn these hills green. For now, it's time to sweat. Ben and I were testing out the feasibility of this ride, which would entail having riders new to touring venture out to a campsite for a night. The temperature got up to 87F/30.5C that day. Too hot for newbies and the grade percentage was too high (17%) and highly varied, not to mention the gravel.

I made it!

This year, I was not part of any riding team in the sense that I was for ALC 08. My experience this year was more that of an outlier in the midst of familiar faces. I knew that I would cross the finish line with or without fellow riding buddies and that was not the end of the world. I freed up my mind such that that the grande finale would not make or break my overall experience.

That said, I managed to meet up with the Different Spokes crew at Peet's, just in the nick of time. (Peet's was off the route this year and slightly difficult to find for one directionally-challenged rider.) After downing a magnificent cup of coffee in 5 - 7 minutes, we headed to the finish line.

It was a special moment to have ridden in with a dear rider friend who has one jolly chuckle, and his crew.

It was a pleasurable close. :)

As I rode, I continued to yawn. For some reason, I could not get enough oxygen into my lungs. What a strange experience. At lunch, a fellow rider described nearly the exact same symptoms. We each took in some Albuterol along with oxygen at the med tent. That seemed to have helped, but when it wore off, I ended up with a noticeable headache. I took it easy and did not push myself very hard so that I could make it through the day and actually ride every single mile down to LA. The last thing that I wanted was to get SAGed or swept. One of the main points of doing ALC again was to actually ride every mile because day 6 was closed on ALC 08 due to an accident. So, steadily I went all the way to that day's campsite.

I believe that this was the day that I lost my cell phone. I was thoroughly annoyed that the cell phone was running my life. I use two-factor authentication for my email account and my flight information was behind it. Fuck. I did not even know what airline I was on, for the evening of day 7. I do have back-up digits should I need them, but access to technology is a slight luxury on this ride. A very friend rider let me use his phone so I could contact the hotel in the event I left it there. That same rider let me call the hotel again to correct the room number. What a jumbled mental mess I was without my cell phone.

I checked lost-and-found.

Nothing.

I mentioned that I lost my phone to one of the roadies, who immediately let me use him phone so that I could temporarily suspend service. On ALC, you say the word and shit just happens. Done. Seriously, the world could operate in the style of this event. ALCers use life grease. You stuck? Here, use some life grease. It's beautiful.

Later, I checked lost-and-found.

Nothing.

I sulked and resolved myself to never finding my phone again. Then there was a spark of hope. This was afterall, ALC. Shit just shows up. In previous days, I had lost Ben's toe covers. They re-appeared. I lost my vest. It reappeared.

I checked lost-and-found.

Holy fuck!

My phone! *HUGS* all around.

Afterall, this is ALC. Shit just shows up. I had the life grease that I needed, and more to spread around when the needed arises elsewhere.

The day's distance was approximately 95 miles, which came on the heels of yesterday's dehydration. I watched my water and electrolyte consumption like a hawk. I could not afford a repeat of the previous day. If so, I would be off the ride. There were some climbs, but nothing really worth mentioning compared to any real training ride.

Overall, I really felt my experience to be at a different level this time around. Did I ride every training ride? No. Did I ride Chris's 125-miler? No. Was I diligent enough in my training? No. All these NOs point to the need for a harder challenge. If I am faced with a challenge that might overtake me, I am more self-motivated to excel. Having had the experience of ALC 08, I knew what to expect. I was no longer in need to putting aside physical, mental, and nutritional unknowns.

In the future, I'd like to ride with fewer people and with more predictable surroundings. To reflect back, at one point during ALC 10, I passed a group of riders who were coasting on a downhill in front of an uphill. As I gained speed on the descent, pushing myself harder and harder, a group of riders started to balloon out in front of me without first looking left. I called out in a very loud voice, "ON YOUR LEFT!" so they would have enough time to react. They did. But, it left me annoyed and too far into traffic for my liking, even though I had looked left before pulling ahead. This was the first time where I realized that the next thing for me to focus on is patience. Admittedly, I have less patience as my experience as a cyclist grows. I need to change that.