Day 3: King City to Paso Robles
63 miles, 4:16:57 pedaling, 14.4mph avg, 36.7mph max.
Wow, what a day! I never thought I’d say that 63 miles is a ‘short’ ride, but it is this week. I got back to camp at an early 2pm! Then I had plenty of time for a luxurious shower in a truck, and I used my one 15-minute massage from LMT Bradley for my lower back. Apparently I’m not stretching enough.
Today’s rest stop themes: Rest Stop 1 was Hawaiian, Rest Stop 2 was Dr. Seuss, Rest Stop 3 was Dia de Los Muertos, and OMG Rest Stop 4 was the ‘Tran Am’ flight experience. I video-recorded the entire skit and you all will see it the first day I get back to my computer. It was so sassy and I’ve never seen boobs that big or makeup so fierce. I’ll post the link to Rest Stop 4 in the next post so you can visit their website and see why you have to try out to be on this crew.
The highlight of today was the lunch stop in Bradley, CA. I won’t go into the whole thing because I blogged about this same thing last year, so please read the Day 3 post from last year and see why us riding through Bradley helps out their small community. I’ll add that us being there in all of our unabashedly fabulous flamboyance has really helped the youngsters there become more tolerant of different kinds of people. In a nutshell (I’m case you don’t want to go back and read), they host a hamburger fundraiser the day we ride through their tiny rural town. They raised about $10k from us this year, which pays for their entire music program, art program, sports program, and field trips.
One thing I cannot get over is how interconnected we all are to each other. The gay community is large, but feels very small at times. Chances are, a total stranger on this ride and myself share quite a few mutual friends. Time and again I have found this to be the case lately. So I got to thinking… when we get together for something great like this ride, we really are all supporting each other and we are all close brothers and sisters - like a family. I will probably meet at least 100 new friends just by being here this week, maybe more - it’s hard to keep track of.
I want to give a shout out to my tentmate Rick and Great Outdoors friend Larry, who both yesterday completed their very first century ride (100 miles). And I would like to congratulate my friend Matt, who is a first-year roadie, for signing up to be a rider next year- and he doesn’t even have a bike yet.
One more thing… There are a LOT of us ALC riders blogging and tweeting this week. Just today, 73 ALC registrations came in from people not even here this week. That shows how well we are reaching out to others for our cause. I urge all of my friends to be a part of this next year, whether as a rider or a roadie, because it’s very fulfilling, you’re helping people in need, and you’re not soon to forget the experience.
2 years ago