Another Rider's Perspective - This Is Hysterical
Months of training and four days of grueling AIDSRide turns amateur cyclist into a sore amateur cyclist.
By EDIE GROSS
The Free Lance-Star
Date published: Sun, 06/23/2002
I AM, at best, a competent cyclist. I know that if I use the front brake without also using the back brake, I will launch myself over the handlebars like cafeteria applesauce off a seventh-grader's spork.
I know that if I ride with an untied shoelace, it can wrap around the chain doohickey and make my bike and me one with the pavement.
I know that there are only a few select people who actually look good in those spandex bicycle shorts--and I am not one of them.
So perhaps you can understand my hesitation when my best friend, Stephanie, suggested we do the 330-mile Washington AIDSRide, an event sponsored in part by a shock-trauma center.
Surely such an undertaking required skills beyond those I possessed. I mean, I can ride a bike, and if a roving gang of 10-year-olds on Huffys were terrorizing my neighborhood, I could probably pedal fast enough to escape.
But Lance Armstrong I am not.
Stephanie knows this. She also knows I'm a sucker for good causes.
The Washington AIDSRide was a chance to raise money for the Whitman-Walker Clinic and Food & Friends, organizations that provide valuable services to people with AIDS and HIV.
Stephanie and her boyfriend, Rob, were already registered. They had gotten fancy new bikes and hired a personal trainer.
So in March I dusted off the bike I hadn't ridden in 18 months, put air in the tires and signed up for the seventh annual event.
At orientation a few weeks later, AIDSRide team leader Tim Sheehan explained that we would spend four days riding from Norfolk to Washington. While the most direct route is only 193 miles long, we would take the scenic route--a more challenging 330 miles.
Sheehan told of a 38-year-old woman who signed up one year even though she had never ridden a bike in her life. She learned to ride and then completed the event.
"I guarantee you, if she can do it, you can," he told us. "You'd be surprised how much your enthusiasm and adrenaline will carry you."
A week later, I tested the theory on Lee Drive, a scenic path through Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.
My enthusiasm and adre-naline--along with Stephanie barking orders at me to pick up the pace--carried me nine whole miles before my lungs imploded.
That simply wasn't going to cut it. I needed stamina. I needed endurance. I needed something resembling calf muscles.
Over the next four months, I biked before work, after work and on the weekends, often with Free Lance-Star photographer Rhonda Vanover, who was also training for the ride.
I invested in padded cycling shorts, consumed large quantities of Gatorade and built up a tolerance for Power Bars, which taste a lot like cardboard, only not as good.
I also hit up all my friends and family members for donations so I could reach the $2,400 minimum required of all AIDSRiders.
By June 12, the day before the ride, I had amassed $2,417 for charity. My longest single ride was 30 miles--but it felt like 330. That had to count for something.
I vowed to keep a journal of the experience. I was most likely going to humiliate myself in front of hundreds of other cyclists. Who wouldn't want a permanent written record of that?
It is Thursday, June 13, at 6:30 a.m., and the bleary-eyed quartet--Stephanie, Rob, Rhonda and I--join 1,113 other cyclists at the Scope Arena in Norfolk for opening ceremonies.
We stretch, hydrate and fantasize about going back to bed before hopping on our bikes around 8:30.
Participants range from first-timers like the four of us to AIDSRide veterans in matching biking outfits with slogans like "Team BUTR--Bringing Up The Rear/Burning Up The Road."
The faster riders inevitably end up at the front of the pack. When one rider passes another, he calls out, "On your left," so the slower rider knows he's coming.
Not to brag or anything, but my left was an incredibly popular place to be throughout the AIDSRide.
Lead riders also shout warnings to the ones behind them about the road conditions, things like, "Bump!" or "Gravel!" or "Road kill!" Hitting a half-flattened possum at a downhill speed of 30 mph can really mess with your momentum.
Temperatures on this first day soar into the 90s. When it rains around lunchtime, it's a blessed event.
Another blessed event is when I lose the feeling in my rear end around mile 67.
A few miles later, my back tire slides on the wet pavement. Several strands of DNA from my right knee are now a permanent part of the Colonial Parkway near Williamsburg. The bruise on my left leg bears an uncanny resemblance to the Eastern Seaboard.
Fueled by a steady supply of bananas, bagels and peanut butter at the AIDSRide pit stops, the four of us press on, covering about 95 miles in 12 hours.
The spaghetti dinner in camp that night is surely the best any of us has ever tasted.
"GOOOOOOOD MOOOORNING CAMP!"
It is 5 a.m. A man in leather chaps bellows a wake-up greeting to the riders, still huddled in their rain-soaked tents at James City County Park.
Did I mention it's 5 in the morning? This man is dancing to techno music.
Meanwhile, I can't feel my fingertips. Apparently my death grip on the handlebars is taking a toll.
On the other hand, the feeling in my rear end has returned--with a vengeance.
I am not alone. Many of us ease into our chairs at breakfast and shuffle to our bikes rather than stride. Our tent city resembles a summer camp for arthritics.
At the medical tent, riders stock up on ibuprofen, muscle soreness creams and the ever-popular "butt balm"--it prevents chafing. Enough said.
I have never hated a bicycle seat more than this morning.
After four hours of plodding along the back roads of James City and New Kent counties, I pull into Pit Stop 2 about a half-hour after the cutoff time.
"I'm afraid I have some bad news for you," a crew member says to me. I fear they have run out of Gatorade.
"All riders arriving now have to take the 'sag bus,'" he says.
I wanted to hug him, but I was afraid I'd pull a muscle.
The sag wagon is a giant tour bus that picks up cyclists who are physically unable to finish the ride. Those, like me, who are moving too slowly also get sagged and taken to camp.
Some of the 50-plus riders on the sag wagon grumble about being there. We later hear about one rider who picked up his bike and ran from the bus, screaming, "If you want me, catch me!"
Rhonda and I aren't running anywhere. We're only too happy for the opportunity to nap.
"I am all about the sag wagon," Rhonda says.
At camp at the Fredericksburg Agricultural Fairgrounds, I sign up for a 15-minute massage. The massage therapists are hands-down the most popular people on the AIDSRide.
I nominate mine for sainthood.
The massage has restored some of the feeling in my hands. I will nullify that progress with an 80-mile ride today, 79 of it uphill.
Most people don't realize this, but recent NASA pictures taken from space confirm that the Fredericksburg region is one of the world's most mountainous. There is one particular hill on Lansdowne Road that makes Everest look like a sand pile.
The toughest riders zip to the top of each hill, get off their bikes and then cheer the rest of us slowpokes on.
"Come on! You can do it! You're tougher than this hill!"
Some of the more masochistic participants even ride back down the hill and then ride up again alongside a struggling cyclist, encouraging them the whole way. One clearly insane rider does this 17 times on one hill.
That kind of attention really encourages you to stay on your bike. I'm not above walking my bike up a steep hill, but I sure don't want any witnesses.
Camp tonight is at Forest Park High School in Woodbridge, and for the first time since Thursday, it's not raining.
The place resembles a laundry-room explosion. Cyclists have hung soggy bike shorts, sleeping bags, socks, underwear, pajamas and T-shirts on the fences surrounding the school's athletic fields, hoping they'll dry out.
The line for the hot showers is long tonight. It is well worth the wait.
Riders wake earlier than usual on the last day of the AIDSRide. No one wants to sag today, not with thousands of friends and family members lining the streets of D.C., cheering them in.
Most of my muscle soreness is gone, but my fingers are still pretty useless. I say a silent prayer that this journalism thing works out, what with my backup plan to be a world-champion knitter in certain jeopardy.
The weather is great, and the hills don't seem quite as bad today. (Note: The author's last statement does not necessarily represent the opinions of her knees, back, shoulders and buttocks.)
Around lunchtime, we cross the Key Bridge and take the Whitehurst Freeway, open only to cyclists, into the District.
Riders stop at several coffee shops on the route for sugar and caffeine fixes before crossing the finish line near the Washington Monument.
After everyone has gathered there, a victory lap around the National Mall is in order. We then settle in near a stage at the east end of the mall, closer to the Capitol.
A group of HIV-positive pedalers--there were several on this trip--ushers a riderless bike through the crowd toward the stage, in memory of those who can no longer ride with us.
In spite of the solemn moment, participants are determined to focus on the victories today, on the number of lives that will, they hope, be improved by their efforts.
All at once, 1,116 riders raise their bikes above their heads--I am afraid I'll ruin the moment by clocking someone if I attempt to lift mine, so it remains on the ground.
Later, several participants help me get my bike over my head for a photo.
I think I pulled a muscle."
This is GREAT!!!!!!!!
