Secret Weapon

Every 10-20 years, a piece of little known bike technology finds its way into the mainstream - Elliptical chain rings. Instead of the typical circular chain ring, it's ovular! The idea behind it is that it acts like a smaller chain ring during the weaker points in the pedal stroke and acts like a larger one during the power stroke. My 8 mile ride proved that it works! I'll be taking it on my trek to Sausalito this weekend for a longer test run.

First Aids Life Cycle Meeting!

My first ALC meeting was held at the SF Aids Foundation on Market Street at the end of the Tenderloin district. What was initially a disappointment to discover that only 16 or so people showed up at the meeting turned out to be a good experience. I met some great people and had all my questions answered,

"How long is the Quad Buster?"
There's a portion of the ride that is a long uphill ride. It's one of the bigger obstacles on the ride that people are always worried about. I've heard rumors about how difficult it was, but wanted to hear from some veterans first hand. It turns out that that Quad Buster is only 1.3 miles! I had read elsewhere that it was 4 miles and have been looking for 4 mile hills to practice on. Glad to hear it's much shorter.

"How do I transport my trike back to SF once I reach Los Angeles?"
No need to disassemble the trike and find a box for it to ship by Fedex. There's actually a company that will round up bikes at the finish line and drive them back to SF's Golden Gate Park for $55! That pretty much relieves me from my biggest worry. Fitting a 43lb awkwardly shaped trike in a box would be a bit of a challenge.

New equipment - Crankarms

Reading up on recumbent trike efficiency, I keep hearing about how riders benefit from shorter crankarms. The ones that come with the trike are like the ones that are on bicycles, 170mm. To reduce the angle the legs have to move to complete a rotation of the pedals, shorter crankarms are typical used. This supposedly helps reduce knee pain, something which I've already started to experience.

Hopefully this new modification will make my ride a bit more efficient in prep for "the ride."

Keeping up with the upright bicycles

I'm finally keeping up with the regular DF (diamond frame) bicycle riders! Though only for a short stretch, I'm managing 20mph and spinning out my highest gear on the flats.

RAAM

I finally figured out what RAAM stands for. I see it in my research of cycling events and discovered yesterday that it is the Race Across America event. 3000 miles in 9 days! That's over 300 miles/day! This makes my 545 mile ride to Los Angeles in 7 days look like cakewalk.

Super early morning ride

I did it! I was out of the house by 5:15am this morning, squeezed in a 13 mile ride in time to come home, shower and head off on my 1 hour commute to work. If I can make this a daily routine and manage some more miles on the weekends, I can hopefully average 150 miles/week.

Why am I doing this?

1. Personal discipline

2. Discipline for the ALC. Each of the 7 mornings will start around 6am. I better get used to this if I'm going to complete the ride next year. My BMX style tricycle will be much slower than the other riders especially on the uphills. I'll need as much of the 13 hours of riding allowed per day. Shuttles will start picking up slow riders to drive them to camp if they calculate that you can't make it on your own by 7:30pm. I told everybody I'd be cycling to LA, so I don't want to be hitching a ride on a shuttle if I can help it.

3. Training. I need as many training miles as possible. The hardcore amateur cyclists train at least 150 miles/week.

ALC Orientation

To better prepare myself for next year, I showed up at the Orientation for this year's ride.

On my way out, I saw an airport shuttle show up at the curb with young 20-somethings spill out with bags in hand. Overhearing their excited conversations, I found they just arrived from Los Angeles! They'll be doing the ride from here in SF and riding back to their home town. Perhaps I shouldn't be all that surprised. This event attracts people from nearly every state and this year folks visited the US for this event from 6 different other countries! This event is much bigger than I thought! How lucky am I to already be in SF? And how crazy am I to attempt this on a 3-wheeled BMX?

I left with a free zero calorie Powerade drink and 2 t-shirts with, "I am a 10" printed on the front.

I took the dive and registered not only myself, but my wife for next year's ride. She didn't pick up her cell phone when I called to ask if she was serious about volunteering at next year's ALC. The discount for signing up this far ahead of time is 60%! Instead of the normal $75 fee per person, it's only $30 a head. Yes, volunteers have to pay the registration fee too. It helps to cover the 3 meals/day for the week, overnight facilities (restrooms/showers/tents) and entertainment.

First early ride

Riding on a sunny Sunday afternoon is very different than finding the motivation to wake up at 5:30am on a chilly morning to fit a 10 mile ride, be able to come home to shower and take a 1 hour commute in order to show up at work at a reasonable time.

I saw what any other native San Franciscan would expect to see in Golden Gate Park in the wee early morning hours - my fellow Chinese seniors doing Tai Chi.

As excited as I am about the ALC for next year, this package that came in the mail makes me a bit disappointed that I'm not attending this year's ride. Since I've already registered, the ALC team sent me this t-shirt. It'll be a good promotional item though. I'll wear it on my next weekend ride.

Hydrating gear

I'm learning a lot about cycling and health training in general. The ALC training sessions require riders to carry two water bottles:

1. Water
2. Electrolytes (Gatorade, Powerade)

Since I'll be on the road a lot more, I picked up another mirror for the right side.

I bought the pedals

There's a new type of pedal designed as a hybrid. One side is flat and can be used with any shoe. The other has the mechanism for toe-clips. Although I don't have shoes yet, this will prep my trike for when I finally get a pair.

Preparing the trike

The odd thing about the hills I've been climbing is that I'm not breathing hard during nor after the ride to the top. It's my muscles that literally can't handle the slope. I'm in agony just trying to get 3mph. My cadence is nowhere near what it needs to be. As much as I know fitness training will improve my chances at completing the ALC, I can't help but to think my trike could use some buffing up. Unfortunately I can't do much about the weight of the trike. I'll have to turn to other alternatives to increase effectiveness on the hills:

1. TOE CLIPS:
To improve my technique, I've read tons about using toe clips. This helps with the circular motion needed for efficient pedaling. So far I've only been pushing on the pedals. No wonder I haven't been effective. It looks like I'll need new pedals.

2. GEARS:
This is where I have the biggest opportunity. My KMX Tornado is the entry level adult trike. Looking at KMX's line up of performance counterparts, I see that the differences are primarily the quality of drivetrain parts.

3. TIRES:
Being that trike itself is designed to be a BMX bike on three wheels, it's no wonder the tires can use a replacement. Since they're not designed for endurance/long-distance rides, I'll need something more capable of the trek I'm going to embark on. My stock tires can at least be improved by replacing these no-name brand from China, Lien Fortune with a reputable brand such as Schwable. KMX isn't the only one who's been replacing their stock tires with Schwable Big Apple tires. From my discussion with Schwalbe's sales rep this afternoon, The Big Apples are too beefy and heavy for my purposes. I did see records of a recumbent trike rider who took on the ALC using these exact tires, but I'm on a mission to find something better. The Schwalbe Marathon HS?

4. WEIGHT:
There isn't much I can do to shed any of the 43 lbs off the trike. If I'm going to shed any weight it'll be my body fat. Those of you who know me are laughing. I'm the lanky 5'-7" 150lb lad who has a new issue of Muscle Fitness magazine on the coffee table that has yet to have its pages opened. I eat 4-6 times a day and have the metabolism of a marathon runner. The odd thing is that I haven't run more than 7 miles in a row since high school. I can cut a 100 grams by removing lights and other day time riding non-essentials, but that's about it. Perhaps some trike components can be replaced with lighter ones. Even then, we're looking at grams - not pounds of saved weight. Being that human bodies can gain or lose up to 2lbs in a day based on water intake alone, a few grams here and there won't make much of a difference. I would have to shed more than 400 grams to lose 1 lb. Think of a gram as the weight of a single M&M chocolate candy. There isn't much substance there. Options 1-3 above are my best bet.

Ugh-oh

My first day of training was last weekend. My ride was 27 miles round trip to and from Sausalito.

It's not so much the sore legs that I was worried about. The distance of 545 miles even seems doable. What scares me the most are the hills. When you hear climbs described as Quadbuster and Evil Twins, you know you're up for a challenge.

Perhaps I was looking for an excuse out or I was honestly trying to be smart about my decision to make it to this year's AIDS Life Cycle.

Thanks to fellow bloggers, I found that riders have trained 4-6 months for this event. Some have trained for a year! Surely fitting my training into 3 weeks would be a setup for failure.

Darn.

As disappointed as I am to not be attending this year's event, I'm still psyched for next year's ride. This will give me more time to train and prepare my trike.

After scheduling a week of vacation time off from work, I took my lunch period to get on the phones seeking sponsorships. $3,000 is quite a bit to collect in 30 days. I called all the places I could think of.

Are you nuts?

It was a stranger that told me about the AIDS Life Cycle event. After hearing from him that it's a bicycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, I almost had to pick my eyeballs back up off the ground. It took him 14 days! He must've done it round trip, b/c I later read that it's a 7 day ride.

I don't know if that was good news or bad news. At 14 days, I wouldn't even attempt it. 7 days was more doable.

Clicking away on the Internet, I found that the next event is only a month away! Wow, I don't have to wait! Click, click, click. Uh-oh. There's an obligation to raise $3,000 minimum to join the ride. Can I raise that much in 30 days? Maybe.

Riding a Trike

My only exposure to AIDS was in 1992 when my parents brought news home that our architect had passed away from the disease. Even 10 years after the house was redesigned, we continued to appreciate the design effort that went into the home.

The ALC isn't just for those living with HIV and AIDS, but also for their families. As a community, any improvement in the lives of those with the disease means improvement in the lives of their families as well.