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.