Training Diary: Fremont "Not-So-Flat" Century May 19, 2001 I have a new take on the Proclaimers song "500 Miles". It goes something like this: Oh I would bike one hundred miles and I would bike one hundred more Just to be the man who bike two hundred miles To fall down at your door With the big ride I joined today, I totalled 225 miles this week in just three rides. The highlight was today's group training ride, which took us 100 miles around the South and East Bay Area (what cyclists call a "century" ride). Although I feel as if I emerged from it in much better shape than the previous centuries, I still came back totally bushed. The hot weather was mostly to blame for today's extra hard work. For you folks out there who live outside California -- by Bay Area measure, any time the weather tops 90 degrees, we call it a heatwave and seek reason to marvel about it as if it were some freak weather phenomenon. Seriously though, local weather reports say it got as hot as 94 degrees in Livermore, which was one of those areas of today's rides that provided almost no shade whatsoever. Yep, it was hot and my sunburnt arms are nagging souvenirs. I could call today's ride Tour de Starbucks. Three of four designated rest stops on this ride's route were at strip mall Starbucks locations. Just goes to show you're never too far from one in these parts. I seem to recall there being nearly 50 riders assembled at the Fremont BART station at the 7:30 AM rollout -- definitely the biggest assembly of training riders I've seen. Strangely though, I didn't see a whole lot of them throughout the ride other than the 8 or so with whom I kept relative pace at the head of the group. Even so, for more than two hours of the six total I spent riding today, I was completely alone on the road. Bizarre. I had the great pleasure of riding with Peggy and Ted Crane, a husband-wife first-time California AIDSRide team, the former of whom I met on my first Mount Tam ride. What delightful company you guys are -- I totally wish I was riding down to LA with you guys next month. The other notable event on today's ride was my encounter with another cyclist -- Walter -- during my one of my solo stretches over the Calaveras Lake permimeter. I struck conversation with Walter, who wasn't part of the training group. Actually, he was training for a race next week (and was obviously a strong rider). Upon hearing about the AIDSRide group, our casual chatter turned into some kind of informational interview as Walter himself had never joined an AIDSRide himself, despite having been a cyclist for over nine years. The fundraising part was what intimidated him the most. I told him it was the same for me and how I managed to overcome that challenge (hey, if I can do it with the help of my friends and family...). By the time he decided to pull ahead 10 minutes after we started chatting, Walter said he'd join me for the Northeast AIDSRide (he's from Boston). Hey, I make no claims of being an AIDSRide evangelist, but it's so cool to see how enticing the mere idea of the event is. See you in New York, Walter!
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