A friend of mine who I haven’t seen since college (you don’t want to know how long ago that was) sent a nice surprise. He taped the closing ceremonies for AIDS/Lifecycle 7, compiled the highlights and sent it to me! AWESOME! Thanks Perry. It brought back a lot of memories!
While there are many highlights in my life like graduating from college, meeting my wife, getting married and having children, this event is a little different. I’ve never done anything to challenge myself at this level. Now that several months have gone since the ride, I’ve had time to think what I walked away with.
First of all, I’ve never challenged myself in this way. This ride took its toll not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.
Riding great distances on a daily basis is an incredible feat, particularly when I’ve never done anything like this. This ride was the first time I ever rode beyond 70-miles, and to do it on consecutive days… even I was surprised.
Mentally, the ride is what you make of it… there’s a good chunk of solitary time, where it’s me, my bike and the road. There were many friendly people along the way, both on bikes, the support crews, as well as well wishers along the way… everyone supported each other, and made light of the great distances we were all traveling together. I had a lot of time to think about… well… everything.
Emotionally, there were some incredible personal milestones… there were moments along the way when emotions were so incredibly strong that tears would go streaming down for no particular reason. Maybe the concept of seeing familiar things I’ve seen maybe hundreds of times and knowing their relative distance from home. Then there’s the times I just wanted to quit from mental exhaustion. Ironically, physical exhaustion never got me. It was all the tricks my mind played on me, telling me that I can’t go on. Then it reminded me of everyone who thought I was crazy for doing this ride, who didn’t believe that I could make it to Los Angeles. I cried at those too because I started believing them.
Thing single most powerful personal event during the ride was day 6 – 90 miles from Lompoc to Ventura, when I almost quit several times in the last 25 miles from Ventura. I was exhausted with only 1 rest stop remaining. Had I stopped, I might have quit and taken the bus into camp. Thinking back on it, while it might seem like a small decision, it was one that made me think about why I did the ride. More importantly, if I quit, everyone who told me that I couldn’t make it would have been right. There was no way I was going to let any of them gloat… I realized that I had to prove to myself that I could complete this leg of the ride.
I made the conscious decision to skip remaining stops because getting off my biked spelled certain defeat. Needless to say, I started getting emotional — my mind was telling me to stop and it started tricking my body into thinking that I needed to stop too. It’s a good thing I didn’t listen to my mind — once I merged onto 101 from Highway 1 along the Ventura Freeway, I resided on the fact I was going to complete this leg and got my rhythm going and made it into Ventura… and at the end, I was still able dismount without falling off my bike 
In Ventura, my parents, my son and my friend Al (we were the only two who ended up riding of a much larger group) were waiting. From a distance, I could see that they recognized me and I could see my mom starting to cry. My dad, who’s normally not an emotional person was also getting a little emotional. Any doubts they had about me completing the ride were gone. More importantly, I broke mental barriers to complete what I thought was going to be impossible.
The next day was an easy ride into Los Angeles.
Oh yeah… if you don’t already know… if one time isn’t enough… I’m officially registered for AIDS/Lifecycle 8!
I’m slowly putting the photos up on Flickr. I’m not editing the photos very much. I’m mostly weeding out mis-shots.
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