Hi everybody, I rode in the California Aids Ride last week and thought I'd share a bit of this amazing event with the list. We raised 11.8 million for AIDS health care services and had the time of our lives riding from San Francisco to Los Angeles through some of this state's most beautiful scenery. The weather was perfect, cold in the mornings but warm by midday with only two days of intense dehydration inducing heat. The camaraderie and hospitality of the support team was unmatched by anything I've ever been a part of. And it had some very retro touches as well. I would spend time each evening after we had finished the day's distance looking over the 2800 bikes in the parking racks and during the day I would talk to anyone mounted on a classic bike, chasing them down in full sprint sometimes just to exclaim, "Hey! Do you know what you are riding?" I was the antique roadshow cyclist. Here's a few of the frames spotted: Mercian, 6 Masis, a Raleigh International, untouched and perfect given to it's rider for the event, many Medici, a perfect '78 Colnago Mexico with a pink rubber pig mounted on the handlebars! one other old Fuji, a Rauler, a Cuevas, a Bob Jackson, two Gios Torinos, a Holdsworth, Rossin, and three Olmo's and two DeRosa, one of them a Super Prestige from '82. I counted about 15 leather saddles including a Lepper mounted on a Cannondale mountain bike. And wool. 8 people including myself were wearing Alex Clarke's Vintage Velo jersey's and were answering questions all day about, "Aren't you hot?" "No" (and we didn't smell either! However, I was the only guy wearing wool shorts... Got to meet Gary Fisher and ride in his group one day. (He was consistently the first one into camp each day. Often before the camp was even a camp yet) At one point we were at the Bike Tech area while his LeMond was being worked on and the mechanics were complaining about all of the STI/Ergo failures, and he mentioned how he had wished he had gone to Europe in the '70's to race. Said he would have been an excellent domestique. He was also one of five guys running tubulars. I fixed 7 flats and none of them were mine although I did bust my SRAM PC 58 chain while shifting under load heading up a steep incline. Thing just came apart and spun around my freewheel. Somebody had a chain tool and I was able to shorten the thing for the rest of the ride. I also had a loose headset plaque me and a brake block spin itself sideways on a descent which was an attention getter for a few minutes. And I had the time of my life meeting some great people and being a part of such a well organized and worthy event. I can't wait til next year.
Scott "sore butt" Smith
LA