Day Two - Off to a rocky start

Day two started with me being late because I could get all my sh*%t to the luggage truck.  Ugh!   I get to the luggage truck with half of my sh%*t and have a melt down.  The luggage roadie came down and game me a hug ask me what was wrong, by this time I was having a asthma attack, he got my inhaler for me, gave me a hug, helped me with my remaining crap.  He was my hero!  

Asthma sucks and I need to ask for help (not easy for me to admit I need help), but it was the kick in the butt I needed to make sure I manage myself better.   No more attacks the rest of the week and I really did learn how to manage the asthma, I'm still hoping its temporary but if not I can live with it.  By the end of the week I was carrying my own luggage again!





The rocky start continued but not for me.  The event was on probation by the city of Santa Cruz and with that they only let 100 cyclist out at a time which provided a big backup and cranky cyclist.

Once all of the cyclist were gone we broke down bike parking and headed to the next camp.

Day One Santa Cruz

We set up bike parking on the ball field at Harvey West Park in Santa Cruz.


First order of business was to decide on the layout of the bike racks.





Each rack is comprised A-Frames and poles.  The racks consists of 6 poles and 7 A-frames.  Each row had 2 or more sets of 6 allowing breaks for accessibility.  

Each pole takes 10 bikes, so we set up approximately 250 poles to accommodate the 2350 cyclists.






When is was all done we parked the bikes that beat us there (yup a few cyclist beat us to Santa Cruz) and spent the rest of the afternoon parking and scanning all of  the bikes.

The bikes were scanned and put into a database for a number of reasons, medical hold, warning/praise citations, violation pulls, and helping cyclist find there bike if they forgot the row name.

The food table was set up and manned 

(or womanned as the case may be)

Water stations was supplied with water and Poweraid.










Roadies directed the cyclist.

 Roadies parked the bike

 Roadies may do a little dance...

We all got to take a break and get our luggage and put up our tents.  And lucky me Will put up mine!

At the end of the day all of the bikes were parked/scanned and security came to babysit them for the night.

Day One - One the bus

Everyday after breaking down bike parking we all loaded on to a bus, each day a different bus, each day we were sent off by Julieanna's sister.  Each day we got a flash from Rachel, a tradition started by another ALC gal. 

So the story goes that years ago the cyclists were cranky because of delays and to get their attention Rachel's predecessor flashed the crowd and the crowd went silent.

There were 5 buses to transport roadie's and riders.  Each decorated and the first bus for us was a school bus with a music theme.

Roadies Russell and Emilia

Day One - Ready Set Go!

Day One is here, we (Rob & I) left Pleasanton at 4:30 to Meet Will in San Francisco.

 Riders got a bit of a stretch...

Again we heard from Neil Giuliano Chief Executive Officer and Center CEO Lorri L. Jean.

The tradition of the riderless bike continue...  The bicycle is wheeled into the hall to honor those we’ve lost to AIDS.

Opening Ceremonies  Video

 

 Riders wait for the start 

And they are off!

Now it's time for us, with the help of day one volunteers to break down bike parking and head to Santa Cruz

 

Our Bike Parking Team!

Day Zero - Orientation Day

Orientation and the start of AIDS lifecycle event is at the Cow Palace in Daly City.  With a map & e-ticket in hand I took Bart into the city and met Will (my tent mate) at 8:30 so we could make the 9:30 training video.

First stop the Safety video.

Before the video Neil Giuliano Chief Executive Officer and Center CEO Lorri L. Jean talked to us about the ride.  Safety, Issues in Santa Cruz and more... 

Next Check in,  Medical, Fund raising Incentives, & the Lifecycle Store

 

Will rocking his fund raising incentive hoodie!

In possion of our wrist bans, ID tags, and luggage tags we went off to the Roadie meeting

 

 

We sat with our team for the general meeting and then broke off in to groups for information about our teams.

This is Jon one of your bike parking leads...

 

We got the scoop about the day in the life a bike parking roadie and a few of us learned about scanning the bikes.

After the meetings we head home via bike parking, yikes tomorrow I'm going to have to park thoes bikes for the next 7 days!

Let the Event Begin

T – 5, the event starts this coming weekend, where did the first half of this year go!  Orientation day (day zero Saturday) and the event start (day 1 Sunday) are at the Cow Palace.  Orientation day is all about standing in lines, roadie meetings, medical check-in, safety video, & tent assignment, probably sucking up most of the day.  At least I’ll be with my tent mate Will catching up on life.

Day 1, the event start will be an early start for both the cyclist and the roadies.  We will meet at the Cow Palace at 5, leave our luggage at the luggage trucks and head off to the first camp, Harvey West Park in Santa Cruz. We will setup bike parking hopefully in time for the first riders.

Ready, Set, Get Packing!

I finished my theme tee's yesterday,  I really need to keep in mind that this stuff is a lot of work!

But it was fun and I improved my silk screening skills!

So now it packing, a bag for the event and a bag for Rob to bring down when he picks me up. 

 

Packing my event bag will be a lot like packing for Burning Man, work gloves, water bottle, ear plugs, sleeping bag & pad...   At least no dust storms!

I'll need a day pack to keep the thing I'll need during the day, sunscreen, water bottle, camera, etc.




Our bike parking lead sent out a great informational email with things to bring, a bit about the weather (cold morning, windy afternoons, and dewy evening oh my), and to my surprise a call for database help.  I hope she picks me!  Okay I know I'm a freak...