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It was nuts. Appropriately for the venue, as we were being herded out of the Cow Palace we were smashed together, riders and bikes in a long gated shoot, and then given the flag to go. The scene is chaotic and crazy enough on road bikes but insane on a tandem. We are unweildy and need to take a bit of time and thought to coordinate: mounting up (Scott goes first so he doesn’t kick me in the face), then getting the pedals positioned (my job so I don’t whack Scott’s shin or calf with the spikey flat pedal), and then he shoves off as i get up on my saddle and then when I’m up he mounts and then we both start pedaling. Simple, no? Well, with riders jostling us on all sides and spectators screaming their admiration for us in our faces and music blaring… well, I was pretty sure the great start to our adventure was going to start with us keeling over and being trampled or, even worse, having to ignominiously walk the bike to a place that was easier to start from.

But Scott was masterful, I have to say. Actually, WE were masterful as a team. We got on the damn bike in midst of all that craziness and we started to pedal. And we stayed up. And we made it all the way to Santa Cruz. And it really was kind of a beautiful thing.

Sure: rain(ish), cold (not ish), wind. Long steep hills. Traffic two feet to our left and snaggy forest and undergrowth two feet to our right. Our goal was to find pockets of space so that we weren’t hemmed in by crazy squirrelly hot dogging riders, and we did that pretty well.

We skipped the first two crowded rest stops. Motivated by terror and cold we just kept pedaling to half moon bay, where we stopped at a place (somewhat oddly called Granola’s Coffee House) that served up the best fucking scones I’ve ever had. Holy moly. Light, fresh from the oven, with a cup of oatmilk hot chocolate? Perfection. (So that’s why we ride, I thought. So we can FULLY appreciate things like this)

Anyway, we didn’t speed but we didn’t stop too much either. We got to lunch at the 42 mile mark at 10:08!!! AM!!! These were people I’d never seen before, the people at the Front Of The Pack. WTAF? Who ARE these guys? The lunch stop was as empty when we got there as it usually is when I get there .. except today it was because we were FIRST. So fucking weird. Like landing on the moon. But there we were: Dead Fucking First. Go figure.

So the whole day was like that. The rain turned to clouds turned to sun a few miles above Santa Cruz. The ocean started to sparkle the further we rode, the whitecaps whipped up by stiff breezes that were fully to our advantage. The fields undulated on either side of the highway, green upon green upon green, blankets of crops sloping down to the craggy coastline to our right, small produce farms and misty ravines snaking up into the foothills to our left.

Scott and I know each other from college days at UCSC. Riding past the city limit sign was a homecoming, a closing of a circle neither of us could have possibly imagined 40 some years ago when he was the aloof angsty pal of my gregarious boyfriend. That we would be riding a bike (a tandem for gods sake!) at the start of a 500+ mile bike ride? In our fucking 60s? And still even friends? The Metaverse hadn’t been invented yet but this would’ve been the stuff of that. Unthinkable. Absurd.

It was a triumphant return to our shared roots. We got to camp at 2:15 — a full three hours earlier than my usual time. Also unthinkable and absurd.

And what did I do with all that extra time? Went straight to sports med to see if they could pacify my extraordinarily angry sacroiliac joint. Despite all my chiro and PT and acupuncture and massage the last few weeks leading up to this ride, biking still inflames my lower back to the point of making it extraordinarily painful to walk. Paradoxically, it feels fine when im pedaling. So yay! This is the week I spend most of my time pedaling, but obviously I have to walk. So… Sara in Sports Med is my new best friend. In that regard, just like every other ALC ever!