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Day 7. Woke up to water in the air and wet streets. I called it “rain.” Scott called it ”marine layer.” Whatever it was, it was wet and cold. Not as much wind as our Day 1 roll out but unpleasantly reminiscent.

The good things about Day 7 are that it’s pretty flat, it’s pretty straightforward (go south until you stop), it’s pretty short (at this point 60 miles seems so doable), and it’s Day 7! Love that.

The bad things are that… it’s Day7! Its 60 miles! We still have to do it. Such a drag! With rain on our faces, and images of steak dinners and jacuzzis and real beds with good pillows in our heads, every mile is painfully ticked through. It feels endless. And near the end it gets hard as the rolling hills around Leo Carrillo and Zuma start getting longer and more tedious. And the worst is Malibu — with its traffic and surfboards and packed parking — which thankfully wasn’t as terrible as it could’ve been, but was still nerve wracking.

I was concerned about the tandem going down stairs, through a tunnel, and upstairs again. I could barely walk it, let alone help Scott in any meaningful way. I tried to find us a crosswalk across PCH but none were to be had. Scott assured me he could do it and I thought his machismo was finally going to get the best of him, but he was right. He hauled the 50+ lb bike down the stairs and back up while I staggered behind, and suddenly (we’ll, after one last steep hill) there we were on Ocean in Santa Monica, on the very final stretch.

Crossing the finish line is always trippy. Oddly, it kind of feels like nothing except maybe relief that it’s flat and you’ll soon be able to stop. At the same time, smash cuts of all the places you’ve been to and all the conversations you’ve had and all the laughter and tears and fears and elations all flash through your brain, flooding it with the enormity of the task you’ve just accomplished, while still knowing that, in the end, it was just one pedal stroke after another. Trippy. And it’s fucking great to be off the bike.

I’m writing this on Day 9, two days after we finished the ride. I’m still processing a lot of it.

Scott Alumbaugh and I talked for an hour as he drove back up to Davis. The “relationship accelerator” (as the tandem is sometimes called) did not destroy us. We are still friends and agree that all our annoyances with each other were situational. Funnily enough, our worst moment was almost exactly half way on the route — the point of no return. But I don’t think either of us feel any residual grievances, and my overall feeling is immense gratitude and respect for Scott for all his expertise, planning, and caretaking of me throughout the last six months.

Tandem vs single bike? Topic for a whole separate post. In short, riding a tandem was both easier and harder, and a challenge in unexpected ways. We got to ride on a beautiful bike, that serves us faithfully to the end. I’m so grateful to Rick Jorgensen, the designer and builder of our Tango. An exquisite piece of machinery.

This was the year I rode every mile. Very proud to have done that. At the end of the day, I’m not sure I feel any more wiped out than any other year. I leave it all on the playing field no matter what.