Yo - Happy Tuesday! 

Meeting at Valero HQ for Employees Who Are Riding Their Bikes to Work this Summer

Here's one last reminder on this - If you work at Valero HQ and ride your bike to work or are thinking about doing so, send an e-mail to cycling@valero.com.  We have a short lunch and learn scheduled from 12:30 to 1:00 pm tomorrow, Wednesday, June 18th, in room B2-168  to discuss safe cycling techniques, the new bike racks that are being installed, and possibly coordinate some group rides for folks who start and end in the same part of town and work a similiar schedule.   If you send an e-mail indicating you are interested, I'll forward you an invitation to the meeting. 

Loss in the Velo Family

 This weekend Velo Valero experienced a loss in our extended cycling family that I have to share with you.  As many of you know, Tony Ralf, VP of the Lone Star Chapter of the MS Society, has been the heart and soul of the Bike to the Beach for as long as I can remember - and this will be my ninth year to ride the event.  His humor and boundless energy and enthusiasm have enabled the BTTB to grow from 500 riders during my first year to the over 3500 riders expected this year. This past Friday Tony's sister Pauline passed away after a 20-year battle with MS.  Although grieving his loss, the very next morning Tony led a group of us on a dry run of the new Corpus Christi finish line route which included riding over the Harbor Bridge.  Tony was as upbeat as usual, anxious to get our feedback on the proposed changes, which he believes deeply will add that extra new wrinkle to the event, which in turn will attract even more riders and raise even more dollars to battle this disease.   Those of you who are part of the Velo community who look forward to the Bike to the Beach each year know that Tony is family and his loss is our loss.    Tony's currently on a plane heading for Austraila to attend the funeral, but we can all still do something to show we care.   If you can, go to the Bike to the Beach web site, and click on eDonate/Pledge link at the top of the screen.   Click on Search for Team and enter "Pauline's Last Hurrah".    When the team site comes up, click on Donate to Team!  No amount is too small.  As part of the online donation, write a small note to Tony letting him know how much he and the BTTB have meant to you over the years.  I think this will mean more to Tony than any of us can imagine.  NOTE:  Feel free to forward this to anyone outside the team you feel may want to participate. 

Laura, Tony, and Peter in 2006

Alan Dedman's Account of the Long Beach Tour de Cure

 Here is Alan Dedman's account of this weekend Long Beach Tour de Cure.   Alan is one of the true hammerheads on Velo Valero, and is someone who appreciates the funky but practical aesthetics of the Honda Element as much as I do.  (He still gets to drive his - I gave mine to my daughter so she can conduct bumper stress tests on it...) 

Another early morning, 03:50 to be precise, and the alarm jolts me upright. Carefully sliding out of the bed, not wanting to disturb my wife; I do a double take on the alarm, just to make sure I haven't just hit the snooze, and then grope for my slippers and leave the room, closing the door ever so gently.

I make my way downstairs; already the aroma of freshly made coffee is percolating up the stairs and leading me to the kitchen. I hit the light and the espresso machine and start the whole breakfast procedure.

Breakfast is the key to the whole ride, plenty of fuel, and although it is early, by the time the ride starts most of what I have eaten has already turned to fuel.

My car, the "Brit Mobile," is already loaded up and ready to go, I saw to that the previous night, I even parked it on the drive so as to not wake anyone else. I get my cycle togs on, the distinctive Velo Valero jersey, and my riding shorts, the comfortable ones, and take a peek outside the door. The early morning temperature is very acceptable, just a slight chill, but the forecast is good for the day, and it's going to be hot.

 I jump into the car, take a quick look around making sure that I have everything, start the engine and off we go. The first call is to the Team Captains house, Bob Roger. Here we will meet with the rest of the team and after a quick cup of coffee we'll drive a short distance to the start of the ride.

I arrive at Bob's house just before 06:00, I actually followed another rider, Mark Parker and his girlfriend a little way, he had a tandem on his vehicle, he and his wife were going to ride the 35 mile route.

We enter Bob's house and meet a few other riders, Mark Snyder and Sean Marchant are already there, we were soon joined by Fred Arceo and Steven Wu and I think maybe his brother or a relative who would join us for the ride. We abuse Bob's coffee machine, drinking the coffee as fast as it can make it, nothing like fresh hot coffee and a good shot of caffeine to start the day off.

After Bob passes out bags of goodies and some T-Shirts we decide to leave and make our way to the start point and get registered.

I arrive at Eldorado Park, and find a place to park, one space away from Mark Snyder.  Getting out of the car, I'm greeted by a slightly chillier breeze and damp too, there is the ever present Marine layer which we're hoping will burn off later when the sun decides to do its bit.

At this point I tell Mark I'm going to put on an undershirt, just for that little bit of warmth, but not too much that it would drain me when I would be into the meat of the ride, I also have arm warmers but decide against them.

Having redressed and feeling a lot cozier, I go and register, get my number, 257, and regroup with those who have already been through the registration process.

We are meeting at our VIP tent, the tent is something we earned for our fundraising efforts, and very proud of it we are too. The "VALERO WILMINGTON REFINERY" banner is unfurled and fixed to the tent. It looks really good.

There are five of us riding the 65 miles, Bob Roger, Mark Phair, Fred Arceo, Mark Snyder and me. It's getting close to the official start time of 07:45 and already looking across to that start line area where we would be leaving there is quite a line of riders, so we make our way over there and sit as a group. Rod Quines our volunteer extraordinaire, and Bob's wife, Mary get us into a group and take some photos of us looking fresh and raring to go.

The ADA Official, has a megaphone and gives us a brief run down about being safe and observing the rules of the road and other disclaimers. He looks at his watch and at the official time he starts us off. We ride through an arch of balloons, along with a symphony of cow bells and various volunteers who danced, jumped and cheered us on our way.

We make our way out of the park and onto the road. There are a lot of riders, taking it easy down to the first intersection where we make a right turn, on to Studebaker. This is the dangerous part; this is where accidents happen as everyone tries to get themselves sorted out into some semblance of order. The ride is stop and go, traffic signals are not really cooperating with our ride, but it keeps the riders to a moderate pace. When we do get a break we started to pick the pace up a bit. I'm leading our group of riders, and I can hear Bob talking to Fred and the others, I'm paying attention to the other riders around me, watching them to try and get some sort of feel for the experience they show while handling the their bikes. It really doesn't take too long to find out who you need to avoid and give some room to as opposed to sitting on someone's rear wheel for a while.

We arrive at the junction of Studebaker and Westminster and make another left turn on our way to Huntington Beach. I can still hear our guys having a little chat and I decide to up the pace a bit. This section of the ride is flat, and the riding is easy. I carry on as if all of them are behind me, I look at my GPS system, and I'm moving along at 24 M.P.H. and feeling really comfortable.

A mile or so along the road I look over my shoulder and nobody is there, I look back into the distance I still cannot see them. By this time other groups are beginning to pass me so I ease the pace a little, still looking back and cannot see anyone. Maybe one of them had a flat or a mechanical, I'm not sure but deep down I want to go and reassure myself that as they are in a group they will be alright.  

I latch on to a small group of riders, and as we progress, gradually get smaller as we return to a respectable pace. The group that I'm in ends up with about 6 of us, a couple of brothers with no team affiliation, a couple of really strong riders from the Charles Schwab team and 2 other independents' we are content to sit on the wheels of these Charles Schwab guys.

We eventually arrive in Huntington Beach, Main Street, which is closed to through traffic for an open are market for the local vendors. Knowing my way around I shout out directions to get us to the Pacific Coast Highway, where we make a left turn and head to Newport Beach.

Here is a really nice stage of the ride, as you get out of Huntington Beach, you run along the coastline and get a few views of the surf and the surfers, all looking for that one sweet wave; we are now 5 riders and the pace is still a manageable mid 20's. As we approach the first SAG (rest) Stop we sort make the effort to pull in, but veer off again and decide to carry on to the next stop so far we have only covered 22 miles of the ride.

Another 3 miles and we reach Bayside Drive we turn right, and a couple more miles we make another right on Fearnleaf. At this point one of the solo riders, Chris,  shouts out "big gears", I immediately see why; here is a hill I never encountered on my last ride on this route. I'm not sure what the grade was but I had to stand on my pedals just to make it over the top, it was one of them hills that you know if you stop, you'll just fall over, well I know I would. That got the heart rate up some. After leveling out and picking up speed again, we make a sharp left and the view just opens up, all beach, sand and surf. The weather is breaking and the sun is making it a really nice day for riding. The surf just has enough turbulence to put that little haze over the shoreline, it's just beautiful.

But that didn't last long as we take another left turn and head back towards Pacific Coast Highway (PCH). On PCH we take a right turn and head for the ill on the ride. This hill is on Newport Coast Drive, right by the Pelican Hills Golf Club. Here we turned left, there are three riders ahead of me, the two from Charles Schwab were joined by a riding friend of theirs, and I have two behind me. As we tackle the hill the younger riders start to pull away from me, which I expected, but the others behind me struggle, and we leave them behind. After we crested this hill we turn left on San Joaquin Hills and head onto Backbay Drive, and the halfway rest stop, which we all agreed we would use, anyway San Joaquin Hills is a nice downhill ride, I later found out I reached nearly 43 MPH. That's the pay off for climbing those hills, what you go up you have to come down at some stage, and this was it.

Still going downhill we speed on in to the Rest Stop at Backbay Eco Preserve, there I see the prettiest "Porta Potty" ever, with my name on it. Anyway, completing that task I go and replenish my water bottles grab a couple of "Cliff  Nutrition Bars", wash them down with Gatorade and we set off again, I suppose the whole rest time took about ten minutes.

Leaving the rest area was a pretty hairy experience due to the amount of "in-line" skaters using this road, and they appear to go as fast as us, but I really think they look good the way they all skate in unison; I would like to try that some day, it really looks cool.

Coming out of Eastbay, I turn right immediately like everyone else, when someone shouts, "Hey, wrong way" So we do a large "U" turn and head back until we arrive on Jamboree, that's where we should have been originally, oh well, it only took a minute or so off the ride. On Jamboree we have a few hills but not like Newport Center Drive, these are friendlier, they are shorter and the downhill section works in just right. At the end of Jamboree we arrive back on PCH. Here you have a choice, take a ferry ride from Balboa Island or turn right and head for home. I turned right, one of the riders we originally lost Chris, has managed to catch up again, and he lost his Ferry Ticket anyway, he had no choice but to take PCH back, so we set off together.

On PCH I lead off, I shout out "See ya" to the other guys and we roll on down hill to Newport Beach.

Chris is keeping with me and we exchange some chit chat as we move, then on a slight climb, I take the lead and bring the pace up, to take care of the pressure the climb is taking on me. I keep this pace in the low 20's and turn to talk to Chris and he has disappeared, so I just press on, increasing the cadence as I do so.

The slight head wind is making the going a little tougher, but nonetheless I'm making good speed. I come across a peloton of riders, not associated with the ride, just out doing their Saturday morning thing, and pass them handily, only to find that commanding lead wiped out by the next traffic signal.

One of the group, an elderly gentleman, Dan, starts a conversation, he informs me that he used to work for ConocoPhillips, and was surprised that Valero actually sponsored a team. He told me that ConocoPhillips wouldn't even entertain that when he worked for them, but he also told me he had heard so many good things about Valero and the way they gave back to the community. I thanked him and told it was all true, we're all about giving and that's what makes this such a fun team to ride for.

When we arrived in Huntington Beach, I saw on the opposite side of the road a whole bunch of riders from my local team, they had done a "Beach Ride" from Yorba Linda to Huntington Beach to get a smoothie at the local "Jamba Juice" on Main Street and then return, a round trip of 50 miles all on the Santa Ana River Path. As we pass I wave and call them, they return the greeting. What ever it was they shouted back, sounded complimentary, I think.

When Dan and I reached Main Street, he peeled off, and began his ride home, as he was local to this area. I pressed on, nothing much to do but just increase the cadence to a comfortable pace. I'm overtaken by a rider on a Time Trial bike, and he has a great turn of speed. I look at my GPS system and I'm managing 23 MPH I try to get on his wheel but he's just a little to strong for me, so I just ease off a bit and maintain my current speed. I watch him gradually disappear ahead of me.

But what I do see up front is a familiar looking jersey of a Velo Valero rider, as I reach her I see it is Anna Trinidad, she is on a 35 mile route, as I pass her I give a few words of encouragement. She certainly has my respect; she is riding on a Mountain/Comfort Bike that has to be hard.

Shortly after that I see another rider of the 35 mile group, this time it's Sean, as I pass him I tell him "C'mon, pedal faster" he replied, but I'm not sure what he said as I'm into a rhythm, and feeling really good. 

I reach the PCH and Warner intersection the lights are red, as I roll up they change, and there's Mark Parker and his girlfriend on the tandem, I have a quick chat and I'm off again, this time I have a companion, who is content to sit on my rear wheel, I don't mind as I'm not sure how he is holding up, but he's pretty strong, and staying with me. For some reason I pass the last Rest Stop, I see a lot of riders in there taking a break, but I maintain my speed which I have managed to increase between 23 and 26 MPH, I really don't feel like stopping.

Ahead of me I catch sight of five more of my local club riders, these guys were on a Century route, they came down with the others and ride up the path on the San Gabriel River.

I manage to speak to my wheel sucking companion, and find out that his name is Chris, also, and he also lives in the same town as me, what a small world?

He apologizes for hanging on my rear wheel and I tell him that's okay, hang on some more we still have a short way to go.  

We eventually exit PCH and turn right and head back to where we basically started, that was Studebaker. We wait for the left filter light to change, we still have time for a little chat and then we're off.

As we head north we approach a small bridge that goes over Seventh Street and the start of the 605 Freeway, then pick up speed again as we down the other side, through some lights and they stay green for us and with the momentum we gained coming down the hill, we manage to keep up in the high 20's.

I now start counting off the intersections and I eventually reach Spring Street and make a right. This was the way we originally came into the park and so I thought this would be the return also, not realizing that it was in fact one more intersection further north. I got that horrible sinking feeling that I had led Chris the wrong way, and apologized to him. But we were in the park and just had to find our way back to the start.

We eventually found the original road that we came in on, but there was one more obstacle in our way. That happened to be a shallow creek that runs across the road, it's only about a foot deep, and runs right to left. So without hesitation I ride through it, Chris is a little apprehensive but he saw how I rode through it and he does the same, no problem, we both approach the finishing line with very clean wheels.

As we approach the finishing line, the noise, the cheering, the cow bells, just create a huge din, but on all the rides I do, the finishing is the best, not just for the sense of accomplishment, but for the whole atmosphere of the occasion. I always get a lump in my throat and thank as many of those people as I can, they really are a whole part of this team that takes on the fight against Diabetes.

In summing up, it was great to see first time riders, especially Sean, who afterwards admitted how much he had enjoyed the experience. I would also like to take this opportunity, to thank all of those who have sponsored me for the rides this year, Napa and now here, Long Beach.

In addition, I would like to dedicate my efforts to a dear colleague, Chris Ciasca, she has given so much too so many, keep the good fight Chris, for you're always in our thoughts and prayers.

RIDE STATS:

Mileage:                  65.98
Net Time:                3 hrs 34 minutes
Total Ascent:           2,254 feet
Calories Burnt:        4,818

- Alan

Velo riders at the the TDC finish line, from left to right, Alan Dedman, Fred Arceo, Mark Phair, Bob Roger (Team Captain), Mark Snyder.  I'll publish more Long Beach photos later this week.

...see you on the road!

- Peter