ALC 10 Day 3 - King City to Paso Robles

Here's the end-of-ride drill. Park your bike and remember the rack name, a Disney or Looney Toons cartoon character. Once parked, your bike can't leave the secured parking area until the next morning. The number affixed to the bike has a bar code, and all the bikes are scanned each evening to 1) make sure everyone is accounted for and 2) help people find their bike in the morning if they forgot where they parked it. Next, get your gear bag from the truck, and wheel it to your spot on the tent grid, F23 for Bruce and me. ALC provides the tents - blue, 7/7 two-man tents. Once you've set up the tent, grab your towel and a change of cloths and head for the showers. There are several shower trucks, each with 10-12 showers. There are also trucks hauling water in, others hauling away the waste water, and one with a big propane tank. After the showers, Bruce and I like to head to the mess tent and grab a cold chocolate milk as a post-ride recovery drink. Then, it's back to the tent or explore the camp until Dinner. Dinner is served from 4PM to 9PM. Everything is dished up for you and the portions are limited, but you can go through the line as many times as you want. The food is excellent. There's one or two entres, a selection of vegetables, bread, pasta, and dessert. At 7:30, the evening program starts. Then it's back to the tents. We're usually asleep by the 9:30 quite time.

Tuesday was our one day of summer on the trip, lots of sunshine and balmy breezes. It also features the toughest climb on the trip, a hill known in camp as Quadbuster. I'd equate it to the north side of Wilson Hill, maybe a little longer. The rest of the day is mainly flat, with some long, gentle rollers. There's one really annoying section, about 5 miles on 101 where the shoulder pavement is buckled about every 10-15 feet. There's a 6 inch smooth strip just inside the white line. The trick is to set a fast pace, stay on the strip, and try to ignore the trucks whizzing by your elbow at 70mph.

Lunch on day 2 is in the little town of Bradley. They school puts on a barbecue, and sells hamburgers to raise money to fund field trips for the 50 or so kids in the grade school. Everyone in the town pitches in. It's their biggest event all year.

Rest stops on the route are usually 10-20 miles apart. Most days there are 4 rest stops, a lunch stop, and on the longer rides there may be an additional water/bathroom stop. Each rest stop has a theme, and sometimes the crews put on a show. Rest stop crew 4 is legendary. I understand they hold tryouts to get in. Rest stop 4 on day 3 is at a mission, and the crew always puts on a special show, always outrageous. This year, the theme was Jazzercise. They pass a jar to collect money for the mission, bringing in thousands to pay for most of the mission's maintenance for the year.

At only 65 miles for the day, we got into the Mid-State Fairgrounds at Paso Robles early in the afternoon. Some friends of Bruce's who live in Paso Robles invited us out for dinner. We had some time to kill, so we wandered around the fairgrounds and just sat enjoying the nice warm weather. As we were waiting near the entrance of the fairgrounds, one of the riders came by, pulling his large suitcase. He was obviously on the Princess Tour, someone who stays in hotels instead of in the campground. He proceeded to accost one of the roadies who was walking by. "That's along walk from the gear trucks. You should provide a shuttle!" Bruce and I just looked at each other and laughed. After riding some 250 miles in the last 3 days, he's complaining about walking a couple of hundred yards to catch a cab? Maybe is seemed so strange because it was so rare. It really was the only negative thing we heard from anyone on the whole trip.

Back in camp, after a very nice dinner and conversation with Bruce's fiends, we were walking back to the tent and passed by a building where a group of people were gathered watching something inside. Curious, we stopped and saw a number of young women on roller skates on an iceless hockey rink. They were doing some exercises and stretches. One of the people in charge skated over and explained that this was a roller-derby development league, and we were welcome to stay and watch their scrimmage. The track was not banked, just some lanes drawn on the floor. The girls lined up, and off they went, to delight of the gathered group of riders and roadies. There was lots of cheering and yelling. The scene was surreal.

Here's the GPS track for day 3.