"And then there were three ... amigos"

                To ride the Pacific coast from Canada to Mexico on a bike has been a hazy, surreal dream of mine for some time, many years.  The challenge and excitement of the dream has been such that I never let go of it.  But with working and other commitments, I never really had to seriously consider undertaking the challenge.  It was something exciting, appealing and safely out of reach on the top shelf for many years.  But now that I have graduated from Intel, it is within reach and I needed to see if I was really serious about it or was it an idle dream.  It was time to ‘fish or cut bait’ (by the way, I am a fly fisherman and would never stoop to bait J).  After some personal consideration, I floated the idea out to my wife to see what the response would be. It might have been, “What are you thinking!? Are you crazy?!?”, but instead it was a steady, “That sounds like a good idea.  I am not going to bike but I will be there for support.” “Alright!! Let’s make it happen!” So at this time we started making plans, buying books, maps and checking out the internet to see how others have done this ride.  We were not going to put panniers on the bike and camp every night.  This was going to be a credit card ride, which means I ride for the day and then sleep between sheets after a warm shower and a good dinner.  It would be a much more enjoyable ride and safer for all of us if I had a few more people to do this ride with.  So I started floating it out to friends and others bike riders I knew.  I got a number of bites and people that said they were in. But perhaps after seeing what the time commitment was to do the ride, both in the actual ride plus the training in order to successfully do the ride, interest would wane for most of them.  However, I was now riding with a group of riders on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and two of these riders expressed interest, and after brief consideration, committed.  So let me tell you a little bit about my two fellow riders and we will see after this introduction, if they still want to ride with me.

                First I will introduce Jim McGirk.  On our rides during the week, Jim is usually our ride leader.  He is the coach, the wrench, and usually whenever anyone flats, Jim can only observe for so long before he has the wheel, the tube and he is changing the tire.  Jim thinks of himself as laid back and of a calm demeanor, and this is accurate when he is in his comfort zone.  However, his comfort zone can sometimes only be a few millimeters wide, so often the other riders want to make sure Jim remains in his comfort zone.  I confess, sometimes I like to explore the boundaries of his comfort zone, not always intentionally though.  Jim and I had an interesting introduction.  In addition to being knowledgeable and experienced, Jim is incredibly safety conscious to his credit.  We had mutual friends that recommended to me that I meet up with this group and start riding with them after I retired.  So I showed up one morning as a newbie and I did not know anyone in the group and we commenced to ride.  We rode south and we rode through some neighborhoods that I was not familiar with, plus this was my first experience of riding in a group so I was not familiar with all the signs, signals and silent, but known to everyone else, ride behavior expectations.  About thirty minutes into the ride, we came to an intersection with a stop sign.  The front half of the group safely navigated through the stop sign but the second half of the group had to stop due to an oncoming car.  I was in the front of the second half and it looked like enough clearance to me so I joined the front half of the group on the other side of the intersection.  After we grouped up again, Jim came up alongside of me and instructed me in his graceful manner as follows, “I don’t know WHO the HELL you are, but if you EVER pull another stunt like that, you are NEVER going to ride with this group again! I will SEE to that!” He rode off and that was my introduction to Jim on my first ride with the group.  Fortunately, I am a quick learner and fortunately Jim is a quick forgetter and it was not long before I was a rider in very good standing with the group.  About a month later, Jim and I were riding and talking and he had a safety issue with one of the riders that he was going to have to bring up to the rider.  I told him, “Yes, and your ability to instruct is so graceful!” He chuckled and said, “What do you mean?” and I told him about his intro to me on my first group ride.  He said, “Was that you? I totally forgot about that.”  It also turns out that the Pacific coast ride was a ride that Jim had a very high desire to do and he did not know how many more years he might have to accomplish it, so he committed quickly.  Jim is a great addition to this trip.  I think he is going to try to lead “from the rear” because the trip was initially my idea, but he has long distance riding experience, he is a bike mechanic and he is always looked to as the ride leader when he is on a ride.  He is one of our elder statesmen, but he is a strong rider and most of us are trying to keep up with him on rides, especially if the ride includes climbing.  He borrowed my ride maps for the Pacific ride and returned them with a ride schedule on an Excel spreadsheet where we ride a cycle of four days riding followed by a day of rest and then repeat the cycle.  Target is to ride about 60-70 miles on the days we ride and complete the ride in 37 days.

                Bill Rahe is the third member of our CanMexPac ride team. Bill worked at Sandia Labs for more than 20 years, and he instructed at UNM and he consulted.  He is same age as I am and also retired.  Bill and I often find ourselves “informally” racing on our daily rides.  He will usually tell me early in the ride, “I’m not racing today”, and then will sneak up and blow by me (or try to) on a hill.  Later I will say, “I thought you said you were not racing?!” and he will respond, “I wasn’t.  I was doing intervals.” “Yeah, right you were.” Bill also has long distance riding experience but it was a long distance time ago.  In the early 70’s, Bill rode from Albuquerque to San Francisco and then down the California coast and back to Albuquerque.  He wonders how much has changed in forty years.  We think that trip had a profound impact on Bill and he has not cut his hair since then.  Bill also has a sun exposure issue, which is a tough issue to have in New Mexico, especially if you are cycling outside in the summer.  So Bill always is in long sleeves and long bike pants, no matter what the temperature might be.  Also, to be more visible, his bike kits are usually mostly white or turquoise, with yellow and red highlights. He makes the Astana uniforms look sedate.  If we can stay in front of Bill during our Pacific ride, he should be very visible to traffic.  This is not his only redeeming attribute, but it was worth mentioning in the spirit of safety, of course.  Jim and I have a goal of introducing Bill to micro-breweries on the trip but Bill says he is bringing his own wine as he does not plan on becoming a beer connoisseur.

                I think we have ridden together long enough and been around each other long enough that we should be well suited for being together on the road on bikes for about 40 days.  We are all very excited about this trip, this journey, this quest and we are ready to get going.