Orientation

It was a way, way bigger crowd at orientation day for AIDS LifeCycle 3 than it was for LifeCycle 1. Longer lines. More noise. I happened to get in line right in front of Alexandra. A doubly amazing coincidence, since I had found her within 30 seconds the last time I came to USF for LifeCycle 1. I was able to pump her for details about how bike parking works. My team leader, Christine, has sent us tons of e-mails over the last month, but they've all been about costumes and themes and such fluff as that. Not a word has been said about the details of our work, when we work, how we handle the details, etc. Alexandra has worked bike parking for at least the last 2 years, but is on Pit 2 this year. Anyway, she gave me the blow by blow, for which I am grateful.

Then I ran into Joe Richard from Boston. I checked his fingernails for green marking paint from arrowing the P-town ride, but I found none. He said he had used a full case of paint to do the route, which is the normal amount. Someone else had reported he was using paint at twice the rate I did.

I headed over to the safety video, which was in the same auditorium they used 2 years ago. The hall holds 500 people. Almost everyone in LifeCycle 1 could have fit in there for one showing. Back then I had shared the hall with 40 or 50 other people. Today, however, the line for the video went clear to the end of the block and around the corner. Not everyone in line got in for the 11:30 showing with me. One of the staff got up and said she knew that some people were in the hall who were there just to support friends, but who were not in fact going on the ride, and asked those people to leave so more cyclists could squeeze in. Amazingly, 6 people left. I've no idea why anyone would voluntarily watch this video.

The video showed all the low-cost, in-house production skills that we have come to love on LifeCycle. If they can find a cheaper way to do something adequately, they'll do it. This one featured jarring transitions that brought howls from the audience. It also featured possibly unintentional double entendres about being patient and cooperative saying "you can make new friends while waiting in line for the showers." This brought the house down.

After that I had free time until the 2:00 roadie meeting, so I wandered down toward Golden Gate park, observed that American Cyclery was still doing business, had a cup of coffee and then headed back to USF.

There are about 250 roadies. (They expect nearly 1400 riders). All us roadies were in one room. Many team captains had made colorful, easily readable signs so they're teams could find them. Some made small, illegible signs and didn't hold them high. A couple team captains did nothing...our Christine was one of them. I found that rather frustrating. Finally someone at the mike called for the bike parking captain, Christine stood up, and a horde of us descended upon her.

After about an hour covering the expected bits (how to get reimbursed, remember to hydrate, watch for riders who need medical assistance, etc.) we broke up into our individual teams. There in a small group, without an e-mail interface to intervene, Christine was very informative. She also brought us official bike parking caps which I might wear if the weather gets cool.

here's a photo

Just before I left campus I ran into Andy from Palm Springs who was dressed like he was still in the desert. I had on long pants and my wool sweater. He said I was overdressed.

Here was a well-traveled AIDS rider. View the full size photo and read his bike case.

Gotta be at campus at 5:00 AM tomorrow.