What are friends for?

I like to say I live an exciting life. I do lots of fun, crazy things, but unfortunately, most of them I do alone.

Kitesurfing is one, no one I really know does it, but I’ve made some friends at the beach. Roadtrips, skydiving, snorkeling coral reefs off the beach of some volcanic Caribbean island, these things I do, but not with friends or family.

My cycling life is a different story.

If I decide i want to ride the 10 mile 4500 ft of elevation to Mt. Wilson to play in the snow, I know one person that would be right there with me, Alan.

Alan doesn’t do the AIDS/Lifecycle, but he rides like he does. Alan never turned down a challenge on the bike, and will always be there to kick my butt up any hill I can point at, and this weekend was no exception.

A long wet ride

Southern California has been gearing up for it’s first winter storm, a nasty cold front coming down from Canada to chill us out and soak us down with some rain. It’s been a while since I have felt challenged by the elements, and I kind of felt like climbing toward Mt. Baldy. It might rain, in fact, it probably would rain, and I think that’s partly why I wanted to do it, so I called Alan to see if he was up for it. He was.

Two other riders, both from the AIDS/Lifecycle, were supposed to join us, but when they saw the rain coming down Saturday morning, they stayed in bed. When I got to Alan’s house, his bike was parked outside, ready to go.

That’s my guy!

The first leg of the journey is 17 miles of almost straight climbing, but at a modest grade. The view is incredible, mountains all around you, and you follow a river with 2 damns. The air was fresh and crisp and there was nobody else on the road. Unfortunately I had a front flat on the road before we got to camp Williams, so we missed the cutoff time for breakfast. By noon were were patched and fed at mile 17, and started the climb up Glendora Mtn. Rd, a steep 5.5% grade for 5 miles.

Wouldn’t you know it, on mile 19.5 it starts to sprinkle. I start giggling inside, this is exactly what I was hoping for.

From the top we rode down together, but by this time, it was pouring rain, and not the fun, wet, warm summery rain one might expect. No, this was the cold, icy, wind-blown “Sheesh- is that freakin’ HAIL smacking my face?” kind of rain. Brutal, unkind, summoning pneumonia. I was in paradise!

I was so cold I couldn’t feel my fingers, every time I turned my wheels my front tire would dump gallons of spray into my shoes, and we had about 20 feet of visibility. I was yahoo-ing, and laughing my ass off the entire long, cold ride down the mountain. At the bottom of the hill the sun was shining, Alan looked at me at first as if he was pretty pissed off, then a smile cracked across his face and we both started to laugh. I knew I was crazy to do something as extreme as that, I’m so glad I have a friend that’s this crazy to do it with me, and enjoy it as much as I do.

He said to me “I’ve rarely felt so alive!”, I had to agree.

We rode the last 10 miles to our car and dried off on the way. I was so happy to have had the experience, I was giggling and smiling the whole drive home.

After dropping off Allan, I realized that he’s the only friend I have that I could have shared this experience with. Sure I have a few that would like to try, like the two that slept in that morning, but I doubt either of them could have kept up. Alan is ready for anything, rises to every challenge, pushes me and on top of that, he’s geographically convenient to my location, he lives less than 10 miles from my house.

If you have a friend like Alan, and I’m sure that you do, someone who pushes you to do better, challenges you, competes for the title but is always on your side, thank them. You’re life wouldn’t be the fun, adventurous romp that it is if it were for that one special friend to do it all with you.