Saturday started early when Joe’s alarm rang at 3:15 a.m. I had encouraged him to ste leave it until 3:30, maybe even 3:45, but he was eager to be on the first bus to the start. When we walked outside to catch the bus, Karen McKillop was getting into her SUV as her husband David hopped on his bike to ride to the start. She gave us a ride - pretty sweet. David had taken one of the two extra rooms I had at the Green Acres Motel.
I grabbed some breakfast at the Host Hotel and sat down. Joe Andruzzi sat down next -- the dude is one of the few who makes me feel small (which is kinda nice). Very funny guy. I asked if the gawkers ever stopped after the 25th person stopped by to say “hi” and “congratulations” and “you were great last night in the opening ceremonies. Had he not been on the stage the night before, he said, there would have been more “walker stalkers.” He’s used to it, which isn’t to say he loves it.
Ted, Joe and I made our way to our bikes, where Billy Starr did some talking, most importantly telling us our start was on a “Fog Hold” for the first time ever. At about 5:45, the massive crowd of red spandex-clad riders inched out of the parking lot and headed southeast deliberately. We stopped three times in the first mile to adjust various attachments, tires, computers, and then headed to the hills.
For 30 miles or so, there’s almost no flat -- all rolling hills, with the steeper, longer pitches being down. Within the first 10 miles, there’s a long, fast hill with turns near the bottom and, that Saturday, wet spots. One of them claimed a rider a few minutes ahead of us, so as we descended at 35 MPH, we came upon a roach choked down with less space and hundreds of riders frantically braking. With substantial momentum due to my svelt figure (Not!), I had to brake aggressively. My nice road tires combined with the foggy wetness to make it great for skidding. I pumped the brakes, just like on snow in a car without ABS, and muttered “Oh crap! Oh crap! Oh crap” as I gained on the riders in front of me while moving toward the less crowded space to the right. “Whew!” I thought and said as I passed the crash, saw only a little blood, and moved into more open road.
Joe, Ted and I struggled to stay together, first because of the hills, then because of rider traffic, and once because Joe inhaled a bug. He coughed, hooted, and made that gross old man sound to get it out, to no avail. That’s right, only projectile vomitting did the trick. Very happy I didn’t see, hear,or smell that one! On the upside, Joe felt much better after that.
After that, the ride was pretty uneventful for the morning. As always, water stops were great and we met fun people with compelling stories, as well as the wonderful volunteers (who can be a bit odd, as you can see).
As we arrived at the lunch stop, I reminded Joe and Ted that I had to look for my classmate Lisa, a first-time PMC rider, and Colleen, a friend who was a year behind us at Dartmouth and was volunteering at the PMC lunch stop again. As soon as I walked into the tent, I asked the first volunteer I saw “Where’s Colleen?” “Who?” was the reply (of course!). All they could say was “She’s wearing purple” -- just like every one of the 300 volunteers. We collected lunch and Joe spotted some open space at one of the very long tables. He and Ted sat on one side, I on the other. I put down my plate, sat down. As I hit the seat, I turned to say hi to the woman on my left as she turned toward me. We both screamed as we realized I had sat down next to Lisa! 4,000 riders moved through that lunch stop and that’s where I plopped my butt after 60 miles! She’d come from Wellesley and the chances of finding each other were pretty slim. Just about as slim as the chances that I’d found her in the first place.
Back in December, I was thinking about blogging about my PMC experience, and so I went searching for PMC blogs. I found a post entitled “
To PMC or Not to PMC” on “Lisa’s Biking Blog” and commented on it, encouraging her strongly to do it. When she saw my comment, she thought “that’s nice of John to encourage me.” Then she thought “I don’t think he could know it’s me; my last name’s not there, and especially not my maiden name” which is how I would have known her. She sent me a note saying “John, it’s me, Lisa W-K. Did you know that when you encourage me to ride?” My response: “Holy crap!” I had no idea! And so, of course, we sat down next to each other under the massive lunch tent and had a delightful visit. Near the end of lunch, I said “I gotta at least try to find Colleen. I wonder where she is.” Not 30 seconds later, she walked behind Joe. I yelled “Colleeen!” She was terrified for a moment, then smiled. She and Lisa were sorority sisters. And that’s how lunch ended.
The rest of the ride down to Bourne was largely uneventful. Not more than a mile from the Mass Maritime Academy, I saw a sign in front of a house saying “Free Chiropractic Adjustments.” I yelled to Ted and Joe as I peeled off. They rode on with looks on their faces that said “What’s he doing now?” I stopped, filled out paper work, and relaxed on the table. As the doc did an assessment -- they can tell a lot by lifting and dropping your feet back to the table -- I said “Why are you doing this?” He said “Why are you doing this?” Right, that makes sense. He worked my hips, back, shoulders, and neck. I saddled up and felt great, so much so that the massage therapist at MMA, appropriately named “Joy” said “how come your body’s not as messed up as the other people I’ve been working on?” I’m going back to the Doc on the road next year!
Arriving through Bourne to the Mass Maritime Academy, there’s a delight that comes over me as people in the village cheer while going about their business and, inevitably, a kid drops an ice cream cone which is promptly eaten by a shaggy dog. People line the streets and the entry to MMA. They crowd both sides of the road in the Tour de France way (though much less intensely). And you know that, at the end, there’s a shower, a beer, and a massage waiting. Hard not to smile like a fool with that in mind. I found Joe and Ted in the bike parking area, we grabbed our bags and headed into the heart of the PMC encampment, agreeing to meet 50’ in front of the band in an hour. I found a random shower in the closest dorm, then decided to change in the closest room, which was uninhabited at the moment, but reserved for David McKillop, whose wife Karen drove us to the start 11 hours earlier. Funny!
After getting clean, fed, beered, and massaged, Joe and I rode out to meet Jane Douglas, who’s been our Team Avanti Savior since the 2nd year. She drives in from Osterville, takes us to her house, shares her family, air conditioned room with soft, thick mattresses, feeds us, and then gets up at 4:30 in the morning to get us back. Jane, and her entire family, have been best friends since the day my mother met her younger brother as a volunteer in the nursery at the community hospital in Montclair, NJ on December 30, 1964. Hanging with Jane, Gary, Ashley, and Robert is just awesome. Robert, however, wasn’t there. He was off at Rik and Sandy’s house -- great friends of their family who’ve ridden and volunteered for years. Jane thought about taking us over to introduce us, but didn’t push it because we looked a bit wiped out. (Duh! We’d ridden 110 miles and had three beers!) Saturday came to a close within seconds of closing my eyes. Couldn't have been any later than 9:30.
The second water stop is at mile 38 at Nickerson State Park, just after “Da Hedge” at the Cape Cod Sea Camp in Brewster. 
“Da Hedge” is a hedge about 300 feet long that is manned by hundreds of screaming campers. There’s more energy there than anywhere else on the ride; they give you rock star treatment. Then we turned into Nickerson State Park for the water stop with the best music on the Cape. It’s also where I met Jack, a 13-year-old survivor who’s lived with cancer for 11.5 years. That brought me right back to the purpose of the PMC. 
After a long wait, during which I drove the bus a few feet forward, and then the sillies route ever through Weston and Wellesely, we arrived at Babson to gather our bikes and put a close to the weekend. Ros -- of course -- jumped on the bus and said, in her Scottish accent, “Ok, you’re my last! Find your bikes and go home. Then I can too.” It was a fitting end to a wonderful weekend. Again. Thank you for supporting me and the PMC.
Joe Andruzzi amazed us with his terrifying story and amused us with his chuckling humor. The story of Andrea Moore, NECN’s 2007 Pedal Partner who passed away this spring, accompanied by soulful music, quieted the audience while soothing music pulled emotions that led to painful tears of loss.
Sarah Bourges sang extraordinarily, as did a guy from Philadelphia who also had the joke of the night: “Where I come from, you have to get all Tour de Franced in spandex and whatnot, or everybody talks: ‘It’s all Oh, you don’t have a car, lost your license.”
A few days later, the rider gave the nurse her bike, and the pearls she was renowned for wearing during the PMC. The rider passed away two days later, and the nurse has ridden the PMC since. As we learned this, the rider’s family and teammates, all wearing the pink colors of their team, came on stage.
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