Brenda said she rested more on this rest day than any of the others. And I guess she did: I didn’t get a blog report or any photos.
WHO’S RIDING
ALISON STONE (Piedmont, CA). In the blog prologue I mentioned our organizer and guide is known in the Bay Area as the “Pink Lady”. She’s a bit eccentric:
- Always, always rides with four panniers. Legend has it that sometimes they’re filled with bricks. When I first met her in Sicily in 2006, I discovered she carries a chain-whip in her panniers.
- Both the panniers and her jersey are always pink.
- She travels with a stuffed animal “Moosie” on the back of her bike.
- She ships her bike on the airline wrapped in plastic like a mummy.
Alison was born in New York, moved to Arizona when she was 12, moved to Mexico when she was 13, returned to the US during her last year in high school. Went to Nuclear Medicine school in Santa Barbara, took a break to work in adventure travel (led a few treks in Nepal), before returning to Nuclear Medicine. She retired from that in 1992 and now works part-time for a construction and custom cabinet business. She has more cycling experience than most of us can imagine:
- She’s cycled in France, Japan, Italy, Spain, UK, Ireland, Scotland, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Poland, Germany, former E. Germany, Denmark, Norway, Tunisia, Western China, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Chile, Argentina, Canada – and even Texas
- She and her illusive husband John (a bicycle historian) have cycled across the US independently four times. The first time was a back to back; not intended to be but they enjoyed it so much, when they got the the east coast they said “let’s turn around and cycle back to home”.
- Her 50th birthday ride was from North Africa (Tunisia) to the Arctic Circle (Norway). On John's 50th, they rode from Istanbul to London.
- In addition to crazy tours like this in which the leader works longer and harder than the riders, in 2014 she will lead her 8th and 9th BAC tours in Mallorca.
- I won’t mention other crazy things they’ve done like
- dog sledding in Gates of the Arctic National Park for a week (with a low of -50 to a high of -35), where they had our own team of dogs to care for and deal with
- taking a 3 week trip to Mongolia by horseback up near the Siberian border to find a group of nomadic people who subsist on raising reindeer. (Never again does she need to ride a horse - especially a Mongolian one!!!)
Alison, I predict that leading this ride is like riding a Mongolian horse; you’ll never want to do it again! So those of us who got to do it, had a once in a lifetime experience. Thanks, crazy lady! We need more volunteer leaders like you.
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