First Build Days

We just got finished with our second build day with Orange County Habitat in Chapel Hill and it was great. We got rained out after less than 2 hours the first day which was kind of frustrating, but we got alot done today and made up for some lost ground. We got all of the walls up, and probably would have gotten to the roof trusses if we hadn't lost the first day.

A bunch of us went out the last two nights which was alot of fun. We went to a bar Tuesday night that served 12 oz Bud Lights for a quarter each!!! We played a plethora of games of aggressive flip cup, then went out for some late night pizza. Last night fewer people went out, but we went to a roof top bar which was cool, then went to a bar called Goodfellas where I did some karaoke to good old Meatloaf, cousin Kelly would have been proud.

I'm looking forward to getting back on my bike. We have about 90 miles to Winston-Salem which will be a new record for me. We got our mail drop today so thank you for the notes people sent me, they were much appreciated.

By the way, in preparation for our days in Asheville and to show my gratitude ahead of time for the great event Volvo has organized for us after working with Asheville Habitat and Mountain Housing, I have temporarily changed my profile picture. I'm really getting excited for that event, Peter Causer with Volvo has made some serious arrangements for us and has gotten Cane Creek involved (a high end bicycle component company), it should be alot of fun and I'm really looking forward to it.

Arriving in Chapel Hill

Hey everyone, we've arrived in Chapel Hill and will be working with Habitat for Humanity here for the next two days. I've gotten to explore the campus a little bit, which is really nice, and a bunch of us are going out tonight which should be alot of fun. The ride in today was pretty short, under 40 miles but we're getting away from the flat grounds near the coast. There was a pretty good amount of climbing as well as decents, I topped off at over 40 mph on one of them.

Last night we were hosted by North Wake Church in Wake Forrest. They were really nice as all of our hosts have been. They got us Pappa Johns for dinner and fed us breakfast as well. They also had a bunch of cold Gatoraid waiting for us as well as a box of massage equipment, which went over really well. It was my turn to drive the van coming into Wake Forrest, which was nice because it was the longest, hottest day we've had so far and it also had the most hills. Although I feel like I missed out on the first really tough ride, but there will be plenty more that are much more challenging. Last night we all went out to a go-cart track and then went out for ice cream afterwards. It was nice to get the whole group together doing something fun outside of a host location.

We were in Greenville for the night before Memorial Day. We stayed at a vacant house owned by the Program Director for Pitt County Habitat for Humanity. There was a youth minister staying there as well who found some people to supply us with a huge meal for dinner, and one of the riders had a connection to a resturaunt that gave us a bunch of grilled chicken sandwiches, chicken strips, and ribs; so we ate really well there and had alot of leftovers for lunch the next day.

I'm still loving what I'm doing and I'm really excited to get into the Build portion of Bike & Build over the next two days. Chapel Hill should be fun, and we have alot of support here as many of our riders are from here and the local Habitat chapter is the biggest beneficiary of our trip.

On the Road& Around the World

We're two days into the trip and everyone has been riding really well. No accidents yet and only a few maintenance issues. The weather was great the first day, sunny and the wind was actually at our backs. Today's ride was a little more hectic as it rained the whole way. At least it was a short ride, and everyone handled the wet roads really well. We still haven't hit any serious climbs yet so we haven't really been challenged, but the Appalachian Mountains are not far away.

Our Hosts so far have been so welcoming, its been really overwhelming. We have been fed by our first two hosts after orientation, and all the people we have met are so happy to have us visiting. Swan Quarter was a nice one road town, and Belhaven has been quite the spectacle. I think between all of us we have met the whole town and they're all so welcoming. A parishioner of the church we're staying at brought a bunch of us to her house to shower and we even got to spend tome time in their hot tub, a welcome rest after a long, wet, cold morning ride. There was a huge pot luck dinner tonight with tons of locals. They organized a big raffle for the kids with a bunch of prizes including two bikes. They even had a donation jar going around, I haven't seen exactly how much was in it but I know there was at least a few hundred dollars. There was also a really touching moment when one woman came up and gave us a home made quilt to donate to one of the families who will move into one of the homes we will work on or raffle it off for some donations. She spoke of how she can't ride her bike any more because of problems with her back, then began to tear up saying how she could still use her hands to do the work of god and talk about how appreciative she was of what we are doing. It really showed us that what we're doing really does influence people.

My dad would be proud of me today, I taught about 25 people how to play around the world ping pong today at the pot luck dinner with the Belhaven locals. It took a while to recruit people to play, but after the first game everyone was so into it we just kept playing.

Our first build days in Chapel Hill are coming up soon and I'm really looking forward to that. I'm having so much fun and can't wait to experience the rest of the journey

Final Preparations/Realizations

So today is the day all the other riders will be arriving to officially start the trip. Last night us leaders were up late making some final preparations including finalizing the exact routes we will take in between our host locations. We were kind of surprised when our overall route length increased by almost 100 miles from what was originally listed. One week really sticks out over all the other ones. We ride 661 miles in 8 straight days to get into Colorado Springs (124 of those miles are on the last day getting into Colorado Springs). We also found one day in Tennessee where we ride through 2 mountain passes adding up to 17,500 feet of hill climbing, which also means we will be descending a lot but that is still well over 3 miles of elevation gains.

So we're starting to really understand how difficult of a route the ride is going to be, but we're all more excited than worried. Well now we have to go set everything up for orientation as riders will start showing up in about 2.5 hours.

Leader Orientation

Alright so I finally got my blog setup so now I can write my first blog entry ever. To anyone who plans on keeping up with me I promise to update this as much as possible, but I also warn you that it will most likely not be incredibly frequently.

We just finished our first official day of leader orientation. Our program director Brendan is down here telling Angela, Dan, Scott and I whats up. We all got in last night, got settled then went out for dinner. We went up to the road and went to a place called "Dirty Dicks" for some seafood. It was a pretty cool place, the food was good, and I got crab cakes & a T-Shirt.

We still have a good amount of work to do before we're ready for the rest of the riders to show up on Wednesday but we're in pretty good shape. We went for our first group ride today as well. We broke in our new Jerseys and road about 10 miles up the Atlantic coast and back, it was a good road and really nice to get back on my bike after not having it for over 2 weeks. We almost got off to a really bad start when some teenagers in a run down Bronco decided that we shouldn't be riding on the road. They told us to get on the sidewalk then pulled in front of us and started slowing down, but eventually got bored and drove away. Hopefully that's the worst thing we run into, but I highly doubt that will be the case.

I can't wait for everyone else to get here so we can get going. Dan has a great orientation planned out for us so as long as everything goes according to plan we should have a good send off. We're getting police escorts through two counties across all the bridges to the mainland which should be cool. Its a good thing too because the bridges have no shoulder and riding across them alone would not be fun. Nothing like getting someone run over on our first day. Anyway, we're going to do some more work then watch a movie and go to bed. The weather is suppose to be awful tomorrow, but at least the forecast says it will be nice for our first day on the road.