Ben's North Carolina to San Diego Trip

All good things must come to an end

2008-07-27T13:00:00.000-07:00

The morning of our last riding day together was a strange one. You could tell that everyone was emotionally mixed between extreme excitement as well as regret that our adventures together were about to end. We slept in much later than we ad been over the last week, but were still up early enough that we had plenty of time to pack up for the shortest ride of the trip. We only had 28 miles to go until we arrived at La Jolla Beach (it was also the longest cue sheet we’d had, there was an average of about a mile & a half in between each turn). Our planned arrival time was noon, and we hit the road by 8:45. We had planned on leaving by 9, but everyone was ready and way too anxious to wait that long. We posed for a few group pictures then all left together but eventually were spread out by the traffic lights.

The low for the day for me was right before we got to the prettiest part of the ride, excluding any view we had of the beach at the end of course. We were coming up on a bike path that went through a big valley, so I decided to get my camera out and take some pictures of everyone riding through it. I’ve taken plenty of pictures from my bike before but today that all caught up to me. We were riding down a small service road with no traffic so I moved towards the center to get a picture of some riders from the side when I ran over a reflector on the centerline and wiped out. Luckily I had crashed once before a week prior to the trip on a metal grate in a bridge crossing the Chicago River and gotten really banged up, so I had learned my lesson on how not to fall. Unlike my previous fall, I didn’t try to catch myself so I could tear up my hands and dislocate a shoulder, I just tucked and let my hip & back take the brunt of it. I bounced back up and hopped on my bike right away, mostly embarrassed because about 20 riders saw it happen. I bruised my hip a little and got some road rash on my elbow and one of my fingers, but it could have been way worse. The only real casualty was that my camera broke yet again during the fall, so I didn’t even get to take any pictures on the bike path, the only reason I even had it out. At least I knew my Dad would have his camera ready at the beach to take a couple of hundred pictures. I spent about the next 10 miles kicking myself that I had gone all the way across the country, then 15 miles from the coast I did something that stupid, but I eventually got over it.

We had a checkpoint where everyone waited up for each other a little over a mile from the beach. It was a good thing we left as early as we did because we were actually cutting it kind of close; all the traffic lights slowed us more than we anticipated. After regrouping, we timed our departure from the check point to get us to the beach right at noon. We were less than a half mile away when we finally got our first glimpse of the Pacific while coming over a big hill. I’ve seen the Pacific plenty of times before, but it had never looked so good, it finally hit me then that we were almost done as I felt goosebumbs run over my whole body. We stopped to soak it in and take some pictures, but I didn’t take any of course. After everyone was ready we pushed off again and shortly after began seeing familiar faces as we rode past the park where our lunch was being prepared. The first people I saw were Dan’s parents, who I spent some time with in Savannah before the trip with Dan. Not far behind them I saw my Mom running towards the road we were on with my Dad not far behind. This whole time people all over the place were cheering for us. I’m sure the word had been spreading from our family members waiting there for us, and it probably didn’t take long for other people to figure out what was going on. I don’t think I had ever felt so cool in my life. We rode through the parking lot to the edge of the sand where we all took our shoes off and got ready to walk the last leg across the sand to the shoreline. I got a big hug from my Mom & Dad & Issy when I stopped, it got really emotional but I’m so glad they were there.

We began walking across the sand through the crowds of people who were there enjoying the beautiful day, but we quickly began running as we realized that the sand was really hot. We all got right on the shore and posed for a bunch of pictures and let the moment linger until we would al finally dip our tires and be done. When the time came we were sure to all dip our front tires at the same time, just like we had done with our back tires in the Atlantic. I immediately handed by bike off to my mom so I could run and jump in. We hung around taking more pictures and jumping into the ocean, and eventually made our way back up shore to where everything was set up for our lunch. Brendan gave a short speech to everyone, followed by equally short speeches by myself and the other leaders, and then we toasted with champagne provided by Ana’s parents and had a great lunch provided by Dan Carmody’s dad.

After mingling with everyone and enjoying the great food, we shipped off for one last 4 mile ride to the church we were staying at. We all cleaned out the van and trailer to get our obligations out of the way. I went out for some sushi with my sister, her roommate Tamara, and Angela; then they gave us a ride out to a B&B alumni’s house, Todd Johnson, for a party he was throwing for us. Todd was awesome, he had beer & food for anyone who wanted it at the party. He was also at our wheel dipping and chalked the last couple of turns coming to the beach; he even wrote some encouraging messages mixed in with the turns. We had a lot of fun, one last big hurrah as a group.

The next two days people went out exploring San Diego & La Jolla and started trickling off one by one to go home. I made it to the Zoo and Sea World with my mom, sister & Tamara to see one of their friends perform in the Circ Del Mar show there and check out Shamoo.

It didn’t seem like it was long before it came time for the long drive home. Angela, Dan, Scott & myself all took part in driving back, although I got out in Chicago and Scott got out in Michigan. We were joined by Patrick, Rachel, & Dave Grant. We stopped at some amazingly beautiful places, a great finish to the trip.

We started off driving through Las Vegas, then went to the Hoover Dam and drove through the Lake Mead State Park. I’d been to Hoover Dam before, but there was something there I hadn’t seen last time. After 911 apparently the decision was made that it is too much of a risk to national security to have thousands of cars driving over the dam everyday, so they’re building an over pass a little further down the Canyon. It was an amazing sight, they were just starting the archway that would span the gorge and support the bridge that will stand at least 1000 ft above the river below. After the Dam, we stopped at a scenic overlook of Lake Mead in the park, & decided to walk down a little closer. We stumbled upon an awesome swimming hole in a big crevasse so Dave, Angela & I jumped in. We drove for a couple more hours and camped out just outside Zion National Park.

The next day we went into the park to go hike Angels Landing. It might have been the craziest thing I’ve ever done, keep in mind I just rode my bike across the country. It was a 2.5 mile hike to the top, which was almost 1500 ft above where we started. A bunch of the hike had chains anchored to the sides because you were basically walking on the side of massive cliffs. The view from the top was unreal. We spent a fair amount of time to stop for pictures and enjoy the views. When we finally got back to the van, we took a quick hose shower at a campsite, then moved on.

We had planned to go to Bryce Canyon as well, but ended up scratching it because we were running late and it was quite a few extra miles. It felt like we were driving through a national park almost all day anyway, Utah is one of the most beautiful states I’ve ever been in. Even the ride on the interstate was amazing. We found a scenic overlook just off of it at the edge overlooking a huge canyon, similar to the Grand Canyon. The sun started to set over the top of the plateaus in the distance after passing that point, it was like we were in the land before time as David said. There was a section on the interstate where they needed to put in switch backs! We coasted at 70 mph in neutral for about 6 miles, except for when we needed to slow down for the switchbacks. It was still steep enough afterwards to accelerate back to about 65, still in neutral. This was nice because we were just about out of gas and in the middle of nowhere. We made it to a gas station and stocked up on food & ice to prepare for another night of camping.

The next morning we woke up in Moab Utah, ready to go check out Arches National Park. It was another cool canyon, only there were far more archways than any other park we’d been to, hence the name. We didn’t spend a whole lot of time there as we had already seen so much and we had a REALLY long stretch of driving ahead of us. We took one short hike to see Landscape arch, just one of many contained in the park. After that we started the long drive to Chicago. We decided to drive through the night so we could get there at a decent hour.

About 12 hours later on the dot we arrived at Joe’s house in Naperville, where we would stay for the night. Everyone except for Day who needed to get some work done tok the train down town to check it out, and I stayed back to hang out with Luke & Joe who was back to move some stuff out of the house as he will be selling it soon. We crought Angela, Dan, Partick & Rachel out to Lou Malnoti’s for some good Chicago style pizza when they got back, then called it a night as everyone else was getting an early start on their drive to Detroit the next day.

It was sad to see the Bike & Build van & trailer leaving, it was the first time that it really hit me that the trip was over, I hadn’t really felt anything up until that point. I could feel some emotion coming over me as the trailer went around the corner and out of sight. Since then I’ve been trying to relax, but have been busy helping in the moving out of Joe’s house and getting ready to move to Texas for grad school in a few days. I can’t wait for my next adventure in Austin, but I don’t think anything will ever compare to my Bike & Build experience. It really has been life changing; learning about the housing issues that affect millions in our country and around the world, and seeing first hand how much a little effort to help can effect people so profoundly and make such an impact in so many people’s lives. Seeing just how beautiful a country we live in first hand has also struck me more than I expected. None of the pictures I’ve taken serve any of the things I’ve seen any justice. There are so many natural wonders to see out there, I can’t wait to make the effort to go see more National Parks & other areas of the country in years to come. The friendships I made over the course of the trip may have been the best part of the trip. There were of course times with drama, but I have never seen such a diverse group of people from different backgrounds become so close so quickly.

So I’ll finish my final entry saying thank you to everyone who kept track of me during my adventure. It’s been really touching to hear how many people took such an interest in what I was doing. I’m also so thankful to all the generosity we received from our hosts along the way. It was almost unconceivable how generous some people are capable of being to perfect strangers, I felt nearly at home in so many places on our route, it really meant a lot to me. And of course, if any other riders from the trip read my last blog, it has been an honor and a privilege to share such a great adventure with all of you. Everyone brought so much to the group and really did there part to make it be the best trip possible. I said it at the beach in La Jolla and I’ll say it again, I’ll never forget any of you!

2008-07-23T20:51:00.000-07:00

So after the Grand Canyon we encountered miles upon miles of desert which was much less grand. Our rides have become generally shorter and our wakeup times earlier in order for us to stay out of the extreme heat we’ve been riding through. It wasn’t too bad until we left Prescott and lost 3,300 ft in elevation, (gaining about 25 degrees in average temperature!!) We had a lot of fun while in Prescott, it’s a cool town and we had a good build day with Habitat there. We did some landscaping at two houses which was a first for us, but there was a lot of work for us to do so we were all able to stay busy pretty much all day. It was nice because it makes the day go faster and we felt like we had accomplished a lot.

When finally getting into California I kind of thought that most of the really hard work was over, we were almost there after all. I was really wrong because the desert in Southern California is way worse than any desert we encountered in Arizona, not what I expected. The day we crossed into California, I ended up riding back about 4 miles with a few other riders to go swimming in the Colorado River on the CA/AZ border. It was so refreshing and a lot of fun.

The desert in Cali has been unlike any other riding we have done. We’ve been getting into our host sites much earlier which has been nice. We’ve had more time to nap and relax, and we’ve needed it because the heat really took a lot of energy out of us. We had one near 90 mile day into Brawley that was particularly brutal. Our Program director Brendan was along for the ride that day and wrote the best journal entry of the trip documenting it, I highly recommend reading it if you haven’t already, its really long but a good read.

So today we had our last challenging ride into El Cajon, less than 30 miles from the Pacific. We managed to stumble across a cyclists dream while checking the route the day before. The church was in a slightly different location on HW 78 than google maps had placed it so we needed to update the cue sheets, which is the only reason we found it. I had driven the van that day so I decided to ride it myself before finalizing anything to make sure it was all paved. It was a winding back road going down some really fun descents for a while, then one last epic climb up Engineers Road with views rivaling any others we’ve seen on the trip so far. There were great views of Mountains & Valleys filled with clouds, then at the end we came around the other side of the mountain to see a dammed mountain lake below us. I was really happy to ride it twice.

We saw our first San Diego sign today, David & I were sure to have Brendan take a picture of us looking manly in front of it, (we copied the pose from a cool mural we saw at Mile High Middle School in Prescott). While in El Cajon we were treated to some nice surprises from Hannah. She is from really near by so her mom and brother were greeting many of us about 2 miles from the host site with signs, then later in the day she got us all free frozen yogurt from “The Yogurt Mill” where she worked before the trip. It was the best frozen yogurt I’ve ever had and huge portions, perfect for a hungry Bike & Builder. Hannah even got behind the counter and prepared them all herself.

Well I’m about to go out for a pre-celebratory drink or two and meeting up with one of my sisters friends, and hopefully her if she gets into town early enough. This entry was kind of thrown together last minute, but I’ll be sure to add one more good one during the van ride back to Chicago.

The Arizona Desert

2008-07-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

So we're well past the Rockies and right in the middle of Arizona now. Our first day in AZ was also our first day in New Mexico & Utah, (The famous 4 corners). We had lunch there and took some pictures in four states at once.

So far the highlight of the desert for me, and possibly the whole trip was going to see Monument Valley. Anyone who doesn't know what it is has definitely seen it, it has appeared in tons of movies including National Lampoons Vacation, Thelma & Louise, Mission Impossible 3, & our favorite, it is where Forrest Gump turns around and stops running across the country. We saw it by tour bus during our day in Kayenta. There was a route we could have taken to ride past it while going from Teec Nos Pos to Kayenta, but it would have been 100 miles instead of 57. A lot of people wanted to take on the extra miles and we debated for a while but eventually decided it was better to not add that many miles on a hot desert day. It worked out pretty well because we wouldn't have seen nearly as much of it as we did riding our bikes on the highway. The tour bus took us through all the dirt roads that go through the park that we wouldn't have dared take our road bikes on. I added tons of pictures to the web page so check them out.

The other obvious recent highlight was the Grand Canyon. My parents have brought me there before so I wasn't quite as excited as some of the other riders, but it had been a long time and it was really rewarding to bike there. The day was actually a total logistical nightmare for me. This past week has been the second of my weeks to organize, and the Grand Canyon day sort of fell apart. We were suppose to camp out in Desert View, a 1st come 1st serve campsite on the East side of the South Rim. Scott was driving the van in the morning and we sent him directly there to get us a few sites, only to find out that they don't allow large groups to camp there under any circumstances. They only allow 4 people & 2 tents per site. To make matters worse the Main South Rim village campsite was full. The next available camp site was 30 miles past Desert View, and about 8 miles outside of the park. The one bit of serenity I found was when I stumbled across the coolest bike path ever paved. I was riding by myself trying to get ahead of everyone so I could sort things out at the new campsite, and I noticed a bike path that went away from the road and closer to the edge of the canyon. I decided to take it and was glad it did, the path had tons of tight turns through the forest and spent about half of the time hugging the rim of the Canyon. It only went for about 3 miles but I couldn't wipe the smile off my face the whole time, a nice break from what was otherwise a really stressful day.

Even though we added 30 miles to that days ride, it wasn't the end of the world because they were all along the road we would have taken the next day anyways, making the ride to Williams that much shorter. I lucked out and everyone rolled with the new plan really well. It actually worked out really well, even though it started raining as we were setting up out tents, and didn't quit raining all night. It made for a very interesting evening, but with the next days ride now being 30 miles shorter, we had a nice relaxing morning before heading off to Williams.

Williams is a fun town, although I really didn't get to do much as I fell behind on my leader responsibilities since my week is coming to an end and we hadn't had Internet for a few days. The 2 pages of notes I needed to write regarding the Grand Canyon day for next years leaders didn't help anything either.

Tomorrow we're off to Prescott for our last build day. Dan and some other riders have planned a scavenger hunt type competition for tomorrow. We've been divided into 3 teams, and will get points for completing certain objectives, finishing the day faster than other groups, and there is a "lunch time bananza" that will include some types of games. There are also some supposed bonus point available, all will be revealed tomorrow.

Anyway, I talked to my parents earlier today, they hosted the Northern US group earlier for dinner as they pass through Janesville. It sounded like quite the event, there were something like 60 people at their house for dinner. They said that they really had a good time meeting everyone. I'm glad that they got a good Bike & Build experience before meeting myself and the rest of us in San Diego, they've said that they're looking forward to meeting everyone even more now. My mom sent a bunch of pictures to my phone, but it died yesterday so I haven't seen any yet. Hopefully I can get it replaced in Prescott.

Riding the Rockies

2008-07-10T21:06:00.000-07:00

Our ride from Colorado Springs to Buena Vista on July 5th was probably the hardest we’ve had yet. It started out really well; it was mostly downhill for the first 10 miles which brought us to the Garden of the Gods. The rock formations there were absolutely amazing! I’ve added a few pictures, but check out pictures on the B&B web page to get a better idea, I can’t really explain how cool it was. The only problem with the garden was that we all took way too much time exploring and taking pictures, even though we had a tough century ride entering the Rockies, (it was still worth it). When we finally left the gardens, we immediately started climbing up US 24. There weren’t any really steep climbs, but going out two nights ago, getting to bed to late the night before, and not being acclimated to the altitude might have been some of the factors, but regardless of the reasons, everyone had a really tough time, including myself. The wind didn’t help anything either. Right after second lunch we faced a 20-30 mph headwind for over 15 miles. The highest we got was going over Wilkerson Pass, 9,507 ft, which was about 60 miles in. We also found a tourist center there and a local VFW was handing out free cookies and juice, a very pleasant surprise after a long hard climb. Afterwards we had a short descent into South Park Valley (yes the same as the TV show). I had no idea that the valleys in the Rockies could stretch so far, it was almost like we were in Kansas again, just you could see mountains all around in the distance and the air was way thinner. We had our second lunch in a small town in the valley, then the wind hit us afterwards. I rode the last 25 miles with Patrick, and we were relieved when we found 10 of the last 13 miles of the day were down hill. We were served a great dinner by our hosts at the church we were staying at. Among the members of the church helping were a woman who was originally from near Milwaukee and a retired man who got his physics doctorate in Madison.

Our ride to Gunnison took us over Monarch Pass, the continental divide. We started the morning off at a community pancake breakfast in a park thanks to our hosts. We had a great ride to start off, there were huge snow covered mountain ranges all over the place. I didn’t mention it in the last paragraph but Buena Vista may be the most beautiful mountain town I’ve ever been to, the views were breathtaking. Anyway, we started the steep portion of our 4,000 ft climb at about mile 30. We got well above the snow line, nowhere we went was totally covered, but I was looking down at snow patches about 4 miles from the summit. We finally got to the top of Monarch Pass at mile 42, we were 11,312 ft above sea level, the highest we’ll get on the whole trip. We stopped for a good lunch at the visitors center there, then left to see a big rain storm coming in. I hurried up and got going with Dan Oates, Dave Grant, & Cole. We were sling-shoting each other almost the whole way down. I borrowed a camera mount from Dave Getchel so I could film most of it. It was pretty cool, but I wish I would have had it during some of our descents in the Appalachian’s, they were steeper and a little cooler. It still worked pretty well, I’ll try to put them in another blog entry. We got close to the bottom and got poured on for the last 2 miles of the descent; luckily I had put my camera away and was wearing a raincoat. We stopped in a barn at the bottom for cover then eventually went another mile down the road to a gas station where some other people had stopped. We’ve ridden in the rain before, but it was really cold at that elevation so everyone was freezing. We stayed there for almost an hour and finally decided to move on. We got rained on for another couple of miles but it cleared up eventually. We were happy to find that the rest of the ride was mostly downhill and Cole, Dan & I finished the last 32 miles in well under an hour and a half. Gunnison was a cool town too, we stayed at the high school and I ate at a local pizza place with a few other riders.

I had been looking forward to the ride to Ouray for months, and it didn’t disappoint. Another century that brought us along the Blue Mesa Reservoir for about 20 miles, it was amazing. It was a big dammed mountain lake surrounded by all sorts of types or mountains & cliffs. I was taking pictures left & right until my camera broke, right before the best part of the lake too. We had 1st lunch at the end of the lake by the Blue Mesa Dam and enjoyed one of the best views of the trip. After lunch we began come decent climbs mixed with some fun descents. Dan & I made a small detour to check out another cool Dam further down the Black Canyon. The road into it was surrounded by enormous cliffs and a whitewater river running parallel with the road. It was well worth the detour, quite a few other riders made the trip as well. The last 30 miles of the ride were somewhat boring compared to the rest, but there were some of the coolest snowcapped mountains ahead of us that we had seen. As we got closer to Ouray the landscape became more and more mountainous until we got to the town to find it was located in a small canyon surrounded by massive cliffs, definitely the most picturesque host site yet, too bad my camera was broken.

I drove the van the 4th day in the Rockies, something I ended up wishing didn’t happen. As amazing as the previous ride day was, it was dwarfed by the Million Dollar Highway. Supposedly it was named this because it cost $1 million a mile to build, in the 1930’s. It was all switchbacks and carved into huge cliffs, we were about 300 feet directly overlooking Ouray after the first mile. Then the road turned away from the town and into the canyon, I can’t even imagine building something like this road, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The challenging but rewarding climbs went on for about 12 miles bringing us back over 11,000 ft, then there was a big decent into another cool mountain town called Silverton. I had to shuttle everyone for about ¾ of a mile up the base of the next mountain because of some road work that bummed everyone out, but the rest of the climbs and views didn’t disappoint either. One good thing that happened in Silverton is that y camera miraculously started working again. I didn’t get any pictures of the Million Dollar Highway, but I took about 45 pictures from the van over the rest of the drive.

Durango was still surrounded my mountains, but they were nothing compared to what we had seen over the last few days, we could tell that we were right on the edge of the Rockies. So in 4 days, we pretty much biked across the whole Rocky Mountain Range, not too bad.

The long slow climb to Colorado Springs

2008-07-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

OK so we made it to Colorado Springs after riding 670 miles in 8 straight riding days. It was capped off by yesterday’s grueling 125 mile ride that brought us up to 6,700 ft above sea level. It was a tough week but a lot of fun. The ride started out relatively flat and we could barely see the silhouettes of the Rockies far of in the distance as we headed West. They gradually got closer and closer and at mile 80 we turned north and immediately got into the rolling foothills. We hit a few patches of bad weather and extreme winds in a few areas, but the views were worth it. I hit a new speed record going down one of the declines at mile 105, hitting 47.4 mph. Dan was right behind me the whole way too, I’m way heavier which makes me fall a lot faster downhill, but he managed to keep up by staying in my draft. The whole ride was great until the very end when we got into a huge storm which included hail. I was riding with Dan, David, & Travis and we eventually stopped and all piled into a porto potty on a jobsite about 5 miles from the church to stay dry and warm. It was really funny, we needed to laugh because that portion of the ride really sucked, we just wanted it to be over with.

The build day yesterday was really cool. We framed a house like we did in Chapel Hill. Most people agree framing is the most fun thing to do on a build day. The only difference from Chapel Hill is that the house will be two floors, and there was an amazing view of Pike’s Peak and the rest of the Rockies. We also got to meet the woman and her three kids who will eventually live in the house we were building which was really nice. We love when that happens, it helps us remember that we’re really helping someone out and not just working for nothing.

Last night a bunch of us went out in Colorado Springs. We went to a couple of bars but spent most of the time at a place called Cowboys for some $2 beers and line dancing. We kept up for a while on the dancing when it was easy or when Casper Slide was playing, but eventually it got more and more complicated and we ended up looking like idiots desperately trying to copy everyone else. We all had a blast.

A lot has gone on besides that since my last entry, too much to list in one blog entry that I’m writing on the 4th of July, but I’ll go through some of the highlights. Kansas was really cool, for a little while. We were surprised by the landscape we found right after we crossed the state line. The gypsum hills looked like the plateaus we’re expecting to see in Arizona, only there was grass everywhere besides sand. There were some amazing views that kind of blew us away. I didn’t really realize how much of the old “Wild West” Kansas was. We stayed in Dodge city which supposedly was a big cowboy town back in the day. Eventually Kansas turned into what we expected, really windy and farmland as far as the eye can see. By the time we got to Colorado we were happy to be quoting Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.

The beginning of Colorado was no treat either. It was really hot and windy, and the landscape was barren & dry almost everywhere. We were still happy to be that much closer to the Rockies, we knew that eventually we would see them ahead. We caught our first glimpse of the mountains on our ride to Rocky Ford. We also got interviewed by a local newspaper that day when we stopped in a town called La Junta for ice cream. You can see the article at http://www.lajuntatribunedemocrat.com/homepage/x1470895995/Bike-and-Build-cyclists-ride-through-La-Junta

Another highlight that happened in Lamar Colorado is that I cut my hair. Don’t worry, the picture shown is when I was half done. It is so nice riding with short hair. When I was descending on the ride into Colorado Springs I could feel the wind through my helmet so much it felt like I wasn’t even wearing one. It will be really nice once we get to the desert.

Anyways, I’m hating that I’m not with my all my cousins in Janesville right now, I really miss all of you. Despite that I’m glad to be in Colorado Springs, I’ve heard that they light off the fireworks from in the mountains which will be really cool if it’s true. I’m wearing my Red White & Blue Volvo jersey I got in Asheville (thanks again Peter) and the American Flag bandana my mom sent me in yesterday’s mail drop (thanks mom too). We have a really tough 4 riding days coming up, but I couldn’t be more excited about it. Tomorrow we’ll ride through the Garden of the Gods just before starting our climb up to Buena Vista. We’re going to ride 289 miles in the next 3 days, IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS AND OVER THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE!!! I don’t think I really realize how hard it’s going to be, but I’m especially excited for the ride from Gunnison to Ouray. We’ll ride about 40 miles on a dammed mountain lake, go right by the dam, and then the next 60 miles will include some serious climbing and descending. I hope everyone has a great 4th of July!

The Ozarks & Oklahoma

2008-06-24T18:45:00.000-07:00

I drove the van from Little Rock to Clarksville which was kind of a bummer because it was our first century. I felt I missed out, but I was still able to get some riding in. Our route took us over the “Big Dam Bridge” which is a bike/pedestrian only bridge crossing the Arkansas River. I drove to the other side and got my bike out so I could ride over the bridge and meet up with everyone to ride back over it with them. It is either the longest or one of the longest bike path bridges in North America so I was glad I at least got that part of the ride in.

The First Presbyterian Church in Clarksville was a great host site. We had another huge pot luck dinner full of amazing dishes; there was a creamy chip dip with corn, green onions, cheese, & a bunch of other things that was a highlight before the meal. Afterwards we went to the Marci the pastor’s house so I could light some fireworks I picked up at a stand across the street from our second lunch stop. I couldn’t believe how cheap everything was so I ended up loading up on some big mortar shells along with roman candles & bottle rockets.

The ride into Fayetteville was awesome and made up for missing the first century. It was 92 miles so I decided to take some detours so I could join the century club as well. A couple of other riders did the same thing so they could say that they did back to back 100 mile days. Our ride took us through the Ozarks which was reminiscent of the Appalachians, but not quite as grueling. We were a little intimidated by the sign at the base which said the roads were “Crooked & Steep for the next 20 miles”, but they weren’t quite so bad. There were some cool switch backs however; we realized when we heard a semi that had past us a few minutes prior driving on another mountain slope about 300 ft above us and a few hundred yards to our left.

Fayetteville is home to the University of Arkansas and was a pretty cool town. Seeing all the Razorback’s apparel around made me think of the Capitol One Bowl game Luke & I went to where Wisconsin played Arkansas. We were treated to yet another pot luck dinner thanks to the members of the First Christian Church; Arkansas took good care of us, we were served breakfast and dinner every day we spent in the state.

Our ride out of Fayetteville was a ton of fun. The roads were great all day and we got to cross two state lines. We were on a road that ran the Oklahoma / Arkansas State line for about 10 miles, so we could cross into the left lane and be in Oklahoma, then cross back into Arkansas. That road lead us to Missouri, which we rode in for 9 miles before we crossed into Oklahoma for good. We got a lot of good pictures, and even though we got rained on for about 20 minutes, we all had a great time.

Our first night in Oklahoma was in Grove. The United Methodist Church we stayed at had a great view of the Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees. I rode down to go swimming with Maura, Renee, & Devon which was nice. I got to swim some more before dinner because our host Randy brought us to a camp site on the lake that he and his family manages. They grilled out for us which was great. The water level in the lake was about 7 feet over normal level, (it seems to be that way everywhere), so we found a tree in the water we could climb up and jump into the lake. We caught a great view of the sun setting over the lake from the church as well.

The next morning we were delayed by some bad weather. We entertained ourselves after breakfast by throwing the football around and playing ping pong. We even got a few more games of around the world in. I drove the van again, but I wasn’t too upset about it today. It was really windy today and the only roads we could take were not cyclist friendly. Every one made it in OK, but some people were kind of rattled.

Bartlesville was a great town to have our day off in. Our host Leon and all the other people at the Church of Christ were great. We were well fed and even had a personal escort, Andy, who drove us around town. We all went out last night because it was Rachel’s birthday. A few of us guys decided to do some facial art with our beards we’ve been working on for the last month, something that seems to always lead to a fun night; last night was no exception.

Today was nice too. I went into town with a few other riders, courtesy of a ride from Andy, and we saw some of the sites Bartlesville has to offer. We first stopped at the Phillips museum, which is dedicated to the history of the Phillips 66 oil company which was started in Bartlesville. It was pretty interesting but the highlight of the day was lunch at the top of the Price building, the only sky scraper designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was really unique, not that we excepted anything less, but the food was also fantastic.

Tomorrow we’ll be fed by the church members here again then be on our way to Ponca City. We have 8 consecutive riding days coming up ending with the big 124 mile day into Colorado Springs. Hopefully everyone holds up fighting the winds of the Great Plains, working together will definitely become more important as wind becomes a more consistent factor. Not sure if I’ll have internet until I get to Colorado Springs so my next entry may be a while.

By the way, we got on the news in Little Rock. Go check it out at
http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=67784&catid=2
http://arkansasmatters.com/content/fulltext/news/?cid=75211
Look for me, I'm wearing a bright pink hard hat.

Little Rock is awesome: who knew?!?

2008-06-19T19:32:00.000-07:00

We just got done with our second build day in Little Rock and it has been a blast here. Little Rock is a really pretty town, with tons of things to see and do. We actually had a tail wind coming in and arrived early on Tuesday even though it was almost a 70 mile day, Dennis Plato & I got here by 11:15. We've been staying at a Presbiterian church right in the middle of downtown which has been great. We're within walking distance of everything and the people here have taken great care of us. The Minister here, Flash, has been a fun host and Scott the organist/cook has prepared fantastic meals for us every morning and night since we got here, we're kind of spoiled by now. Anyway, after showering with a hose in the church parking lot with some other riders, I walked up to the riverwalk area with some people to get a bite to eat. I ate kind of a discusting amount of chinese food without even slowing down, then I watched another rider eat the biggest burrito I had ever seen in my life; it looked like a baby wrapped in a blanket, no joke. We wondered around a little more and made it back to the church for our weekly affordable housing meeting. I went to see Indiana Jones afterwards with some other people then went to bed; some people didn't wait until after the movie and slept through more than half of it, can't say I blame them.

Yesterday we split up and half of us went to a site where a prefabricated house built in a church parking lot had been moved and was waiting to be dropped onto its foundation while the other half did some work in the Habitat Restore. We did some prepwork setting anchor bolts for the exterior walls, cleaned up debri from around and under the house, and did some work preparing a car port. Nothing too exciting but we got done early which left some more time to explore.

A few of us walked up to the Bill Clinton Presidential Library which was cool. It's right next to the Heifer International Center, which is supposedly one of the most environmentaly friendly buildings on the planet. I made it back to the church in time to get a good nap in to prepare for a fun night out.

After a great dinner, we all took the trolly to a minor league baseball game courtesy of Julie with Habitat, she got us all free tickets and even got us mentioned on the big screen a few times. We had a tone of fun together at the game and had even more fun going out afterwards. We headed down to the river walk area and went to a few bars and ended up at this great deuling piano bar. The pianists were great and the atmosphere was loads of fun; they even did gangster rap at the end of the night, it was pretty funny.

This morning some of us, including myself, were kind of dragging from the night before. We didn't have a normal build day today, were were more like "Bike & Destroy" than "Bike & Build". We were tearing down a house set to be demolished and saving wood trim, appliances, fixtures, anything that Habitat for Humanity could resell in the Restore. It was kind of fun gutting a house, but I definately prefer building something rather than the opposite, especially when we have to take it apart in a way we can save the pieces. Taking a sledge hammer to everything might have been exciting, but no one would benefit from that. We had another great dinner tonight prepared by Scott, and have one more breakfast from him to look forward to tomorrow. We have our first century tomorrow into Clarksville, 104 miles. Unfortunately I'm due to drive the van so I'll be the only one on the trip who hasn't ridden a century by the end of the day. Oh well, we have plenty more before the summer is over.

One more thing, my mom has been updating me on what is going on back home with the flooding and sending me pictures from the gazzette web site. I hope all is as well as it can be. On a lighter note, I looked at most of the pictures of the most recent Rest Lake weekend, WOW! Glad you guys had fun and I wish I could have been there.

Memphis, Bike & Build style

2008-06-16T15:53:00.000-07:00

So we just finished with our day off and I have to say that Memphis has become one of my new favorite towns. Beale St on a Saturday nights feels like Madri Gras. We had a relatively short ride in to the Methodist church we stayed at in Germantown, an eastern suburb of Memphis. After arriving, we played some basketball in the gym, showered up, and too a nap in preparation for a long night out. About 20 of us shuttled downtown in cabs which was kind of a hassle, but it got us there. A few of us tried out the local hot spot for BBQ, Rendezvous. I'm confident in saying I had the best ribs, BBQ sandwich, and baked beans that I've ever had; the hype definitely was not misleading.

After a filling dinner we started walking towards Beale St, but took a pit stop at a mall to get cash from an ATM, and it turned into an ice cream stop as well. Beale street was crazy. There were almost as many neon lights as the strip on Las Vegas, and the whole street was closed off to cars. Each bar had a stand outside so you could just buy a beer and walk down the street. There were some street performers doing acrobatics in the street, they were amazing. They did gymnastics style back flips down the street and finished with some serious air, they were above everyone's heads on the street for most of them. I tried to attach a video to the blog, hopefully it works.

We ran into the rest of the group who didn't go to Rendezvous shortly after getting there which was nice. We made our rounds between the bars and ended up all together at one small bar that we pretty much took over with our own dance party.

We got a late start the next day, and some of us made a trip to the "Exotic Italian Sports Car Show", which was a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity. It was cool to see some of the cars, and it was nice to meet the people with Habitat that I had been talking to. They have applied for a grant from us so it was nice to put some faces to the application, and they helped us get dinner from the Macaroni Grill that night so it was also nice to thank them in person.

Our ride out of Memphis was an interesting one. There are two bridges that cross the Mississippi there, and they're both interstates. There was a walkway on the I-55 bridge, but we still had to jump on the shoulder for about 3/4 of a mile after crossing over to get to where we needed to go. No one likes getting onto the interstate on a bike, but the only other option would have added about 40 miles to the day. After crossing into Arkansas, we ditched the hills of Tennessee behind for some flat ground, but we had our first day with a consistently strong headwind. It was kind of demoralizing for everyone, but we rode in groups more so than we had in the mountains which helps get through the wind.

We arrived in Brinkley, AR to a warm welcome from the 1st United Methodist Church. They fed us a great dinner and were really excited to meet us. They're giving us a full breakfast tomorrow too which will be nice. Our next stop is Little Rock and we have 2 build days there which should be fun.

Rolling through the hills of Tennessee

2008-06-13T17:18:00.000-07:00

Well I’ve fallen behind on my blog entries again, no surprise. We’re coming up on the end of my first week that I organized so I’ve been really busy trying to keep everything flowing smoothly. It’s been pretty draining since my second day we got somewhat lost. I had us taking a bunch of back roads to stay off the main highway going into Dunlap, and it was really nice until the intersections stopped having street signs on them. We got way off the cue sheet more than once, but at least I was in the front group and knew which general direction we needed to go so I was able to get us to where we needed to go, we left chalk directions for everyone behind us.

We stayed in Army National Guard Armories in Sweetwater & Dunlap. It was pretty fun but the AC in Sweetwater was broken and it was unbearably hot that day. We went to Pizza Hut for dinner using a gift card mom left me, (Thanks Mom). They gave us some extra pizzas for free too so we had left overs and it was really nice to eat in an air conditioned building. When we got to Dunlap after being lost a few times, we were relieved to find that their air conditioning was working. SSG McClendon & Donald were our hosts there and they were a lot of fun. They hung around with us until about 5:00 to joke around and get us all set up with cots.

Our ride from Dunlap to Sewanee was awesome. We rode up Daus Mountain Road, which brought us up a 1,500 ft climb over about 3 or 4 miles. It was really hard but everyone was happy to have done it when it was over. I couldn’t make it without stopping, I’m too heavy for a climb like that and could have benefited from a few more gears. I never thought I would be in my lowest gear, standing, working as hard as I could, and only be doing about 4 mph. I tried to capture how steep it was with some pictures, but besides looking down at the switchbacks, nothing really serves it justice.

The rest of the ride was rolling hills, but no big downhill, which made the big climb a little disheartening. Sewanee is a great town and the University of the South Campus is beautiful. We camped out on Lake Cheston just off campus, and we got to go swimming which was really nice. Myself and three other riders rode our bikes out to an overlook where we could see the valley below Sewanee and get a preview of our descent the next day.

We were hosted for dinner by the Monteagle Sunday School Assemble, which is kind of like a summer camp for families in a town 8 miles East of Sewanee. That happened because one of the women involved with the Assemble has a daughter who did the Southern US ride in 2006, so she contacted us wanting to feed us. We had a great dinner and a great time with all the residents there. They loved us and everyone wanted to be more involved next year. It sounds like next years group will get to stay in the Inn there and in people’s houses, I’m kind of jealous but I’m happy to be a part of what made that connection.

Coming out of Sewanee we had a great downhill run right away (finally reaping the benefits from the climb the day before). Some Sewanee locals took us along some great back roads for the first 20 miles, it added a couple of miles to the trip but it was well worth it. It was really nice to ride as a big group again and to get to know some of the locals. After parting ways with our guides, I had us on some nice back roads until lunch. I eventually brought the route back to the main highway because I didn’t want to repeat the trip into Dunlap and get everyone lost again, but in retrospect I should have gone for it because highway 64 sucks to ride on, its basically an interstate.

That ride brought us to Pulaski, TN; a phenomenal host site. The Mayor got us set up in the student housing for Martin Methodist College and hosted us all for dinner at his house. We got to swim in his pool and he even helped Travis & I cannon ball some innocent bystanders next to the pool. There were tons of Pulaski residents there and the food was awesome. Something else that made my day was after we all went around telling everyone who we were and where we went to school, one of the local women there started twirling her fingers in her hair and said, "yea well i got an astrophysics degree from the University of Indiana, and I'm an astronaut on the weekends..." and kept going like a character on Saturday Night Live. I might have been the only one that got it but it really made me laugh. Everyone there was extremely hospitable and helpful; we all felt at home and had a great time.

I drove the van coming out of Pulaski. I made some last minute decisions the night before to change the route and get us off of highway 64. I was kind of freaked out about it because some of the roads on the map looked really sketchy and I wasn’t sure what the conditions would be like. It was a good thing I drove the van; I went ahead with a map and ended up chalking a different route after finding that about 95% of the roads on the map were gravel or peoples driveways. It worked out really well because the roads that I ended up putting everyone on were a cyclists dream. Recently paved, scenic, decent tree cover for shade, and almost no traffic.

We came to Adamsville that night and got another mail drop. Everyone got a lot of mail this time, myself included; it took 4 trips to the van carrying mail to get everything, I even used a dolly for one of them. We stayed at a Methodist church there; they fed us and were really nice.

Today we had a short ride into Bolivar. We were on highway 64 all day which kind of sucked, but it wasn’t as bad as it was in some areas a few days ago. The church hosting us tonight is really nice. There are lots of rooms to sleep in and the youth director Chris who I have been talking to made us dinner and even brought his Nintendo Wii in for us to play, which has been a lot of fun for everyone. Tomorrow we wide into Memphis and will have our first day off since we started. I can’t wait and I know everyone else feels the same way.

Climbing Mountains

2008-06-05T06:19:00.000-07:00

So I've kind of slacked a little bit in my blog entries, but we've had some seriously challenging riding days in the last week. We've been climbing mountains for 4 ride days in a row now. We've figured that yesterday was the toughest day of the whole trip, we went through two mountain passes and still put on almost 80 miles, (see my "final preparations/realizations" entry to see the route profile for yesterday). I really don't know how to explain to people just how much we've been climbing these last few days, I was told more than once to not underestimate the Appalachian Mountains, now I know why. I've spend about 90% of the last three riding days geared out, either in my absolute lowest gear crawling at 7-10 mph, or my highest gear cruising at 35-45 mph.

We've still been spoiled by all our hosts, we've only been on our own for dinner one night so far. In Winston-Salem we stayed at a church one of the riders family attends (he's from there). Riding in I was with a group which included a NC native who took us off the route into Old Salem to check out the cobblestone streets and go to a well known bakery. We got some sugar cake and it was about the best thing I ever tasted.

Taylorsville was alot of fun, but it was a tough ride coming in. It was really hot that day and alot of big rolling hills. Me and one of the other faster riders decided to get to the host site as fast as we could after lunch and were making great time until I got a flat on the bottom of one of the bigger inclines. That kind of took the wind out of our sails and killed our momentum. There was no shade and it seemed to take forever to fix, but it was the first flat I've gotten on my bike so I shouldn't complain too much. I ran out of water before reaching town and got pretty dehydrated so I was hurting pretty bad when we finally rolled into the host site, but I soon felt better after getting some more water in me. We stayed at a Baptist church that hooked us up at the local pool which was unbelievably nice after such a long hot day. They had a great dinner for us and there was a grand piano on the stage in the gym so me and one of the other riders who plays performed a bunch of songs. They even gave us mics which connected to the gymnasium sound system.

I drove the van to Alamont (Newland) the next day, and it was a good day to do it. It was our first big climb day, which I was sad to miss, but the road going up the mountain was under construction and miserable to ride. We did get to the Blue Ridge Parkway about halfway through the day which is gorgeous, but we had plenty of more miles on it so I wasn't too sad to miss the portion that day. We stayed at a little church in the middle of grazing fields, it was really nice and they fed us a great dinner and breakfast the next day.

The ride into Asheville was definitely the best of my life. We were on the Blue Ridge Parkway for over 70 miles. The climbs were epic, the descents were extreme, and the views were too good for me to really capture them with my camera. I couldn't stop smiling while taking my first long decent, it was about 8 miles longer than any other downhill ride I've done. We stayed at the YMCA in Asheville and had a build day so we were there for two nights. We utilized the hot tub and pool not long after arriving. Our first night the parents of two of our riders hosted us for dinner and it was great. Their house was amazing (on top of a mountain) and the food was great. Our second night we were hosted by Volvo, which was less than a 5 minute walk from the YMCA. They had an awesome BBQ dinner lined up for us, everyone stuffed there faces and loved everything. Peter Causer was the main organizer of the event and gave us a very entertaining presentation in their auditorium. He said some very nice things about me and Ryan Inc to the group which was touching, and presented me with an amazing Volvo Racing Jersey. Its got American Flags on the shoulders and is simply awesome. I really wanted to wear it the next day, but we have a policy about wearing our Bike & Build Jerseys so I decided to set a good example and stick to that. We're having a ride with some locals in Maryville after our build day tomorrow and I'm definitely braking it in during that. We were also all hooked up big time by Josh Reddoch with Cane Creek. They are a big bike component producer located in Asheville and they heard about us through Peters efforts. Josh provided every rider on the trip with ThudBuster seatposts and armwarmers. The seatposts have a hinged suspension system in them and are great for keeping long rides more comfortable. They retail at over $150 so it was an incredible gesture towards us, we still can't believe it. I didn't have a chance to switch it out that night, but tried it out today and so far really like it.

I already talked about our ride out of Asheville, epic is the only word that can describe it. We rode to a tourist town called Gatlinburg. It was the funniest little mountain town; there were two Riply's museums, indoor blacklight mini golf, go carts, a haunted house, any major tourist restaurant like the Hard Rock, and endless souvenir shops. We were on our own for dinner that night and alot of us went to a Mexican restaurant, then explored the town. We couldn't get over some of the stuff we saw, the T-shirts in some of the stores just can't even be explained. They all seemed to talk about Jesus and they were all more corny than any other shirt I've ever seen, but I don't think most of them were suppose to be that way. That might not be a great explanation but its the best I can do.

The ride today was a short one so we all slept in. I was riding weep so I had to stay behind everyone. There was one climb in the beginning, it might have been really hard a week ago but after the last few days, I hardly even noticed it. The majority of the rest of it was downhill and followed a Mountain river, it was really cool. We're in Maryville TN tonight and will have 2 work days with Habitat. We're staying in dorms and I totally lucked out and got my own room so I'm not really looking forward to leaving. Anyway, I have to wake up in a little over 5 hours to get ready for our build day so I'm calling it a night. Sorry I've been lazy about my blogging to those keeping track of me and thank you for those who have made comments, its nice to hear from you. We also had a mail drop today and I was overwhelmed with the stuff I got. Thank you so much to those of you who sent me thinks, (Jackie, Erin, and of course Mom & Dad) it was much appreciated.

First Build Days

2008-05-29T14:14:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-27T12:38:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-24T18:38:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-21T06:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-19T19:15:00.000-07:00

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.