Here's a little diddy

So we are voting on grant applications in the next couple days. I have been impressed by the riders interest in the each of the organizations that applied and I'm excited to begin discussing the merits of each applicant, but I also realize that through this process we are doing more for the affordable housing cause than the direct effect of the money we raise.
A lot of food and supplies were donated from churches across the country in order to help make this trip possible. At each town we rely on strangers to lend a hand; maybe feed us a small meal and provide us with a hot shower. In economic terms, that's probably a lot of money that was donated in the form of hot water for showers, casseroles, and air conditioning. At times I worry that the food, water, and hospitality are not going to our cause. We're using them for our own benefit and therefore reducing the money that could flow directly to affordable housing groups.
But I think that misses the point of the trip completely. As the website says "Bike & Build fosters leadership and lifelong philanthropic service in our participants" and I think that's true. The participants could be riders or community members, but in all cases the trip is inspirational and hopefully inspires a longer lasting donation to the cause.
I love the comment that I've heard more than once on this trip - "Don't listen to what they're saying about young kids today! You guys are really doing something great and that gives me hope for the future." I'm not sure who is talking about young kids and I don't know what has been said, but I'm glad we gave some hope. I know the trip is going to in some form re-orient my career path toward service and I hope it may have similar effects on the riders and the people we meet along the way.

Wyoming has Mountains!

There is snow on the Mountains only 50 miles to my West. We caught our first glimpse riding into Shishoni on a 100 mile day. The landscape has started to become more 'featured' ever since we hit Nebraska and Wyoming, but there has been little in the way of actual mountains. It was nice to crest a hill and see the real thing with snow on top. It was also pretty nice to know that I climbed those mountains on NOLS only two years ago.We are heading over the Continental Divide tomorrow, into Jackson the next day, and over the Rockies the day after. I am obviously very excited.

Visiting Lander today was also a little surreal. The last time I was here, I was preparing for my NOLS course in the Wind River Mountains, and it was kind of cool to come back for another adventure. I visited the Gulch and the hostel and bought some of the bulk food. One of the riders even found my picture posted on the Honor Wall, which was pretty cool.

If you're interested in the day-to-day definitely check out the route tracker on the Bike & Build website where at least two of the riders update our progress daily. I also just uploaded about 130 pictures or so from between Ohio to Iowa/South Dakota today so check it out.

PICTURES!

My first camera lasted all of two days of the trip and somewhere in Connecticut it started to fall a part. First the lens didn't close, which wasn't too bad, and by day three I had pieces all over the place. I sent it home to get fixed and sometime in Ohio I was able to get my hands on another picture taking device. There are some gaps in the pictures but here is a general overview.


Dayton in the morning

Re-route on the 120 mile day

Indiana!

Carrol Iowa


A video!

Its been a while

So I kind of thought that the beginning of the trip would be the busiest and eventually I would fall into the routine and find all the time in the world for blogging, uploading pictures, and writing post cards. Of course that is never the case and each day continues to bring new challenges and adventures. Here are some thoughts about the states from the first half of the trip:

Pennsylvania is beautiful with actual rolling hills and gorgeous farmland that continues right into eastern Ohio.
Ohio is not flat. This is a lie and I had one of my worst days trying to climb the hills on an 80-mile ride through Amish country in eastern Ohio.
The roads and the drivers are better in western Ohio than eastern Ohio. We had some rough days in Youngston but I definitely began to love the state by the time we hit Dayton.
Illinois and Indiana are indeed flat. It is also hard to imagine what the states would look like with natural vegetation. There is so much corn and soy that it almost seems like its supposed to look like that. Illinois and Indiana are also a lot thinner than I expected. We blew by the states in no time.
Iowa is generally awesome and biker friendly. They have a yearly bike ride that spans the state called the Rag Ride and everyone in Iowa loves to talk to you about it. The advantage is that Iowa is used to bikers in large quantities and so drivers and people are not too annoyed to be held up for a few minutes on the main roads by bikers.There are also hills in Iowa, but not nearly to the extent that Iowans think there are. The hills are perfectly graded and help to brake up the monotony of corn and soy. I have some amazing pictures of Iowa that I will try to get posted.
South Dakota started flat with lots of corn but that is giving way to rolling hills of pastures and a few trees.

We Are so Important!

During our build day in Youngstown, we had two camera crews and a newspaper crew show up. Here's the first link to the newspaper, I don't know if I can find the other ones on the interweb but we'll see. Newspaper Article

Shawn, Tino, Peter, and I were stopped at a Wallgreens today and somebody came up to us "Are you the same guys in the paper?" He was holding a copy of the city paper in his hand with a big picture of Tino and I on the front of the section. He asked us to sign the paper and we chatted a little. I felt slightly important for a few minutes, which was cool.

Last night we also got to see ourselves on TV. We took a trip down the street to have a drink and eat some wings and our Habitat Host mentioned that the 11 o'clock news was doing a piece on us. We convinced the bar owner to change the channel, although due to some law we weren't allowed to have sound, but we made up for it by yelling loudly at the screen and cheering during the interview with Chong and Maggie. Here is the link to the TV story.

A second TV crew showed up after we were finished. They got awesome shots of us doing NO work and dancing . . . we did put on a roof, installed a door, and landscaped the outside of the house I promise!
Us slacking!

Done with Cue Sheets!

So I was responsible for getting the riders from Providence to Wellsboro with cue sheets every day. The process was slow and was definitely my biggest stress for the first part of the trip. I enjoyed the challenge of routing 32 riders each day and I enjoyed the patience of the riders who didn't skip a beat when I told them the day's ride was 100 miles, when everyone was expecting 80.

I also learned that roads and road signs in New England are meaningless. Routes! Everything is routes and routes do not follow paths. Routes follow random roads that are not associated with road signs. Cue sheets could have 70 lines of right on such and such street for 200 ft, continue on the next street while kind of staying right for another 300 ft, and follow this road with three road names for the next 40 miles where it will change names approximately 14 times. The other option is to say stay on Rte-44/US-55/CR-17/Old-17 as it winds through all the towns between Poughkeepsie and Roscoe over 70 miles and hope that no one misses a sign and that the mileage comes close to correct (which it rarely did).

I am glad to pass the torch to Natalie this week and pick it up in the West where the routes consist of only one road between towns.

Affordable Housing for Penguins

Today we had an interesting day visiting the Binghamton Zoo, shoveling penguin poop, and working in the name of Habitat for Humanity. Sometimes even the best laid plans . . .

Originally we were to build a community garden for an affordable housing community in Binghamton but severe weather predictions canceled the project. Amy (our Habitat liaison) called in a favor at the zoo and we were set loose. The zoo was a fun although a strange project that wasn't quite in line with out trip's focus. I was especially glad that my Aunt Maggie came to visit! She took pictures of us working in the penguin pen, playing with the penguins, riding the carousel, and getting wet working outside. She also stopped afterward to sit and have lunch. I really enjoyed sharing the day with her, even though a bit strange.

Things That are Not Waterproof

Today was our wettest, longest, and probably hilliest day yet. We were warned by a number of P2S riders from previous years that this would be the hardest day of the trip. "All days were compared to Hunter Road from Poughkeepsie to Roscoe." In fact previous leader, Joe made sure that I did not also lead the riders over Hunter Road by showing up in Kent and also by riding with us from Poughkeepsie.



So this was my first entirely my own cue sheet between the two towns because we threw last year's out. Needless to say, there is no way to get from Poughkeepsie to Roscoe without going through the mountains. I sat down with Kristie's dad beforehand and we decided on a route that basically took route 299 to 44/55 to 209 to 55 over to 17.



I set out a little late and got lost before I even left Poughkeepsie, but I quickly got back on track. Beth, Isabel, and I trucked through the first mountain to meet the van at the top for hot chocolate (donated by Burger King). The downhills were cold and scary in the rain and I found myself pedaling to keep warm while feathering the breaks to keep from skidding out of control down the opposite side of the mountain.



We climbed about 2400 ft and traveled about 70 miles all in a lot of rain, but the team was all smiles when we reached a very warm welcome in the church. Fran had towels, a drier, snacks, and high fives all ready. It seemed like the whole town came out to greet us and we got some great questions during our dinner presentation. I am sure P2S will continue to visit in years to come.



Highlights:

My cue sheet worked and people got to where they were going.

Riders had a great attitude and attacked the day at full force.

Warm clothes at the end of a wet day.

A great dinner

Isabel shared her Tonka truck fruit snacks

We saw the NY City water supply reservoirs - very pretty



Lowlights

A windbreaker is for wind not for water.

I had to break on the downhills.

I lost an arm warmer

I forgot to carry food immediately after telling riders they needed to - remedied by Tonka snacks

32 Riders Take Off

The First Day

So this post was back-dated because I never had time to write about our first ride. I think that summarizes in part how the first ride went - I didn't have time. Natalie, Kristie, Susie Bee, and I stayed up quite late the night before worrying and anxiously awaiting our first day.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect and I had big fears of riders getting lost and confused in the streets of Providence, and that was basically a good description of what happened. Providence was a big test for directions for the rest of the trip. All the riders ran out of the gate at full speed and in about 5 miles I was struggling to keep up with the pack and I hadn't seen a relevant road sign in 4-5 turns. I eventually made my way to the front, stopped the portion of the group I could see and Tino helped to guide us behind the mall to the bike bath I was originally aiming for. I'm not sure how everyone ended up there, but the group managed to converge from all angles and directions on to the correct road.

My college advisor and professor also accompanied me on the first day to show some support and maybe also join in on the chaos and fun. Professor Brian Brenner and his friend Seth started the their day driving a car to Pomfret and driving their bikes to Providence. They also started their day by driving through some very serious rain. Not to leave me out, they called me while I was hitching the trailer in Providence, to tell me that not only should I worry about 32 riders getting lost and falling off their bikes, I should also worry about drownings and shark attacks.

It took me about an hour to process the weather report before I called him back. The other leaders, Brendan, and I decided to go ahead as planned and deal with the weather as it came. Which, for the most part, turned out to be a good plan, it also was really our only plan because we had to get to our destination that night. We didn't hit too much in the way of rain and by the end of the day the sun was shining bright.

Professor Brenner continued to have an epic day after he showed up to Providence. In addition to being led around by an over-eager group of riders, charging down wrong roads at full speed, he managed to have 3 flats, the trip record for at least the first week, maybe into the second! I was happy to finally be able to help a person who has done absolutely so much for me during my time at Tufts, but I think I would have wished I could have helped in some other way that didn't involved so much bike grease. Maybe he'll let write a recommendation for him some day.

The riders were not deterred though. We stopped at farms, campsites, swimming holes, and anything that looked like it might be able to provide us with some entertainment. I was slightly stressed about bad directions, flat tires, and new riders so mostly I took each stop as time to step back and breathe. The scenery was amazing, the sun and weather was perfect, and the attitude of the group after each little hiccup was always positive, and there is nothing else that I can ask for. I really had a lot of fun and I think it was the perfect way to start a trip.

We built a wall!

Today we had our first build day and successfully assembled one wall of a duplex with Habitat for Humanity in Providence. I'll try to post some pictures, but it is pretty cool to have 15 people push up a wall of a house all at once. I also spent time with a guy named Mike marking the top and bottom plates of the next wall panel. I actually felt like I contributed to the process a couple times when I was able to read the plans and mark the rough openings of the doors and walls without any help from Mike.

I am otherwise exhausted and excited about the ride tomorrow. I had a quick last minute re-route due to the fact that I missed reading last year's evaluation, so we'll see!

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

So Orientation has been a little overwhelming, but I'm having a lot of fun. The riders showed up yesterday and Kristie, Natalie, Susanna, Brendan, and I have been running around trying to make things run smooth. Today we had our first ride as a group, with every range of ability, but minus some small falls and a few flat tires, we were successful!

Tomorrow is a build day and Sunday we leaver for Pomfret, CT. I'm in charge of the route for the next week so it will be interesting to see what the roads actually look like in real life instead of just google maps.

Leaving DC slowly

I'm in the process of getting everything in order to leave DC this Sunday. My hope is that I will get to see a good number of people at my mom's art show this Saturday from 4-6pm. If you're in the area you should stop by. The show is at the Foundry Gallery in Dupont on 18th Street and they will be serving some wine and cheese. I will be serving high fives and hugs to whomever requests one.

First Post

Starting in just a couple weeks I'm going to be starting my bike trip across America as part of an organization called Bike & Build.  I'm starting a blog to post my pictures, thoughts, and adventures during the course of the summer. It remains to be seen how often I will end up posting to the blog but for now this should be a good way to keep people updated on the trip's progress.

You can check out Bike & Build online at www.bikeandbuild.org