Hey guys!
No, I am not posting cause I'll be going on bike and build this summer.
I'm just posting because (1) I half wish i was, but we have to be on campus over the summer as sophomores at Dartmouth, so I couldn't anyway.
(2) I'm helping out a few bike and builders this at Dartmouth this year, and it's just getting me so excited about the whole thing again.
They did a great job continuing the Tshirt and tennis ball sale for the hockey game, so I'm glad that Bike and Build had pretty solidly claimed that as our fundraiser. Again, everything sold out, so now we know we can expand again next year! I'm thinking about my own spring training so that I can bike when I have off days from Rugby - which won't be often, we made nationals and we have a really packed game/tournament schedule, I'll be gone a lot of the weekends.
And...yea, not sure what else. It's finals right now, so i sort of feel like i'm dying all of the time because i dont like these testttttsssssss but oh well.
Umm ok, sorry, this was supposed to be coherent and about how thinking about bike and build puts me in a better mood than finals does...sorry, i'll put up a real post sometime!
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Beijing
Hey guys, I'm about to go to Beijing - this summer is as over as it will ever be for me, so pretty much it will continue living on forever in all of our hearts.
Also just got back from leading a backpacking trip on Dartmouth campus
I will update about my Beijing trip on my other blog, http://adjustsayin.blogspot.com/
there's a bunch of other stuff on there too, don't worry about it too much
Also just got back from leading a backpacking trip on Dartmouth campus
I will update about my Beijing trip on my other blog, http://adjustsayin.blogspot.com/
there's a bunch of other stuff on there too, don't worry about it too much
Monday, August 23, 2010
All of washington
Oh hey, right, I need to update you guys on all of Washington. Now that it's very much over and I have finished checking all of my email from the whole summer, since I did not really read anything this summer.
Spokane, WA to Wilbur, WA. We got really lost on the way out of Spokane - there's a bunch of highways, and roads under construction, and bridges, and imaginary bike paths, and a river, etc. Ended up with Noam on this crazy busy road - I think Washington highway 2? somehting like that...well anyway, we were on it all day. We played a CRAZY competitive game of g-h-o-s-t - that spelling game that you play on long car rides, and then had the most intense philosophical debate ever. mostly about free will and what controls people and how you think, and a lot of stuff. it was interesting. This was when I discovered that Washington looks just so strange, because, well, it does. I had no idea that the eastern half was a desert. Wilbur was camping at an RV park...THANK YOU to dinner crew for cooking for us, it is so much work when you only have a propane stove.
Wilbur, WA to Omak, WA - I woke up and just really didn't feel like getting out of bed, didn't feel like riding, caring about the trip, just had a lotta doubts. Started riding, had a truck come sort of close and the ride was just not going well, and maybe the paige thing was getting to me, i don't want to blame it on that, but there's no other real reason not to ride your bike. I wasn't riding well at all because i was frustrated, mashing pedals, swerving a bit, etc. when another rider got in the van at mile 9, i did the same. looking back on it, i really wish i rode that whole day, but i'm not sure i could have safely. ps, I'm not making any more Paige/accident related comments on this blog. She's still in all of our thoughts all the time; I don't need to mention it.
Omak, WA to Early Winters, WA - Volunteered to ride sweep with Chas and Chris, so much fun! Oh man oh man but seriously. We had one big mountain pass today, Loup Loup Pass, and it was really long - didn't reach the top until we were 20-something miles in. But fortunately Chris and Chas are very entertaining. Little-known-fact: Chris loves musicals and will sing 'My Fair Lady' songs to you as you go up hills. and Chas and I belted out plenty of Rent songs. And Chris and Chas had a terrific duet of 'I Feel Pretty'. We took some goofy pics, took a TON of breaks cause what else would you do on sweep, and then, right before the summit, we stopped on the side of the road. I put on all of Chas' clothing - jersey, helmet, hat, sunglasses, camelbak, and bike (!), Chris put on all of mine (yep, another little-know-fact: he can fit into a women's small jersey even though he's 6'4!!!), and Chas put on Chris's. Then we got to the summit, where everyone was waiting, and man were they confused. So funny. Rode down into the town of Winthrop (after re-changing clothes). THis part of the ride rocked cause we had about ten miles of serious downhill, going SO fast. Later caught up to Amy, watched her change her flat, and then we rode with her into Winthrop, which was to be our last town and last cell phone service for a few days, where everyone was hanging out, playing minigolf, eating ice-cream, buying books (I got a really cool one called 'Polar Dream' by Helen Thayer about the first solo expedition to a Pole by a woman - skiing to the North magnetic Pole. very interesting, you learn a lot by reading it if you're a science dork like me). Then we waited for FOREVER actually forever, two and a half hours, for everyone else to finally finally finally leave Winthrop, so that we could leave. We then had a pretty dehydrated (no one drank water in Winthrop, BIG mistake) twenty miles into Early Winters, another campsite.
Early Winters WAS AWESOME because there was a big swimming hole in a glacier-melt river that was SOOOOO COLD omigoshness really. But we all jumped in and got our heads under, even Hailey after a lot of persuasion, or maybe jsut a lot of Sam hip-thrusting in his chammys from the other side. We swam to the other side of the hole and climbed up on some rocks, had fun diving off (slippery, kind scary, but def worth it) and swimming back. Some people went back to 'shower' with biodegradeable soap later, but I was pretty wrapped up in reading 'Dharma Bums' by Jack Kerouac. Another really interesting book. Better than Polar Dream by far. And then dinner, THANK YOU DINNER CREW for cooking us dinner on a campstove again, we loveeee youuuuu. And then Bike-and-Build Prom, which was soooo much fun. Except I was exhausted and lame and left pretty early, but either way, asking Hailey to prom with Katy by cutting PROM? out of temp-tatts and putting them on her arm, and rocking the most ridiculous outfit ever, and taking some great pictures (CHAS PUT YOUR PICTURES UP IF YOU ARE BLOG-STALKING ME YOU HAD BETTER), etc. Fun.
Early Winters, WA to Rockport, WA. Riding with Noam, hit the start of the climb half a mile in. Not a long warm up. We climbed for fifteen or so miles, took one break to try to figure out a weird noise on her bike, couldn't figure out, so then we tried to figure it out while riding, so I kept dropping in front of and behind her to tryto figure out what side of her bike the noise was from, and then having her unclip and pedal clipped in and unclipped with different feet, etc - a big distraction from the climb, which was nice, because the climb was steeeep. But crazy beautiful with the Cascade Mountains and cascading waterfalls all around us - took another break later to stand under one. Also fun. It was pretty scary when the road took a big bend in front of us on a switchback, and we could see just how steep the section coming up was...really intimidating, but just go one pedal at a time. The problem, we discovered at the top, was that the bearings in her bottom bracket had gotten grit or something in them and needed to be regreased - at this point, it could wait till the end of the trip. Hit the top of Washington pass, and of course decided to go on a short hike to an awesome lookout over the Cascades. Definitely worth the walk, but maybe not how much time we spent there. I ate an entire Clif bar in one stop - haven't done that all trip I don't think - because I was so hungry at that point. It was not the wisest move though, since I was still on the bet that I could finish the trip without eating any more peanut butter, and most of the rest of my energy bars had peanut butter in them, so I had to be careful. Anyway, sick descent off of Washington pass, hit something in the 40s, then another climb up Rainy pass - not too long of a climb, but still worth posing with the sign at the top! Another CRAZY descent - it just kept going and going, at one point we had an amazing view of Crater Peak, which is THE mountain that I see as the Cascades. Picturesque. Things started to say 'Pacific' and it got really scary - so close to the end. Kept descending along a river for a long while, a lot of pretty waterfalls - looked a lot like 'Fairy Falls' in Yellowstone, that dark rock and ethereal, misty fall. Had lunch at mile 40 - no peanut butter was getting hard - vanilla soy protein powder and grape jelly sandwich was no good at all. A few more ups and downs of hills, then a really steep downhill to Diablo lake, which is bright green. Crazy. Lotta turns, really fun descent. Going 35-40 for a lot of it, so I got to take the lane, which was really fun until an SUV passed the car behind me, but didn't see me, so it almost pushed me off the road. Urgh. Swam in Diablo Lake, lost my Oakleys, found them (woooo relief!), then rode a few more ups and downs through a gorge, following a river the whole way for the rest of the ride. Had to go through a really scary long dark tunnel with Sarah and Adrienne - so afraid a car would zoom in without seeing our taillights. Washington finally started to look like what I thought it was - thick temperate deciduous rainforest, moss hanging off of the trees, etc. It honestly smelled a lot like an NJ forest, with the lichen and leaf mold and ferns and mistyness and mud. It was great, this feeling of 'this is the west, this is the Pacific' and simultaneously, 'this is home'. We passed a diner about 8 miles out of host, saw a bunch of bikes, stopped there, hung out so long that everyone left and we got swept, so then we left. Passed Cascadian Farms, the berry place - there are berries everywhere here, it's so cool. Finally got to host, more swimming (another campground), delicious dinner from Sam's family and Sarah's friend who did Bnb last year. The LONGEST grant discussion ever without deciding anything, ugh. Finally got to hang out a bit then sleep.
Ps Grants: we had $71,000 to donate from our trip, $35k goes to Providence Habitat because they provide our van plus a good orientation - build day, affordable housing talk, etc. $100 goes to most of our hosts to donate to a local affordable housing organization of their choice. $500 goes to each rider to donate to an affordable housing organization of their choice. The rest, $18k, we get to choose where to donate. A bunch of organizations apply to Bike and Build with a detailed grant application asking for between $500 and $10000 (all clustered around the higher end, of course), and we decide how much/if to fund each grant. Grants get given to trips that pass near those organizations, if a college group applies for a grant, their application will not go to a route with riders from that school on it, and also each route gets about the same number of grants. We got ten or eleven grants, so we all had to read about five pages about each grant, and then some of us became 'contact people' to call those organizations and ask them questions about their applications. I was the contact person for Bethlehem and Nazareth Farms in WV.
Rockport, WA to Everett, WA
Our last 'real' ride. We took SOOOO long in the morning because we had no need to go fast - sang our trip song, the Brandi one (look at Noam's blog for lyrics) quite a few times, took some naps, etc. Very relaxed. I rode with Liz and Chris for the whole day, took a coffee break with Kristian and Bribri and Noam, and then a ton of other people showed up later. Really nice riding, we were going pretty darn fast, it was through more of that really thick, enveloping, cool, misty rainforest for the whole morning, soooo nice. Waited so long at lunch, waited for almost the whole group to get in. Dancing, berry picking, just chilling out, great. One small scary part right before lunch - a car was broken on the side of the road and Kristian lent the driver his cell phone - seeing a bunch of bikers stopped around a car and not being able to see what was in front of the car was pretty unnerving, but fortunately all was fine.
After lunch, the really pretty, really fast part ended - the last 25 miles into Everett were on a really busy road, Highway 9 south, I think, and then biking through Everett - some pretty scary city roads, intersections, merging. A lot of 'I know I need to take the lane but this is ridiculous', three or four narrow bridges that were a little dark and no shoulder - turns out that all the riders after us got shuttled over that whole section. Not too surprising.
In Everett, we had to clean up our whole van and trailer - all of the 'it belongs to everyone, we can keep it' items no longer were valid. Big mess everywhere. Lot of old tires thrown out. Brandi went to the car wash - unrecognizable. Also Edgar got taken off at some point. Sad. Another very long grant discussion, then getting kicked out of a few bars with Noam, Chris, Sam, and Spencer in an attempt to hang out with all of the 21+ers in our group. Oh well. And also two Bnbers from our route, but wayyy before us - and 07 and an 04 (!) visited, that was cool.
Everett, WA to Seattle, WA. OUR LAST DAY. The morning was SOOO SLOW it was great. Did a ton of cheers outside, we all biked together through downtown Everett, much to the dismay of all of the cars. Oh man it felt like this day took forever. We were getting on and off of this 'Interurban Bike Path' a ton - pretty confusing, but it was nice to ride as a pack. Took some silly breaks - I think we spent half an hour dancing violently to 'Bad Romance' et al on top of a bridge that went over the interstate. Man, did we get honks. Hilarious. (CHAS PUT YOUR PICTURES UP). (PLEASE). Also we stopped for lunch in a church parking lot (thanks for driving the van Rosemary!!) and it was the longest lunch ever, mainly because we all fell asleep on top of eachother on top of the chips and jelly scattered everywhere. Oops. Bike and Burn Bridges has gotten extensive enough at this point. Finally Gabe and Kristian woke us all up, and we rode along a really pretty bike path along the water for 12 miles into Seattle. Rode through the city for a bit, up THE STEEPEST HILL I could not ride it if I was sitting on my bike, not cause it was too hard, but because my front wheel was pulling up. I stood up and got up it though. And then we got to the host, unpacked, everyone took their cell phones etc out of their jersey pockets, I got so nervous and felt like I do before really big hockey tournament games, like I had to prepare myself for somehting important. Someone said she felt like she was about to get married. Actually, I felt almost exactly like I did before Paige's funeral. Which wasn't sad, just nervous and like I had to act in a very specific way but I had no idea what that way was. The ride from the host site to the beach was so strange. Also it took almost an hour, and it was a six mile ride. We stopped soooo many times. To all catch up to each other, to rehearse Brandi, for the boys to go buy cigars (ew), to all catch up to each other, to all catch up to each other, to all catch up to each other. Heard a store playing 'here comes the sun'. Weird memories from that. I'm getting anxious and hyped up just thinking about it. Finally the last bit of riding in to the park along a boardwalk or sidewalk or something. Could see the crowd of parents and friends way off on the beach. Saw a bunch of 'Go P2S' signs chalked and taped up along the last few hundred yards, that was cool. All riding together screaming. Screaming shouting tipping yelling spinning my pedals saw a 'go Maddy' sign and Noam's family blur by (she didn't see them and I got to point them out to her later, haha), put my bike down really carefully, flung off my Camelback and shoes, and sprinted sprinted sprinted careening swinging yelling sand was flying running in a pack of windmilling limbs into the ocean. Screaming hugging yelling singing jumping arms around each other splashing playing goofing yelling smiling salt water Olympic mountains in the distance dunking singing watching parents on the shore look stern and confused why-dont-they-want-to-hug-me hahahahaha etc finally got out of the water, hung out with the 'orphans club', told eachother how tall we looked, and how grown up, and honey-ive-got-your-favorite-brownies-n-the-car and can-we-take-a-picture i-cant-believe-im-crying are-you-wearing-sunscreen and the rest of that, which was actually really fun, because these people are my family, and it was hilarious. And then talked to Paige's dad for a bit, and then a long while later, and said hi to Noam's fam and took a pic with her, aka tackled her into the ocean (sorry...but not really), and a big thank you to Mallory's dad for buying all of us nice champagne, and to Kristian for driving us all back after we enjoyed it, and it was very nice and peaceful, walking around the beach, looking out across the water, laying on the sand, just knowing that there is actually nothign that i was supposed ot be doing at that point, and sort of feeling weird waves of calm wash over me, and it was just incredible, the sense of 'this is what it is' when i was sitting not talking with a group of riders.
Later dinner that was nice THANKS PARENTS WE APPRECIATE IT but really we do, and showers way later, and then just hangning out at host cause we were sick of getting kicked out of bars. The rest of seattle was really fun and it's a super cool city and this summer was incredible and there's really nothing I can say that will make it make sense, so I won't have any parting words, other than that you should just go do whatever it is and forget everything else, cause it's not important.
Spokane, WA to Wilbur, WA. We got really lost on the way out of Spokane - there's a bunch of highways, and roads under construction, and bridges, and imaginary bike paths, and a river, etc. Ended up with Noam on this crazy busy road - I think Washington highway 2? somehting like that...well anyway, we were on it all day. We played a CRAZY competitive game of g-h-o-s-t - that spelling game that you play on long car rides, and then had the most intense philosophical debate ever. mostly about free will and what controls people and how you think, and a lot of stuff. it was interesting. This was when I discovered that Washington looks just so strange, because, well, it does. I had no idea that the eastern half was a desert. Wilbur was camping at an RV park...THANK YOU to dinner crew for cooking for us, it is so much work when you only have a propane stove.
Wilbur, WA to Omak, WA - I woke up and just really didn't feel like getting out of bed, didn't feel like riding, caring about the trip, just had a lotta doubts. Started riding, had a truck come sort of close and the ride was just not going well, and maybe the paige thing was getting to me, i don't want to blame it on that, but there's no other real reason not to ride your bike. I wasn't riding well at all because i was frustrated, mashing pedals, swerving a bit, etc. when another rider got in the van at mile 9, i did the same. looking back on it, i really wish i rode that whole day, but i'm not sure i could have safely. ps, I'm not making any more Paige/accident related comments on this blog. She's still in all of our thoughts all the time; I don't need to mention it.
Omak, WA to Early Winters, WA - Volunteered to ride sweep with Chas and Chris, so much fun! Oh man oh man but seriously. We had one big mountain pass today, Loup Loup Pass, and it was really long - didn't reach the top until we were 20-something miles in. But fortunately Chris and Chas are very entertaining. Little-known-fact: Chris loves musicals and will sing 'My Fair Lady' songs to you as you go up hills. and Chas and I belted out plenty of Rent songs. And Chris and Chas had a terrific duet of 'I Feel Pretty'. We took some goofy pics, took a TON of breaks cause what else would you do on sweep, and then, right before the summit, we stopped on the side of the road. I put on all of Chas' clothing - jersey, helmet, hat, sunglasses, camelbak, and bike (!), Chris put on all of mine (yep, another little-know-fact: he can fit into a women's small jersey even though he's 6'4!!!), and Chas put on Chris's. Then we got to the summit, where everyone was waiting, and man were they confused. So funny. Rode down into the town of Winthrop (after re-changing clothes). THis part of the ride rocked cause we had about ten miles of serious downhill, going SO fast. Later caught up to Amy, watched her change her flat, and then we rode with her into Winthrop, which was to be our last town and last cell phone service for a few days, where everyone was hanging out, playing minigolf, eating ice-cream, buying books (I got a really cool one called 'Polar Dream' by Helen Thayer about the first solo expedition to a Pole by a woman - skiing to the North magnetic Pole. very interesting, you learn a lot by reading it if you're a science dork like me). Then we waited for FOREVER actually forever, two and a half hours, for everyone else to finally finally finally leave Winthrop, so that we could leave. We then had a pretty dehydrated (no one drank water in Winthrop, BIG mistake) twenty miles into Early Winters, another campsite.
Early Winters WAS AWESOME because there was a big swimming hole in a glacier-melt river that was SOOOOO COLD omigoshness really. But we all jumped in and got our heads under, even Hailey after a lot of persuasion, or maybe jsut a lot of Sam hip-thrusting in his chammys from the other side. We swam to the other side of the hole and climbed up on some rocks, had fun diving off (slippery, kind scary, but def worth it) and swimming back. Some people went back to 'shower' with biodegradeable soap later, but I was pretty wrapped up in reading 'Dharma Bums' by Jack Kerouac. Another really interesting book. Better than Polar Dream by far. And then dinner, THANK YOU DINNER CREW for cooking us dinner on a campstove again, we loveeee youuuuu. And then Bike-and-Build Prom, which was soooo much fun. Except I was exhausted and lame and left pretty early, but either way, asking Hailey to prom with Katy by cutting PROM? out of temp-tatts and putting them on her arm, and rocking the most ridiculous outfit ever, and taking some great pictures (CHAS PUT YOUR PICTURES UP IF YOU ARE BLOG-STALKING ME YOU HAD BETTER), etc. Fun.
Early Winters, WA to Rockport, WA. Riding with Noam, hit the start of the climb half a mile in. Not a long warm up. We climbed for fifteen or so miles, took one break to try to figure out a weird noise on her bike, couldn't figure out, so then we tried to figure it out while riding, so I kept dropping in front of and behind her to tryto figure out what side of her bike the noise was from, and then having her unclip and pedal clipped in and unclipped with different feet, etc - a big distraction from the climb, which was nice, because the climb was steeeep. But crazy beautiful with the Cascade Mountains and cascading waterfalls all around us - took another break later to stand under one. Also fun. It was pretty scary when the road took a big bend in front of us on a switchback, and we could see just how steep the section coming up was...really intimidating, but just go one pedal at a time. The problem, we discovered at the top, was that the bearings in her bottom bracket had gotten grit or something in them and needed to be regreased - at this point, it could wait till the end of the trip. Hit the top of Washington pass, and of course decided to go on a short hike to an awesome lookout over the Cascades. Definitely worth the walk, but maybe not how much time we spent there. I ate an entire Clif bar in one stop - haven't done that all trip I don't think - because I was so hungry at that point. It was not the wisest move though, since I was still on the bet that I could finish the trip without eating any more peanut butter, and most of the rest of my energy bars had peanut butter in them, so I had to be careful. Anyway, sick descent off of Washington pass, hit something in the 40s, then another climb up Rainy pass - not too long of a climb, but still worth posing with the sign at the top! Another CRAZY descent - it just kept going and going, at one point we had an amazing view of Crater Peak, which is THE mountain that I see as the Cascades. Picturesque. Things started to say 'Pacific' and it got really scary - so close to the end. Kept descending along a river for a long while, a lot of pretty waterfalls - looked a lot like 'Fairy Falls' in Yellowstone, that dark rock and ethereal, misty fall. Had lunch at mile 40 - no peanut butter was getting hard - vanilla soy protein powder and grape jelly sandwich was no good at all. A few more ups and downs of hills, then a really steep downhill to Diablo lake, which is bright green. Crazy. Lotta turns, really fun descent. Going 35-40 for a lot of it, so I got to take the lane, which was really fun until an SUV passed the car behind me, but didn't see me, so it almost pushed me off the road. Urgh. Swam in Diablo Lake, lost my Oakleys, found them (woooo relief!), then rode a few more ups and downs through a gorge, following a river the whole way for the rest of the ride. Had to go through a really scary long dark tunnel with Sarah and Adrienne - so afraid a car would zoom in without seeing our taillights. Washington finally started to look like what I thought it was - thick temperate deciduous rainforest, moss hanging off of the trees, etc. It honestly smelled a lot like an NJ forest, with the lichen and leaf mold and ferns and mistyness and mud. It was great, this feeling of 'this is the west, this is the Pacific' and simultaneously, 'this is home'. We passed a diner about 8 miles out of host, saw a bunch of bikes, stopped there, hung out so long that everyone left and we got swept, so then we left. Passed Cascadian Farms, the berry place - there are berries everywhere here, it's so cool. Finally got to host, more swimming (another campground), delicious dinner from Sam's family and Sarah's friend who did Bnb last year. The LONGEST grant discussion ever without deciding anything, ugh. Finally got to hang out a bit then sleep.
Ps Grants: we had $71,000 to donate from our trip, $35k goes to Providence Habitat because they provide our van plus a good orientation - build day, affordable housing talk, etc. $100 goes to most of our hosts to donate to a local affordable housing organization of their choice. $500 goes to each rider to donate to an affordable housing organization of their choice. The rest, $18k, we get to choose where to donate. A bunch of organizations apply to Bike and Build with a detailed grant application asking for between $500 and $10000 (all clustered around the higher end, of course), and we decide how much/if to fund each grant. Grants get given to trips that pass near those organizations, if a college group applies for a grant, their application will not go to a route with riders from that school on it, and also each route gets about the same number of grants. We got ten or eleven grants, so we all had to read about five pages about each grant, and then some of us became 'contact people' to call those organizations and ask them questions about their applications. I was the contact person for Bethlehem and Nazareth Farms in WV.
Rockport, WA to Everett, WA
Our last 'real' ride. We took SOOOO long in the morning because we had no need to go fast - sang our trip song, the Brandi one (look at Noam's blog for lyrics) quite a few times, took some naps, etc. Very relaxed. I rode with Liz and Chris for the whole day, took a coffee break with Kristian and Bribri and Noam, and then a ton of other people showed up later. Really nice riding, we were going pretty darn fast, it was through more of that really thick, enveloping, cool, misty rainforest for the whole morning, soooo nice. Waited so long at lunch, waited for almost the whole group to get in. Dancing, berry picking, just chilling out, great. One small scary part right before lunch - a car was broken on the side of the road and Kristian lent the driver his cell phone - seeing a bunch of bikers stopped around a car and not being able to see what was in front of the car was pretty unnerving, but fortunately all was fine.
After lunch, the really pretty, really fast part ended - the last 25 miles into Everett were on a really busy road, Highway 9 south, I think, and then biking through Everett - some pretty scary city roads, intersections, merging. A lot of 'I know I need to take the lane but this is ridiculous', three or four narrow bridges that were a little dark and no shoulder - turns out that all the riders after us got shuttled over that whole section. Not too surprising.
In Everett, we had to clean up our whole van and trailer - all of the 'it belongs to everyone, we can keep it' items no longer were valid. Big mess everywhere. Lot of old tires thrown out. Brandi went to the car wash - unrecognizable. Also Edgar got taken off at some point. Sad. Another very long grant discussion, then getting kicked out of a few bars with Noam, Chris, Sam, and Spencer in an attempt to hang out with all of the 21+ers in our group. Oh well. And also two Bnbers from our route, but wayyy before us - and 07 and an 04 (!) visited, that was cool.
Everett, WA to Seattle, WA. OUR LAST DAY. The morning was SOOO SLOW it was great. Did a ton of cheers outside, we all biked together through downtown Everett, much to the dismay of all of the cars. Oh man it felt like this day took forever. We were getting on and off of this 'Interurban Bike Path' a ton - pretty confusing, but it was nice to ride as a pack. Took some silly breaks - I think we spent half an hour dancing violently to 'Bad Romance' et al on top of a bridge that went over the interstate. Man, did we get honks. Hilarious. (CHAS PUT YOUR PICTURES UP). (PLEASE). Also we stopped for lunch in a church parking lot (thanks for driving the van Rosemary!!) and it was the longest lunch ever, mainly because we all fell asleep on top of eachother on top of the chips and jelly scattered everywhere. Oops. Bike and Burn Bridges has gotten extensive enough at this point. Finally Gabe and Kristian woke us all up, and we rode along a really pretty bike path along the water for 12 miles into Seattle. Rode through the city for a bit, up THE STEEPEST HILL I could not ride it if I was sitting on my bike, not cause it was too hard, but because my front wheel was pulling up. I stood up and got up it though. And then we got to the host, unpacked, everyone took their cell phones etc out of their jersey pockets, I got so nervous and felt like I do before really big hockey tournament games, like I had to prepare myself for somehting important. Someone said she felt like she was about to get married. Actually, I felt almost exactly like I did before Paige's funeral. Which wasn't sad, just nervous and like I had to act in a very specific way but I had no idea what that way was. The ride from the host site to the beach was so strange. Also it took almost an hour, and it was a six mile ride. We stopped soooo many times. To all catch up to each other, to rehearse Brandi, for the boys to go buy cigars (ew), to all catch up to each other, to all catch up to each other, to all catch up to each other. Heard a store playing 'here comes the sun'. Weird memories from that. I'm getting anxious and hyped up just thinking about it. Finally the last bit of riding in to the park along a boardwalk or sidewalk or something. Could see the crowd of parents and friends way off on the beach. Saw a bunch of 'Go P2S' signs chalked and taped up along the last few hundred yards, that was cool. All riding together screaming. Screaming shouting tipping yelling spinning my pedals saw a 'go Maddy' sign and Noam's family blur by (she didn't see them and I got to point them out to her later, haha), put my bike down really carefully, flung off my Camelback and shoes, and sprinted sprinted sprinted careening swinging yelling sand was flying running in a pack of windmilling limbs into the ocean. Screaming hugging yelling singing jumping arms around each other splashing playing goofing yelling smiling salt water Olympic mountains in the distance dunking singing watching parents on the shore look stern and confused why-dont-they-want-to-hug-me hahahahaha etc finally got out of the water, hung out with the 'orphans club', told eachother how tall we looked, and how grown up, and honey-ive-got-your-favorite-brownies-n-the-car and can-we-take-a-picture i-cant-believe-im-crying are-you-wearing-sunscreen and the rest of that, which was actually really fun, because these people are my family, and it was hilarious. And then talked to Paige's dad for a bit, and then a long while later, and said hi to Noam's fam and took a pic with her, aka tackled her into the ocean (sorry...but not really), and a big thank you to Mallory's dad for buying all of us nice champagne, and to Kristian for driving us all back after we enjoyed it, and it was very nice and peaceful, walking around the beach, looking out across the water, laying on the sand, just knowing that there is actually nothign that i was supposed ot be doing at that point, and sort of feeling weird waves of calm wash over me, and it was just incredible, the sense of 'this is what it is' when i was sitting not talking with a group of riders.
Later dinner that was nice THANKS PARENTS WE APPRECIATE IT but really we do, and showers way later, and then just hangning out at host cause we were sick of getting kicked out of bars. The rest of seattle was really fun and it's a super cool city and this summer was incredible and there's really nothing I can say that will make it make sense, so I won't have any parting words, other than that you should just go do whatever it is and forget everything else, cause it's not important.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
bike and build presentation
hey donors/supporters/followers/etc
i promise to actually update the entire washington section of the trip sometime
but first, i'm giving a presentation about bike and build/this trip/my summer with pictures and sassafras the duck, aka my bike, will be there, etc, and oh hey, me, yay. at blue ridge mountain sports in princeton, which is the outdoors store in princeton shopping center that gave me some gear for this trip (thanks guys!) and is letting me give a presentation there. so i'll give that august 29th at 4pm, it will take maybe half an hour? 45 min with questions? something like that. and you can see my pretty tan lines. they are less bad now for some reason - probably all those swim breaks. but seriously, come see it, i promise real pictures for real! and tell friends/any future-interested-in-bike-and-build people, or really just anyone in general. it's all good.
i promise to actually update the entire washington section of the trip sometime
but first, i'm giving a presentation about bike and build/this trip/my summer with pictures and sassafras the duck, aka my bike, will be there, etc, and oh hey, me, yay. at blue ridge mountain sports in princeton, which is the outdoors store in princeton shopping center that gave me some gear for this trip (thanks guys!) and is letting me give a presentation there. so i'll give that august 29th at 4pm, it will take maybe half an hour? 45 min with questions? something like that. and you can see my pretty tan lines. they are less bad now for some reason - probably all those swim breaks. but seriously, come see it, i promise real pictures for real! and tell friends/any future-interested-in-bike-and-build people, or really just anyone in general. it's all good.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Omak, Washington
main point: Washington state looks weird. Seriously WEIRD. Well, not so much weird as just not at all what you'd expect it to look like. We were all planning on Pacific Northwest rainforest with thick trees and lush green vines hanging everywhere, maybe a coupla redwoods, moss, who knows. Nope. Honestly, it looks as if Iowa's rolling seas of soybeans had a love-child with the wheat fields and disorientingly dark interruptions of South Dakota. Add in hay allergies (itch itch) from biking through the giant fields of bleached, no longer golden, more like a whale's bones sitting out in the sun too long, dry, brittle, whitish WHEAT, and you have got not at all what we were planning on. Oh, and Washington's been having a heat wave, and we are finally out of elevation, so it is hot again. Hot, dry, itchy, lost, but we hit a serious Cascades mountain pass tomorrow, and I am excited for that. Going to ride sweep with Chris and Chas so we can sleep in (sweep naps are the best) and take our sweet, sweet, heckuvalotta time going up it. A lot of people have been plagued with storms of flat tires recently - Sam and Mary both had five today? - so we're thinking it will be one of the more drawn-out sweep days we will have.
But catching up from before. The morning from Coeur d'Alene, ID to Spokane, WA. It was only a 38 mile ride and almost all on bikepaths...should have been short, right? Cut to the chase: we arrived at 2:45 pm when the deadline for getting your laundry in was 3...but most people got there around the same time! Brittany and Kaitlin organized a HUGE 25-item scavenger hunt for us all, so we didn't get out of Coeur d'Alene until 10 am, since we were so competitive about getting items. We were also in teams of 6 that we had to remain in all day - big groups are always slow. Maybe our best achievement, or at least most fun one, was getting some strangers, three young ladies in front of a coffeeshop, to do our route's cheer with us, on video. FUN. Afterwards, we of course owed an explanation to the middle-aged couple sitting next to us...after we explained and gave them Bike and Build business cards, the woman asked where to donate, but then here husband interjected and gave us $50 for purposes that I won't specify, but will say that the money was well enjoyed.
Other interesting detours included stopping for KFC at 10:30 am and watching Brian and Chas both eat friedchicken-cheese-friedchicken sandwiches, and an AMAZING swimming break in the river that runs into Spokane. I was never less regretted riding 13 miles in soaked chammys. Also, the Washington stateline sign was on the interstate, I-90, that the bikepath ran along, but we obviously had no way of getting onto the interstate safely, let along onto the median between the two directoins where the sign was. We were sooooo determined to get a stateline picture though. So we rode back and forth on the bike path under the bridge of the interstate figuring out where the sign and median were, and then climbed two walls that were well over 45 degrees steep of concrete to get to the median. Thank goodness for mountain-biking cleated shoes! Such a well-earned state sign. Nothing interesting in Spokane except for Laundry Day. Oh wait just kidding I got interviewed for local news about Bike-and-Build, along with the Anthonys, Spencer, and Chas. I think Anthony D and I are tied for press comments/sound bites at this point. Wait JK i think I'm one ahead of him. We'll count at the end.
Ok I'm tired I'll update the washington days later. Night
But catching up from before. The morning from Coeur d'Alene, ID to Spokane, WA. It was only a 38 mile ride and almost all on bikepaths...should have been short, right? Cut to the chase: we arrived at 2:45 pm when the deadline for getting your laundry in was 3...but most people got there around the same time! Brittany and Kaitlin organized a HUGE 25-item scavenger hunt for us all, so we didn't get out of Coeur d'Alene until 10 am, since we were so competitive about getting items. We were also in teams of 6 that we had to remain in all day - big groups are always slow. Maybe our best achievement, or at least most fun one, was getting some strangers, three young ladies in front of a coffeeshop, to do our route's cheer with us, on video. FUN. Afterwards, we of course owed an explanation to the middle-aged couple sitting next to us...after we explained and gave them Bike and Build business cards, the woman asked where to donate, but then here husband interjected and gave us $50 for purposes that I won't specify, but will say that the money was well enjoyed.
Other interesting detours included stopping for KFC at 10:30 am and watching Brian and Chas both eat friedchicken-cheese-friedchicken sandwiches, and an AMAZING swimming break in the river that runs into Spokane. I was never less regretted riding 13 miles in soaked chammys. Also, the Washington stateline sign was on the interstate, I-90, that the bikepath ran along, but we obviously had no way of getting onto the interstate safely, let along onto the median between the two directoins where the sign was. We were sooooo determined to get a stateline picture though. So we rode back and forth on the bike path under the bridge of the interstate figuring out where the sign and median were, and then climbed two walls that were well over 45 degrees steep of concrete to get to the median. Thank goodness for mountain-biking cleated shoes! Such a well-earned state sign. Nothing interesting in Spokane except for Laundry Day. Oh wait just kidding I got interviewed for local news about Bike-and-Build, along with the Anthonys, Spencer, and Chas. I think Anthony D and I are tied for press comments/sound bites at this point. Wait JK i think I'm one ahead of him. We'll count at the end.
Ok I'm tired I'll update the washington days later. Night
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Coeur d'Alene
Hey guys, We're currently in Coeur d'Alene Idaho, which is super pretty but I think I like Missoula better. The lake here is awesome, we had a short ride in yesterday so then we went swimming, some people rented one of those paddle-boat-style water-bike things - do you not get enough of biking on this trip? Maybe not, it is crazy fun. Anyway, lotsa shopping - Brittany, Adrienne, and I bought real skirts (whoa!) that are supercool from Lucky Monkey Trading Co - also Vidya got a dress and later Katy got a skirt. Went to a coffeeshop with Sarah, Anthony, Noam, and Katy, walked around (Bribri left because the coffeeshop was too cold - false), hung out, etc, talked for hours, super-nice chill friendly evening. Beautiful weather. Love watching all of the skiplanes take off from the lake and swoop up immediately to avoid the mountains. Happy birthday yesterday to Jake as well. Happy new-tattoo to Gabe, I'm sure it's on someone's blog and all of our minds: I [BIKE symbol] for you, Paige.
So two days ago was the 'ride' from Superior, MT to Wallace, ID - half of the ride was on the interstate, so the leaders decided that enough riders would be uncomfortable with that and want to get shuttled over the interstate section that they would just scrap the ride entirely and shuttle us all of the way. I would much rather have biked it, but I understand their decision; they are all in a pretty tough place as leaders right now anyway, and I really appreciate them helping us continue on to Seattle. I was really sad to miss biking Lookout Pass though. Watching these sights from the van is no fun at all. Also I am pretty uncomfortable in cars right now; I feel a lot safer on my bike, and I've heard some other riders say the same. Whatevers...Wallace is a pretty dull small town - used to be a silver mining capital...we all took five hour-or-so long naps there...nice...More affordable housing presentations. more of those in Superior, MT as well. Also learned about the Fuller Foundation (formed by Mr. Fuller as an alternative to Habitat for Humanity in the interest of keeping donation money invested locally. Mr Fuller was actually the founder of Habitat but his opinions often differed from board members, causing him to separate from the organization) from a local eating at our dinner table. He was also in the Navy as a pilot for 40 years - flew planes too big to land on aircraft carriers (used for submarine intelligence) so he never actually set foot on a ship during his 40-year tenure.
The ride from Wallace to Coeur d'Alene yesterday was nice - largely on bike paths which was fun - got shuttled over more interstate - really didn't want to miss 4th of July pass either but whatever. We'll actually get to bike mountain passes in the Cascades. Due to the delay in shuttle times, Mallory (who i was riding with) and I had to wait about an hour and a half for the shuttle, so everyone there went crazy with our huge surplus of temporary tattoos (we love those!) and got covered in them. Amy, Olivia, and Sam probably had the most, area-wise, since they were jsut putting on whole sheets. My neck, right arm, both forearms, calves, right shoulder, and lower back all got hit though. Noam had a lightening bolt on her forehead...Harry Potter wooo
Today we were supposed to build with Coeur d'Alene Habitat for Humanity, but they had not yet secured a building permit, so we instead split up and worked in local Habitat Restores - stores that resell donated or discount goods, mostly furniture and construciton supplies. My group worked in the Spokane one, moving cabinets, sorting paint, etc. Fun.
So two days ago was the 'ride' from Superior, MT to Wallace, ID - half of the ride was on the interstate, so the leaders decided that enough riders would be uncomfortable with that and want to get shuttled over the interstate section that they would just scrap the ride entirely and shuttle us all of the way. I would much rather have biked it, but I understand their decision; they are all in a pretty tough place as leaders right now anyway, and I really appreciate them helping us continue on to Seattle. I was really sad to miss biking Lookout Pass though. Watching these sights from the van is no fun at all. Also I am pretty uncomfortable in cars right now; I feel a lot safer on my bike, and I've heard some other riders say the same. Whatevers...Wallace is a pretty dull small town - used to be a silver mining capital...we all took five hour-or-so long naps there...nice...More affordable housing presentations. more of those in Superior, MT as well. Also learned about the Fuller Foundation (formed by Mr. Fuller as an alternative to Habitat for Humanity in the interest of keeping donation money invested locally. Mr Fuller was actually the founder of Habitat but his opinions often differed from board members, causing him to separate from the organization) from a local eating at our dinner table. He was also in the Navy as a pilot for 40 years - flew planes too big to land on aircraft carriers (used for submarine intelligence) so he never actually set foot on a ship during his 40-year tenure.
The ride from Wallace to Coeur d'Alene yesterday was nice - largely on bike paths which was fun - got shuttled over more interstate - really didn't want to miss 4th of July pass either but whatever. We'll actually get to bike mountain passes in the Cascades. Due to the delay in shuttle times, Mallory (who i was riding with) and I had to wait about an hour and a half for the shuttle, so everyone there went crazy with our huge surplus of temporary tattoos (we love those!) and got covered in them. Amy, Olivia, and Sam probably had the most, area-wise, since they were jsut putting on whole sheets. My neck, right arm, both forearms, calves, right shoulder, and lower back all got hit though. Noam had a lightening bolt on her forehead...Harry Potter wooo
Today we were supposed to build with Coeur d'Alene Habitat for Humanity, but they had not yet secured a building permit, so we instead split up and worked in local Habitat Restores - stores that resell donated or discount goods, mostly furniture and construciton supplies. My group worked in the Spokane one, moving cabinets, sorting paint, etc. Fun.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
just kidding
ahhh since we have computers (sort of) and since my day just got a million times better i feel like i should say that. adrienne sam ben getsie-face spencie and i just went swimming in the river that goes through superior, montana, and it was not too cool and very clean and we actually all showered in it (shampoo, conditioner, bodywash, loofa, et al!) since our showers are supercold, and just goofed off and splashed around and it was terrific! it's warm here and the air is soooo dry that you dry off really quickly; it's great, yay yay yay!
another assigned blog!
hey, i'm assigned to write the bike and build blog again today -
Hey guys, So we got up in St. Anthony's Parish in Missoula, MT, which if the previous blogger forgot to mention, is awesome. Had breakfast at a nearby Lutheran church - good food, nice people - not a big surprise. There was a long prayer this morning; I am starting to chafe a bit at the amount of Christianity presented to us as if we were majority active Christians. But obviously we are all very respectful and really appreciate the resources given us; we couldn't do this without them.
We all got helmet mirrors sent from the Bike-and-Build office today; I guess to make people more comfortable riding since the accident. They take a few miles getting used to but they are pretty cool. Sort of give you a headache though.
To be honest, I really didn't enjoy the beginning of today's ride and I was planning on vanning myself the next time the van passed, up until mile 15. I just haven't had fun riding since the accident and if I don't care if I'm riding my bike and I'm not enjoying it, I'm not really sure why I should be. Not that the van is the best place to be either. Then I rode ahead without a group for a bit and that was better; there's always a tradeoff between companionship and biking at your own style and pace. The first place at which we were supposed to get on the interstate (first interstate of the trip) was under construction, and there was only one lane of traffic with no shoulder in the direction we were headed - not safe for biking. Hailey in the van shuttled us over that two mile section. Unfortunately, shuttling takes a while (disassembling and loading and unloading bikes), so we were split into our shuttling groups for the rest of the day. Biking on the interstate for the first time (two 5-mile segments) wasn't bad at all, since we normally ride on roads with just as many fast trucks, and some of those roads have less of a shoulder than interstates do.
Lunch was lunch - our giant 'box-of-fat' was present - thanks mail-drops! We also now have accumulated five or so 'box-of-crap's, which are full of random things that no one really needs but no one wants to throw away. Also a chair, a tatami mat, four or so cribbage boards, etc. We have too much stuff. Weird how one minivan-sized trailer can have more stuff than 29 people can use.
Also calculated on the ride that one case of peanut butter (whole foods donated a ton of cases of peanut butter) has about 40,000 calories.
100 calories/tablespoon * 16 tablespoons/cup * 2 cups/jar * 12 jars/case = 38,400 calories. We go through a lot of peanut butter. definitely more than one case a week, probably one and a half or two cases? not sure, i can't remember how many we started out with.
The last few miles of the ride were ok; pretty, not many cars, not on or right next to the interstate, near a river, took some fun 'totem pole' pictures with Anthony and Adrienne and our bikes. Probably going to go jump in the river soon. It is crazy pretty country out here. Dark dark trees and hills, bleached hay, dark river, light green grass, quickly changing sky.
Hey guys, So we got up in St. Anthony's Parish in Missoula, MT, which if the previous blogger forgot to mention, is awesome. Had breakfast at a nearby Lutheran church - good food, nice people - not a big surprise. There was a long prayer this morning; I am starting to chafe a bit at the amount of Christianity presented to us as if we were majority active Christians. But obviously we are all very respectful and really appreciate the resources given us; we couldn't do this without them.
We all got helmet mirrors sent from the Bike-and-Build office today; I guess to make people more comfortable riding since the accident. They take a few miles getting used to but they are pretty cool. Sort of give you a headache though.
To be honest, I really didn't enjoy the beginning of today's ride and I was planning on vanning myself the next time the van passed, up until mile 15. I just haven't had fun riding since the accident and if I don't care if I'm riding my bike and I'm not enjoying it, I'm not really sure why I should be. Not that the van is the best place to be either. Then I rode ahead without a group for a bit and that was better; there's always a tradeoff between companionship and biking at your own style and pace. The first place at which we were supposed to get on the interstate (first interstate of the trip) was under construction, and there was only one lane of traffic with no shoulder in the direction we were headed - not safe for biking. Hailey in the van shuttled us over that two mile section. Unfortunately, shuttling takes a while (disassembling and loading and unloading bikes), so we were split into our shuttling groups for the rest of the day. Biking on the interstate for the first time (two 5-mile segments) wasn't bad at all, since we normally ride on roads with just as many fast trucks, and some of those roads have less of a shoulder than interstates do.
Lunch was lunch - our giant 'box-of-fat' was present - thanks mail-drops! We also now have accumulated five or so 'box-of-crap's, which are full of random things that no one really needs but no one wants to throw away. Also a chair, a tatami mat, four or so cribbage boards, etc. We have too much stuff. Weird how one minivan-sized trailer can have more stuff than 29 people can use.
Also calculated on the ride that one case of peanut butter (whole foods donated a ton of cases of peanut butter) has about 40,000 calories.
100 calories/tablespoon * 16 tablespoons/cup * 2 cups/jar * 12 jars/case = 38,400 calories. We go through a lot of peanut butter. definitely more than one case a week, probably one and a half or two cases? not sure, i can't remember how many we started out with.
The last few miles of the ride were ok; pretty, not many cars, not on or right next to the interstate, near a river, took some fun 'totem pole' pictures with Anthony and Adrienne and our bikes. Probably going to go jump in the river soon. It is crazy pretty country out here. Dark dark trees and hills, bleached hay, dark river, light green grass, quickly changing sky.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
whoa misSOULa montana
camping in Lincoln was fun. i feel like any of my post about rides are gettng repetitive so i'll keep this short. the morning was cold. the first forty miles were ok and it was nice to be descending but the road/traffic wasn't always great, but it was ok. as a group overall we're still in-and-out of tenseness during rides; no fun. lunch at a roadside reststop. our newly-named 'box-of-fat' was there - a giant cardboard box (no really, it's pretty huge) of mail-dropped cookies et al. the last forty miles got more and more tense, at least for me - it was all on the same road, but traffic picked up and so did a headwind and rumble strips. thanks to katy and theise for riding with me. and for catching me spacing out and almost going on an interstate entrance ramp. oops. traffic entering missoula (not via the interstate) was still sort of hectic since we didn't have real cue sheets since the whole ride previous to that was on one road, montana-200. montana, MT, empty.
missoula is super young and hip and probably the coolest city of all. 80% of stores are bookstores, breweries, coffeeshops, bike shops, or outdoor stores - definitely a bnb oriented town. the population is also bnb-oriented - young, active, outdoorsy, a little funky looking, and let's admit it, predominantly white. i have to say though, i was weirded about by walking through a city/town/really any establishment post-ride, pre-shower, with other bnbers, in my jersey and thrift store retro swim trunks, with a mohawk and crazy tan lines and temp tatts, and not getting weird looks. i almost caught myself wondering what was wrong with them.
adventure cycling (check it out online) is also based in missoula. the small nonprofit serves to facilitate basically everything related to adventurous cycling trips - bike-style traffic and shoulder-width maps, organizing and keping track of the transam route, advising cyclists and giving them free ice cream and talking to them about different aspects of past present future trips, even keeping a bible of houses and churches etc that will allow cyclists to eat, shower, or pitch a tent there. there's a website called warmshowers or something like that that does a similar thing. anyway, we met a bunch of awesome people there. definitely opened my eyes to the scale and variation of potential adventures.
SO MANY CYCLISTS HERE ITS CRAZY ITS AWESOME I THINK I SEE MORE BIKERS THAN CARS. PLEASE PLEASE TRY TO REPLICATE THIS, like, cycling not just becuase it's great, but also practically - to work, to lunch, to a friend's house, to a party, to the doctors, to pick up your kids from school, to buy groceries, on errands, to go get gas (jussssst kidddinggggg) etc
we had a big group grief counselor session with tamarack grief counseling, based in missoula last night, pretty productive. also smaller individual sessions today as needed. i think a bnb alum's parent or something like that donated the money for the services - thank you bnb alum network!
we also had a habitat build day today in a harry potter-street named themed neighborhood. muggle way, hermione ave, diagon i-dont-need-to-say-it, etc. cute houses too. i worked with ben and the anthony's clearing rocks and packing dirt and installing flashing so that a concrete porch and ramp could be installed in a house for a family with a child with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair. we got to use a jumping-jack - a jackhammer with a flat bottom for tamping earth down. really exciting but also nervewracking because it was really powerful - there were a few cuts on our hands after using it, just from how much it shook around. cool though.
man i want to live in missoula.
missoula is super young and hip and probably the coolest city of all. 80% of stores are bookstores, breweries, coffeeshops, bike shops, or outdoor stores - definitely a bnb oriented town. the population is also bnb-oriented - young, active, outdoorsy, a little funky looking, and let's admit it, predominantly white. i have to say though, i was weirded about by walking through a city/town/really any establishment post-ride, pre-shower, with other bnbers, in my jersey and thrift store retro swim trunks, with a mohawk and crazy tan lines and temp tatts, and not getting weird looks. i almost caught myself wondering what was wrong with them.
adventure cycling (check it out online) is also based in missoula. the small nonprofit serves to facilitate basically everything related to adventurous cycling trips - bike-style traffic and shoulder-width maps, organizing and keping track of the transam route, advising cyclists and giving them free ice cream and talking to them about different aspects of past present future trips, even keeping a bible of houses and churches etc that will allow cyclists to eat, shower, or pitch a tent there. there's a website called warmshowers or something like that that does a similar thing. anyway, we met a bunch of awesome people there. definitely opened my eyes to the scale and variation of potential adventures.
SO MANY CYCLISTS HERE ITS CRAZY ITS AWESOME I THINK I SEE MORE BIKERS THAN CARS. PLEASE PLEASE TRY TO REPLICATE THIS, like, cycling not just becuase it's great, but also practically - to work, to lunch, to a friend's house, to a party, to the doctors, to pick up your kids from school, to buy groceries, on errands, to go get gas (jussssst kidddinggggg) etc
we had a big group grief counselor session with tamarack grief counseling, based in missoula last night, pretty productive. also smaller individual sessions today as needed. i think a bnb alum's parent or something like that donated the money for the services - thank you bnb alum network!
we also had a habitat build day today in a harry potter-street named themed neighborhood. muggle way, hermione ave, diagon i-dont-need-to-say-it, etc. cute houses too. i worked with ben and the anthony's clearing rocks and packing dirt and installing flashing so that a concrete porch and ramp could be installed in a house for a family with a child with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair. we got to use a jumping-jack - a jackhammer with a flat bottom for tamping earth down. really exciting but also nervewracking because it was really powerful - there were a few cuts on our hands after using it, just from how much it shook around. cool though.
man i want to live in missoula.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Campingggg
So a few more days of posts to catch up on. First, day off in west yellowstone which was awesome! I met up with my aunt Mary and uncle Lyle and Noam came along too - we had a great brunch that they brought in a park in west yellowstone, then drove partway up sawtelle peak in Idaho and hiked along the continental divide ridgeline near mount Jefferson - super pretty, awesome views, fun rock scrambling, etc. Then lunch at a nature conservancy post on the way back, heard lots about Idaho and the surrounding parks, not going to update on all of that, I'm exhausted. Drove into yellowstone, I've been there before so I napped in the truck with aunt mary, noam and uncle Lyle went to look at paint pots. We all took a spin around old faithful inn and watched the geyser erupt, cool. Saw some elk, almost ran into a buffalo, had good times, got pizza. Awesome day, I really should post more, but seriously it was great.
Then the ride into bozeman the next day - 90 miles, it was below forty for the first thirty or so miles - it was COLD. Riding with hassie, it was fun, we cheered about bears and took in the incredibleviews. This part of the ride was in yellowstone NAtl park - scary ridig with no shoulder and really fast cars, trucks. Ate lunch sitting in the van, freezing still. Warmed ip after, stripped down to normal riding clothes around mile 55 while chilling by the banks of the galatin river; SO pretty. Tried to whitewater raft partnof the day, but even a donation magic success of getting 50 percent off of the price still meant that the excursion would take too long. We were having a really fun day, since there were two long climbs in the beginning, butthe rest was long and flat. Rode part of the day joined up with Mary, noam, gabe, and his corider from two years ago, Liz. We were having a really good time until a semi cut me off after I took the lane on a turn, then it forced Mary and Liz to the curb, and almost hit gabe. Hence the last seven miles were terrifying and we were on a really busy road with a lot of trucks and fast cars. Pretty shook up.
Bought a new camelbak bladder in Bozeman. Liz took us all out for pizza, it was really good. Had a good group session with a grief counselor/sports peak performance coach at the host. Bozemans a really cool town.
Next day was the ride to Helena, I've been pretty stressed out about riding and stuff in general so I took a mental health day in the van. Based on the number of other riders that ended up in there throughout the day, I probably wouldn't have finished the ride anyway... Gabe was really good about it all, he bought a bunch of avocados and onions and limes and stuff so we made guacamole while the van was driving for second lunch - fun. Saw a herd of antelopes. Crazy pretty country.
The people in Bozeman and Helena finally look like what I'm used to - punk and hipster kids, preps, Urban clothes in general. I am not used to the Iowa/Midwest look of blue plaid cotton shortsleeve collared shirts.
Today was the ride into Lincoln, we crossed the continental divide again, not sure which time this is but the pass was less steep and slightly lower than the Teton pass. Really pretty day. Started out the ride with Olivia, but she had to go into he van for knee problems, so we waited for a while for the van to get there, I almost got swept. So then I hammerred for twenty miles soooo hard by myself, it was really fun. Got up the pass pretty quickly to lunch, hung out for a long time waiting for everyone to get in, we were having a dance party and playing twister and taking pictures etc. Fun. Mary and I climbed onto the van and danced. The end of the day was quick and downhill, fun and super fast, but almost got buzzed by a truck again, they are so scary. Also Paige controls the weather, group joke, but for real. Pretty funny. On the downside, I get a panic attack a little bit any time there's a group of riders hanging out in a ditch on the side of the road, because that's how a lot of us found out.
Anyway, we got to see the love of the bnb community today when we got a million packages at maildrop from other trips, riders, riders from five years ago, their parents, etc. Got some custom water bottles, hilarious pics of Paige, ton of junk food, funny letters. Really great.
Drive safe; ride safer.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Catching up
So I forgot to say that on the second ride to Lincoln, antony taught us all how a cockney accent works, and we played around with it (Sam's the best at playing along with it) for the rest of the day.
7/28 riding to Chadron, sam and Hassan were the appointed cruise directors and allowed plenty of watching Friday Night Lights and fun contests. Anthony ate almost a pound of spam in one minute. We also stopped at a rest stop expressly so that we could have a dill pickle speed eating contest. It was gross. And later there were rockpaperscissors contests, ninja contests, and others. Fun. But we were all so stir crazy by the ride's end that we had to stop in alliance, Nebraska for a ten minute "run around and have a crazy dance party on a table" break before we could finish the ride. It was getting desperate. Can't remember anything interesting happening in Chadron.
7/29 bus ride from chadron to dubois, Wyoming. We met up back with our route and a maildrop in Dubois. Another long bus ride. The last time I ever take a bus with thirty hyperactive young people who have been deprived of exercise for a week. Ever. Wyoming is so beautiful it was killing me to drive through it. Some day I am going back and riding those 370 miles that we missed. Hopefully next summer.
Anyway, got to Dubois in time for a short shakedown ride so everyone could get used to their bikes again. Definitely feeling the altitude - we never had a chance to slowly adjust. Maildrop yay, also other bnb trips or friends of bnb sent us a lot of care packages and individual letters (each rider got letters from a few other bnb riders, really cool).
On a side note, my camelback is sooo flaired out. It has a bunch of Paige-related ribbons, an American flag sewn on, a plastic bicycle pin, a Wooster fire department patch, a Smokey the Bear with airline wings pin, a pair of turquoise star-shaped sunglasses, a Nebraska sherriffs badge, and a biking campaign button. Oh and it's green camo-patterned to start. Yay.
7/30 oh man I turn nineteen! Still the second-youngest on bnb... Haha so anyway getting ready for the first morning ride in a while took everyone a long time, and I was on cleanup crew, so that took extra long, and the lawn in front of the church had these sprinklers that kept making us move our bikes, and everyone was jumpy for the first ride, and it was cold so I had to go grab armwarmers and tights, etc. Stressful morning, Kaitlin noam Anthony and I were freezing and at least a bit anxious about our first big pass, the Togwotee Pass. The beginning was definitely taxing but not as bad as expected. Also it was such amazing scenery that it was really easy to get distracted. But then, drumroll/yay, we ran into a construction zone that was closed to bikers and were driven the last four miles in a construction pickup truck!
Incidentally, we were also having a picture scavenger hunt and one of the items was pic with construction worker. Check.
At the top, we faked a 'riding on water' pic on a lake in Shoshone Natl forest. Water pic, check.
And of course we took plenty of pics of the "warning: 6% grade, 17 miles" sign. Best sign everrrr and a fun crazy quick descent. The Tetons suddenly appeared over a ridge, WOW. Been there before, but getting to bike all day until you're eventually in their shadow? Yay. Stopped to take some Tetons/bikelift pics, wildflower pics. Kept on descending until lunch. Took more pics, Kaitlin spotted an eagle nesting right off the side of the road! Wildlife pic, check. The Kaitlin-Noam-Maddy trifecta team was rocking!
We learned at the ranger station at lunch that about 4 cyclists are killed every year in Yellowstone natl park, because cars spot wildlife and pull over, incidentally knocking riders into or over guardrails or traffic, without looking. This is why our trip doesn't get to bike through yellowstone, even though we bike around it. Please pay attention when you're driving. Please just cut down on your driving as much as possible. Thanks. This trend of negligently stopping to see wildlife was definitely observed on the post lunch ride when we stopped to take a picture of a very close bison. Wildlife picture, double check.
More construction on roads after lunch. No more getting ferried through it though. But SUCH amazing views all ride that's why I'm writing so much. So we also pulled over at a scenic viewpoint stop and convinced a family on an RV vacation to let us inside their RV. Pic inside an RV, check. Coincidentally there was also a pair of motorcycles at the stop. Pic with a motorcycle, check. Then I prentended to run over Kaitlin on a motorcycle. Crime scene pic, check.
When the van passed us, we pretended to be swimming - musta looked pretty silly. Coordinated van pass, check.
At some point about fifteen miles out of Jackson (oh yea this was the ride from Dubois to Jackson, Wy), my gatorskin tire partly blew out and I got a flat - our trip is havoc terrible luck with gatorskins. Fixed the flat, which was around where I got really nauseous and stayed like that until the next morning. I was drinking too much to be dehydrated, eating enough not to bonk, and I've had altitude sickness and this felt different, plus I had no headache. I've been getting late/post-ride nausea a lot, not sure why. Weird.
We pulled into a scenic viewpoint and took a pic of a cloud that looked like a tiger. Lifelike cloud pic, check. We also got two guys to help us spell 'Teton' with our bodies, and their friend took the picture. Human spelling pic, check. Also sneakily took a pic of their license plate. Far-away license plate pic, check.
Finally got to Jackson 88 miles later, took a video of me rapping in the parking lot:
That was a hard ride my energy's all spent
My chain's out of whack and I think my spoke bent
Heard there's no showers and we're sleeping in a tent
But it's all good cause 17 miles downhill Six PERCENT!!!
Rap video, check. Scav hunt results are still unannounced but we're pretty confident of a goodresult. Thanks a ton to Noam and especially Kaitlin for a superfun and competitive ride, it was Aweeeeeesomeeeee.
Also a huge congratulations to everyone for getting back on their bikes and riding, I'm so proud of all of us every one, love you all, so glad we're back on the road.
That was really long. On toooo
7/31, Jackson to Ashton, Idaho.
We were all freaking out dead nervous in the morning. We were about to bike OVER the TETONS on our second day back. over the Teton pass. Miles of riding up a 10% grade path. Up a mountain. Into our first new state since getting back. on a cold misty morning in Wyoming, which is not near anyone's hometowns. Yes, we were scared.
Rode about 45 minutes to the start of the 3000-foot or so climb. Started climbing, what else ya gonna do? Rode in my lowest gear completely exhausted and out of breath for over an hour. Initially took a lot of breaks, but realized that starting up that steep of a hill and clipping in to your pedals is so hard that you start already tired. When i needed a break, i instead made my own switchbacks across the path (paved former road, now the width of half a lane and closed to cars, pretty empty) so I didn't need to stop. It was so encouraging hearing other riders shout out as they rode up, because the switchbacks were too steep and tight to see anyone, but it was great to hear people. Also the views were crazy crazy crazy. Finally neared the top and one rider took pictures while gabe ran alongside me with the flag and a few riders already at the top made a tunnel for me to ride through. Welcoming all of the other riders just screaming and jumping and dancing (oh yes, we had speakers and music and a dance party) and highfiving and hugging and bike-lifting and falling down exhausted and singing and doing a special Paige-dance because she has such a distinctive way of dancing, etc. Also Mary gave me a Mohawk. For real. So that is awesome, I'm a fan.
Crazy fast descent, idaho border, riding with Katy, bike path, lunch, tailwind, thennn HAILSTORM!! Wind and hail and lightening got so bad that we had to pull off the side of the road and lay in a ditch in a barley field. Started biking again, the road was covered in hail so you had to be careful not to slip on it. Shortly after it was perfect and sunny again. Another epic day, 73 miles.
8/1 Ashton to West Yellowstone, Montana.
Wooo 6 am wakeup, only 63 miles today! The morning was sooo pretty, we stopped at the lower and upper Mesa falls, ran into my Aunt Mary, who volunteers as a natl forest service ranger! We were planning to meet up tomorrow and go hiking, but it was supercool to see her today as well. She knows a lot about the area too. The falls were really pretty, upper Mesa falls was worth climbing a very steep mile to get back to the main road.
The rest of the day was no fun because my knee had been hurting since the Teton pass, and it got worse through today, so once I got to lunch and wasn't excited about the rest of the ride, and decided that it would be better not to push my knee and possibly mess it up for other, more exciting rides. So I vanned myself, which was frustrating and a bummer but I'm hoping I made the right choice.
7/28 riding to Chadron, sam and Hassan were the appointed cruise directors and allowed plenty of watching Friday Night Lights and fun contests. Anthony ate almost a pound of spam in one minute. We also stopped at a rest stop expressly so that we could have a dill pickle speed eating contest. It was gross. And later there were rockpaperscissors contests, ninja contests, and others. Fun. But we were all so stir crazy by the ride's end that we had to stop in alliance, Nebraska for a ten minute "run around and have a crazy dance party on a table" break before we could finish the ride. It was getting desperate. Can't remember anything interesting happening in Chadron.
7/29 bus ride from chadron to dubois, Wyoming. We met up back with our route and a maildrop in Dubois. Another long bus ride. The last time I ever take a bus with thirty hyperactive young people who have been deprived of exercise for a week. Ever. Wyoming is so beautiful it was killing me to drive through it. Some day I am going back and riding those 370 miles that we missed. Hopefully next summer.
Anyway, got to Dubois in time for a short shakedown ride so everyone could get used to their bikes again. Definitely feeling the altitude - we never had a chance to slowly adjust. Maildrop yay, also other bnb trips or friends of bnb sent us a lot of care packages and individual letters (each rider got letters from a few other bnb riders, really cool).
On a side note, my camelback is sooo flaired out. It has a bunch of Paige-related ribbons, an American flag sewn on, a plastic bicycle pin, a Wooster fire department patch, a Smokey the Bear with airline wings pin, a pair of turquoise star-shaped sunglasses, a Nebraska sherriffs badge, and a biking campaign button. Oh and it's green camo-patterned to start. Yay.
7/30 oh man I turn nineteen! Still the second-youngest on bnb... Haha so anyway getting ready for the first morning ride in a while took everyone a long time, and I was on cleanup crew, so that took extra long, and the lawn in front of the church had these sprinklers that kept making us move our bikes, and everyone was jumpy for the first ride, and it was cold so I had to go grab armwarmers and tights, etc. Stressful morning, Kaitlin noam Anthony and I were freezing and at least a bit anxious about our first big pass, the Togwotee Pass. The beginning was definitely taxing but not as bad as expected. Also it was such amazing scenery that it was really easy to get distracted. But then, drumroll/yay, we ran into a construction zone that was closed to bikers and were driven the last four miles in a construction pickup truck!
Incidentally, we were also having a picture scavenger hunt and one of the items was pic with construction worker. Check.
At the top, we faked a 'riding on water' pic on a lake in Shoshone Natl forest. Water pic, check.
And of course we took plenty of pics of the "warning: 6% grade, 17 miles" sign. Best sign everrrr and a fun crazy quick descent. The Tetons suddenly appeared over a ridge, WOW. Been there before, but getting to bike all day until you're eventually in their shadow? Yay. Stopped to take some Tetons/bikelift pics, wildflower pics. Kept on descending until lunch. Took more pics, Kaitlin spotted an eagle nesting right off the side of the road! Wildlife pic, check. The Kaitlin-Noam-Maddy trifecta team was rocking!
We learned at the ranger station at lunch that about 4 cyclists are killed every year in Yellowstone natl park, because cars spot wildlife and pull over, incidentally knocking riders into or over guardrails or traffic, without looking. This is why our trip doesn't get to bike through yellowstone, even though we bike around it. Please pay attention when you're driving. Please just cut down on your driving as much as possible. Thanks. This trend of negligently stopping to see wildlife was definitely observed on the post lunch ride when we stopped to take a picture of a very close bison. Wildlife picture, double check.
More construction on roads after lunch. No more getting ferried through it though. But SUCH amazing views all ride that's why I'm writing so much. So we also pulled over at a scenic viewpoint stop and convinced a family on an RV vacation to let us inside their RV. Pic inside an RV, check. Coincidentally there was also a pair of motorcycles at the stop. Pic with a motorcycle, check. Then I prentended to run over Kaitlin on a motorcycle. Crime scene pic, check.
When the van passed us, we pretended to be swimming - musta looked pretty silly. Coordinated van pass, check.
At some point about fifteen miles out of Jackson (oh yea this was the ride from Dubois to Jackson, Wy), my gatorskin tire partly blew out and I got a flat - our trip is havoc terrible luck with gatorskins. Fixed the flat, which was around where I got really nauseous and stayed like that until the next morning. I was drinking too much to be dehydrated, eating enough not to bonk, and I've had altitude sickness and this felt different, plus I had no headache. I've been getting late/post-ride nausea a lot, not sure why. Weird.
We pulled into a scenic viewpoint and took a pic of a cloud that looked like a tiger. Lifelike cloud pic, check. We also got two guys to help us spell 'Teton' with our bodies, and their friend took the picture. Human spelling pic, check. Also sneakily took a pic of their license plate. Far-away license plate pic, check.
Finally got to Jackson 88 miles later, took a video of me rapping in the parking lot:
That was a hard ride my energy's all spent
My chain's out of whack and I think my spoke bent
Heard there's no showers and we're sleeping in a tent
But it's all good cause 17 miles downhill Six PERCENT!!!
Rap video, check. Scav hunt results are still unannounced but we're pretty confident of a goodresult. Thanks a ton to Noam and especially Kaitlin for a superfun and competitive ride, it was Aweeeeeesomeeeee.
Also a huge congratulations to everyone for getting back on their bikes and riding, I'm so proud of all of us every one, love you all, so glad we're back on the road.
That was really long. On toooo
7/31, Jackson to Ashton, Idaho.
We were all freaking out dead nervous in the morning. We were about to bike OVER the TETONS on our second day back. over the Teton pass. Miles of riding up a 10% grade path. Up a mountain. Into our first new state since getting back. on a cold misty morning in Wyoming, which is not near anyone's hometowns. Yes, we were scared.
Rode about 45 minutes to the start of the 3000-foot or so climb. Started climbing, what else ya gonna do? Rode in my lowest gear completely exhausted and out of breath for over an hour. Initially took a lot of breaks, but realized that starting up that steep of a hill and clipping in to your pedals is so hard that you start already tired. When i needed a break, i instead made my own switchbacks across the path (paved former road, now the width of half a lane and closed to cars, pretty empty) so I didn't need to stop. It was so encouraging hearing other riders shout out as they rode up, because the switchbacks were too steep and tight to see anyone, but it was great to hear people. Also the views were crazy crazy crazy. Finally neared the top and one rider took pictures while gabe ran alongside me with the flag and a few riders already at the top made a tunnel for me to ride through. Welcoming all of the other riders just screaming and jumping and dancing (oh yes, we had speakers and music and a dance party) and highfiving and hugging and bike-lifting and falling down exhausted and singing and doing a special Paige-dance because she has such a distinctive way of dancing, etc. Also Mary gave me a Mohawk. For real. So that is awesome, I'm a fan.
Crazy fast descent, idaho border, riding with Katy, bike path, lunch, tailwind, thennn HAILSTORM!! Wind and hail and lightening got so bad that we had to pull off the side of the road and lay in a ditch in a barley field. Started biking again, the road was covered in hail so you had to be careful not to slip on it. Shortly after it was perfect and sunny again. Another epic day, 73 miles.
8/1 Ashton to West Yellowstone, Montana.
Wooo 6 am wakeup, only 63 miles today! The morning was sooo pretty, we stopped at the lower and upper Mesa falls, ran into my Aunt Mary, who volunteers as a natl forest service ranger! We were planning to meet up tomorrow and go hiking, but it was supercool to see her today as well. She knows a lot about the area too. The falls were really pretty, upper Mesa falls was worth climbing a very steep mile to get back to the main road.
The rest of the day was no fun because my knee had been hurting since the Teton pass, and it got worse through today, so once I got to lunch and wasn't excited about the rest of the ride, and decided that it would be better not to push my knee and possibly mess it up for other, more exciting rides. So I vanned myself, which was frustrating and a bummer but I'm hoping I made the right choice.
Location:West yellowstone, montana
Just stuff
Hey so I had two days of blogposts earlier that got deleted. So this is those posts, don't remember the dates, mid July somewhereabouts.
Marshalltown to Ames, Iowa. We got up superlate at seven because it was just a forty-something mile day and a former bnber named Justin visited, and most of the ride was easy and tailwinded but there were six miles of terrible hilly mud/gravel on an unpaved road. We got in before noon and went to a bike store that gave us free service and a discount to replace chains, brake pads, tires, and anything else that needed looking at at just before our halfway point. Also sam and I DMed a bunch of rags from a thrift store, got somerocking outfits, and we all had a big 'love don't cost a thing' party complete with a giant check for endless love. Mad fun. Oh and I dumped half a bottle of gatorAde on an excessively friendly dog.
Next day was Ames to Carroll Iowa, which was ridiculously hot. 85 miles, and for paige to get everyone rescued that needed it, take one person to the emergency room, and drop of ice at three different locations for all of us (110 degree heat index means that ice in your camelbak makes a big difference) she must have driven 200 or more miles. Had really provocative conversations with our resident philosophy major, chas, and thus had a generally beArable ride even though the route was boring and hot. When we got in to the host, the first fifteen of us changed from chammys to shorts, took off our jerseys, and passed out on the floor immediately - i woke up about half an hour later to hosts looking on in slight horror. Also we had no cell service but did get an amazing whole wheat pasta dinner with great salads and fruit.
Then fast forward to Sioux city to Yankton sometime, which was a great day because the leaders let us believe we had a 90 mile day and 4am wakeup - ended up just being an easy and fast sixty and we all got in super early and saw a movie and napped etc. New state, number nine, south dakota, stayed in Yankton that night.
Then Yankton, (ok ok I'm rushing) the 70 miler to the super small Lake Andes, where my crew had to make dinner and I DMed a ton of 'broasted' chicken and we made burritos, yum. Went to bed EXHAUSTED.
Marshalltown to Ames, Iowa. We got up superlate at seven because it was just a forty-something mile day and a former bnber named Justin visited, and most of the ride was easy and tailwinded but there were six miles of terrible hilly mud/gravel on an unpaved road. We got in before noon and went to a bike store that gave us free service and a discount to replace chains, brake pads, tires, and anything else that needed looking at at just before our halfway point. Also sam and I DMed a bunch of rags from a thrift store, got somerocking outfits, and we all had a big 'love don't cost a thing' party complete with a giant check for endless love. Mad fun. Oh and I dumped half a bottle of gatorAde on an excessively friendly dog.
Next day was Ames to Carroll Iowa, which was ridiculously hot. 85 miles, and for paige to get everyone rescued that needed it, take one person to the emergency room, and drop of ice at three different locations for all of us (110 degree heat index means that ice in your camelbak makes a big difference) she must have driven 200 or more miles. Had really provocative conversations with our resident philosophy major, chas, and thus had a generally beArable ride even though the route was boring and hot. When we got in to the host, the first fifteen of us changed from chammys to shorts, took off our jerseys, and passed out on the floor immediately - i woke up about half an hour later to hosts looking on in slight horror. Also we had no cell service but did get an amazing whole wheat pasta dinner with great salads and fruit.
Then fast forward to Sioux city to Yankton sometime, which was a great day because the leaders let us believe we had a 90 mile day and 4am wakeup - ended up just being an easy and fast sixty and we all got in super early and saw a movie and napped etc. New state, number nine, south dakota, stayed in Yankton that night.
Then Yankton, (ok ok I'm rushing) the 70 miler to the super small Lake Andes, where my crew had to make dinner and I DMed a ton of 'broasted' chicken and we made burritos, yum. Went to bed EXHAUSTED.
Location:LAke Andes, south Dakota
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
whoa man massive update drop
ok. haven't updated in forever. but i'm sort of using this as a journal and i dont want to totally drop the ball
missed dates:
7/13 marshalltown to ames
7/14 ames to carroll
i am convinced both of these are in noam's phone so i will find them and drop them sometime
7/15 - see previous post
7/16 - see previous post
7/17 - ride from sioux city to yankton, sd - yay a new state! this was another sunrise ride, except that the leaders sort of played a trick on us. we believed that the ride would be 90 miles, like the previous year's, except that in fact, the previous year had to make a 30 mile detour for a bridge under construction (nope, there are NO roads in south dakota), so we in fact got up at 4 am for a ride that was only 60 miles. i think Sarah and i had lunch around 8:45 am, or something ridiculous like that, and had a really relaxed and fun ride in which we both told eachother the complete history of our romantic lives. hilarious. there were other conversation topics i'm sure...but that was definitely the best. i would say the miles flew by, but hey, we got in and showered and unpacked the trailer and had a snack and made it to the mall and donation-magicked a discount on movie tickets for inception by 12:45. didn't like the movie. but it was soooo nice to sit in the movie theater. apparently going to dartmouth is a big deal sometimes - the pastor and some locals at the church were really impressed. i thought that was sort of strange. i'm used to just saying i go to school 'in new hampshire...it's small' but i was wearing a dartmouth shirt so i guess they knew. the pastor kept telling me that i was going places and going to do great things. that said, the locals from that church were super nice and welcoming and really tolerant of me asking a ton of questions. i don't remember any of the answers. and we had more affordable housing presentations and a VERY long family meeting, but it was mostly fun shoutouts.
7/18 - ride with chris into lake andes south dakota - don't remember the length - don't think there were many turns - medium/medium-long length day? oh wait this was just 70 - not too bad. oh but there was a lot of glass on the road in the beginning, that wasn't fun. we stopped at avon for lunch, which was pretty much the only real establishment in between - that and wagner, south dakokta. oh and there was a gas station 30 miles out, had a very needed snack break there.
best quote: paige: "man, it's like, a whole ten miles to lunch, and i had a snack bar early. guess i don't need a lot of food. ooh look chocolate milk! and knockoff hostess cupcakes! that's like, 740 calories...mmm yay!"
oh haha and chris and i made up relly detailed descriptions of our dream dates - like this conversation might have taken fifteen to twenty miles, if you include the time spent thinking the dates up. hahah so much fun. ride conversations are the best. this was also the day that amy and olivia took an hour and a half break to go run in a field of sunflowers!
lake andes is really small, 800 people - we stayed at a high school, dinner was not provided. so i donation magicked a big bucket of chicken, but we had to cook the rest. shoutout to our awesome chore crew - sam ben brittany sarah me - burritos turned out great and cooking was super fun. although i was jealous of everyone else's huge nap.
this was another town without ny cell phone service - getting pretty sick of that. if i do bnb or anythign similar again, i'm getting verizon - i dont like that i can be on the road without service - that's not safe. a lot of days, there is only service at the start and end of the ride, because in between is empty. but regardless, it's superpretty out here - took a lotta pics while riding. some headwind, but chris and i were flying at the end, that was fun.
7/19 - lake andes to winner, south dakota. oh what a ride. we were on the road (80 miles on pretty much two roads the whole time, maybe three roads) at 6:30 am. by 6:45, we had gotten higher up and sort of on a ridge between/along wheat fields, and it started raining. byu 6:50, it was a full-fledged and terrifying lightening and thunderstorm. this stopped 10 miles out, when the road promptly stopped being paved for the next 15 miles, because it was ripped up and under consturction and covered in piles of fine dark gravel. we were riding on the shoulder for most of that, right on the edge, where it was mostly smooth. i was riding along because i hate riding with other people in the rain, because it's rpetty unsafe to be near anyone if you aren't completely sure that everyone will keep a really safe distance and still yell out hazards, etc. and it was drizzling again. so maybe 20 miles out, the shoulder is too ripped up to ride on, so i'm ont he road, but there is a pile of gravel coming up on my right, so i want to swerve left, but i check and there's a car coming way too close to my side, so i hold my course, the front wheel gets stuck in the gravel, i try to jerk it out, my front fork whips all the way to the right (my bike frame is still moving forward) and i am perpendicular to my front wheel, and i flip over my handlebars completely as i crash, fortunately in a grassy ditch.
i was pretty shocked and had no cell phone service and was riding alone, so fortunately the van happened to pass me and paige gave me a huge hug (and gabe gave me a reasonable sized one) and gabe checked my helmet and bike, and i said i felt fine, and they parked the van and let me sit in it for a bit. i was very determined to finish the ride, so i forced down a granola bar and got back on the bike and rode really hard to lunch. i was still sort of shook up at lucnh (which was beautiful, overlooking the missouri river at some really pretty lake), esp since most of the ride to lunch was on loose-packed gravel over a paved road. so i took a nap at lunch. and then i took another one in the van at lunch. and then i finally set out and finished the last 40. props to thiese, noam, yayme-amy, and chas for being encouraging through that. not-props to brian and the scary donald-duck noises.
and then, drumroll, in winner, SD, noam and i went through a mcdonalds drive through! after a quite drawn out series of interactions with the drivethrough staff and manager trying to convince them to let us.
7/20 - ride from winner, south dakota to martin, south dakota. 102 miles. a really really pretty ride, just constantly WOW views, and we took an awesome haybale pic. rode with amy/katy for most of the ride, then joined up with chris after i had to return to second lunch (can you say headwind? we actually had a tailwind that day and that was the day i had to ride backwards!) because i forgot my gloves. then around mile 90 we met some bnbers by the side of the road who informed us of paige's accident. we comforted eachother for a few minutes and then finished the ride in the slowest, most nervewracking, desperate, miserable, grinding 12 miles i will ever ride on amazing roads in the most wildly and darkly beautiful scenery in the country. all ten of us in single file finally made it in. don't need to talk about the rest of that day.
i love you bnb family. we all love you paige. you are such an inspiration to me and i really looked up to you.
7/21 - sunrise and breakfast-buying with liz and mary and bribri. talking about the bike and build lost circus with brittany et all. five cups of coffee. packing. van shuttles to chadron nebraska, where we were supposed to ride to. uncertainly. support. camaraderie, war stories. walking in circles for a half an hour in a field trying to get phone reception. shellshocked, hugs, family meetings for hours, finding a bike path with sam and mary and riding the most cathartic four miles and chalking at the top of a windswept hill. climbing on a building with sam and anthony. running around a building in a crazy thunderstorm with anthony, and then into the middle of a weather channel-like hurricane scene with chris, and diving with my whole body into a huge huge puddle in the middle of the road during it on a dare. watching the storm with hassie after he warned me that my untouched cherry pie was getting wet. reading a lot of 'on the road' and having a distinct moment of 'it's weird that i feel like i understand this perfectly now'.
7/22 - sunrise wakeup and a cuddle-pile. we were staying in a church's basketball gym with a kitchen doubling as a food-pantry stocking center, so we were informed that our weird charity case had free rein over this, especially the ice cream. honestly, we each could have taken a half gallon for coping purposes and been done with it. walking forever to breakfast. breakfast ending up being lunch. walking further to walmart and donation-magicking a fifty-dollar shade tent. realizing later that i forgot a bunch of stuff in martin, sd. going running with noam, actually going to the library and checking my email (weird weird weird) on a computer. going to a yoga class at the library, getting interrupted at the end by a huge thunderclap and glass breaking - giant bigger-than-golf-balls hailstones raining down - biking back to the church as soon as the hail stopped - learning later that i was biking when there was a tornado that touched down at the other end of town. walking through the washed out town - down street with branches everywhere, broken glass, roof pieces detached, a gas pump nozzle pulled out of its holder (or the user just ran off mid-fill), giant puddles, no traffic lights at the intersection, people standing outside looking at their homes/buildings, tons of hailstone-holes pocking siding and storefronts, etc. getting back to the church gym, seeing all of our stuff spread out everywhere, people still looking sort of dazed, seeing the boxes of expired 'sold-by' overstock food, not knowing where we'll be staying tomorrow and remembering that a restuarant was giving us dinner tonight, getting told that the storm closed the swimming pool so I couldn't shower, thinking that this is a hint of what refugees feel like. or homeless poeple. funny perspective on affordable housing. but really really enjoying the company of bnbers and support and hugs and late late late family meetings and giant group hugs.
7/23 - still in chadron. we were going to miss a build day due to the memorial service, so we made up for it by doing storm-relief in the town. we broke into groups and spread out across the town, offering to move branches, pick up glass, one group helped move a broken roof, etc. gabe also got a radio message telling people to call in if they needed help. we as a whole had cleaned up twenty properties by lunchtime. doing a radio interview with chas and adrienne about bike and build. the interviewer was much more itnerested in recent events than bike and build. he only let me give two sentences explaining what the organization and its purpose was. we weren't that itnerested in talking about recent events. more property-cleanups. laundry showers hangout dinner another walmart run hangout bed.
7/24 - the drive from chadron ne to lincoln, ne. backwards progress, went the wrong way through time zones, etc. staying at hailey's parent's house on our way to paige's service in st louis. saw a huge railyard (biggest in the world) in north platte, ne. stopped at carhenge (stonehenge made of cars) in alliance, ne. made our own 'bikerhenge' by lifting people in the air and arranging ourselves like stonehenge. stopped at buffalo bill cody's 'scout's rest ranch' and leanred some stuff there. a BIG THANKS to hailey's parents for hosting us and giving us all real towels to shower with. went running there and played a huge and awesome frisbee game till after dark.
7/25 - the drive from lincoln, ne to st louis, mo. fun games along the way as enforced by the 'koolaid cruise director crew'. getting addicted to 'friday night lights'. my team winning the oreo game, losing terribly at jeopardy, kicking butt in the relays and waterballoon toss. giant waterballoon fight at lunch. meeting a group of high school church youth group kids ho had seen us in a nearby parking lot having lunch and piled into a minivan expressly for the purpose of saving us. thinking that we NEED to get out of the midwest sometime. getting to stl, the visitation for paige. meeting paige's bnb trip - p2sf09 - from last year. big shoutout they were supercool. both trips were allowed to stay in wash U dorms. classy dorms, seriously.
7/26 - the service in stl and other things related to it took up pretty much the whole day until 8 pm. playing a huge game of ninja with the p2sf-ers. intense ab workout with sam and ben.
7/27 - the drive from stl back to lincoln, ne. ew are, btw, driving in a nice coach bus that the bus company helped to donate to us, as well as bike and build alumni and their parents, and bike and build the organization. we also met up with christian and rosemary (directors - aka corporate) again, and met brendan (director of other trips), not to mention the founder and board member, marc bush. more friday night lights on the ride. a really good breakfast at 'lone wolf cafe' in stl, thanks guys for the free food! more frisbee and going running, shoutout to katy for letting our run include many sprinkler detours. again, shoutout to hailey's parents, they even made a bike store run for us this time!
7/28 - today. whoa. about to leave for chadron.
hassan's mother, i wish to assure you that hassan and i are friends, and hassie has plenty of friends, and that his little remnant of a mohawk is lots of fun to run your fingers over. he wishes me to inform you of this. hi! haha he was mock-crying that you told him you don't believe he has friends. hassie does, we all do.
missed dates:
7/13 marshalltown to ames
7/14 ames to carroll
i am convinced both of these are in noam's phone so i will find them and drop them sometime
7/15 - see previous post
7/16 - see previous post
7/17 - ride from sioux city to yankton, sd - yay a new state! this was another sunrise ride, except that the leaders sort of played a trick on us. we believed that the ride would be 90 miles, like the previous year's, except that in fact, the previous year had to make a 30 mile detour for a bridge under construction (nope, there are NO roads in south dakota), so we in fact got up at 4 am for a ride that was only 60 miles. i think Sarah and i had lunch around 8:45 am, or something ridiculous like that, and had a really relaxed and fun ride in which we both told eachother the complete history of our romantic lives. hilarious. there were other conversation topics i'm sure...but that was definitely the best. i would say the miles flew by, but hey, we got in and showered and unpacked the trailer and had a snack and made it to the mall and donation-magicked a discount on movie tickets for inception by 12:45. didn't like the movie. but it was soooo nice to sit in the movie theater. apparently going to dartmouth is a big deal sometimes - the pastor and some locals at the church were really impressed. i thought that was sort of strange. i'm used to just saying i go to school 'in new hampshire...it's small' but i was wearing a dartmouth shirt so i guess they knew. the pastor kept telling me that i was going places and going to do great things. that said, the locals from that church were super nice and welcoming and really tolerant of me asking a ton of questions. i don't remember any of the answers. and we had more affordable housing presentations and a VERY long family meeting, but it was mostly fun shoutouts.
7/18 - ride with chris into lake andes south dakota - don't remember the length - don't think there were many turns - medium/medium-long length day? oh wait this was just 70 - not too bad. oh but there was a lot of glass on the road in the beginning, that wasn't fun. we stopped at avon for lunch, which was pretty much the only real establishment in between - that and wagner, south dakokta. oh and there was a gas station 30 miles out, had a very needed snack break there.
best quote: paige: "man, it's like, a whole ten miles to lunch, and i had a snack bar early. guess i don't need a lot of food. ooh look chocolate milk! and knockoff hostess cupcakes! that's like, 740 calories...mmm yay!"
oh haha and chris and i made up relly detailed descriptions of our dream dates - like this conversation might have taken fifteen to twenty miles, if you include the time spent thinking the dates up. hahah so much fun. ride conversations are the best. this was also the day that amy and olivia took an hour and a half break to go run in a field of sunflowers!
lake andes is really small, 800 people - we stayed at a high school, dinner was not provided. so i donation magicked a big bucket of chicken, but we had to cook the rest. shoutout to our awesome chore crew - sam ben brittany sarah me - burritos turned out great and cooking was super fun. although i was jealous of everyone else's huge nap.
this was another town without ny cell phone service - getting pretty sick of that. if i do bnb or anythign similar again, i'm getting verizon - i dont like that i can be on the road without service - that's not safe. a lot of days, there is only service at the start and end of the ride, because in between is empty. but regardless, it's superpretty out here - took a lotta pics while riding. some headwind, but chris and i were flying at the end, that was fun.
7/19 - lake andes to winner, south dakota. oh what a ride. we were on the road (80 miles on pretty much two roads the whole time, maybe three roads) at 6:30 am. by 6:45, we had gotten higher up and sort of on a ridge between/along wheat fields, and it started raining. byu 6:50, it was a full-fledged and terrifying lightening and thunderstorm. this stopped 10 miles out, when the road promptly stopped being paved for the next 15 miles, because it was ripped up and under consturction and covered in piles of fine dark gravel. we were riding on the shoulder for most of that, right on the edge, where it was mostly smooth. i was riding along because i hate riding with other people in the rain, because it's rpetty unsafe to be near anyone if you aren't completely sure that everyone will keep a really safe distance and still yell out hazards, etc. and it was drizzling again. so maybe 20 miles out, the shoulder is too ripped up to ride on, so i'm ont he road, but there is a pile of gravel coming up on my right, so i want to swerve left, but i check and there's a car coming way too close to my side, so i hold my course, the front wheel gets stuck in the gravel, i try to jerk it out, my front fork whips all the way to the right (my bike frame is still moving forward) and i am perpendicular to my front wheel, and i flip over my handlebars completely as i crash, fortunately in a grassy ditch.
i was pretty shocked and had no cell phone service and was riding alone, so fortunately the van happened to pass me and paige gave me a huge hug (and gabe gave me a reasonable sized one) and gabe checked my helmet and bike, and i said i felt fine, and they parked the van and let me sit in it for a bit. i was very determined to finish the ride, so i forced down a granola bar and got back on the bike and rode really hard to lunch. i was still sort of shook up at lucnh (which was beautiful, overlooking the missouri river at some really pretty lake), esp since most of the ride to lunch was on loose-packed gravel over a paved road. so i took a nap at lunch. and then i took another one in the van at lunch. and then i finally set out and finished the last 40. props to thiese, noam, yayme-amy, and chas for being encouraging through that. not-props to brian and the scary donald-duck noises.
and then, drumroll, in winner, SD, noam and i went through a mcdonalds drive through! after a quite drawn out series of interactions with the drivethrough staff and manager trying to convince them to let us.
7/20 - ride from winner, south dakota to martin, south dakota. 102 miles. a really really pretty ride, just constantly WOW views, and we took an awesome haybale pic. rode with amy/katy for most of the ride, then joined up with chris after i had to return to second lunch (can you say headwind? we actually had a tailwind that day and that was the day i had to ride backwards!) because i forgot my gloves. then around mile 90 we met some bnbers by the side of the road who informed us of paige's accident. we comforted eachother for a few minutes and then finished the ride in the slowest, most nervewracking, desperate, miserable, grinding 12 miles i will ever ride on amazing roads in the most wildly and darkly beautiful scenery in the country. all ten of us in single file finally made it in. don't need to talk about the rest of that day.
i love you bnb family. we all love you paige. you are such an inspiration to me and i really looked up to you.
7/21 - sunrise and breakfast-buying with liz and mary and bribri. talking about the bike and build lost circus with brittany et all. five cups of coffee. packing. van shuttles to chadron nebraska, where we were supposed to ride to. uncertainly. support. camaraderie, war stories. walking in circles for a half an hour in a field trying to get phone reception. shellshocked, hugs, family meetings for hours, finding a bike path with sam and mary and riding the most cathartic four miles and chalking at the top of a windswept hill. climbing on a building with sam and anthony. running around a building in a crazy thunderstorm with anthony, and then into the middle of a weather channel-like hurricane scene with chris, and diving with my whole body into a huge huge puddle in the middle of the road during it on a dare. watching the storm with hassie after he warned me that my untouched cherry pie was getting wet. reading a lot of 'on the road' and having a distinct moment of 'it's weird that i feel like i understand this perfectly now'.
7/22 - sunrise wakeup and a cuddle-pile. we were staying in a church's basketball gym with a kitchen doubling as a food-pantry stocking center, so we were informed that our weird charity case had free rein over this, especially the ice cream. honestly, we each could have taken a half gallon for coping purposes and been done with it. walking forever to breakfast. breakfast ending up being lunch. walking further to walmart and donation-magicking a fifty-dollar shade tent. realizing later that i forgot a bunch of stuff in martin, sd. going running with noam, actually going to the library and checking my email (weird weird weird) on a computer. going to a yoga class at the library, getting interrupted at the end by a huge thunderclap and glass breaking - giant bigger-than-golf-balls hailstones raining down - biking back to the church as soon as the hail stopped - learning later that i was biking when there was a tornado that touched down at the other end of town. walking through the washed out town - down street with branches everywhere, broken glass, roof pieces detached, a gas pump nozzle pulled out of its holder (or the user just ran off mid-fill), giant puddles, no traffic lights at the intersection, people standing outside looking at their homes/buildings, tons of hailstone-holes pocking siding and storefronts, etc. getting back to the church gym, seeing all of our stuff spread out everywhere, people still looking sort of dazed, seeing the boxes of expired 'sold-by' overstock food, not knowing where we'll be staying tomorrow and remembering that a restuarant was giving us dinner tonight, getting told that the storm closed the swimming pool so I couldn't shower, thinking that this is a hint of what refugees feel like. or homeless poeple. funny perspective on affordable housing. but really really enjoying the company of bnbers and support and hugs and late late late family meetings and giant group hugs.
7/23 - still in chadron. we were going to miss a build day due to the memorial service, so we made up for it by doing storm-relief in the town. we broke into groups and spread out across the town, offering to move branches, pick up glass, one group helped move a broken roof, etc. gabe also got a radio message telling people to call in if they needed help. we as a whole had cleaned up twenty properties by lunchtime. doing a radio interview with chas and adrienne about bike and build. the interviewer was much more itnerested in recent events than bike and build. he only let me give two sentences explaining what the organization and its purpose was. we weren't that itnerested in talking about recent events. more property-cleanups. laundry showers hangout dinner another walmart run hangout bed.
7/24 - the drive from chadron ne to lincoln, ne. backwards progress, went the wrong way through time zones, etc. staying at hailey's parent's house on our way to paige's service in st louis. saw a huge railyard (biggest in the world) in north platte, ne. stopped at carhenge (stonehenge made of cars) in alliance, ne. made our own 'bikerhenge' by lifting people in the air and arranging ourselves like stonehenge. stopped at buffalo bill cody's 'scout's rest ranch' and leanred some stuff there. a BIG THANKS to hailey's parents for hosting us and giving us all real towels to shower with. went running there and played a huge and awesome frisbee game till after dark.
7/25 - the drive from lincoln, ne to st louis, mo. fun games along the way as enforced by the 'koolaid cruise director crew'. getting addicted to 'friday night lights'. my team winning the oreo game, losing terribly at jeopardy, kicking butt in the relays and waterballoon toss. giant waterballoon fight at lunch. meeting a group of high school church youth group kids ho had seen us in a nearby parking lot having lunch and piled into a minivan expressly for the purpose of saving us. thinking that we NEED to get out of the midwest sometime. getting to stl, the visitation for paige. meeting paige's bnb trip - p2sf09 - from last year. big shoutout they were supercool. both trips were allowed to stay in wash U dorms. classy dorms, seriously.
7/26 - the service in stl and other things related to it took up pretty much the whole day until 8 pm. playing a huge game of ninja with the p2sf-ers. intense ab workout with sam and ben.
7/27 - the drive from stl back to lincoln, ne. ew are, btw, driving in a nice coach bus that the bus company helped to donate to us, as well as bike and build alumni and their parents, and bike and build the organization. we also met up with christian and rosemary (directors - aka corporate) again, and met brendan (director of other trips), not to mention the founder and board member, marc bush. more friday night lights on the ride. a really good breakfast at 'lone wolf cafe' in stl, thanks guys for the free food! more frisbee and going running, shoutout to katy for letting our run include many sprinkler detours. again, shoutout to hailey's parents, they even made a bike store run for us this time!
7/28 - today. whoa. about to leave for chadron.
hassan's mother, i wish to assure you that hassan and i are friends, and hassie has plenty of friends, and that his little remnant of a mohawk is lots of fun to run your fingers over. he wishes me to inform you of this. hi! haha he was mock-crying that you told him you don't believe he has friends. hassie does, we all do.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
hi
just feel that whoever follows this should know what's going on.
bikeandbuild.org
rip paige, fearless.
we're a family. we'll make it.
please don't comment.
thanks.
bikeandbuild.org
rip paige, fearless.
we're a family. we'll make it.
please don't comment.
thanks.
Friday, July 16, 2010
build dayyy
hey all today was a build day in sioux city iowa...apparently the build site had a bad experience with state americorps earlier (but liked the national ones that came to work with them) so they were a little skeptical about college-age kids on the build site, but i think they were pleased with what we got done...my group was hanging f-channel, soffit, and fascia, so basically they were covering eaves with aluminum or tin siding. lotsa metal slivers in fingers...fun...
and it was nice to sleep in till 7:15 (unsuccessfully - i can't sleep in that late anymore), and i donationmagicked at 20% discount for our group at albrecht cycles today, thanks guys! where we bought about a million 9-speed chains and brake pads, etc. cleaned my bike, hungout, going to bed soon, 4 am wakeup, yay for maildrops and laundry, k bye night
and it was nice to sleep in till 7:15 (unsuccessfully - i can't sleep in that late anymore), and i donationmagicked at 20% discount for our group at albrecht cycles today, thanks guys! where we bought about a million 9-speed chains and brake pads, etc. cleaned my bike, hungout, going to bed soon, 4 am wakeup, yay for maildrops and laundry, k bye night
Thursday, July 15, 2010
century...again...and smoothies!!
so firstly a HUGE thanks to brett's parents, they were a MAJOR (oh, pun, hah...ergh) help today since they set up a smoothie break around mile 94...mile 94 of 110...haah...detours...gotta love em...not at all...the smoothie break was great. the few extra miles at the end of sioux city potholes and one ridiculous hill (S fairmount street. it's crazy) were not so great.
umm so yea we all had an AMAZING dinner at the Carroll host yesterday, seriously, whole wheat pasta and sauce and garlic bread has never tasted so good. and they had tons of really good and real fruit and even veggies, which is exciting. and we watched a really cool and sort of scary midwestern plains storm roll in and throw lightening everywhere...pretty crazy to see.
and then the security alarm went off at 10 pm and woke a bunch of us up, and then we had a 4 am wakeup for our sunrise century today. i rode with Spency (ok, fine, Spencer, but...it's Spency) and we had some fun convos and hilarious stories, and totally hammered out a bunch of hills. by which i mean we hammered out the downhills and hugely struggled on the last three miles of 15 miles of rolling uphills. really, anyone who thinks iowa is flat...not true AT ALL. and yea, no dog attacks, just one really nice and calm dog where we stopped to take an energy bar break.
drive-and-destroy is out in force though...one of the cars that rides in from of an oversize load that is supposed to warn oncoming traffic with an 'oversize load' sign was very enthusiastic and profane about warning us...a few other minor incidents, and sioux city is just not really a bike place...tons of potholes, hills, and glass, so i guess cars aren't really used to cyclists here...
but the ride was fun, so many pretty seas of soybeans...that's really the best way to describe it, just these long pretty rolls of soybeans waving up and down as far as you can see, all over hills, etc. also rap for spency who is btw a speedster:
when i'm in front you yell 'car back'
and you wait for me when i'm far back
if a girl threw a punch you'd never spar back
and that's why i'm glad we've got our back!
also we stopped for spency to buy his obligatory three bottles of 100 spf spray suncreen, because that boy goes through soooo much...i mean i guess we all do, but esp him. ginger.
umm so yea we all had an AMAZING dinner at the Carroll host yesterday, seriously, whole wheat pasta and sauce and garlic bread has never tasted so good. and they had tons of really good and real fruit and even veggies, which is exciting. and we watched a really cool and sort of scary midwestern plains storm roll in and throw lightening everywhere...pretty crazy to see.
and then the security alarm went off at 10 pm and woke a bunch of us up, and then we had a 4 am wakeup for our sunrise century today. i rode with Spency (ok, fine, Spencer, but...it's Spency) and we had some fun convos and hilarious stories, and totally hammered out a bunch of hills. by which i mean we hammered out the downhills and hugely struggled on the last three miles of 15 miles of rolling uphills. really, anyone who thinks iowa is flat...not true AT ALL. and yea, no dog attacks, just one really nice and calm dog where we stopped to take an energy bar break.
drive-and-destroy is out in force though...one of the cars that rides in from of an oversize load that is supposed to warn oncoming traffic with an 'oversize load' sign was very enthusiastic and profane about warning us...a few other minor incidents, and sioux city is just not really a bike place...tons of potholes, hills, and glass, so i guess cars aren't really used to cyclists here...
but the ride was fun, so many pretty seas of soybeans...that's really the best way to describe it, just these long pretty rolls of soybeans waving up and down as far as you can see, all over hills, etc. also rap for spency who is btw a speedster:
when i'm in front you yell 'car back'
and you wait for me when i'm far back
if a girl threw a punch you'd never spar back
and that's why i'm glad we've got our back!
also we stopped for spency to buy his obligatory three bottles of 100 spf spray suncreen, because that boy goes through soooo much...i mean i guess we all do, but esp him. ginger.
Monday, July 12, 2010
So much EPIC
Let's just preface that this morning I was pretty sure I did not (spoiler alert) need another century with multiple thunderstorms, zero visibility, Drive-and-destroy, and dog attacks.
Ok. So Basically today I got up at 5am and I just felt bad and sore and confused and tired and I did not want to ride, and then we got our cue sheets and we had a 92 mile ride when I thought it was 80, and then Olivia and I started riding and the fog was so thick that we could barely ride, could only see about 30 feet in front of us, etc. It was just not going to be a good day. And I was sort of struggling, since yesterday was such a good day and I wasn't having as fast of one today, etc. But then we finally got to first lunch and I was about to enjoy my bread-peanutbutter-banana-pretzel-barbequepotatochip-bread sandwich (this is actually pretty normal for most bnbers) when the bomb drops: the road lunch is next to is the one we were supposed to turn on to and ride for 18 miles, but in fact it is all loose gravel and we cannot ride on it, so we are being rerouted and instead doing a day that ends as 106 miles. So we wait at lunch for new cue sheets to get printed, finally leave, and I still feel bad and tired, but then Olivia and I start to have ok conversations and it gets better. Oh I forgot to mention that we got chased by a dog sometime before first lunch.
Oh right so HUGE shoutout to Olivia for getting through this morning, I was really having a rough time til mile 45ish, Olivia you rock! Seriously when people make us to be better than we are and then we ourselves grow, that is the best.
New raps
I like riding with Olivia she makes me smile
Sometimes she sneaks ahead but it's not cause of guile
This morning I struggle-bused it for a while
But now we can SO ride 60 more miles!!
Whoa see that hill yea I wanna top her
Look at Olivia nothing's gonna stop her
Whole lotta cyclists are just pill poppers
But not us cause we're hill hoppers!
Because there were some big hills. Also doing this totally makes you appreciate the tour de France. Watch it in a whole new light. So yea, riding was fun but we started to see some huge dark clouds, and out in surprisingly really hilly Iowa, there aren't a lot of trees, so you just see and see and see and you can see a whole lotta huge dark clouds and rolling dim puffs above them and vertical midnight blue rain beneath them, it's incredible and beautiful and powerful and scary. So we are watching these huge clouds and then three little punk kids roll up on their bikes with a dog and say 'get em', and the dog runs at me but fortunately I grabbed my gatorade bottle and sprayed it in the face before it reached my wheel. Dogs hate Gatorade. Best thing ever. So then the sky explodes and there's just water everywhere and it is windy and we're riding so it stings so hard I would have thought it was hailing, but we don't care cause we're so hyped up and it's just kinda awesome that we're surviving this crazy impromptu century ride and all the wild twists (paige and us getting stopped on the side of the road by a reporter who had heard of bike and build and making local news?) and we're riding out the storm and the thunder and lightening a bit too visibly close for comfort and the rain is so hard that cars are stopped on the side of the road and we're just hammering it and shouting.
We reach second lunch, it's pouring, there's no room in the van so we both grab a granola bar and huddle in the trailer, then leave with Paige and Vidya right away. This zis where the rain slows a bit but also where Paige and Olivia get run off the road onto a pebbly shoulder by a black Mercedes. The rain is now gone, we're all singing and having fun, lotsa fun rolly hills, when we suddenly get onto unpaved ripped up road with dirt all over the rocks, and of course it's all just mud, get through that and are confronted with a backhoe, go on a detour road, finally get around the construction and find that this road is going to be way longer than the cue sheet said, and get up a few big hills when it starts raining and a few cars with no lights (and mind you, for 2:30 pm the sky is black) pass and a huge truck carrying an 'oversize load' mobile home on it and then later an alien-looking piece of farm equipment that is wider than a lane, speed down a hill. New rap:
See a big rig shout 'truck up'
Oversize load, yell 'what the f@?& up'
Man these hills certainly don't have my luck up
And now a backhoe, better buck up!
It soon gets crazy rainy and we can't see the road and Paige knocks on a stranger's door and gets an elderly couple to let us sit in their kitchen for twenty minutes and tell us about their grandchildren until the rain is a bit lighter, then we head out and the rain still hurts a lot but we're singing and screaming and at this point I am having the time of my life, just crazy, from mile sixty (back by the reporter and early raps) until the end I'm just euphoric, we're just so close and we know it and it's raining and we're singing and rocking it and I'm screaming
You say there's too much hydration
I say we're gonna bike cross the nation
You say you're having some frustration
I say no doubts I'm all elaaAaaaAation!!!!
I can't even explAin how much intensity. Just screaming screaming 'yeaA mount Vernon to marshallton yea marshallton 106 century yeaaaa century mAaaaaarshalllltonnnnn' it was perfect. Totally drenched I almost stripped in the host site by accident my chammys were so gross. And then we got to go to a super nice YMCA for showers and use a steam room and sauna and then the UMC here gave us the BEST dinner ever - pork burgers with bacon bits in them and the best cole slaw with corn and hardboiled egg and then five or six pies and corn on the cob and milk and so much fresh fruit and vegetables it was great. And I'm going to bed soon in a dark quiet room and I get MY OWN COUCH.
I cannot think of a better day. I fell asleep on a foam block in the YMCA waiting to get picked up, and sam gave me a back massage later, and it's a laundry day, and I got to spray that dog, and the hills were fun and I can tell I'm so much stronger, and my clean tshirt has at least ten bike grease stains, and I have a ton of gold bond on, and I wore my favorite bike socks, and I've tripped over my own feet six times in the last hour, and they had saltshakers at dinner, and man I feel so good. Goodnight moon.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
ahhh ok ok ok fine posting
for some reason i feel crazy guilty when i don't post. idk why. anyway.
today was like, pure awesomeness in bike form. got up at five, got all of my stuff together, helped pack the trailer, rapidly unpacked the trailer/dumped my bin on the pavement and grabbed replacement spokes for sam and then repacked it all, pumped tires, cue sheet meeting, wrote encouragement notes (think secret valentine notes except they say to and from and why this person is awesome), etc morning routine, and then set off. because today was a very important day...it was world cup finals! except, drumroll, we had an 80 mile ride to get done first, and there's always stuff to get done at the host site, and then you have to go find a TV, and the game was at 1:30 (central time yeaaaa new time zones).
so i got out of the parking lot and was totally hammering for a bit, but then i got a flat five miles in when the sidewall of my gatorskin blew out...fortunately it was a pretty small hole (but the snake bite in my tube was too big to patch) so i kept the tire and shoutout to kaitlin and cameron and ben for staying with me in the HUGE swarm of centipedes around the guardrail where i was fixing it...for some reasons creepy amounts of centipedes convene at 7 am next to cornfields in iowa...guess there's not much else to do there/then...
oh right so then i set off again, seriously having an awesome ride, and pounded out maybe 18 or 19 mph until lunch to catch up with everyone who passed us during the tire fixing and when i stopped to use the washroom at a gas station and wash off my mustache (it was our leader gabe's birthday and he has a mustache so we all drew on mustaches, except mine was sweating all over my face and i could not keep it on any longer). so i had lunch at 9 am, and set off on TERRIBLE backcountry roads that had previously had a ton of holes, so instead of fixing the holes, someone scraped up the road surface in a way that was pretty much the same as 'grooming' snow, where you put a ton of grooves into it, and making it really stressful and frustrating to ride on. but then i caught up with noam and the anthonys in the lead and we pounded it out (eventually with a few more riders) to the end of the day, with an ending computer speed of 16.5 mph, getting into the host at 12:10 or so, after a really heavy rainfall for the last few miles. showered unpacked the trailer set up etc, got to a bar (chameleons?) to order chicken strips (ok, i got a kiddee meal with chicken strips, but like, who doesn't like milk with a straw?) and catch the whole game! YAY
oh hey by the way we're in mount vernon iowa. iowa has a lot of hills. who knew.
and yesterday was the stateline from illinois into iowa, rode with justine, yay it was fun, ok so maybe we were struggle-busing a little bit from miles 75-85, but the end was fine...i rode 97.65 MILES yay....i was tempted to go for another century but then decided it was not worth it...umm i'm not going into detail, nothing was superinteresting yesterday...oh yay sleep is the best goooood night. another 5 am morning coming up!
today was like, pure awesomeness in bike form. got up at five, got all of my stuff together, helped pack the trailer, rapidly unpacked the trailer/dumped my bin on the pavement and grabbed replacement spokes for sam and then repacked it all, pumped tires, cue sheet meeting, wrote encouragement notes (think secret valentine notes except they say to and from and why this person is awesome), etc morning routine, and then set off. because today was a very important day...it was world cup finals! except, drumroll, we had an 80 mile ride to get done first, and there's always stuff to get done at the host site, and then you have to go find a TV, and the game was at 1:30 (central time yeaaaa new time zones).
so i got out of the parking lot and was totally hammering for a bit, but then i got a flat five miles in when the sidewall of my gatorskin blew out...fortunately it was a pretty small hole (but the snake bite in my tube was too big to patch) so i kept the tire and shoutout to kaitlin and cameron and ben for staying with me in the HUGE swarm of centipedes around the guardrail where i was fixing it...for some reasons creepy amounts of centipedes convene at 7 am next to cornfields in iowa...guess there's not much else to do there/then...
oh right so then i set off again, seriously having an awesome ride, and pounded out maybe 18 or 19 mph until lunch to catch up with everyone who passed us during the tire fixing and when i stopped to use the washroom at a gas station and wash off my mustache (it was our leader gabe's birthday and he has a mustache so we all drew on mustaches, except mine was sweating all over my face and i could not keep it on any longer). so i had lunch at 9 am, and set off on TERRIBLE backcountry roads that had previously had a ton of holes, so instead of fixing the holes, someone scraped up the road surface in a way that was pretty much the same as 'grooming' snow, where you put a ton of grooves into it, and making it really stressful and frustrating to ride on. but then i caught up with noam and the anthonys in the lead and we pounded it out (eventually with a few more riders) to the end of the day, with an ending computer speed of 16.5 mph, getting into the host at 12:10 or so, after a really heavy rainfall for the last few miles. showered unpacked the trailer set up etc, got to a bar (chameleons?) to order chicken strips (ok, i got a kiddee meal with chicken strips, but like, who doesn't like milk with a straw?) and catch the whole game! YAY
oh hey by the way we're in mount vernon iowa. iowa has a lot of hills. who knew.
and yesterday was the stateline from illinois into iowa, rode with justine, yay it was fun, ok so maybe we were struggle-busing a little bit from miles 75-85, but the end was fine...i rode 97.65 MILES yay....i was tempted to go for another century but then decided it was not worth it...umm i'm not going into detail, nothing was superinteresting yesterday...oh yay sleep is the best goooood night. another 5 am morning coming up!
Sweep/official journal
Hey guys, so this is my journal from Friday, when I had to also write the official bike and build journal for our trip (visible through the route-tracker). so here's my journal from that day:
Hey guys! So today was the ride from Pontiac, Illinois to Peru, Illinois – about 65 miles. I was sweep today, meaning that me and my sweep partner, Brett, leave the host location after everyone else and make sure that everyone on our ride is doing alright. We carry an extra tire in addition to all of the normal bike repair parts, and ride at the back to make sure that no one gets left behind. Because we can’t pass any riders, no matter what speed they are, we get to take a lot of breaks that we probably wouldn’t. Let’s admit it, rural Illinois is probably not the most exciting ride, so I will instead talk about all of our breaks.
Break 1: 100 yards out of host. Leaned our bikes together to make a camera tripod and took pictures in front of the Rt. 66 mural in Pontiac.
Break 2: 400 yards out of host. Bathroom break at the supermarket.
Break 3: Two miles out of host, Brett gets a call from another rider informing us that the road up ahead is really bad, and that we are taking a detour to a parallel road, and that the turns have been chalked for us – this adds about two miles to the ride.
Break 4: Five miles out. Brett hydrates some cornfields.
Break 5: Fifteen miles out. Brett buys a snack – snickers bar – and I eat some energy bar and we talk to a local at the gas station about BnB.
Break 6: Twenty-five miles out. My knee is really hurting so we stop to stretch, but we wanted to stop in the shade, so we stopped under some trees in front of a house, but the house had a dog chained to it, and the dog was very angry – stressful.
Break 7: Thirty miles out. We catch up to some other riders, so we have to stop at the gas station that they’re at. Another bathroom/snack break.
Break 8: Thirty-one miles out – still close to other riders so we nap by the side of the road for fifteen minutes in a wonderful shady area. It is THE BEST break.
Break 9: Forty miles out. LUNCH YAY we meet up with a bunch of other riders and the van and trailer at our lunch stop in an elementary school parking lot. Mini-nap.
Break 10: Forty-five miles out. A really little Cessna-looking plane is flying low over the fields and really close to us, so Brett tries to take pictures while riding, but he drops his camera and it pretty much explodes. We stop and he puts it back together and it miraculously turns on and we get a bunch of pictures!
Break 11: Sixty-three miles out. We run over some glass on the way onto US-6, Brett gets a flat. While changing it (and slipping a business card between his tire and his tube so that the tube does not go through the ripped tire) we notice that one of his spokes came off, so I screw it back in.
Break 12: Sixty-five miles out YAYAYAYAYAY WE GET INTO HOST! Actually today (due to the incredibly leisurely pace that sweep allows/requires) the ride was pretty easy and fun (except for bad morning headwind) so getting into host is nice, but not terrific or anything.
Yay showers were at the host site (this is the best. You can just walk there and shower and it’s awesome and there’s no need to walk in your gross incubating spandex through the humid sweaty air and get lost on the way to showers that are wayyy too long of a walk (like, ¾ of a mile counts as this when it’s right after a ride) away, and then get sweaty and lost again on the way back. So I LOVE on-site showers). And I learned a lot about Pontiac, Illinois when talking to locals in the host kitchen, and I iced my knees, and people napped/hung out, and we went to a local bike store but they did not give us a discount, but then Dairy Queen gave us free cones and Home Depot donated chalkboard paint, so that was cool.
Story of Pontiac: There were once upon a time a lot of glaciers. They made the Illinois river and also the Mississippi. These rivers have changed their course through time but still go along glacial paths. Some Native American tribe enacts a siege on another Native American tribe on top of some rock, and one of the tribes starves to death. Irish immigrants dug the canal in 1835, that (the Illinois-Michigan canal) and the Illinois river carried products of the town to the rest of the world. The town had a lot of coal in mines under it and used it (two tons of coal to one ton of Zinc) to smelt zinc, and also to make clocks, and some other stuff. Illinois creates Starved Rock State Park. A hosting couple moved to Pontiac after previously living at the intersection of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota, where there is a continental divide that runs along the inter-Dakota border, and splits rainfall that then either goes into the Hudson Bay, or the Mississippi. Pontiac runs out of coal in the 1960s, but then transitions to using the Illinois river for a lot of electric power, making electricity in the city really cheap and encouraging companies such as a steel-coating mill and Caterpillar plants to come. Bike and Build comes to Pontiac! I lose ALL of my biking socks in the group laundry because they are all in a mesh bag that gets lost. Paige’s mom visits from St. Louis and brings us butter-cake (delicious). I go to sleep at 8 pm, yay!
ps, the end was false. I stressed about my socks for a while and sort of called my parents and went to bed at 8:30 and woke up the next morning in the best best best mood ever becuase Vidya found my sock bag and put it next to my pillow and i woke up with my socks, aka with all of my problems solved yay!
Hey guys! So today was the ride from Pontiac, Illinois to Peru, Illinois – about 65 miles. I was sweep today, meaning that me and my sweep partner, Brett, leave the host location after everyone else and make sure that everyone on our ride is doing alright. We carry an extra tire in addition to all of the normal bike repair parts, and ride at the back to make sure that no one gets left behind. Because we can’t pass any riders, no matter what speed they are, we get to take a lot of breaks that we probably wouldn’t. Let’s admit it, rural Illinois is probably not the most exciting ride, so I will instead talk about all of our breaks.
Break 1: 100 yards out of host. Leaned our bikes together to make a camera tripod and took pictures in front of the Rt. 66 mural in Pontiac.
Break 2: 400 yards out of host. Bathroom break at the supermarket.
Break 3: Two miles out of host, Brett gets a call from another rider informing us that the road up ahead is really bad, and that we are taking a detour to a parallel road, and that the turns have been chalked for us – this adds about two miles to the ride.
Break 4: Five miles out. Brett hydrates some cornfields.
Break 5: Fifteen miles out. Brett buys a snack – snickers bar – and I eat some energy bar and we talk to a local at the gas station about BnB.
Break 6: Twenty-five miles out. My knee is really hurting so we stop to stretch, but we wanted to stop in the shade, so we stopped under some trees in front of a house, but the house had a dog chained to it, and the dog was very angry – stressful.
Break 7: Thirty miles out. We catch up to some other riders, so we have to stop at the gas station that they’re at. Another bathroom/snack break.
Break 8: Thirty-one miles out – still close to other riders so we nap by the side of the road for fifteen minutes in a wonderful shady area. It is THE BEST break.
Break 9: Forty miles out. LUNCH YAY we meet up with a bunch of other riders and the van and trailer at our lunch stop in an elementary school parking lot. Mini-nap.
Break 10: Forty-five miles out. A really little Cessna-looking plane is flying low over the fields and really close to us, so Brett tries to take pictures while riding, but he drops his camera and it pretty much explodes. We stop and he puts it back together and it miraculously turns on and we get a bunch of pictures!
Break 11: Sixty-three miles out. We run over some glass on the way onto US-6, Brett gets a flat. While changing it (and slipping a business card between his tire and his tube so that the tube does not go through the ripped tire) we notice that one of his spokes came off, so I screw it back in.
Break 12: Sixty-five miles out YAYAYAYAYAY WE GET INTO HOST! Actually today (due to the incredibly leisurely pace that sweep allows/requires) the ride was pretty easy and fun (except for bad morning headwind) so getting into host is nice, but not terrific or anything.
Yay showers were at the host site (this is the best. You can just walk there and shower and it’s awesome and there’s no need to walk in your gross incubating spandex through the humid sweaty air and get lost on the way to showers that are wayyy too long of a walk (like, ¾ of a mile counts as this when it’s right after a ride) away, and then get sweaty and lost again on the way back. So I LOVE on-site showers). And I learned a lot about Pontiac, Illinois when talking to locals in the host kitchen, and I iced my knees, and people napped/hung out, and we went to a local bike store but they did not give us a discount, but then Dairy Queen gave us free cones and Home Depot donated chalkboard paint, so that was cool.
Story of Pontiac: There were once upon a time a lot of glaciers. They made the Illinois river and also the Mississippi. These rivers have changed their course through time but still go along glacial paths. Some Native American tribe enacts a siege on another Native American tribe on top of some rock, and one of the tribes starves to death. Irish immigrants dug the canal in 1835, that (the Illinois-Michigan canal) and the Illinois river carried products of the town to the rest of the world. The town had a lot of coal in mines under it and used it (two tons of coal to one ton of Zinc) to smelt zinc, and also to make clocks, and some other stuff. Illinois creates Starved Rock State Park. A hosting couple moved to Pontiac after previously living at the intersection of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota, where there is a continental divide that runs along the inter-Dakota border, and splits rainfall that then either goes into the Hudson Bay, or the Mississippi. Pontiac runs out of coal in the 1960s, but then transitions to using the Illinois river for a lot of electric power, making electricity in the city really cheap and encouraging companies such as a steel-coating mill and Caterpillar plants to come. Bike and Build comes to Pontiac! I lose ALL of my biking socks in the group laundry because they are all in a mesh bag that gets lost. Paige’s mom visits from St. Louis and brings us butter-cake (delicious). I go to sleep at 8 pm, yay!
ps, the end was false. I stressed about my socks for a while and sort of called my parents and went to bed at 8:30 and woke up the next morning in the best best best mood ever becuase Vidya found my sock bag and put it next to my pillow and i woke up with my socks, aka with all of my problems solved yay!
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Off dayyyy
yay off day in Pontiac Illinois. sleeping in, getting breakfast in town...twice, getting a haircut, chilling out, visiting museums/walking around/talking with people/locals, making postcards, writing them, send me your addresses since i don't have any of them duhhhh, mailing stuff home, chillinnnnnnn, bike maintenance, etc. nice chill day.
apparently a really bad hurricane went through pontiac in 1940 or so, wiped out a big factory and all of the cars outside...also four jailguards were murdered sometime in the 70s or 80s. caterpillar (equipment company) has a factory here. the bars on mill street are sketchy because troublemakers hang out there for lack of other things to do. there are a lot of rt 66 murals in town, installed last year when a ton of artists came in for three days of painting, there's a museum about that, shoutout to eclips haircut place just off of madison street for giving me a discount on my haircut becuase they thought bike and build was cool (because it rocks!), there's a pretty cool war museum near the rt 66 museum (learned that north vietnamese propaganda during the 60s tried to rally black soldiers to turn against the us because of the civil rights movement riots - interesting), umm...yea not sure what else i learned today. this was such a needed break. appletree restaurant/diner has waaaaaayyyyy better food than delongs and really reasonably priced, i'm a fan.
yayyyyy lazy dayyyyssssss
apparently a really bad hurricane went through pontiac in 1940 or so, wiped out a big factory and all of the cars outside...also four jailguards were murdered sometime in the 70s or 80s. caterpillar (equipment company) has a factory here. the bars on mill street are sketchy because troublemakers hang out there for lack of other things to do. there are a lot of rt 66 murals in town, installed last year when a ton of artists came in for three days of painting, there's a museum about that, shoutout to eclips haircut place just off of madison street for giving me a discount on my haircut becuase they thought bike and build was cool (because it rocks!), there's a pretty cool war museum near the rt 66 museum (learned that north vietnamese propaganda during the 60s tried to rally black soldiers to turn against the us because of the civil rights movement riots - interesting), umm...yea not sure what else i learned today. this was such a needed break. appletree restaurant/diner has waaaaaayyyyy better food than delongs and really reasonably priced, i'm a fan.
yayyyyy lazy dayyyyssssss
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Pontiaccc
So last night in Gilman I learned plenty about corn. We had a great dinner and then hosted a bike clinic for local kids...wear your helmets, seriously, all of you! We all fall a lot more than you'd think...
So about the corn. Well each piece of corn silk has to get pollinated by other corn pollen, and pollinated corn silk connects to a kernel and creates the kernel. So there are a lot of signs by the side of the road, next to corn, with what looks like license-plate codes - DX528h, or similar things like that, and these are actually the names of different strains of genetically modified (or just specifically bred in general) corn. Sometimes, there is a sign next to every row of corn, and this is because they are testing how a different kind of fertilizer impacts a lot of different types of corn. Also, most corn out here is 'field corn' which is not sweet corn, ie is not for humans. It is for animal feed, ethanol, corn syrup, cornmeal, and lots of other corn products. Because there is a govt subsidy on corn, people grow more corn than is needed, and thus try to invent uses for the corn, ie ethanol, or whatever the 22 corn-based ingredients in chicken mcnuggets are. You learn a lotta corn facts in Illinois... Also the low flying planes are to cropdust the corn, so they spray pesticides on it. The spray is not supposed to get blown away to people...
So today, we only had a 45 mile ride to Pontiac, and we got on the road decently early, andthe roads were pretty flat - big shoutout to Cameron for riding with me - we had the best ride ever! Went super fast - we had a ten mile stretch of going over 20 mph while still having a conversation that was superinteresting about engineering stuff and design and lots of things. And the rest of the ride was really fast as well - we hit lunch at 9:30 am and left pretty quickly, got into the host before 11, had a great lunch with the group at Delong's in town, then everyone went to go shower and watch the world cup and nap. Awesome awesome ride, we were booking it - jealous of Cameron's aerobar handlebars though. We also passed a tractortrailer semi truck hauling one huge windmill propellor blade, and the blade was way longer than the truck bed, it was huge. Tons of windmills out here - duh -tons of wind, mmm headwind, funnnn, Not. But I did figure out why the wind is always in our faces.
Wind goes from west to east because the sun rises in the east, so it heats the air in the east up first, making it hotter and lower pressure, so the colder air in the west is higher pressure and blows to the east. This is also why the wind isn't bad in the early morning but hugely picks up a bit later.
Also during the ride, Cameron and I were almost cropdusted quite a few times - that plane was swooping back and forth over us and could not have been more than thirty feet above us, probably less since it was so low to the corn. Best quote from a Pontiac local: "well, you're about to hit Iowa, and that's really all flat and corn"... Yea I'm not sure it gets more like that than it is already here.
Other things about Pontiac - it is a town of 12000, it is the county seat, so those not involved in agribusiness (farming, equipment, fertilizer, grain elevators and storage, etc) often have county administrative jobs. There is also a maximum security state prison that employs a lot of people. Rod Blagojevich (sp?) was previously in a political feud with a state senator from near Pontiac, and Blagojevich wanted to make the senator look bad by increasing unemployment in his area, so he tried to shut down the prison but failed. So the prison is still in operation. About to go watch a movie complete with bnb cuddlefest. Ps, Mary, if you're readingthis and you ever steal my sleeping bag againnnn....watch out.
Location:W Lincoln Ave,Pontiac,United States
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
State SEVEN Illinois!
Hey guys i'm going to lay down some more rhymes from the ride today, which btws was with Katy and was supermuch fun, I looooove the flat midwest sometimes, and it's good for talking. Or making rhymes.
Yea, Illinois, cross another state off;
Went through so quick it's like crossing the date off;
Man these states are fast, they getting paid off?
Cause if so they go through money like Madoff.
Out in Illinois where the cars don't honk
Way far away from that east-coast honky-tonk
Having a good day, hope I don't bonk
THe only thing that hurts is my badonkadonk!
Just rolled into sweet Illinois
Pretty far from my home New Joise,
Man these are cute midwestern farm boys
Maybe I need a midwestern farm toy?
Hahah anyway, long flat pretty smooth roads; it's great. Note: to 'bonk' means to not eat enough while riding, so not take enough snack breaks, and get really tired and totally run out of energy. Usually easily prevented but sometimes it creeps up on you when you think you're having a great ride. Also, I'm actually not doing too badly with chafing, but it's a pretty constant topic of discussion for BnB riders.
Donationmagic shoutout to Wendy's of West Lafayette for giving my laundry crew four free chocolate frostys after I showed off my rocking tan lines and explained bike and build and that we were hungry, thanks guys!
Also to many locals of the town of Wasenka, or something like that, Illinois, which is about 15 miles east of where we are now, which is, umm, wow, I have no idea...towns go by really quickly...umm...Gilman, Illinois. Because the locals of Wasenka were really helpful during Katy and my half-hour long search for postcards. Verdict: there are no postcards to be bought in Wasenka. Or Gilman. I really plan on sending postcards though, send me your addresses, i think my email's listed somewhere on this blog, it's slickasapenguin@gmail.com
Small town people are soooo friendly it's great. Really really liking the midwest. Btw we had another 80 miles today. So yea...lotta saddle time. BUT WE'RE IN A NEW TIME ZONE YAY ONE MORE HOUR OF SLEEP!!!!! Ps, look at the bike and build website's route tracker, you can totally come visit me if you're anywhere near me in the country on our route on the day we come through, it will be fun!
ALso, in case anyone wanted some 'a day in the life' info about bike and build, every three days that includes filling two large tarps with laundry (everyone has a synthetics laundry loop that gets tied on all of their biking spandex, and a non-synthetics that gets tied on everything else) and hauling them quite bodily into a laundromat, and spending a TON of quarters to wash it all. We filled two 80-pound washers and two 45-pound washers. The water looked prety gross after it had ran through the laundry for more than three minutes...ugh...
Hah we're getting far enough from the coast that when we meet people, they either think we're awesome, or to quote a guy from a gas station today 'you are straight up crazy'. Which might be true too... Ahhh yay love bnb love showers love gold bond powder love cereal and milk and bananas love flat stretches love SLEEP goood nighhhhttttt
Yea, Illinois, cross another state off;
Went through so quick it's like crossing the date off;
Man these states are fast, they getting paid off?
Cause if so they go through money like Madoff.
Out in Illinois where the cars don't honk
Way far away from that east-coast honky-tonk
Having a good day, hope I don't bonk
THe only thing that hurts is my badonkadonk!
Just rolled into sweet Illinois
Pretty far from my home New Joise,
Man these are cute midwestern farm boys
Maybe I need a midwestern farm toy?
Hahah anyway, long flat pretty smooth roads; it's great. Note: to 'bonk' means to not eat enough while riding, so not take enough snack breaks, and get really tired and totally run out of energy. Usually easily prevented but sometimes it creeps up on you when you think you're having a great ride. Also, I'm actually not doing too badly with chafing, but it's a pretty constant topic of discussion for BnB riders.
Donationmagic shoutout to Wendy's of West Lafayette for giving my laundry crew four free chocolate frostys after I showed off my rocking tan lines and explained bike and build and that we were hungry, thanks guys!
Also to many locals of the town of Wasenka, or something like that, Illinois, which is about 15 miles east of where we are now, which is, umm, wow, I have no idea...towns go by really quickly...umm...Gilman, Illinois. Because the locals of Wasenka were really helpful during Katy and my half-hour long search for postcards. Verdict: there are no postcards to be bought in Wasenka. Or Gilman. I really plan on sending postcards though, send me your addresses, i think my email's listed somewhere on this blog, it's slickasapenguin@gmail.com
Small town people are soooo friendly it's great. Really really liking the midwest. Btw we had another 80 miles today. So yea...lotta saddle time. BUT WE'RE IN A NEW TIME ZONE YAY ONE MORE HOUR OF SLEEP!!!!! Ps, look at the bike and build website's route tracker, you can totally come visit me if you're anywhere near me in the country on our route on the day we come through, it will be fun!
ALso, in case anyone wanted some 'a day in the life' info about bike and build, every three days that includes filling two large tarps with laundry (everyone has a synthetics laundry loop that gets tied on all of their biking spandex, and a non-synthetics that gets tied on everything else) and hauling them quite bodily into a laundromat, and spending a TON of quarters to wash it all. We filled two 80-pound washers and two 45-pound washers. The water looked prety gross after it had ran through the laundry for more than three minutes...ugh...
Hah we're getting far enough from the coast that when we meet people, they either think we're awesome, or to quote a guy from a gas station today 'you are straight up crazy'. Which might be true too... Ahhh yay love bnb love showers love gold bond powder love cereal and milk and bananas love flat stretches love SLEEP goood nighhhhttttt
Monday, July 5, 2010
Pancakes pancakes pancakes are flat like Ohio
So we're actually in Indiana right now but Ohio. It was flat. Like Ohio. And pancakes. Brittany made up a terrific song about pancakes and Ohio, because Ohio is flat and we had some pancakes and we were REALLY tired on that build day (maybe getting up after 6 am messed up my sleep schedule?) and for some reason that led to singing about pancakes. Ohio was flatter than Indiana, that's the point.
So July 3 was a build day in Dayton and that night we got VIP seating for dayton's fireworks. The next day was an action-packed July 4th! Got up at 5, had a four-car police escort out of Dayton that morning; it was awesome, one car in front, one in back, and two riding along either side of us to block intersections. Such a fun ride too, and there are a lotta lotta pics of it on my camera which I will update sometime. But really just use the routetracker on bnb's website. At the end of the escort, we stopped by the side of the road and all sang the national anthem, then started on the bike path, then a bunch of lonely roads and pretty flat cornfields, good for talking though! First lunch, then some really bad headwinds and it got REALLY hot, aka 95 degrees and sunny.
Oh by the way I forgot to say that this was our first CENTURY yeAaaaaaA 100 miles!! Oh except noam and I were riding together late in the day and we missed this turn (let's admit it, sam and ben probably saved us from a few other missed turns...) and ended up doing 8 extra miles. This is after a bunch of us did two extra miles around the Ohio/Indiana state line. Oo we took some great pictures there, check noam's blog for one or two later. And yea, the rest of the 112!!!! mile day was sorta hot and tiring, but also really exciting to be on the longest ride I will do for a while! Umm yea fourth of July I went to bed at 8:30...it was great...
Random thing, after any ride that's longer than sixty miles, I have a period afterwards of feeling really terrible and nauseous, even if I've been pretty good about hydrating durig the ride. It goes away in half an hour or so though. Also we're all getting bad chAfing on these hot days when you stay in sweaty chammys for a long time, and when you bike long enough to go 100 miles...and A lot of people have heat rash on their legs too, and sunburn, etc...yesterday I had aloe gel on my face, extra strength gold bond on a third of my legs, and aloe cooling lotion on the rest of my legs and most of my arms, and everyone has their own special methods of dealing with this.
so today was the same weather as yesterday, but we only had 87 miles today...not so bad at all. Really getting to like getting up and leaving early, I would be happy leaving the host at 5:30 am if we could get dinner earlier...hosts that have early dinner are the BEST. It's kinda hard to wait until 6 or 6:30 for dinner, I am falling asleep and starving by then.
Oh anyway so today was a lot more corn all the way until west Lafayette Indiana, rode with Adrienne and heard about cool adventures is Morocco and decided that a definite neat option post grad would be to get a Fulbright as an 'assistants anglaise' but probably go somwhere other than France. But her trip sounded great.
Indiana facts: the tall buildings inthe middle of nowhere are grain elevators that lift corn so it can be slid down into silos. The crops we see are mostly corn, with some soybeans and wheat. They had a lot of rain, that's why there are some cornfields with more mud than corn. Lotta beer cans by the side of the road. Roadkill of choice is no longer squirrels but raccoons, with some opossums, groundhogs, and cats. It gets a lot hillier and less bike-friendly near west Lafayette, but it is nice to see civilization. Cornnnnnnnn
So July 3 was a build day in Dayton and that night we got VIP seating for dayton's fireworks. The next day was an action-packed July 4th! Got up at 5, had a four-car police escort out of Dayton that morning; it was awesome, one car in front, one in back, and two riding along either side of us to block intersections. Such a fun ride too, and there are a lotta lotta pics of it on my camera which I will update sometime. But really just use the routetracker on bnb's website. At the end of the escort, we stopped by the side of the road and all sang the national anthem, then started on the bike path, then a bunch of lonely roads and pretty flat cornfields, good for talking though! First lunch, then some really bad headwinds and it got REALLY hot, aka 95 degrees and sunny.
Oh by the way I forgot to say that this was our first CENTURY yeAaaaaaA 100 miles!! Oh except noam and I were riding together late in the day and we missed this turn (let's admit it, sam and ben probably saved us from a few other missed turns...) and ended up doing 8 extra miles. This is after a bunch of us did two extra miles around the Ohio/Indiana state line. Oo we took some great pictures there, check noam's blog for one or two later. And yea, the rest of the 112!!!! mile day was sorta hot and tiring, but also really exciting to be on the longest ride I will do for a while! Umm yea fourth of July I went to bed at 8:30...it was great...
Random thing, after any ride that's longer than sixty miles, I have a period afterwards of feeling really terrible and nauseous, even if I've been pretty good about hydrating durig the ride. It goes away in half an hour or so though. Also we're all getting bad chAfing on these hot days when you stay in sweaty chammys for a long time, and when you bike long enough to go 100 miles...and A lot of people have heat rash on their legs too, and sunburn, etc...yesterday I had aloe gel on my face, extra strength gold bond on a third of my legs, and aloe cooling lotion on the rest of my legs and most of my arms, and everyone has their own special methods of dealing with this.
so today was the same weather as yesterday, but we only had 87 miles today...not so bad at all. Really getting to like getting up and leaving early, I would be happy leaving the host at 5:30 am if we could get dinner earlier...hosts that have early dinner are the BEST. It's kinda hard to wait until 6 or 6:30 for dinner, I am falling asleep and starving by then.
Oh anyway so today was a lot more corn all the way until west Lafayette Indiana, rode with Adrienne and heard about cool adventures is Morocco and decided that a definite neat option post grad would be to get a Fulbright as an 'assistants anglaise' but probably go somwhere other than France. But her trip sounded great.
Indiana facts: the tall buildings inthe middle of nowhere are grain elevators that lift corn so it can be slid down into silos. The crops we see are mostly corn, with some soybeans and wheat. They had a lot of rain, that's why there are some cornfields with more mud than corn. Lotta beer cans by the side of the road. Roadkill of choice is no longer squirrels but raccoons, with some opossums, groundhogs, and cats. It gets a lot hillier and less bike-friendly near west Lafayette, but it is nice to see civilization. Cornnnnnnnn
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Articles about me
Hey guys here's an article about bike and build when we were in Youngstown, Ohio that quotes me and has pics of my co-riders!
http://www.vindy.com/news/2010/jun/29/cyclists-lend-hands-to-habitat-project/?newswatch
And an article ALL ABOUT ME from my loving local paper
http://www.towntopics.com/jun3010/sports4.php
http://www.vindy.com/news/2010/jun/29/cyclists-lend-hands-to-habitat-project/?newswatch
And an article ALL ABOUT ME from my loving local paper
http://www.towntopics.com/jun3010/sports4.php
Dayton day 2
So Dayton is still a pretty cool place - really clean city, really bike friendly. like CRAZY bike friendly. also build today was cool - we were on local channel 2 news at 6 pm! and i learned how to hang drywall. apparently dayton's deal is that it used to be a big manufacturing city but everything has left recently - trying to reinvent itselve as creative/innovative (apparently it has always been...wright brothers' bike shop, combustion engine, some other stuff) and get new industry that way. also is taking advantage of the local 'Mad River' for tourism - river activities like boating, biking along the river, lotta bike paths, a competition-level mountain bike course, etc. dayton is 50-something percent white and 40-something percent black, and apparently race relations are not always the best - especially since a highway system has divided the city, whites tend to live on the west side and blacks on the east. in general, people who can afford to and aren't heartset on city life live in the suburbs. dayton is also working on urban planning and putting in better public transportation - light rail to nearby metro areas is a big possibility. in general, the city does have a pretty cool feel to it, it is definitely a place i would consider living. the 'US Bankruptcy Court' building is huge and looks really depressing though...
oh and interesting fact, Habitat for Humanity has a lot of stores that sell donated or hugely discounted goods at a good price to locals - usually overstock furniture, things like that (at least as far as I know). these stores are widely used in big urban areas. dayton's has recently started on its way to being successful, they now net 75k a year, but are hoping to expand their space to 30k sqft and bring in 250k a year to really underwrite their other programs.
also, volunteering with habitat is seriously fun and a great way to meet/spend time with people and really get a sense of accomplishment. today, the 30 of us reorganized a build site and moved a lot of materials, measured, cut, hung, and adjusted drywall ceilings and walls in about 3/5 of a house, did a bunch of work with roofing/flashing/siding, and cleaned the site when we were done, all in about six hours! once we're more used to working together in build sites and have more general construction skills, i'm sure we'll be a lot more efficient, but either way, going into a house with all bare framing and leaving it with rooms that had ceilings, walls, and a more finished roof was REALLY inspiring. take some time for your country, which is by the way awesome, and get involved in your local habitat today! even if you can't help build, you can donate or help out in their office or reStore. i definitely plan to keep voluteering with Habitat after this summer.
oh and interesting fact, Habitat for Humanity has a lot of stores that sell donated or hugely discounted goods at a good price to locals - usually overstock furniture, things like that (at least as far as I know). these stores are widely used in big urban areas. dayton's has recently started on its way to being successful, they now net 75k a year, but are hoping to expand their space to 30k sqft and bring in 250k a year to really underwrite their other programs.
also, volunteering with habitat is seriously fun and a great way to meet/spend time with people and really get a sense of accomplishment. today, the 30 of us reorganized a build site and moved a lot of materials, measured, cut, hung, and adjusted drywall ceilings and walls in about 3/5 of a house, did a bunch of work with roofing/flashing/siding, and cleaned the site when we were done, all in about six hours! once we're more used to working together in build sites and have more general construction skills, i'm sure we'll be a lot more efficient, but either way, going into a house with all bare framing and leaving it with rooms that had ceilings, walls, and a more finished roof was REALLY inspiring. take some time for your country, which is by the way awesome, and get involved in your local habitat today! even if you can't help build, you can donate or help out in their office or reStore. i definitely plan to keep voluteering with Habitat after this summer.
Friday, July 2, 2010
one last thing
this site shares a lot of cool biking adventures
definitely getting inspired for a lifetime, or a least quite a few years, of adventure-seeking after this
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/
definitely getting inspired for a lifetime, or a least quite a few years, of adventure-seeking after this
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/
whoa whoa 90 miles newwww recorrrddd
Hey guys i rode 90 miles today!!! And now that we're finally in flat flat flat country, it wasn't hard at all! So now we're in Dayton, Ohio - pretty interesting place. They are one of two cities in Ohio to be officially declared 'Bike Friendly' by some cyclists' association, and when we were walking downtown explaining Bike and Build to a random person, we ran into a man who is running whatever the Dayton Biking movement is. There is even a commuters' bike hub in town where you can lock up your bike indoors and shower and change for work and everything! They also had a big street fair today called the 'City Folk' Festival...pretty cool. Also, around 8:30 pm, Noam and I were walking looking for a convenience store to buy some skin lotion (gotta keep up with that sunburn and those attractive tan lines...) so we asked a nice looking middle-aged woman where one would be. She tentatively gave us directions, but also warned that we maybe should not be in this section of town after six pm and that it was rather sketchy. We couldn't find the convenience store, and the other one she pointed us to was closed, but walking back WE SAW HER TRYING TO BREAK INTO A CAR WITH A CLOTHES HANGER that she had been fiddling with earlier. HAH. Learning plenty of things...
The ride today was just really flat, pretty cornfields etc. We stopped for lunch about 50 miles in at the house of parents of a former BnBer. The food was great. The rest of the ride was uneventful as well. The only rough parts were negotiating COlumbus traffic in the morning (and terribly laid-out streets in some places...) and Dayton highways and exits in the afternoon. But it was almost all uneventful and pretty and easy. Also the Dayton Habitat group that is hosting us is incredibly nice and friendly and helpful, big shoutout to them. And to SInclair Community College for hosting us and buying us dinner (a lot of it, by necessity...), and to the bike commuting hub for giving me some free (and mold-free, more importantly...) water bottles.
Also I wrote a song about bike and build!
Let me tell you all a story about Bike and Build
Where we cycle 'cross America and try not to get killed.
We might use your restrooms or might borrow a pot
But either way you've got to say spandex is hotttttt
If you're biking across the nation then you'd better have a cause
More than donation magic and stuffing full your jaws
So we say our cause is Affordable Housing
And whatever other ideals we might be espousing
Every night we roll into a new host
They feel our muscles and we try not to boast
But we really miss our mothers
Some of us, significant others
All part of the journey from coast to coast
Once a week we circle up for a family meeting
We all share highs and lows and butt pats count as greetings
Sometimes we give long shoutouts, Talking about disastrous routes
Ends with a group massage train and then we go on eating!
ps, the song doesn't really mention the biking. but it rocks. as do the people and their amazing stories, make the miles fly by!
The ride today was just really flat, pretty cornfields etc. We stopped for lunch about 50 miles in at the house of parents of a former BnBer. The food was great. The rest of the ride was uneventful as well. The only rough parts were negotiating COlumbus traffic in the morning (and terribly laid-out streets in some places...) and Dayton highways and exits in the afternoon. But it was almost all uneventful and pretty and easy. Also the Dayton Habitat group that is hosting us is incredibly nice and friendly and helpful, big shoutout to them. And to SInclair Community College for hosting us and buying us dinner (a lot of it, by necessity...), and to the bike commuting hub for giving me some free (and mold-free, more importantly...) water bottles.
Also I wrote a song about bike and build!
Let me tell you all a story about Bike and Build
Where we cycle 'cross America and try not to get killed.
We might use your restrooms or might borrow a pot
But either way you've got to say spandex is hotttttt
If you're biking across the nation then you'd better have a cause
More than donation magic and stuffing full your jaws
So we say our cause is Affordable Housing
And whatever other ideals we might be espousing
Every night we roll into a new host
They feel our muscles and we try not to boast
But we really miss our mothers
Some of us, significant others
All part of the journey from coast to coast
Once a week we circle up for a family meeting
We all share highs and lows and butt pats count as greetings
Sometimes we give long shoutouts, Talking about disastrous routes
Ends with a group massage train and then we go on eating!
ps, the song doesn't really mention the biking. but it rocks. as do the people and their amazing stories, make the miles fly by!
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