Tetons!!!!

One of the most epic days of my life. It was really amazing. I woke up crazy pumped (probably a defense mechanism to block out extreme fear of climbing to a 9000 ft. elevation). I rode sweep with spency and Olivia. We started the day with the climb up Teton pass, which has parts as steep as 12% grade. It was really incredible. We were on a bike path, which had lots of switchbacks and the most amazing views (see facebook soon). We took it really slowly with the last group back, yelling the whole way. Since sweep rides in the back, we got up to the summit last. And EVERYONE waited for us at the top! When we rode in, everyone popped out from bushes yelling/singing. Some peole ran up the last part with us. It was so sweet that everyone was out there supporting everyone else. We took a million pictures and had a huge dance party. I can't even really describe how amazing it felt to reach the top if the mountain and celebrate with everyone. The 10% grade downhill was fun too. The rest of the ride was pretty chill. We got ice cream and hammered a lot of it. Definitely the most amazing ride day so far.

Better photos will definitely be on fb soon...

Togada pass!!!

Beautiful ride day! Like ridiculous. We started with a pretty crazy climb, but we got a ride up the last part because of construction. Pretty flat after that. We rode up to the tetons all day, which we are riding over tomorrow (ahhhhh!!!). My team (Maddy, Kaitlin, me) totally dominated the scavanger hunt. We got a photo inside an RV, spelling teton, a buffalo, etc...

Really proud of everyone for getting back on our bikes and getting through a hard (88 mile) day! keep on keeping on everyone!




Hitching a ride through construction.









The Tetons are behind me...my phone camera sucks.



Ninja...we're kind of obsessed.





Tetons...scaaaryyy.

Photos

Woman we helped out in Chadron



Double rainbow after the storm.
It's almost like a TRIPLE RAINBOW!!





Cat spency and I found while raking leaves.












Chalking for Paige.

Going craaazyyy!!

So I've been on a bus for 3 straight days heading to Dubois, WY. We've watched Friday night lights for 5 straight hours. It's the worst show ever. And the highlight of the trip is seeing car henge. Yeah. It's a replica of stone henge made out of cars. We stopped there twice. But actually the ride has been pretty fun. Lots of games and food challanges (Anthony ate a pound of spam). We've played ultimate frisbee or basketball every night.

We are planning on getting into town early today so we can go on a shakedown bike ride and do some drills like we did during orientation so that we get comfortable on our bikes again. Bike and build has been amazing through all this. We have the trip coordinator, Kristian, with us to help out. We had food and accommodations all this time, and they are even giving us bike mirrors so that we are a little safer.

The next two days are the steepest mountains of the trip. Tetan pass is on our second ride day. It's going to be beautiful and awesome, and I'm really excited. And totally nervous. Facing huge mountains and just being jumpy on a bike will be tough. We have such a strong team/family here, though. We'll all be great.




Wyoming is beautiful!

On July 20th, we lost our incredible, fearless leader Paige. She died after being hit by the oversized load of a truck. You can check out www.bikeandbuild.org for more info. But it's been a really hard 4 days. A lot of people don't realize how close bike and build trips become. When you struggle, achieve, and grow with 30 people, they become family, and we have lost a family member.

Paige was such an incredible person. Always happy and always herself. She knew exactly how to read everyone and was really in tune with our needs. She would wear her overalls, fannypack, bump-it, hot pink nail polish, and temporary tatoos out all the time. She texted me whenever we were within 20 miles of a chipotle. She rode the first naked miles of the summer, and she planned our first party. She had a picture of Harry potter taped inside her bike frame, and she named her bike "firebolt." Paige was always approachable and everything you could want in a leader. I'm going to miss her hugs and massages and random dance party breaks and throwing the frisbee. Mostly I'm going to miss Paige's love for every second of life.

We haven't biked since, and we are on our way to St. Louis for Paige's memorial services on Monday. While we were in Chadrin, NE we were hit by a huge hailstorm. We spent the next day helping clean up and rebuild the town. We boarded up a lot of broken windows and cleaned gutters. It was really great to be busy and helping out. We've been talking a lot, and most of us are pretty set on getting to Seatle no matter how hard it is. I definitely am. We also all really feel that it would be a disshonor to Paige if all we rembered was her death instead of rembering all the amazing times we've had. I really appreciate everyone's texts and blitzes and phone calls!! My friends are really supportive, and I love you guys!

Riding into lake Andes was awesome!! I rode with adrienne all day. We talked about life and travelling and college and adventures and just took it really easy! Milkshakes at the end!!

Today we rode into Winner, sd. It was such a beautiful ride. Except
for the morning, which was a huge thunderstorm on gravelly road. Im still terrified of gravel, so it was kind of scarey. Lunch was overlooking the Missouri river, an awesome view! After lunch flew. Pretty red hills! Maddy and I got mcdonalds to let us go through the drive through on our bikes. We got milkshakes! That was really awesome. It's crazy that we're already over 2000 mile in. I could do this forever....




Sam and Anthony spooning. Awwwww.

Yankton, sd

Today was a great surprise. We got up at 4 am, but our leaders surprised us with a 60


mile day! (crazy that that seems like nothing at this point...). I rode with Anthony, Spencer, Hassan. We drafted teams and just hammered it in. I can't belive we are already at south Dakota. Wow. We got in by
10:30 am, so we had all day to hang out. A big group of us went to see inception, which was awesome. Basically it felt like a day off. It was a great riding day and really relaxing!

Location:Walnut St,Yankton,United States

Sioux city build!

Build day today! I took it pretty easy since I was in pain and exhasted from yesterday's ride. I did some drywalling, concrete siding, and other random jobs. Very chill. We also got to talk to the homeowner, whose husband is rapidly losing his vision. It was cool to see the progress we made.

We also got mail today! I got a really sweet card from my roommate in the fall (thankkkssss!!!). And thanks to my parents and to sams parents!

Dinner was at donated by olive garden at olive garden. It's been so long since I've been out to dinner, so that wa nice! Lots of fun arguments with Hassan. And we went to bed really early for 4 am wake up the next morning!

Another century!!

Ok this post is a few days old. No service ever!! Today still no service, but we have wifi!

Anyways, so the day after the crazy heat we had a 110 mile day. It was a little insane but pretty awesome. I had a sweet group (Justine, Kaitlin, Vidya, Amy, Adrienne). The ride was pretty smooth in the morning! Some awesome views and hills.

After second lunch, though, I had a pretty bad crash (I'm totally fine though!). Basically I hit gravel and flipped sideways....and Vidya went flying over me. Yeah, I got run over by a bike. It was ok though! I was really high on adrenaline and felt totally good to keep going.

We had an extra third stop where bretts parents made us smoothies (best idea ever!!!). By then I was really dehydrated and kind of shaky, but my friends where really calming. The end was hard, but it was so sweet to make it 110 miles! Yay build day tomorrow! That was a crazy week (3 rides over 100!). It's been such a great adventure.

Location:Walnut St,Yankton,United States

What is pain? FRENCH BREAD!

Intense day today! I left with the lead group (such a good call) and hammered to first lunch. The morning was really nice, pretty mellow.

After lunch, though, we hit really strong headwind. It was taking so much effort to move forward. At times the wind would almost tip me sideways...crazy. Headwind is really frustrating. Then it got hot. 98 degrees. Heat index of 108 degrees (aka really humid). Not a great combination. I had great people around me though. Spency let me draft off him, and ben stopped every once in a while to chalk encouragements.

Riding with lead group is hard, since they're crazy fast, but so worth it on days when it's alot easier to ride fast than it is to be outside all day.

By second lunch we were all out of water and just exhausted. I was sweating so much...it felt like I was swimming. There was a streatch of tailwind that was awesome, but other than that we were pretty stuck.

I've never been as happy to see a host site. Finishing today was awesome. I had a lot of fun, and it was definitely an adventure, but by the end, it was just getting painful to be outside.

40 miles is the new 20...

We got to sleep in till 7 this morning!! It was soooo nice. We set off and were really hammering it to get to Aimes because there's a sweet bike shop that always gives bike and build free tune ups and 25% off on everything.

It was a great ride...until we hit gravel, which we decided to just ride on (which was a good call considering our last gravel re-route...). The gravel was intense, but we got through it.

We got in early, hit the bike shop, got sandwhiches and ice cream, and chilled in aimes. We have also been playing assasins (everyone is assigned a person to "kill" by spraying then with water. Kills must be made with no witnesses and can be blocked if the target sprays the assasin first). It's really fun, and everyone is really into it.

After dinner we had a sweet dance party and watched remember the titans. Basically, it felt like a day off...so great!

Century...surprise!

I rode sweep with Chaz, a philosophy/neuroscience major who just graduated from brown. The day started off with crazy thick fog. We couldn't see anything. After that cleared, though, we had some awesome discussions about morality, objectivism, religion, and rights. I love arguing with really intelligent people, so that was great.
We hit first lunch..and the news that our 90 mile ride was turning into 106 since a rode we were supposed to ride on turned out to be gravel. So we had a quick lunch and kept going and talking (donation magicked some snickers bars at some point).
Then, at around mile 60, we hit the most ridiculous storm I have ever seen. It started pouring rain so hard we could barely see, lots of thunder and lightening, and wind. Cars driving by looked at us like we were absolutely insane for being out. A lot of groups knocked on doors to get shelter for a while, but Chaz and I needed to keep going since we had to ride at the very back. It was actually really exciting...I've never seen so much lightening.
After second lunch the ride went quickly. We got chased by 2 dogs, and I destroyed my tube on a water-covered pothole, but other than that it was smooth. We started telling scary stories and other fun stuff. Great conversation and awesome adventure!

Two very different days...

Ok so this post is from a few days ago when we didn't have cell phone service - we are getting less and less ATnT service out here ...

So yesterday was the ride from Marshalltown to Ames, Iowa. It was about a 45 mile ride, and we got to sleep in till 7am, and we were having such a short day partly to get to Skunk River Cycles in Ames, which was giving us a discount on parts and free service, and had all of the resources we needed. We were also riding with a former Bnber who rode on this route last year, he had lots of neat stories about where to visit and which rides were the best and of course about past riders. I was lead yesterday when suddenly we saw the road turn from pavement to gravel, and we called Gabe in the van to ask what to do, and not too long after most of the other riders showed up, and we were told just to ride the next six miles of the gravel. It was sort of packed dirt and small stones in places, and it got a bit better, but six miles of hilly gravel was still sort of nervewracking.

Shortly after the gravel I had to spray another very playful dog that was chasing me, it wouldn't give up; I must have used about half a bottle it was ridiculous.

The rest of the ride was really fast and fun and we got in before noon and got our bikes checked out (you need to replace your chain and brake pads and tires etc around 2000 miles) and got sandwiches at this awesome really cheap deli nearby, and unpacked the trailer, hung out, Sam and I hit up a thrift store to get rocking clothing for a Bnb party that night, and also to get some rags donated to clean our bikes with. Then a very serious and indepth conversation with a pharmacist about chammy butter and chafing and saddle sores and other fun things. Sorta hilarious, she was so serious about it and we joke about it so much.

And we had a bnb dance/club/ridiculously themed party with everyone wearing hiphop-glamour-themed outfits from the thrift store in order to celebrate "love don't cost a thing", it was great.

But today was not such an easy day - the saying 'forty miles is the new off day' was definitely no longer true. The ride from Ames to Carroll was really hot, and it is just this long persistent boring dry hot heat that feels like an oven and the wind was just whipping all day, not gusting very much but a steady really really strong blustering, but just buffetting with more hotness, not really refreshing at all. Oh and also for the first ten miles I was really struggling and couldn't figure out why - my brake pad was hard against the left side of my back tire the whole time - no wonder 12 mph was impossibly hard...felt so stupid but the riding after was really quick. Chas and I had a pretty good series of conversations the whole time and it was really interesting - guess that's what you've got to expect from a philosophy and cognitive science major, though. So that was fun.

But we had SUCH a crazy headwind for a lot of the day, especially the second half, and it was just way too hot, we both are rocking the heat-rash right now. Pretty hard to find a comfortable way to lie down right now...oh right but we did both survive the 85er and got in around 2, and now I'm laying on the ground sort of twisted around in air conditioning on the floor of a church in Carroll, thank goodness. Headwind are just really disheartening, but the five or so miles of tailwind were awesome!

Location:Carroll, iowa

Espana!

Booked it from Clinton to Mt. Vernon today to make the world cup finals at 1:30. Amazing terrain...I really missed those nice rolling hills. Rode 80 miles in 6 hours, which was sweet! I started out riding with Anthony and ended up with Maddy and a group of some other guys inthe afternoon. It was one of my favorite ride days! We hit some rain at the end, but the weather was mostly perfect.

We watched the whole game at a local bar. We're staying at a community center that looks like a thrift store/garage sale. Very interesting place.

90 something miles tomorrow! Hopefully more of the same terrain. Love this stuff! Iowa rocks so far!

Dodgebaaalllllll

Just played 3 games of ridiculously intense dodgeball against the YMCA kids of Clinton, Iowa. They have practices 3 times a week. It was impressive. We had tons of fun though. I think i laughed for 2 straight hours. And we had 97 miles of biking today, so they totally had an enegy advantage!

Other than dodgeball, we crossed the Mississippi river into Iowa at mile 90 today! I got 2 flats, which sucked, but I'm getting really good at changing them!

Tracker

Just FYI: You can keep tracking my ride here:
http://bikeandbuild.org/rider/route.php?route=p2s&year=2010

apparently we've completed 1,294 miles already!! its pretty crazy!
you can also see photos of me on my rider profile!

Zombies and murals

I'm in the town of Pontiac, Il on a very needed day off. Pontiac is a really cute and interesting town. We spent this morning at a few little museums and exploring town. Last summer 150 artists painted 18 murals here in 3 days, so there are lots of cool murals. There is also a route 66 museum and a war museum. People here are very willing to tell us town stories, so I got some cool tidbits (like there's a restraunt that got jacked up and turned 180 degrees so that the entrance would face route 66). Also on the way in we got photographed by the former mayer of Pontiac. I'm in a photo on www.visitpontiac.com.



Last night we watched 28 days later and had a huge cuddle party. Lots of fun! We also watched the world cup game (all projected onto the wall btw). Lots of resting since we've had looooong ride days and the next week is also pretty intense.

Location:W Lincoln Ave,Pontiac,United States

Crazy days!

So we're going on our 3rd 5 am wake up day in a row, so blame that if this makes no sense...

July 4th was our first century (100 miles in a row)...except Maddy and I got lost and rode 113. We were really pumped for the first 40 miles. We got a police escort for the first 10, so we could take up the entire lane and pass through red lights. We were all hyped up and singing patriotic songs. It was probably the coolest thing I've ever done. After 1st lunch it got really hot (95 deg.) and we hit bad head wind. So the ride ended up being really hard. It was awesome, and 100 miles is one of the greatest things I've ever accomplished (and 113 is even more baller!!) so that was very exciting.

Today we had 86 miles, which was so much easier than yesterday. A lot of talking and storytelling. Theise and I tossed a frisbee (we are throwing a frisbee in every state, so this was our last chance in Indiana).

I'm on the cooler crew chore group this week, which is the hardest one. We are responsible for all the food/drinks. So we put it all in the fridge at the host, pack it up in the morning, take inventory, and make Gatorade and water. Yesterday we had o fill water in lockerroom showers because we were at a gym with no hose or sink. It was pretty funny. It's hard, but great because by 6 am I feel like I've gotten so much done.


Had to include this gem...so patriotic. This is at the Indiana border.

Building in Dayton

We had a great 90 mile ride into Dayton yesterday. We swam in a river and got lunch provided by a bnb rider from last year's parents. Lots of corn fields, riddles, contact, and other games.

Today we had a build day. We put up drywall all over a house. It was really interesting to learn very fun.







We drywalled the wall behind us!
















Awesome fireworks!

Location:W 3rd St,Dayton,United States

Amazing day!

One of the best days so far! Started out with amazing breakfast at Kenyan college (slept like I was in a coma last night. I love beds.)

No idea how we biked after this...we went a little crazy







Yeah...froyo for breakfast.

Since it was flat and windy, I pacelined for the first time with Cameron, sam, and ben. Pacelining is when you ride really close (inches) away from the person in front of you in a line of 5. Its great because you pick up their draft and pedal 30% more efficiently. But it's dangerous because you can't see anything ahead, so the front person (which switches ever one or two miles) has to be very good about communicating. And it takes a lot of concentration. I was riding with three of the strongest riders, so I felt really safe. And we kept a 20 mile per hour pace for about 20 miles. It was amazing.

Then we donation magicked free chipotle for lunch (I'm getting so much better at the dm speech). My first chipotle since January (Hanover sucks) was soooo good. We also got free degreaser from a bike shop here in Columbus, ohio. We are staying in the gym of a "mega church" which has over 2,000 members. It has a huge screen and projector, so movie is definitely happening.


Gabe and mary at chipotle!