Finally, a bike shop

Well, as you all know, the Bike and Build adventure is done and finished. The trip, however, did not satiate my desire to do great things. Rather, the trip ignited it. In keeping with that theme, I've decided to keep writing in this blog about any and all bicycle related adventures. Hopefully someone will read this blog every so often; you need not be a bike and build alumni-but if you are, HI!- you're welcome to put in your two cents about what I have to say. But as I was saying, this blog will be devoted to my experiences on the saddle of a bike. I plan on always being a cyclist in one form or another, and hope to do many other long distance tours on a road bike. My next planned adventure is a ride from Boston to Provincetown this summer with some Bike and Builders and a few other friends who seem interested. However, the fall semester promises to offer up some new experiences in the immediate future.



I've decided to branch out a bit and try my hand at mountain biking this semester. Up until this point my experience has been limited to one ride at Fountainhead Park back home. It was, to say the least, one of the most challenging rides I've ever done. I distinctly remember the feeling of exhaustion after the ride, as well as the constant fear of eating dirt or breaking a bone during the ride. I'm told that the course is actually pretty challenging, but I'd still consider myself a novice when it comes to mountain cycling. I figured the best move for me to make would be to take a class on the subject, so that is exactly what I did. This morning I had my second day of mountain cycling class, a kinesiology course designed to "explore the holistic, spiritual, and physical benefits of mountain cycling". Or so says the syllabus.



This morning began at Shenandoah Bicycle Company, a cool little shop nestled between Dave's Taverna and an auto-body shop downtown. I've been a few times-one particularly memorable experience was buying my cycling shoes for the trip- and it was nice to finally be back inside a bike shop. It wasn't quite so nice biking through the rain a few miles to get there, but ehhh, I've seen worse. Funny now how bike shops give me those warm fuzzies now...ahhh consumerism. But anyway, we were there to learn a little basic maintanence for our bicycles and to make certain that they were in good working condition. I'd considered bringing Jonas to the shop, since I figured I didn't need to learn much about basic maintanence. After all, I already knew how to basically maintain my road bike. Plus, Jonas is frankly much faster than my mountainbike, who I've decided to name Rocky. Yeah, original huh?



Anyway, I'm very glad that I decided to bring Rocky in despite his slight slugishness as compared to his lighter, slimmer brother. As I found out today, mountainbike mechanics are just different enough from a road bike's to merit a little hands on learning. It's the little things you know, like the lack of Presta valves on my tires. I never knew how much I'd miss those skinny little things until I had to use my fingernails to slowly-and I mean SLOWLY- let the air out of my tires so I could check the tubes. Even the break release on my mountainbike is a little different than my roadbike.

I guess that those things should be different is obvious. They are, afterall, bikes designed to do different things. As much as I grudge Rocky's slowness a little, I have to admit he can take a beating on a trail way better than Jonas could. I'd be in real trouble if I tried bringing a road bike where I'm going. Still, after spending an entire summer doing routine maintanence on my bike and feeling like this maintanence class would be a snap, I found myself very frustrated that I couldn't change a mountain bike flat with the ease I could my road bike's. It really is all about habit building, and obviously I'm going to have to learn new habits to deal with the mountain bike.

Still, it was exciting also, especially seeing the people in the class that had never had any sort of experience maintaining their bikes suddenly get what they were trying to do. It was a nice reminder of my summer, where many of us began knowing almost nothing about our bikes and ended having a pretty intimate understanding of them. I can't wait to see where everyone is after this class! And of course, I can't wait to get out there and ride!

Peace out Hombres!

The end but not The End

I'll be trying to do this last post justice, recapping the experience of my lifetime to this point.  We hit the Puget Sound three days ago.  My bike has been packed up and shipped, hopefully to the correct address.  Everyone I had known for the last two and a half months has scattered, either back home to the east or around the Seattle area.  Myself?  I'm writing from Bremerton, a small town nestled in a peninsula west of Seattle.  I slept alone, in a bed, for the first time in a long time last night.  I didn't wake up prematurely because of someone else's alarm.  It was at once glorious and awful.  I've been keeping tabs on bike and builders over the last few days, and the overarching feeling seems to be a unanimous melancholy.  I can't speak for anyone else, but as expected I feel incredibly lazy.  Seattle's been a lot of fun, but God do I miss my bicycle!  I can't wait to put it back together and go for a nice long ride.  

But let me give you a slight recap of our triumphant ride into the city!  We began the morning full of pep, and with more screaming involved than I ever anticipated so early in the day.  Rather than feeling sad as I expected, it seemed everyone had more enthusiasm than we had when we left Providence so many weeks ago.  So much enthusiasm, in fact, that some people tipped over on their bicycles.  Well, Katharine did.  Two minutes into the ride.  It was great.  From Everett we rode through a labyrinth of busy suburban streets, all characteristically pointing towards civilization.  Finally, after months of small towns we were finally witnessing the trappings of a big city.  Admittedly it was a bit of a culture shock, and we were still in the suburbs.  

The bike path was the highlight of the ride for myself and I'm sure many others.  It's funny though; after months of riding on roads with cars, the bike path probably proved more dangerous.  There were a million cyclists on the path into the city, many of them no-nonsense types that were flying.  And there were thirty of us, going relatively slow and really not paying enough attention.  I'm surprised that there weren't any collisions.  Especially since we were so in awe of our surroundings the whole time.  

The whole ride I was insanely jealous of Hana, who lives in Seattle and gets to experience the Sammamish Park Trail on a regular basis, because I've never been on a more gorgeous bike trail.  And I've been on a lot.  We spent the majority of the ride hugging what must have been Lake Sammamish, cutting through millionaire suburbs with wildflowers and blackberry patches all over the place.  By the time we saw the Space Needle in the distance I'm sure all of us wanted to move to Sea-town.  The bike trail spat us out somewhere around Fremont, where the ride took a very interesting turn.

We knew beforehand that the ride into Seattle would be somewhat by the seat of our pants.  Up until getting into the city proper we'd managed to pretty much stay on course.  That all changed when we got into Fremont, where we were greeted by draw bridges and stairwells.  Let me tell you, it was quite a sight seeing thirty cyclists walking their bikes down five flights of stairs.  From there, it was only a few bumps and scratching our heads sessions from Alaskan Way, the road that would take us to Alki Beach.  

Like the rest of the ride through the city, getting to Alki Beach was...confusing.  However, after reconvening back on yet another bike path, disrupting cyclist and pedestrian traffic, and allowing sweeps to lead (essentially making us "Sweepless in Seattle",get it?), we managed to make it to the Sound.  With the backdrop of roaring applause from our family and friends, we proceeded to strip down to our chamois and jump into the Puget Sound.  A bike and build tradition?  Yes.  Probably a bad idea?  Probably.  But I've never screamed so loud and hugged anyone so hard and it all felt worth it.  

They-they being bike and build alumni-told us not to expect any profound moment after getting to our destination.  They told us that every day was significant in and of itself and that if we went looking for some cathartic mind expanding experience we wouldn't find it.  They were right about the significance of every day.  I'll carry the whole trip with me for the rest of my life.  But I still think that Seattle stands alone for me, that I truly understood the depth of my affection for the group as I was embracing them in the Sound.  We're a dysfunctional group of people for certain, and the trip had no shortage of bumps and squalls.  But when we leapt into icy cold water, we were family.  My mind goes back to a man we met in a baptist church in Ohio, who told Brook and I that we were his brothers and sisters, and that we had to be that for each other.  And so we are.

Who Da Ho?

Idaho. Those sort of corny jokes litter our cue sheets these days. You guessed it, we're back in Idaho, a gnarly little state that is definitely not all about potatoes. Well, I mean I'm sure part of it is. But not where we are. No, it's more about awesome scenery, mountain passes, and quaint little towns that I'll be pressuring my parents to retire in. Wallace Idaho, check it out. Seriously.

We left Montana for good this morning, riding some sixty miles from Superior MT into Wallace, a beautiful mining town nestled between pine covered hills. We also finally entered into Pacific Standard Time. I'm now three hours behind all you suckers on the east coast! In short, today's ride was awesome, with a little bit of mayhem thrown in there. We climbed another mountain pass by the name of Lookout. I wouldn't call it easy, per se, but an elevation of only 4860 feet does make it one of our lighter climbs. The descent, however, was a gorgeous and moderately hairaising one all the way down in Wallace. Let's just say that there were a lot of aptly named "death grates", those are big vertically oriented grates that would easily cause us to flip over our handle bars if we hit them. Not good news when you're going about forty miles an hour in traffic. But now that it's said and done, it's only fun, not frightening.

We've got a lot of beautiful rides to look forward to. Our next, into Cour D'Alene, will take us about twenty some miles down a beautiful bike path, and ultimately to a lake that is plastered all over the state's postcards. I'm looking forward to booking it into town tomorrow so I can get a little time to even out my rider's tan. Thankfully, the ride should only be about fifty miles, so getting in some lake time won't be much of a problem. Yeah, fifty miles is a short ride these days. It's weird, I know.

We're pulling up to the home stretch, only a few days away from the Washington border. I think it's safe to assume that we all have mixed feelings about finishing our little pilgrimage. I for one am looking forward to sleeping in a real bed and all. Then there's my mini vacation in Seattle. That'll be epic. Still, it'll be weird to not be spending every single day on the back of a bike. I keep wondering what I'm going to do to fill the hours of my day. Bike? Eat? Sleep? Well that's what the last two months have been filled with. Pretty simple life, ehh? I guess it's true what you hear, that a simple life is the best life. I have a feeling the transition's going to be pretty tough.

So all of you, wish me luck as I gear up to gear down. Way down. Because soon I'll be back to my sleeping in a bed, going to class, hanging out, and maybe getting in a thirty mile ride every few days. If I'm lucky. I'm going to miss this experience terribly. Just like my legs and my tan lines. But like they also say. All good things...

Peace out hombres!

Be Seein' Ya, Wyoming

The last few days have been amazing, bar none the best bike rides I have ever experienced. What's even better, the rides are probably only going to get more beautiful as we continue towards Seattle. Yesterday we rode out of Dubois and headed across the continental divide via the Towgweti-I think I'm spelling this right-Pass. This, we've been told, is a mere warmup for Teton Pass. We'll be tackling that one tomorrow, and I hear it's a real doozy. We'll also be heading into Idaho and leaving Wyoming, which is a bummer. But let's step back from the future and hypothetical and talk about how amazing the ride was yesterday.

We were told by our four fearless leaders that Towgweti would be a fairly gentle ride, only about a five percent grade stretched out over twenty miles. It's certainly not a walk in the park, but after putting something like thirty five hundred miles under our legs, it wasn't too bad. As it turned out, the real climb was even shorter, maybe only eight or nine miles. We did, however, climb to around nine thousand feet, almost ten actually. There were defintely moments where I felt the altitude. The beauty of the pine forests, the wildflowers, and the mountains behind made it all worth it. I didn't think I could ever be anywhere so beautiful as that mountain pass. And then we descended.

The best parts of climbing the pass were unquestionably the descent, especially since our lunch site was infested with mosquitoes. Apparantly they don't mind the thin air much. After taking many pictures of the elevation sign at the continental divide, we were greeted to seventeen miles of downhill at six percent grade. We also saw scenery that topped anything we'd seen climbing up the pass. I don't know if any of you have ever seen the Grand Tetons mountain range, but those are probably some of the most breathtaking peaks that I've ever seen. I've been told that they're even more impressive than the Alps, and I believe it. You all should google image search Grand Teton if you haven't already. Then blow up that picture a million times, remove the screen, and that's what I got to look at for nearly four hours. We rode into and then parallel to that mountain range all the way into Jackson.

Jackson's a story in and of itself. First of all, it's probably one of the most touristy places I've been to in years. It's also gorgously tucked into the mountains and full of a mix of nice and mean people. In the space of the day riding into it, I was alternately honked at, sworn at, and asked if I needed help while I tried to fix three flats on the side of the road. Ohh, that's the one thing that dampened the experience. I blew out three tubes. I was upset. However, I was rescued by a really gnarly triathlete that I flagged down. Real chill dude on a Specialized tri-bike, had just finished a race in fact and was still wearing his number; gave me a tube, saved my life. But Jackson, yes.

We had a build day in Jackson today, one that we weren't too excited for because the Habitat chapter didn't seem too enthused by our group. Apparantly a previous group of riders had tarnished Bike and Build's reputation a bit. We were pleasantly surprised by the build today though, which I have to say was the best organized build that I'd been on during this trip. Possibly ever. Trace and Katie are two of the raddest people ever, let alone incredibly good with carpentry and team organization. I daresay our group had never been so productive as we were today. I spent most of my afternoon marking area for re-bar, nailing in spacers in the foundation form, laying cement for foundation, and placing re-bar into cement. The rest of the group was spread throughout the other two build sites we were working on.

The neighborhood we worked in was equally incredible. Because Jackson is inhabited primarily by millionaires and tourists, it is incredibly difficult for a working class person or family to be able to afford housing there. As a result, the majority of the workforce in Jackson commutes from other, more affordable areas surrounding it. A typical home in Jackson costs about 1.2 million dollars, with a single room condo selling for about 540,000. Average wage is fairly high at sixteen dollars an hour, but obviously is insufficient to pay for housing. Thus, while the typical Jacksonian is not poor or impoverished in the way we might think they are, they are unable to purchase a home. Thankfully, the Habitat chapter there has been able to make homes that are affordable for that workforce. Because Habitat Houses have to be up to the standard of the neighorhood, the houses are all quite beautiful. The stained cedar siding was a welcome change from vinyl and steel siding, plus they're all larger than most Habitat homes. They're also within sight of some gorgeous mountains. But enough gushing.

In short, the last few days have been some of the best of the trip, and they only promise to get better. I look forward to posting about more of them as they come. Peace out, Hombres.

Welcome to the West

I must apologize profusely to people who've been following this blog, or who may have stopped due to lack of updates. It's been increasingly difficult to get reliable internet access since we've entered the West proper. When I last posted I was in the middle of Iowa, resting comfortably after a short ride into Ames. Since then, we've finished Iowa, trudged through Nebraska, and are somewhere near the center of Wyoming. Thankfully, there wasn't much to report in Nebraska at all, except to bellyache about the bad riding conditions and monotony.

There are two Nebraskan natives on our trip, Peter and Ashley, who we have affectionately merged into the single unit Pashley. They had described Nebraska as "a harsh mistress". They were right. Nebraska's gust made the winds of Illinois, previously our windiest state, seem like a gentle breeze. On our ride into Valentine I reached a personal low of riding seven miles per hour on flats, a mere mile or two out of the town. I've decided that strong winds just outside of our destination are the worst, it's really such a tease knowing you're so close. The lack of scenery in the state was another low.

I'll admit that Nebraska holds a certain beauty, with a landscape that seems at times to be a scrubby desert and a horizon that extends forever. But it's the sort of beauty that captivates for maybe an hour, if that. After the initial awe wears off, you're really just angry that there's nothing blocking the 45 mph winds that are pushing against you for the whole time. It's even more frustrating to see another cyclist going the opposite direction who is barely pedaling, if at all, and going several mph faster than you. But I digress, that evil is all behind me now because we've finally reached the West!

Western Nebraska was a pleasant change from the rest of the state, with a number of rocky buttes and foothills that seemed more characteristic of Montana. If Nebraska had any redeeming factor, it was that it ended and turned into Wyoming, which is infinitely better than its neighbor. Here in Lander we've not quite hit the Wind River Mountain Range, but we're within view of them. And that view is spectacular. I may just have to retire in this town.

I'm so hungry for mountains after what feels like years of the plains. In a few short days, we'll be tackling the Teton Pass outside of Jackson Hole and entering into the Rockies. The Rockies... I still can't really believe it. From there it's just the Cascade Range and the relatively short haul to the coast. We're getting close, less than twenty one days of riding remaining to us. I've a feeling that the rides are going to be a lot more breathtaking in the next few days, I'll be sure to give my camera a workout. Hopefully I'll be able to blog a bit more as well.

Until then, I hope this post satiated a few of you; if not, I've been keeping a real journal, complete with artistic pictures and a myriad of maps and scrap book fodder. Hell, there might even be some poetry in it by the end of all this. It's a lot less narrative and a lot more personal musings, but I'll be happy to show it to anyone after the trip is done. Until then, peace out hombres!

Just a quickie on why Iowa is the coolest state so far

I'm sitting on a warm club chair in a trendy wi-fi cafe, Oasis of small town USA, in Iowa. For those of you who have not been before, go to Iowa. I know, it sounds like strange advice, for it certainly doesn't sound like a hopping place to be. But when you've been biking through Illinois and...ugh...Indiana, Iowa is really the raddest state ever. At first we just liked it because it's not windy: eastern Iowa has rolling hills and for some reason the bad headwind just disappeared when we crossed the state line. There are a plethora of other reasons why Iowa is cool though, which I will list.

1. RAGBRAI, one of the biggest cross state group bike rides in the country, with around twelve thousand participants anually. We've met a couple of cyclists who've been training for the weeklong ride that happens at the end of the July. They've been really cool, especially about giving us road advice and making good conversation until their spokes break right next to you. Yeah, there's a story there, but not for here.

2. Adorable small towns with a lot of life and generosity. We've gotten a lot of freebies in the state, and a lot of food.

3. SKUNK RIVER CYCLES SHOP. THEY GAVE US HUGE DISCOUNTS AND FREE LABOR FOR OUR BIKES THIS IS HUGE THUS ALL CAPS!!! AND LOTS OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!

Now, there's also one thing really lame about Iowa. That's US 30... just awful.

Goodbye everyone, until the next time I can find a trendy internet cafe and a computer.

Dusting this old blog off

It's been a while since I've last updated, for a number of reasons. The first of which being a lack of really interesting things to write about of late. The nasty little virus that I wrote about last post ended up putting me in the van for four or five more days, and infecting a few other riders. Consequently, I missed crossing the Ohio border into Indiana, all of Indiana, and parts of Illinois. I'm told that Indiana was not fun to bike in, so really it's just as well that I wasn't in sorts for those two days anyway.

There were and are a few really amazing things to report on, however, running the gammot from spiritual to bicycle related. I guess the most important thing to mention is that I am now healthy and have been riding for a few days now, and I can only say that being back on the bike is bliss. Pure, unadulterated, albeit windy, bliss. I was singing and climbing out of the saddle that first day back in Illinois, despite the considerable headwind. It was like being reunited with an old friend. Now for the spiritual moment. I'll move on to a new paragraph in a second, because the occasion merits it, perhaps even two paragraph, but let me end this comma spliced sentence by saying I was planning on writing a whole blog post about the experience entitled "Heaven is a Black Baptist Church".

Back in Dayton, OH, we stayed in a black baptist church. Not only do those people know how to host a dinner and breakfast to die for, they can also say the best blessing that has ever graced my ears. After a delicious meal, the pastor invited a few of us to look in on their choir practice. Of course, most of us jumped at the opportunity even though it meant missing a mandatory presentation. I've never seen a church celebrate their faith in every single thing that they do. It really was the way every church should be; understanding how cheesy the statement sounds, but also realizing that I really mean it, it was so refreshing to see so much...joy. It was moving to hear from one of the congregation members that he considered us all brothers and sisters, and that we should look to one another as brothers and sisters on the trip and take care of one another as such. After being sick, it really was a piece of heaven descended down to us.

Ohhh, and we're in Iowa now. And well that we are, because Illinois is a hard state to ride through, all full of wind and lameness. Don't get me wrong, love the state, but hated to ride though it. I'm told "Windiana" was worse, but I dodged that bullet didn't I? It was amazing to cross the Mississippi and realize that we're really getting into the Midwest now. I've got high hopes for Iowa and getting in touch with some of the Smiley clan that supposedly lives here.

Blogging has gotten a little monotonous, I think it's time to start writing the great American Novel. Happy reading until then! Peace out Hombres.