Red Rocks

Day 37 – Moab, UT – 85 days

Our last day in Colorado brought an outstanding ride of changing scenery. We had an extended descent for the first 26 miles of the ride, heading directly west towards the La Sal Mountains and dropping close to 1,000 ft in elevation. On either side of us was a sheer faced canyon which sported red-rock walls and a wide valley for us to ride down. The group was pretty bunched up at first so the Boys of Summer (Dustin, Colin, Shane, Scott and Myself as we were dubbed by the other riders) decided to step up the pace and we flew through the ride much quicker than usual. At mile 36 we entered Utah, our third to last state, and did the traditional taking of silly pictures at the state sign. We enjoyed two substantial climbs over the day up to an elevation of about 7,300 ft as we passed the La Sal Mountains to the south around mile 50. We descended for the majority of the ride that remained, and as we rounded the mountains and began to head north, we officially entered the Utah desert. Scenery changed almost instantly it seemed to an arid red sand and stone terrain that led us down into some phenomenally beautiful canyons that were rather narrow and wound across the countryside towards Moab. We arrived in town by 1:30 and enjoyed some time off by checking out the main street and all the fun a medium sized city could offer that we hadn’t seen since Ft Collins.

For dinner, our hosts at St. Pius X Church set out a great spread of hamburgers and hotdogs followed by our usual presentation which my group was in charge of this week. Afterwards we had a Bike and Build version of “Coffee Talk” with the priest who was a founder of the Moab Housing Coalition. I very much enjoyed the round table discussion of the roots of not only poverty housing, but homelessness and general social distress. It was fascinating to hear everyone’s input as well as those from individuals outside of our team. Having discussions such as these has been one of my favorite parts of the trip relevant to our cause. Dialogue is what our mission is all about. Opening peoples’ eyes to the social problems we are facing domestically and inspiring them to take individual action. I can’t wait until our Affordable Housing meeting on Thursday to continue the discussion.

Day Off – Moab, UT – 35 miles

Days off from any activity are meant to be relaxing and a change of pace. So to mix things up Colin, Jesse, and myself woke up at 5:15 and left the church by 5:50 am on a quest for Arches National Park before the sun came up and started baking the land. The ride in was gorgeous despite two climbs that took us upwards over 1,500 ft on our 16 mile ride to the Windows section of the park. We spent about an hour walking around this area, exploring and taking pictures of the enormous holes created in the sandstone by water and wind before Scott, Sarah, Shane and Shannon showed up and we all continued exploring. We were debating on if we wanted to bike further into the park since it had gotten so hot by that point, when Marc and friends showed up with the van, so we bummed a ride down to Delicate Arch, the formation featured on all Utah license plates and the most photographed of all arches. After getting dropped off back at the Windows, we hopped on our bikes and sped back down to Moab where we gobbled down some lunch, entertained showers, and enjoyed a leisurely afternoon wandering around town and taking care of the various things that we needed for the coming 10 days of consecutive riding. All things bicycle related break after a certain amount of use, we have discovered. The mouthpiece of camelbacks are notorious for springing leaks or tearing, which mine finally did (despite the ridiculous mold colonies growing inside it, aka my pets) so I had to pay a visit to the local bike shop for replacements. We finished the day with another amazing meal, this time of fried chicken provided by our hosts before hitting the hay and getting rested up for tomorrow’s assault on the Utah highways.

-Monsieur Finklesteinowitz

Of Splashes and Bluegrass

Day 35 – Montrose, CO – 65 miles

Today we recovered from our past three rides through the Rockies, and it couldn’t come at a better time. A relatively short ride gave us plenty of time to enjoy ourselves along the route after an amazingly late wakeup of 7:00 am. Sam heard from a local that there was a great reservoir along our route for the day so at mile 15, twenty two of our riders pulled off to explore a park along the reservoir. After some searching and a fifteen minute hike, Luke and Paul found a rock outcropping that we all clambered down to do some cliff jumping. Now this may sound a little bit dangerous, but trust me we are professionals and checked the water before making out 25-ish foot descents into the brisk water below. We spent about two hours practicing our flying abilities, drawing a small crowd of boaters to watch, and taking ridiculous pictures in mid-air. Though the water was cold it was perfectly refreshing on a hot day, and we had to eventually peel ourselves away so as to make it in a somewhat timely manner to lunch.

The ride was pretty flat and followed a reservoir for about the first thirty miles, but there were two pretty decent climbs and descents involved. The first of which began around mile 30 as we caught up to a group of 7 fully-loaded touring cyclists from the North Carolina area. We rode with them to the top of the hill, and I’m ashamed to say that I felt more out of breath by the time we reached the top than the other group looked. We enjoyed about a 5 mile descent, stopping halfway for lunch and completing the run at top speed to try and avoid storms that were very threatening and even started to sprinkle before we made it out of harms way. One more 4 mile climb followed and we reached the top about mile 50 to have our first view of a strait shot out of the Rockies. We were all so excited to see flat land laid out in front of us that we got into the tightest tucks possible and bombed down the 15 miles descent into Montrose, at some points reaching speeds in excess of 48 mph.

As an evening treat for a week well done, we all piled into the party van and went downtown to catch the 10 o’clock showing of Dark Knight which was AMAZING. Everyone had a blast and crashed as soon as we got back to the church to get ready for tomorrows build.











































Build Day – Montrose, CO – 0 miles

We went into today’s build with the impression that there were not going to be many jobs available for us to do. We were proven wrong and stayed very busy all afternoon doing jobs such as putting windows into one house, installing insulation, framing a second house, raising the walls and putting up the plywood around it. Katie, Paul and I were put to the task of building a shed behind the house being framed. This turned out to be a much larger job as I anticipated as we were building it essentially as a smaller version of the house, doing everything from building a foundation to framing walls. We had a bunch of fun and returned to the church for showers before the Habitat chapter threw a block-party event for us in which there was a pot-luck feast and live bluegrass band playing all the essentials. We all had a blast dancing and practicing our spoon-playing abilities and it seems everyone is revitalized and ready to tackle a few more ride days on our way into Utah.

Taste the Rockies

Day 32 – Granby, CO – 64 miles

Today was one of the most beautiful and scenic days I have been fortunate enough to witness in my short 21 years of life. We awoke at the ripe hour of 4:30 am to get our gear packed up and get into the park before the gate guards arrived and began charging $10 a head. Not a very good price when there are more than 30 of us going through. Before we even left the church parking lot though, we were greeted by a friendly ungulate in the form of an enormous elk walking by. He did not seem too bothered by us gaping at him so we got in close and took a few good pictures before setting off on our skyward journey.

We made it into Rocky Mountain National Park by 6:45 am, early enough to elude the watchful eye of park rangers and began our ascent of Trail Ridge Road, the highest continuously paved highway in the United States. Amazingly enough, we made pretty good time up the entire 20 mile climb, averaging between 6 and 8 mph on most of the sections. The views were incredible up the entire ride, so I will not even begin to attempt a description, but everyone’s cameras seemed to be out as much as not. Highlights of the ride include playing in the snow at the peak of the mountains, Dustin sledding down the snow embankment on his rain jacket, seeing a marmot for the first time, an enormous herd of about 50 elk in the tundra, riding above the Timberline, an amazing descent out of the park, standing on the continental divide, and nearly running into an enormous bull elk I spooked while plunging down a big hill. It was amazing that it took us about four hours to reach the top of a 20 mile climb to 12,183 ft, and about 40 minutes to descend out of the park. It was also surprising to see how many cyclists were out for the day riding the course for fun. Definitely more than your average ride. All in all the day was beyond amazing, and it seemed we couldn’t keep our jaws from hanging open at the views we were catching. It was even sweeter too because we felt we earned the rewards by paying in sweat. I’m sure the day will go down as one of, if not THE greatest ride of our summers.























Day 33 – Leadville, CO – 103 miles

Today we decided it would be a good idea to ride a century in the Rocky Mountains. To accomplish this task, we awoke at 4:30 am to get an extra-early start on the day and learned that it is cold in the morning when you are in the mountains. VERY cold. As we sped away from the church shortly after 6:00 am, I checked the temperature on my cyclocomputer to discover an ambient temperature of 38 degrees! This is cold enough when standing still, but add a 20 mph wind chill from the bicycles an you have a recipe for freezing. I cannot describe how cold we are, as even the Canadian on our trip was frozen solid. Fingers and toes that were exposed to the air ached in a way that I have never even experienced in a snow-skiing setting. After a blustering 10 miles we reached the next small town as a group and immediately fled into the first diner we saw and decided to wait out the cold. Enormous mugs of hot chocolate and fantastic breakfasts were enough to instill courage in us to head back outside 45 minutes late into now 50 degree weather. Since the sun had come up, the temperature quickly rose as we made our way towards what we believed to be our impending doom. Nothing is worse than thinking that a huge climb is coming. We had been told to expect two large climbs over passes during the day, so we were constantly on edge looking for the road to head off over mountain peaks where they were likely buried in snow still. But to our relief, no such climb came until very late in the day. We spent most of our day riding in the valley between mountains, stopping once for a slurpee break when we saw a gas station on our route. We even were fortunate enough to spend several miles on bike paths today. Colorado has gained even more points in everyone’s eyes because it is so bicycle friendly.

At our second lunch stop after a beautiful ride through a canyon, we met a representative from SRAM (a bicycle components company) who was helping out at a Specialized Bicycle fair where buyers from all over the world come to test out bikes from the same company who sponsored us this year. After a few pictures, we got back on the road and finally found our climb. We headed up for several mile, eventually reaching the summit of Fremont Pass at 11,318 ft where Climax Molybdenum was located. An interesting point about this pass we learned, was that it was the western bound of the Louisiana purchase in 1803, and therefore the westernmost part of the United States. We crested the pass and flew down the next 12 miles into Leadville, the highest incorporated city in America at 10,200 ft. Our host for the night provided an incredible chili dinner which everyone devoured after our long century ride. Its just hard to believe that in a few short hours we will be waking up to do it all again. Yikes.

















Day 34 – Gunnison, CO – 119 miles

Once again we must prove our level of hard-core in an unnecessarily long day of riding. A 119 mile ride is very long in any terrain, but in the Rocky Mountains it becomes a whole different ball game. We began in Leadville a little later than yesterday in order to avoid the frigid cold and allow the sun to warm things up a bit, but it was still mid-50s when we shoved off on the day’s ride. We started things off quick with a 40 mile dash to the first lunch stop. I say dash because it was mostly downhill or neutral terrain and I had an average speed of 22 mph when we pulled into our stop. This was only broken by not one, but two flats at mile 20; one for Matt and one for Shane. At least we are getting very fast at our flat-changing.

After lunch, the ride was pretty quick, with some beautiful scenery of the surrounding mountains. We passed both Mt. Harvard and Mt. Yale which are part of the collegiate mountains. At about mile 58 we passed through a small town and the road turned up in the beginning ascent of Monarch Pass. After passing over Trail Ridge Road, we figured that everything else would be a breeze. Monarch Pass proved us very wrong. We climbed for about 15 miles at a grade that was much steeper than that in Rocky Mountain National Park in many places. Eventually, after spending far too much time in our granny gears, we reached the summit of 11,312 ft at mile 75 to find Mo camped out with supplies for more PB&Js as well as a small shop where we feasted on hotdogs for a change of pace and a celebration for cresting the top.

Back on our bikes, we bombed down the mountain at an average of 35-40 mph, covering the distance that took us about two hours on the way up in less than 20 minutes going down. Nevertheless, there is still nothing as exciting as rocketing around corners at those speeds. Definitely worth the climb. The remainder of our epic day was spend pounding out the miles over rolling hills as we headed west through a valley towards Gunnison and eventually Utah. When we arrived in Gunnison, we had expected to be camping out on the campus of Western State University, but to our delight found that Jess had scored us a place to stay at a nearby church. As we had a bit of light rain on our ride into town we were beyond excited for this news. Dinner was hosted by the local Habitat chapter and was definitely some of the best food we have received on the trip. Eggplant Florentine was served if that is any hint on the quality of grub laid out. Great end to a tiring day. Oh yeah, and I showered for the first time in 48 hours and 220 miles. Best feeling in the world.

-Sir Used-To-Smell-Like-Feet-And-Wet-Dog

Into the Mountains

Day Off – Fort Collins, CO – 16 miles

The day off was well needed and very relaxing. We were awoken at 6:45 am by the church members b/c it was Sunday and naturally there was a service that was about to begin. We cleaned up and took off on our bicycles to check out the reservoir at the base of the mountains that we had been told about. We found a few foot trails leading up a ridge to what we thought was the reservoir so we hiked ourselves up, only to find out that we actually had to ride up to a much higher dam that was pointed out to us. Regardless, we were able to get a great view of the mountains and city below so we took a few pictures and headed back to the church. As we are heading into the mountains tomorrow, I decided to give the ‘ol bicycle a full scale tune-up. That means everything from brake pads to tire alignment was addressed. Faulty brakes are not fun when rocketing down a mountain at 50+ mph. The rest of the afternoon was spent bumming around town, and laying under trees reading because the weather was beyond gorgeous. Getting pumped up for some serious hills tomorrow. Yehaw.

Day 31 – Estes Park, CO – 45 miles

D-Day has finally arrived. We got up at 6 am to pack our bags and head out into the day. Our cue sheets showed that we would be riding up to the reservoir by way of the dam, aka the way we decided not to go yesterday because it looked too high. Spirits were high nonetheless and much encouragement was shouted between groups as we passed on another on the switchbacks until we finally completed a set of three decent climbs to a point high above even the reservoir. Climbing is completely worth it because even though the altitude and grade make your legs and lungs burn with exertion, the views are spectacular and the down hills exhilarating.

We took lunch at about mile 20, halfway through the day, to regroup and check on how everyone was holding up. Directly after lunch we had a pretty nice descent into Thomson Canyon which was our gateway to Estes Park. Nearly the entire way through the canyon everyone’s jaws were hanging open as we looked up at the sheer cliff faces surrounding us. It was by far the most dramatic area I have ever ridden in and there was far too much to take in during a single pass. We had our eyes peeled for bighorn sheep the entire ride as well, because of the signs on the side of the road warning of them. We unfortunately did not see any sheepish animals, but Dustin was able to spot a little rattle snake as we were ascending. We climbed through the canyon following a small river at a constant grade all the way to Estes Park, which luckily meant that it was not to steep, but definitely noticeable. We arrived in the town to find ourselves surrounded by snow-capped peaks. It was an amazing feeling to turn a bend in the road and find the valley stretched out before us. Just another reason why I love being in the mountains.

As an afternoon break, the boys (Jesse included) and I headed to a putt-putt golf course we spotted on our way in and played a round of 18. The competition was fierce because of a small wager we put on the game, but yours truly came out victorious with a score of 40 strokes, while poor Scott will be eating peanut butter on ALL of his food tomorrow due to his 50 stroke game. We will be monitoring his diet closely for any hint of a violation. Once again, early to bed after a delicious supper provided by the congregation of the Community Church of the Rockies and getting pumped for tomorrow’s early ascent into Rocky Mountain National Park!

Terrain Changes, Oh My

Day 29 – New Raymer, CO – 86 miles

All of our sickly comrades found there way back onto their bikes today for a very interesting ride out of Holyoke. The day began as a very shallow climb out of the city. As we traveled through each new town, the elevation on the signs increased by about 200 feet, showing the team that we were not just imagining the grade. We passed one of the most shocking terrain changes of the trip about mile 20 when we entered a small town of about 200 people having passed corn and wheat fields all morning as we had for the last few weeks, and left the far side of the city about a half mile down the road to find ourselves in prairie scrubland such as you would expect in an old western film, tumbleweed and all. We took a break to appreciate the new terrain and check out a massive wind farm about 10 miles off in the distance with what seemed to be more than a hundred windmills. Wish we were close enough to go take a look but we chose to push on into the city of Sterling, where we enjoyed lunch at a Colorado visitor center. It only took about half an our of us sitting in the parking lot before someone alerted the local newspaper of our presence and we were lining up for photos in front of the trailer. More great exposure, gotta love it.

We left Sterling on CO-14, the “scenic” highway and entered the Pawnee National Grasslands at about mile 55. This was our second dramatic terrain change of the day. Along with the theme of Colorado being a state of extremes, the grasslands have become the new flattest area we have traveled on so far. We redefined being in the middle of nowhere when at several points along the ride we could see from horizon to horizon without having a single tree obstruct our view. Some of the interesting sights we saw along the way were a disarmed ICBM missile silo, a herd of about 20 buffalo that ran along the road next to us for a few minutes and even some pronghorn antelope. Still, the most exciting part of the ride was when Shane and I squeezed through not one but two barbed wire fences in an attempt to get pictures of the prairie dog colonies that were next to the highway. Those guys are just too cute but noisy as heck when they think you want to BBQ them for dinner. We finished out the day as a pretty slow pace as temperatures reached past 100 degrees. The heat led several riders to take to the van on the prairie ride just because dehydration and heat exhaustion became a real issue.

We finally rolled into the bustling metropolis of New Raymer, CO about 3 pm, a town of approximately 91 residents, where we took up residence at the community center. We realized after a quick count that there were enough chairs at the center for every citizen to sit in two at once and there still be several left over. Fun fact. We had no hose or shower facilities either, so we took to knocking on the doors of houses and making friends with locals for showers. Everyone we encountered was very friendly and a special thanks goes out to the Boon family for allowing five of us to invade their facilities for the evening. Despite the many attractions the town had to offer we decided to hit the sack early and be ready to roll tomorrow for our mountain approach.



















Day 30 – Fort Collins, CO – 74 miles

Best day of riding yet. The ride today was initiated with an incredible cold front that moved in over night, dropping the temperature to sub-60 degrees for much of the morning. Never thought I would be using arm warmers in the middle of July but no complaints were heard after the previous day’s scorcher. We left town by 6:45 am and were back on the scenic highway early enough to see all the wildlife running about, including several more pronghorn antelope. There was a slight tailwind and we made great time with very little effort. All morning long we kept watching the horizon for any sign of dark mountain outlines but to no success except for us occasionally convincing ourselves that we could see something that really wasn’t there. Finally, about mile 30 we crested a large hill and there before us were the snow capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Keep in mind that this was still nearly 50 miles out at the time, so they were very faint at first, but as we rode closer throughout the day they took a more defined shape and continuously grew taller until we decended into Fort Collins at 1pm where the foothills finally began. Nothing has been so exciting and frightening at the same time. We have been warned by people across the nation about these mountains and now we are finally here. The sights are going to be absolutely incredible but the effort required will be equally awesome. The next three days of riding should prove to test everyone to the edge of their abilities. The ride into Estes Park will be a good warm up as it is shorter but there is still a substantial amount of climbing to be done. The following day we are going through Rocky Mountain National Park and riding Trail Ridge Road, the highest continuously paved highway in America. Finally we will be doing nearly a full century into Leadville on day three, the highest incorporated city in America.

What has been interesting already is the effect of being at altitude where the oxygen concentration in the air is lower than where most of us are from. We played a game of capture the flag with youth from the church we are staying at and it was remarkable how much we could already feel the extra strain low oxygen takes on us. Yet another obstacle to overcome in the coming days.

Fort Collins is great town, home of Colorado State University so it contains all elements essential to a college town. We spent much of the evening exploring and taking care of last minute necessities before heading into the mountains. While walking around College Ave, the main street for the university, we saw a sign advertising a jazz festival going on this very weekend. Not only that, but tonight none other than the world famous Wynton Marsalis would be playing at the theatre in town!!! Being a jazz head, this is an opportunity that cannot be passed up so I made my way to the box office to inquire about tickets, only to find out that they were $85 each, but they were sold out to boot. Still not to be dissuaded, Matt and I made our way back right after the scheduled start of the concert and pleaded with the ushers to let us stand in the back of the hall for just one chart. Thanks to winning smiles we not only got to get in the show, but we watched nearly the entire first half of the performance with the ushers. It was, of course, a stunning performance and the last number we were able to catch was “I left my heart in San Fransisco.” How appropriate. We met up with the rest of the pack after the show and enjoyed some college nightlife for a change before retiring to our beloved sleeping bags. A great end to an amazing day.

Colorful Colorado

Day 27 – McCook, NE – 80 miles

Today was my second day as sweep along with the charming Paul. We spent our morning in the back of the pack discussing the finer points of marine biology as he has been doing research in the Bahamas on Bonefish and Lemon Sharks. Pretty neat stuff. The ride wasn’t terribly long and weather conditions were perfect. We took a few short breaks for photo ops, one in which Paul almost walked onto a decently sized corn snake on the side of the road, not realizing it was there until it took a shot at his front tire. The hiss sounded like he had blown a flat so we were upset until the snake was spotted backing away. Its funny we ran into our scaled friend, as we had been talking about how we hadn’t seen many snakes on the trip and how Paul wanted to wrangle one Steve Erwin-style. We contented ourselves with taking a few pictures and moving along. The rest of the day went swimmingly and we even arrived at the host location by 2:00 pm.

In the evening we had a slight downturn in luck as several of our riders, myself included, came down with some sort of stomach bug right after dinner. We all went to bed strait after the meal and crossed paths in the night on our flights to the bathroom. This is another knock on wood incident because we had recently been discussing how it was great that none of the riders had gotten sick yet since we share everything. Hopefully the issue will stop at those of us already effected.
































Day 28 – Holyoke, CO – 66 miles

Go figure, everyone who was having stomach issues last night woke up feeling terrible this morning so several riders loaded into the van to rest up for the day. This of course is the intelligent course of action, which I tried my best to ignore. Since it was a century day there were two lunch breaks planned along the route at miles 45 and 75 respectively. I decided to start out the morning after a breakfast of Gatorade and shoot for the first lunch stop. I made it without much ado but didn’t feel on the top of my game upon arrival so I took a nap and jumped in the party bus with the other infected persons for the second leg of the trip.

This was my first time riding in the van when there were cyclists on the road so it was a very interesting experience. Zooming through the countryside at three times your normal speed gives you a completely different view of the land, not to mention it was awesome to see where all the riders were stretched out along the road. When you are riding in a small group, you may not see anyone else from the team for the entire trip from stop to stop because everyone is moving at about the same speed, give or take a mile per hour.

We arrived at around mile 80 to catch up with the lead group who got a little farther ahead then planned and I had started feeling better on the ride so I jumped out and grabbed my bike for the last 20 mile stretch. During the course of the ride we passed both the change into Mountain Time as well as the Colorado border. I seriously can’t believe we’ve already hit Colorado, the state we’ve all been talking about since day one. The mountains are only a few days away and then its judgment time. In the meantime though, Colorado is the flattest state we’ve been in yet. Farmlands from horizon to horizon, just as we had been promised in Kansas and Nebraska but never saw.

We arrived in Holyoke around 3ish and enjoyed a pulled pork dinner before going to the local movie theater for a private screening of Mel Brooks’ hit movie Robinhood Men in Tights. Talk about ending the day on a high note. Looking forward to a healthy day tomorrow!

We're not in Kansas Anymore

Day 24 – Manhattan, KS – 91

An important stat to know about today in addition to what I normally provide is that we only spend a little over 4 hours in the saddle. Our handy cyclocomputers tell us the total time in which the wheels were turning for a days ride, Sweet! Also, the actual ride into Manhattan was only 80 miles; the extra 11 came from bumming around the city. If you do the math properly, you will see that our average speed comes out to just under 20 mph. The reason for this glorious turnabout is that we had OUR FIRST FULL DAY OF TAILWIND. It dawned on me why RAAM (Race Across America) goes from west to east each year with the prevailing winds as myself and several others rocketed down the roads at speeds exceeding 27 mph on flat ground. Allow me to explain.

The day began at a moderate pace, nothing ground breaking until lunch break at mile 40. We were about to leave when we got a call from a group ahead that a heavy storm was heading our way so we should stay put until it passes over. We heard the ominous thunder in the distance so we decided to camp out in an open walled garage nearby. During the following two hours we checked out topography maps of upcoming routes on Amy’s computer. We finally saw how we are basically climbing gradually about 4,000 feet in the coming week until we reach Ft. Collins, CO. We also compared routes we have already biked to those we will be seeing in the mountains and it is scary to see how much larger the mountains in Colorado will be, though a lesser grade most of the time. After that I passed out on a bench for about an hour until everyone decided it was dry enough to move on.

About 5 miles into the second half of our 80 mile ride we passed a cyclist at a stoplight riding a bright yellow Cannondale racing bike. He let us pass and then followed us for a few miles (we were going about 22-23 mph at this point) before coming up and introducing himself. His name was Bob and he was going to a family reunion about 100 miles in the general direction we were heading, so we invited him to ride with us. He proceeded to get in front and pull us at 25 until we caught up with those who had left lunch early and been caught in the storm. At that time we decided to pace-line so we began switching off leads and stayed in the 25-27 mph range at least until mile 70 when we reached his turn and he headed off for the remaining portion of his ride. Since we had already been sustaining the pace, we kept it going all the way to our host location. My reflection on this style of riding is that while I had fun and got a good confidence boost at my cycling abilities, I did not see any of the countryside we were blowing past, nor did I get a chance to talk to Bob and get to know much about him. I will be content with the occasional push, but all in all I prefer the moderate steady pace we normally ride.

As we pulled into Manhattan, several stops and reroutes were made, accounting for the additional 11 miles around town. First several of us caught the 5th of July fireworks sale where we picked up some extra propulsion for our bicycles. Danger will be kept to a minimum when using them, never fear. I then headed for the Kansas State campus which my personal opinion was that KU has superior facilities, though K-State has an excellent college-town downtown area. While around the campus I ran into several other builders attempting to solicit dinner from the restaurants so I jumped in and helped with an endearing smile. We managed to get donations from several places including Pita Pit, Jimmy Johns, Chipotle, and a wing joint so we had quite the feast come dinner time.

After dinner I helped out with laundry which is always a party, rolling in two giant tarps of dirty spandex and the like to a small laundramat. While everything was being washed we walked down the road to the Manhattan Jazz Festival which happened to be going on. There were several awesome acts including the Marine Jazz Band, a dixieland jazz combo, and an awesome blues singer who was the closing act. It was great to hear some live music from the local community and state, and I discovered than even a place like Kansas can have a little funk to be spread around.

Day 25 – Beloit, KS – 100 miles

Not much can be said about today’s ride other than it was our third century. It was hot (upwards of 100 degrees at times), long, hilly, and had strong headwinds almost the whole ride (15 mph). I bonked for the first time, and also got my first flat tire of the trip all in one full swoop. Bonking is the term in cycling meaning that you basically just run out of gas and can’t go any further without consuming something. It happens almost every day to some, but I haven’t had an issue b/c I enjoy my food and don’t forget to eat in utilitarian fashion, which is necessary on a long day like today. For some reason though I failed to get in the calories I needed and at mile 67, 3 miles short of a snack break, I hit a wall and had to drop off the pack to slam a Clif bar. I recovered pretty quickly and got back on the road with enough speed to roll into the break only a few minutes after the rest of the pack showed up. The rest of the day went without incident though we kicked up the speed b/c we were sick of being in the saddle.

On a brighter note, I did test out my bicycle-firework-afterburners today on route 87 and have a few rather humorous videos courtesy of Shane and Dustin which will hopefully be posted soon.

The evening held a Dairy Queen outing which pushed us over the 100 mile mark as it was nearly 3 miles from our host at the Catholic School. As a rule, if there is a DQ in the known vicinity of our nightly accommodations, we will make the journey regardless of the distance and how tired we are. One Strawberry Cheesecake Blizzard later, its bedtime.

Dreaming of a white July 7th,
-Brentos the Freshmaker

Day 26 – Red Cloud, NE – 70 miles

Today was a great day of riding which was greatly needed for morale after yesterday’s disaster of a ride. The day started on a high note when at mile 4 my odometer struck 2000 miles! We celebrated by chalking the road and setting off the last two of my roman candles from the 4th of July. After that it was smooth sailing to the 37 mile lunch stop. Temperature was hot but not unbearable and the wind was coming from slightly to our backs thanks to our NW progress. Shortly after leaving lunch, a group of us stopped to take more ridiculous hay bale pictures, as they are one of the only appropriate accessories in bike and build photos of the Midwest. On a side note, we also got to see our first square hay bales today. This is exciting to many of us b/c hay bales are the only interesting thing we see on many days outside of corn, wheat, and soybean fields.

A big landmark was waiting for us at mile 55: the center point of the continental United States!!! …Or so we thought until we read the sign which said the ACTUAL center was 3 miles north and one mile west of where we were. We therefore got back on our bikes and went off in search of the true center point. After a few miles of rolling hills, we arrived at our destination, which was essentially a flag and a picnic table out in the middle of more corn fields. Still very exciting though, so we took way too many ridiculous pictures until sweep showed up, so we got back on the road.

Miles 65, we entered NEBRASKA! This of course meant that about a quarter mile from the state line Matt, Dustin and I began an all-out sprint so we could be the first to say “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” Needless to say, Matt toasted me as he races for NYU and is an excellent cyclist, but to my consolation he wiped out right past the state sign. (No worries, he was going slow by this time and is fine. Only some minor road rash.) We proceeded to take our traditional state line pictures as the rest of the pack rolled in, and enjoyed an easy last 5 miles into town where we are staying at the Community Center. This is awesome b/c we get to stay in a big gym and there is an awesome community pool right outside.

Tonight was also our 4th AH meeting (AH = Affordable Housing), in which a group presented on further issues with poverty, healthcare and the housing market. I have enjoyed the weekly AH meetings so far, as they are a time we can learn a little more about the cause we are riding for and helps to refocus the group on our ultimate goals.

Day 27 – Alma, NE – 52 miles

Today’s ride was short and swift. Since the actual mileage from town to town was only 45 miles and we stayed on one road the entire time, normal riding groups seemed to split up and everyone enjoyed some new company for the short ride. I found myself in the company of Caitlin for the majority of the ride, and learned all about her adventures with Americorp. We stopped once to take pictures as we passed through Republican City (pop 199) and arrived in Alma (pop 1,100) by 10:30 am. We were told by Les and Mary Parish, our hosts in Red Cloud, to check out Bugbees for their amazing breakfast special so we took the advice and made our way to the local diner. When someone tells you from almost 50 miles away to go for somewhere for a certain meal, its generally for a good reason. The breakfast special we received consisted of a healthy mound of hash browns covered with chicken fried steak, country gravy and fried eggs. I was so excited by this regional meal I even busted out my camera to immortalize the moment.

Full to busting, Colin and I rode down to the municipal golf course to check out rental rates. We caught the grounds keeper right as he was heading out to “dinner” which is lunch b/c “supper” is the evening meal out in rural country. Anyways, he told us he would have a golf cart and a bag of clubs waiting since we wanted to go and change out of our spandex first. On our way back to the Methodist Church we ran into Dustin who is a much more avid golfer so the three of us changed and headed out to the links. The 9 holes were maintained amazingly well for a small town course and the staff was amazingly helpful, even loaning us their personal clubs for free. We kept score for the first seven holes in which a few pars were shot, but as Colin and my shots became more wild we started to call gimmes from 80 yards out. Regardless, we had a blast and wrapped up our outing with big malt milkshakes at the creamery down the road.

Since we were having so much fun running around town, I missed showers before they closed so I will be a very smelly person until we arrive tomorrow evening in McCook. I apologize to those sleeping around me.

Sweep tomorrow!

Note: Internet connection is very slow here so picture uploads will be at a minimum. My apologies.

Special Thanks to Paul Loschak for the delicious mail drop. Hope your Boston adventure is going well.

We're not out of Kansas yest

Day 22 – Richmond, MO – 94 miles

Despite the long distance covered today, the entire team covered the distance swiftly and without much difficulty. We decided to break the ride up into smaller chunks with lunch and snack breaks at miles 40 and 70, so chunks of 40, 30, and 20ish miles. The decreasing mileage throughout the day was surprisingly effective at tricking ourselves into thinking that we were not in fact riding as far as we actually were. We stopped for lunch in the town of Brunswick, where the Missouri river runs through. We spent much of the day traveling along the Lewis and Clark Trail which was marked off by signs along the roadway, and there was even a marker for where they camped on June 3, 1804 right next to the river. The river itself was way over its normal high water mark due to heavy rains and was moving faster than nearly any body of water I have seen before. As we continued on after lunch we passed more of the flooding along the Missouri River and the Grand River. It’s amazing how many fields of surrounding farms are completely submerged. I can only imagine how much time it will take many of these areas to get back on their feet after this season.

In most of the areas I have spent time in, transporting freight via train is rarely used. Out in the Midwest however, we have discovered that the train industry is alive and kicking. We traveled most of the afternoon along a series of tracks and there would be at least one train pass us at least every 10 minutes, most of which were well over 100 cars strong.

We arrived at our host location just after 4 o’clock, and enjoyed a delicious potluck dinner put on by the congregation of the Presbytarian Church. After dinner Mr. Harrison, a local farmer, took Dustin, Colin, Scott and myself to see some of the large-scale farming equipment used in the corn and wheat fields we’ve been passing through. It was a great opportunity to learn a bit more about the agriculture-based communities we have been passing through in the past week.

Day 23 – Lawrence, KS – 100 miles

We awoke today to find cloudy skies threatening overhead and only half of our daily cue sheet taking us into Kansas City, MO. We rode through on and off rain throughout the morning, and reached our lunch stop at Epic Bike and Sport which was kind enough to open early to help service many of our bikes which are in dire need of tune ups. We stayed at this stop outrageously long b/c we were all soggy and tired from the mornings ridiculous ride. We received cue sheets for the second half of the ride at lunch which showed that we would be riding into another century day, so we hit the road about one-ish. Colin had a friend that was planning on meeting us in Lawrence so him, Matt and I decided to ride ahead of the group to get to our new host in reasonable time. We blew through downtown Kansas City and into the state of Kansas, stopping only once on our dash to Lawrence. About mile 85 Colin contacted his friend to find that he was unable to come that night anyways so we cooled our jets and took a more reasonable pace into the city, seeing as how nearly all three of us were bonking b/c we failed to eat along the way. We rolled into Lawrence just after 5:00 to find an amazing surprise waiting for us. We are staying at the Riverfront Marriot!!! Lawrence Habitat arranged for six rooms, six people per room, all donated for three nights by the Marriot. Everyone was ecstatic because we haven’t slept in beds in over a month. After a quick shower in which the water literally turned grey as it came off my body b/c I was so grimy from the rain, we rode over to Centennial Park where the Habitat chapter put on a picnic dinner for us. Due to the inclimate weather and long day of riding, several people had to get picked up by the van b/c it just wasn’t possible to complete all the miles. The evening ended with all of us passing out early in unbelievably comfortable beds. Thanks Marriot.

Build Day – Lawrence, KS – 0 miles

Our first Kansas build day took us back to the rooftops. The house we worked on had already been framed and trusses set, so our task was to put the plywood and tar paper on the roof to prepare for shingling. We spent almost the entire day swinging through the rafters (in the safest way possible of course) and testing our hammering skillz. I have become complacent in my hammering abilities it would appear and managed to bash my thumb pretty well, which is consistent with the theme of the team injuring itself only when not riding. We got more news coverage today when the Lawrence news team came and interviewed several riders. The article and two news blurbs that showed up on channel six can be found at:

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/jul/03/students_bike_lawrence_build_home/?6news

The evening took us to Johnny’s Tavern for some fantastic NY style pizza and then to the main strip through town, Massachusetts Ave. As this is a college town, there is more night life than we have seen since we left Rhode Island and likely the most we will see until we get much closer to the west coast, or at least Ft. Collins.

Build Day Pt. 2 – Lawrence, KS – 0 miles

Today was a half day build so we were able to shingle the majority of the roof by around 12:30 working at a pretty quick clip. Roof work has been fun but exhausting because you are constantly making sure than you aren’t slipping down the slick saw-dust covered roof while trying to do whatever task you are assigned. Regardless, we were all happy to get our feet back on solid ground and the group walked back to the hotel to do any chores we had to get done before we resume riding, aka laundry and bicycle maintenance.

Since we had the majority of the afternoon off, some people chose to go check out the local “water park” (pool with a slide) in good 4th of July fashion, but I opted for the less exciting scholarly route of checking out the Kansas University campus. While riding across town in search of the campus I stopped to ask a studious looking gentleman if he could direct me towards KU. His response was that I should just go to the top of the nearest hill and I would find it. I may not be the greatest geography student ever, but I seem to remember Kansas as the pancake state so I was reasonably skeptical. Sure enough though I started to follow a gradual uphill grade which eventually became a veritable climb to the summit where out of the trees loomed the KU football stadium. The campus itself surprised me in the size and style of buildings, definitely not what I would have expected from Kansas. Maybe more barns with tables inside would have fit my prior expectations better.

We finished our July 4th celebrations by shuttling out to a reservoir that had a professional fireworks display presented at night. The show itself wasn’t that impressive but while we were waiting for it to begin we had an incredible view of the surrounding countryside where people everywhere seemed to be shooting off smaller-scale fireworks while behind us the reservoir was filled with boats sporting colorful running lights. The view was topped off by swarms of fireflies buzzing around us, almost seeming to be distant fireworks lighting up the night as well.

Looking forward to getting back on the road and seeing some serious pancake flatness,

- Sir Brenton David Finklea I Esquire