Lovely Day for a Ride

Today was a little on the cool side, but otherwise a perfect day for a ride. It being a little cool is actually a good thing because there are fewer clueless pedestrians to walk out if front of me. A few miles into my ride I noticed a sort of rattling buzzing noise coming from my bike. I wasn't sure what it was, but wanting to make sure it wasn't some noise indicating my front tire was about to fall off I stopped to take a look. I have no idea what it was still, but everything looked all right and it disappeared at some point or the traffic got so noisy it drowned it out. At any rate I'll try and keep a look out for it in the future, but hopefully it has resolved itself. The other thought I have about it is that it might be a result of the surfaces I'm riding on, which are not the smoothest. If anyone has any ideas about anything I should check out let me know. Mostly it was a pretty easy ride with not too much wind and only one motorist yelled at me. It was a little hard to tell if he was disapproving or not because all I heard was "bicyclists" although he didn't really look happy. I'd also like to point out that I was absolutely in no way doing anything wrong, I was simply following traffic laws waiting for and then using a left turn signal. I guess he just didn't want to share the road, which is a reaction I'm going to have to get used to this summer. Right now the plan is to get out tomorrow and Thursday, take Friday off, get a long ride in Saturday, and take Sunday off to work at Commencement. Now off to hunt down some dinner and do some MCAT studying and laundry. What a night.

Enjoying the Spring Weather

Today I went out intending to do a short 10 mile ride, but it felt so good I ended up going 18.6 instead in about 1.5 hours. It was a really nice sunny day today and not at all cold in the sun until the end of my ride when the sun started getting low. There was a pretty good wind that picked up toward the end to the point where there were gusts where I could feel myself getting pushed to the side. The half of the ride where I had a head wind was pretty slow going, but the half where I had a tail wind I felt like I was flying. I'm no longer really afraid of clipping in and out which is good because now I can go find some hills and practicing my shifting.

Here's an update on my fund-raising, I've passed the $2000 mark which is good because this Monday is the deadline for reaching $2000. Those of you who have already donated thank you again, and to those of you who haven't donated yet please do here.

Sweat Equity

Today I finished my sweat equity requirements for Bike & Build. Each rider is required to complete at least eight hours of sweat equity with an affordable housing organization, so I did two six hour trips with BU's Habitat Chapter. Todays trip wasn't really a build trip because we spent the day making last minute touch ups on several units in a larger habitat project in Boston that are going to be shown to people tomorrow. I spent most of the day scrapping dried paint off of linoleum floors and painting over scuff marks on the walls. It wasn't so bad and really I only wish I could have been outside instead of cooped up inside all day (take note that it was 70 degrees, something I'm not likely to see again for several months), but the units look great and ready for tomorrow. It's kinda funny that now that I'm supposed to be gaining actual building experience for this summer the build trips I go on end up not really involving building (the last one I spent nearly the whole day caulking and sanding). I guess it's good I've been on so many other build trips.
The other big news for today is that I made a special trip home this weekend to collect my bike and the packages that have arrived containing exciting goodies like pedals, a bike computer (that was amazingly easy to install and worked on the first try), and Chamois Butt'r. My next great adventure is going to be learning to clip in and out of my new pedals. I'm hoping I only fall over once or twice.

Bike and Build: Be The Change

There is this great documentary that a couple riders from last summers Southern route made about their trip entitled "Bike and Build: Be The Change". It does a really good job talking about what Bike & Build is really about, so you should all check it out here: http://vimeo.com/10183174

Thanks to everyone who has donated so far and for those who haven't keep the donations coming.

First Ride

My new bike arrived last Friday, just in time for spring break, and after some frustration I was able to get it all together finally on Saturday or Sunday and the other day I went out for my first ride. The biggest difference with this new bike is with shifting gears. For the past year I had been using my Mom's old Motobecane, which is a very nice bike and one that they drool over at the bike shop whenever we bring it in, but has old fashioned shifters down on the frame of the bike that aren't always so user friendly. So out I went with my new bike for the first time on a beautiful day here in Newton and found myself wishing for the first half of the ride that I had the old shifters back. I'm very quickly coming around to the new ones though and after a few more rides I'm sure I'll like them infinitely better than the old ones.

My Bike

Today I have officially hit the $1000 milestone (1/4 of the way there)! This means that I will shortly be able to order my bike. If you want to see what it will look like check out this website: http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-US/bikes/model/defy.2.triple/3882/37100/

Building

So as part of my preparation for the trip I have to put in sweat equity hours building at affordable housing organizations. This past Saturday I got six hours done at a Habitat For Humanity build site in Dorchester in Boston. The house we were working on was nearing completion so we were mostly patching holes, caulking, sanding, and doing some painting. I was glad to be inside though seeing as it's still February. A true novelty at this build site though was that we were able to use the toilet in the house, so we had a real flushing toilet. We were also lucky enough to get to work with two different families that will be getting Habitat houses. I always love when I get to work with the families that will actually be living in the houses I'm helping to build. I still have two more hours to complete before the trip and I can't wait to get them done, but I think I'll wait until it's a little warmer.