Iowa

Today we had a nice 80 mile ride into Mt. Vernon, Iowa. It was overcast and cool (aka perfect riding weather) for most of the day aside from the 5-10 minutes it rained. The day was generally full of rolling hills just as I remembered from last year. There were also a lot of rumble strips, which I also remembered was something often found always in groups of three. After a run in with a skunk (don't worry I didn't get sprayed) and hearing some funny stories from my post lunch riding partner, Chris, I made it in by just past 1:00, took possibly the coldest showers we've had so far and headed over to a bar in town to watch the world cup. That's where I am right now and I should pay attention to the end of the game so that's all for now more to come later.


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Location:Mt. Vernon, Iowa

I made it to Peru

Yesterday was our second day off. I slept until 8:00 and saw the sights in Pontiac. I went to the swinging bridges, which you're not actually allowed to swing, but they do sway when you walk on them. I went to the route 66 museum and saw some murals. I spent the afternoon playing a game called jungle speed and hanging out with some friends and some visitors we had.

Today we woke bright and early at 5:00 again for a 62 mile ride into Peru, IL. For the past several days we've had winds from the southwest but today since we were spending a lot of time going north we had winds from the north so we spent most of the day battling headwinds. Other than that it was mostly uneventful other than I took another fall going into lunch. I started into a parking lot, but there was a giant hole so I thought I might not make it so I stopped but forgot to unclip and went down and landed poorly. I ended up landing on my wrist and absorbing most of the impact in my shoulder so I'm fairly sore right now. I was able to finish the day after taking all non essentials out of my camelbak although I wasn't able to signal with my left arm because my shoulder tightened up so much. It's feeling better now and I expect in a few days it will be all better. Tomorrow we cross into Iowa and I begin the part of the route that I have deemed the reverse RAGBRAI.


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The post in which I try to tell you all about the last 4 days

Last Saturday we had a build day in Dayton. We spent the day hanging drywall. I had never done that before so it was fun to learn something new. I got to use power tools so it was even better. I got to actually hang some dry wall and cut some so I experienced the entire process. After our build day was over John Michael came to hang out and meet some Bike&Builders. We went with some other riders to a sushi/tai food place and had pad tai as usual. After we walked through this folk festival they were having in Dayton on the way to watch some fireworks. The Dayton Habitat chapter we worked with that day had secured us a good place to watch the fireworks. We watched from a lumber yard parking lot that we needed a secret password to get into. The fireworks were really good. They were certainly on par with the Boston fireworks and were only lacking the Boston Pops.

The nex morning John Michael woke up bright and early to see us off at 6:30 with our police escort. Four police cruisers showed up to escort us out of the city. It was a really amazing experience not having to stop at red lights for a whole 8 miles and being able to ride in the middle of the road without having to worry about cars. Next we got on a nice bike trail for about 12 miles so we were able to stay in a big pack. After that we split up to complete our first century ride. It was a long hot day and I didn't make it into the host until about 5:00. When we got there we had hose showers outside also our first of the trip, but we were all so hot it actually felt really nice. I definitely had my ups and downs during the century ride, but at the end I felt alright. I was really tired, but I felt alright.

The next day we had another long day of 86 miles. I only made it to lunch at mile 40 because I haven't been sleeping all that well on the trip. I spent the rest of the day in the van napping. I'm working on the sleeping thing and hopefully will be sleeping through the night soon. In the meantime my goal is to get as much sleep as possible whenever I can.

The next day we had another 80 miles and crossed into Illinois and crossed into central time. I enjoyed parts of the ride particularly the morning when I was playing games with my riding partner Brittany. After lunch we had a stretch of about 20 miles where we had a really nice tail wind and all zipped along at 20 mph. After we turned west again we found a nasty head wind for the last 15 miles. About 10 miles out we were able to see the Gilman (our destination) water tower. I think that was one of the flattest and straightest roads I have ever been on. We finally reached our destination at about 1:30 central time which wasn't so bad for having gone 80 miles.

Yesterday we had a short 45 miles and got to sleep in until 6:00 instead of having to wake up at 5:00 as we had the past three days. We flew right out of town and reached Pontiac by 11:00. It was a very enjoyable ride and we all went out to eat at a restaurant in town and pretty much took over the entire place. Pontiac is a very cute town with lots of little shops. Today we have a day off and I'm planning on visiting the route 66 museum and the swiging bridges.

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Location:Mohave Dr,Pontiac,United States

Sorry for the absence...

I'm sorry I've been away for so long and this is going to be unsatisfactory because this post is just to assure you that I'm fine and my absence doesn't mean anything bad happened. It just means that I've had some really long days and I'll be back tomorrow to fill you in on what has been going on.


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Location:Elmwood St,Pontiac,United States

This is the Ohio I imagined

Today was probably the easiest 90 mile ride I will ever experience. It was a beautiful day and there wasn't much wind and we got a non PB&J lunch in the middle. I was only mildly grumpy just before lunch because I was hungry and we didn't know if we would be back tracking after lunch to get back on route and we were going to have to backtrack a lot if it was necessary. Luckily we didn't have to backtrack at all and we had an awesome lunch at the house of parents that had a son on the soyhern route last year. We had pulled chicken, mac and cheese, Oreos, chips, Gatorade, bananas, as well as granola bars and trail mix we could take with us for later. After lunch we had some freshly paved road and then some bike paths. I got to chat with another rider, Chaz. We're staying at Sinclair Community College for the next two nights and so far they have been very welcoming. We have a build day tomorrow and John Michael is coming to visit tomorrow.

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Location:S Robert Dr,Dayton,United States

Hello, Columbus

Today we had an easy ride from Gambier to Columbus but before I can talk about the ride I need to fill you all in on sleeping and breakfast. Last night we all got an amazing night of sleep on real matresses and real sheets. I woke up feeling refreshed and the only bad part was gettingout of bed. Usually with the thermarest it's only difficult to get up because it's early not because I'm just so comfortable I don't want to. After we woke up and got all ready we headed over to breakfast at the campus dining hall. It was amazing. First of all the dining area looked like Hogwarts. To eat there were hash browns, eggs, strawberries and blueberries, yogurt, cottage cheese, cinnamon rolls, sausage, cereal, pancakes, oatmeal, bagels, and icecream. I didn't eat all of that but I think I did have about half not including icecream. If every morning was just like that we would be all set. Today's ride was only about 43 miles and mostly flat with a few gently rolling hills just the way I imagined Ohio would be. We even had a few bike trails worked in to avoid the cars for a while. This afternoon was another laundry day so off we went to the laundromat that is also a tanning salon. We got all the clothes in just two washers and 4 driers which is impressive by Bike&Build standards. Dinner was at the house of one of our riders roomates parents. They have a paddle boat that I took a spin on and we had pulled pork for dinner that my Dad would have loved. It was an overall excellent night and now I'm off to bed for an early start tomorrow to get to Dayton where I will see John Michael the day after tomorrow.

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Location:E Schrock Rd,Westerville,United States

O HI O

What has rounded edges and is hi in the middle? Ohio! I know this won't be shocking to most of you but I learned today that Ohio is in no way even remotely flat. I thought we'd have nice gently rolling hills the entire way moving toward pancake flat. We had nice gently rolling hills for the first half of the day and then we got hills reminicent of the four other states we've been through so far. Yesterday was really nice and had the gently rolling hills I expected. I road sweep with Sarah yesterday which means that we road at the back to make sure everyone made it. Then when we got to Tallmadge we went to the Firehouse Grille for lunch and almost all of us had burgers. We got free cookies at Linda's Kitchen which were really good. Then we had a relaxing afternoon and ate dinner at our host site the First Church of God in Tallmadge. After dinner we had a party for one of our riders, Anthony L., who missed his graduation yesterday. We got him a robe and set up chairs and had a few people conduct the ceremony and then we had cake and went bowling. I bowled an ok game after a rocky start and had 3 strikes in 2 games.

Today we had a long 85 mile ride so we got up at 5:00 and set off by about 7:30. We had an excellet breakfast at which I ate a bagel with cream cheese, eggs, a bowl of oatmeal, and two donuts. This is a perfect example of how much we have to eat in order to take in enough calories. Our ride this morning was alright. There was some truck traffic and almost no shoulder so my riding partner for the day, Chris, and I had a close call with a semi that did not leave enough room when it passed. We are both perfectly fine so no worries. We ate lunch at a firehouse today and the firemen were very nice and let us use their bathrooms and gave us ice for our camelbaks. They even pulled a truck out so we could take a picture with it. After lunch the roads we were on were much lower traffic which was really nice, but they were really hilly. Tonight we're staying at Kenyon College which I knew was in the Midwest, but did not know was in Ohio until today. We are staying in a dorm building so was all have our own beds to sleep in tonight complete with sheets. I'm very excited about getting to sleep in a real bed since I don't really remember what that is like anymore other than to remember that it is wonderful. Tomorrow we're headed for Columbus.

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Location:Ward St,Gambier,United States