Yellow Springs, OH->Cordell, Oklahoma

Clearly I've neglected my blog for a considerable amount of time, so I will now attempt to sum up the past 6 states.

Indiana and Illinois were great.  They were flat, and low wind, and we were knocking out miles like it was no big deal.  The day we crossed the border was awesome.   We gained an hour due to the time change, and we managed to find a community pool that let us swim for free.  The next day we also found a pool for free that had a slide,high and low dive, and other swimming activities.  We stayed near Indiana University campus, and our hosts drove us around on a tour of campus.

The day we rode into St. Louis I was sweep.  We didn't have too much trouble, aside from one person getting several flats due to bad rim tape.  At our lunch stop the police came by and were talking about how dangerous it is to go through East St. Louis(Ill.). Several other people warned us to not stop for anything going through there, and to definitely not get off track.   AS we were approaching town, right on the line, Emily got another flat.  We took care of it, and thankfully made it across the river without much more issue.  It was so surreal the first time seeing the arch and crossing the river.  We had a build day in St. Louis so we were able to treat ourselves to a night out as a major milestone celebration.  The build day in St. Louis was interesting.  They primarily have the same crews of volunteers work on the house each day, so we kind of felt like we were in their way, and they acted as if we had no idea what we were doing.  Regardless, We framed walls, attached sheeting, insulation, and strapping and then raised 3 walls on each of two houses.  In order to make things safer, they build their roofs on the ground in a lot near the house and then crane them in to place once it is fully finished.  After lunch, me and a few others began laying out the frame for the roof, but we ran out of time before we could finish.  That night we took the train back in to town and went up to the top of the arch.

Most of Missouri put us in misery.  It was incredibly hot, humid, and surprisingly hilly and we rode from St. Louis to Springfield in just 3 days; about a 280 mile jouney.  The first night of this leg we stayed in Belle where they were having a parade to kick off their fair.  I got there soon enough that I was able to watch the whole thing; they threw tons of candy and had a whole lot of redneck entries. Some people got in so late they got to ride in the parade.  We went to the fair later that night and they had a tractor pull.  It's funny that I've grown up listening to tractor pulls out the window, but I've never actually gone to one. One of our riders was from Springfield. so he hooked us up with most of our meals while we were in town.  His parents met us and fed us second lunch on the way in to Springfield which was really nice. We had breakfast at a diner provided they day we left Springfield which was a great change.  We had a build day in Springfield, broken up into two teams, one painting inside, the other outside.  I was inside; we worked on refurbishing an older Habitat home.  It was great to be working in the air conditioning, and we even got done painting the whole house, including the ceiling, by 1. I found out that day Relient K was playing at a venue down the road from our host, so of course I had to go see them. This was the third time since Christmas that I've seen them, and they have been awesome every time.  I didn't know what to expect being so far from Ohio, but everyone there seemed to know their songs and rock out just as much as a home-town croud.

We had a ride day to Joplin and then spent two days building there.  Working in Joplin was incredible, they're now above 90% of residential and business returned after the tornado. We were working on a site where the tornado went through.  We started with just a poured foundation and ended the two day build with flooring joists in place and sheeting on the floor.  For lunch those days we went to the warehouse they were using to mass produce framing for the houses post-tornado and one of the coordinators shared her story about riding out the storm.  It was incredible to hear about how much the sotrm still continues to affect her mentality, but it's awesome to see how much support has poured through the town over the past couple years.  Our crew leader, Matt, was really fun to work with. I took a time lapse to track our progress both days so hopefully I'll be able to post that soon.

We had a police escort out of Joplin.  That day we crossed into Kansas for about 8 miles and then we rode in Oklahoma for the rest of the time.   This was a relatively short day allowing for more time to stop and adventure.  Stops included the only original 9' wide pavement from Rt. 66 from1922, a Buffalo ranch and a flea market.  I reached 2000 miles that day since I first arrived in Portland.  Some people started their computers at different times and some have gotten more or less lost to make a difference in mileage. During our presentation after dinner, we went around the room and introduced ourselves.  I said I was from Ohio and went to the "better OSU." Apparently they didn't think it was as funny (or true) as I, so the next morning, one of the ladies gave me an Oklahoma State University t-shirt to try and change my mind. 

The ride in to Tulsa was our "official" halfway mileage wise ride.  No one really new where the mark was, so the van driver of the day, Kristen (and Sam) went crazy chalking on the bike path we rode on.  However, they misread the cue sheet and put it as if we were supposed to turn right where we were supposed to turn left. So we had to go off course to see it, and it also had an arrow marked as pointing to the Pacific when in reality it was aimed toward the Atlantic.  I was riding with Chris, Casey, and Sarah, and we were FLYING! Chris took the lead for a while claiming he didn't want to go fast and next thing we know, we're cruising along at like 23 mph.  Between Chris and Casey, there were 6 total flats, they moth woke up to flat tires, and then they also got flats within 100 feet of each other mid-way through the day.  We went to the Tulsa Zoo, which, for 7 dollars was a decent zoo.

Tulsa was surprisingly a cool place.  We stayed in a youth building called the Powerhouse which belonged to the church across the street.  Apparently the building used to be a car dealership, and later a gym, hence the name.  It had lots of couches plus pool tables and was just a cool place to stay for two nights.  Where we stayed in Tulsa had a cool night life scene for people our age, but we did go to an old Western Ballroom, called Caine's. We didn't know ahead of time, but that night was special in that there was a 10-15 piece Western Swing band playing and all kinds of people were there to country-swing dance and have a good time. Unfortunately, I  was only there for about 20 minutes before they closed for the night, but it was still cool to experience. 

We were supposed to have a build day in Tulsa.  They were planning on having us paint the outsides of some houses, but because it was raining, they had to cancel last minute.  I spent the rest of my morning napping, and even another hour or so after lunch.  Habitat provided us with an awesome breakfast, and still took us out to a mexican place for lunch even though we didn't get to work with them. I walked downtown a couple times to shop and just hang out to people and then later that night, Cici's provided us dinner.   As nice as it was to have a day off, it was disappointing to not be able to help out with the Tulsa Habitat.  We celebrated Christmas in July with a white elephant gift exchange, and of course the fake fire displayed on the projector with Christmas music playing.  The gift I bought was an old long-sleeved cycling jersey that was blue and purple and really goofy looking that I picked up at the flea market the other day.  It got passed around the most and finally ended with Ellie...at least it fit her.  I ended up with a t-shirt that someone got at a thrift shop, but it was too small for me, so I gave it to Sarah. She's putting together a t-shirt quilt after this summer, so hopefully it makes it in there.  

the ride out of Tulsa was also relativly short.  There seems to be a big cycling community in Tulsa as we passed like 30 or 40 cyclists on our way out of town, I think there may have been some event going on though. It's funny that when  I pass other cyclists I feel like a complete amateur, but in reality I'm riding with a group of 4 or 5 others wearing the same thing on almost the same bike, so we look much more intense than we really are.  I rode with Julie this day and she was feeling good because we were cruising along at 20+ for most of the day.   We got to lunch and were hardly done eating before we took off.  We stopped at a gas station for a long time and drank some soda, and then we stopped at pretty much every Rt. 66 related sign or mural to take pictures.  Once we got to Chandler,we were still one of the first groups, and the trailer hadn't come past yet so we stopped at the McDonald's to hang out till it came by. As we were getting ready to leave, Shane walked in.  Shane is prepping himself for a steak eating challenge in Texas next week, so he wanted to take on a 10 patty burger from McDonalds.  We sat and watched him eat that before we finished the last couple miles to the church.      That night there was a rodeo in town.   They had the normal events but in between some of them they had some fun ones.  The first was a hay bale rolling race. As we were waiting between events later, all of the sudden every child there jumped over the fence to get into the arena.   I didn't hear the announcement, but I guess this is a common event. They tied ribbons onto the calves used earlier in the roping and then set them free for the kids to retrieve.  there were at least 100 kids out there and only 5-10 calves. It was so funny to watch them get chased around and almost looked like a junior version of the running of the bulls at some point.  Eventually it just became a tackle or attempt to ride the calves game which was just as funny as before.

Chandler to Yukon was a really exciting day. We followed Rt. 66 some more and lunch was at a gas station called Pop's.  This wasn't a normal gas station though.  This is the gas station made famous for having over 650 types of sodas available.   I think we got to lunch around 9:20(I was excited to get there) and made no hesitation looking thorough all the choices.I ended up picking a root beer, Dr.Pepper made with cane sugar, vanilla cream soda, grape soda, some kind of Cola, and Buffalo wing Soda. We had to wait till 10:30 till lunch was served at the diner there, so I enjoyed my root beer while we waited.  I had a buffalo burger for lunch complimented with the Dr. Pepper.  We left lunch expecting an easy rest of the day, but quickly realized we weren't in lunch. Full bellies and rough roads were not a great mix, and then the last 10 or so miles were straight into a headwind; the first significant one we experienced. 

Our hosts in Yukon were INCREDIBLE! We were greeted at the door with cold towels, they helped us unload the trailer, and get this, They had bike mechanics there who cleaned and basically overhauled everyone's bikes.  I'm talking full service 30 minutes per bike tune ups. I got there around 3 and was one of the first bikes to be looked at, and those guys were there working till midnight.  Dinner was awesome, they had steaks, chicken, and brauts as well as potatoes, grilled peppers. and bacon wrapped  corn on the cob...I didn't even know that was a thing! As if that wasn't enough, they had an ice cream  social with HOMEMADE ice cream and tons of people from the congregation showed up to hear from us. 

Today seemed like it was going to be a struggle from the start.  We had an 85 mile day which was the longest we've had in a while and we also were expecting winds most of the day.  I rode in the morning with several people, and surprisingly made good time.  Fortunately the wind was blowing from the side rather than the front which made it not as bad, but passing by wind energy farms is not really hopefully for a calm day.  Lunch was at a camp on a lake.  We were allowed to swim and they even let us use the water slide.  It was designed in a way that the last turn launched  you up the side of the slide and into the water. It was terrifying in a totally hilarious way to go down first. I ended up riding the afternoon by myself, which was nice but by the end my brain was fried. The wind constantly blew in from the left side, and there was hardly any shade to be found. We were on the same road for over 60 miles today and after lunch it was straight with slight rolling hills the whole way.   It just became mind numbing to never see even a curve in the road, and every truck passing the opposite direction blew enough wind to make it feel like I was stopped dead in my tracks. The aero bars in my bike have cut outs in them to allow someone to run brakes or shifter cables through them, but I have neither. Whenever the wind blows across my  bike it makes a whistling noise similar to a tea kettle which normally isn't a huge issue.  However, when it's the only thing  going on for 40 miles, it really grinds on you.  I couldn't focus on anything other than that the whole afternoon and I though I was going to lose my mind by the end of the route.  Don't worry though, I have now taped over the holes so hopefully I won't have to listen to that anymore.

Tonight is laundry night, so I am now waiting on that to get back, hence finally having time to sit down and force myself to do all this updating. Hopefully I won't procrastinate on this so much anymore in the future. And this is how to update a blog that has been neglected since Columbus 1,000 miles ago. 

Cadiz, Oh->Coshocton, Oh

Today wae pretty great. It was as close to home as I will get this summer. The whole morning was pretty hilly but I knew we would run into flat ground soon enough. We had lunch next to the cemetery where Cy Young is buried. I was meeting a family friend in Newcomerstown after lunch so I took off a bit to get there in time. Seeing her was great, and she had cookies which were also great. After that we explored some familiar sights in newcomerstown. Once we were on our way I realized I had a flat again. This time I discovered I had a tear in my actual tire. For now I stuck a dollar bill in there, hopefully that will hold till I get a new tire. After fixing the flat we were off. It was great to be riding on flat ground. I took off at the end because I was still feeling pretty fresh. thankfully I made it in before it down poured.

Dinner was spaghetti. Julie has an irrational fear of it because when she was a child it was too hard to eat. We spent the end of the day teaching her the proper way to eat it. The church we're in has an awesome rec room so we played air hockey and ping pong. Some of us bought sparklers, so once it got dark we went out to play with them.

Mt Pocono->Berwick, PA

I can't remember much from this day. Just mostly things from the host. Today was the first day we had a rider join us, Casey's dad rode along with us for the day, but he was way ahead so I never saw him.

I was with Claire and Chris and we stopped for coffee at a little diner, sweep caught up with us but we made pretty good time after that.  Chris claimed he used to play a game with his siblings where when they say road kill, the first person would claim "I one it," and then each person would follow it with I two it, three it, etc.   Eventually the last person would shout, "I eight it" and then everyone else could mock them for a while. 

We were rolling along coming down a hill, and I saw a police car up ahead, I didn't really think much of it except I would need to move into the lane to get around.  Once we got closer, I saw our trailer, and everyone stopped in the parking lot, so we stopped to see what had happened.  One of our riders, Emily, got swiped by a car going in the same direction that turned right in front of her.  She was alright, and I had heard enough of the story to know she was okay before I was able to get too worried.

When we got to the host, I was sitting in the hallway and overheard the pastor talking to another helper about a funeral.  Except they were very casual about it. acting like it was no big deal, and it wouldn't be the end of the world to miss; not something you would expect to hear from a pastor in a church. Later I was talking to the pastor and she told me there was a very famous funeral tomorrow. The town was going to recreate the funeral of a lady who died 150 years ago.  Apparently she donated a lot of money and land to the tow, and they had used her house as city hall until recently when the historical society took charge of it. Basically this was a very bizarre thing to hear about, especially without knowing any of the back story.

My group was on presentation team this week, so on nights where there are several hosts around, we give a little presentation to them mostly about Bike & Build.  Tonights presentation turned into a conversation about the struggles of affordable housing in small towns and about how most people are uneducated on the issue or think its not a problem in their area.  After tonight, I think we should change our presentation to focus on affordable housing as well as B&B..ya know because we're supposed to be spreadig awareness on the issue along with biking and building.  

Berwick, PA-> State College

1. First Century
2. Sweep
3. State College!

1.  We were told that today was going to be our first century, or 100 mile ride.  We got our cue sheets and found out it was only 93 miles.  I was a little disappointed, but it was the longest trip of the day so far.  We were on the same state highway for I think 60 miles today but there was a lot of changing scenery to not make it totally boring.  We spent most of the day cruising through the valley which was nice and flat but I think once we had to jump over to the next, meaning a big hill to climb.  Bike & Build has a 90/90 rule, meaning if a ride of over 90 miles long or 90 degrees we get two lunches! While I don't think a second lunch was totally necessary, it was good to get a few snacks and fill up water and gatorade.

2. Each day two people are designated as sweep, these people ride last with a med kit and a couple extra tubes and such.  Everyone thought I was going to have a terrible time doing it because I tend to not like to stop for long periods of time.  The worst part for me was not being able to see everyone over the course of the day, but going slower probably helped me stay at a better pace.  We had to stop a couple times for a couple flat tires, minor bike issues, and people taking break, but overall not as bad as I thought. 

3. Getting to stay at Penn State was really cool.  I was here last year for the football game, so it was good to be back; I love BigTen schools.  We stayed in a church right off campus.  Some local affordable housing group, or maybe biking group, not really sure which made us  dinner and also drove us to and from showers at the rec center on campus.  We went out to a bar later; it was nice to be at a college bar rather than taking over some local bar in a small town.  I stayed long enough to listen to the band set up and play, but they werent that great, so I headed home around 1030 and fell straight asleep. 

State College, PA->Johnstown, PA

L1. Rain
2. Hills
3. Flat tire

1. I was so glad to finally have a rainy day! As we were loading the trailer, we were getting sprinkled on, and then a couple times before lunch we got hit with a few drops.  After lunch there was a pretty good shower, but when I was about 10 miles away from the host going over one of the last hills, I got poured on.  It may be a little more dangerous, but its also refreshing to ride around in the rain.  What was weird was about 3 or 4 miles up the road it hadn;t rained there yet. so I was soaking wet but everyone in that area was dry and out enjoying the weather, mowing the lawn, and other fun stuff.

2. Today was a hilly day.  There were constantly rollers, and then the occasional big climb/mountain.  Going over the last hill before lunch I took off on my own so I rolled into lunch first maybe 5 minutes ahead of the next group.  After lunch, I left with the same group, and as they were chugging up the hill, I decided to take off on my own.  I got the the top and they were still a whiles back.  I didn't really want to wait so I decided to just finish the day on my own.  Little did I know that we had a mountain to climb.  I'm talking 14% incline that went on for the better part of a mile.  After that there were still several hills to climb  going into town.   At the end we had a 14% decline which would have been fun, but I was stuck behind a car, there was a stop sign at the bottom, and the road had some gravel in it.  I ended up getting to the host a little before 3:30, the next group didn't get here till like 5. I have no idea how I got that far ahead. 

3. I woke up this morning and took my bike outside. I noticed my front tire was flat so I assumed it had a leak so I quickly replaced the tube before we left.  After lunch, when I was on my own I noticed my tire was flat again.  I stopped in a driveway to replace it when I couldn't figure out the adapter to my hand pump. At that moment it started to rain, so I figured I would walk up to an underpass and wait till someone I was with would come by and help.  As I was walking, a truck drove by and then stopped under the underpass.  I saw he had a bike rack on top of his truck, and thankfully, he actually had a pump and some tools in the bed.  I told him what had happened and he took the tire and tube from me and actually did all the work for me replacing the tube.  I guess he lived in the area, because he gave me a little heads up on what was down the road.  I believe he said something to the extent of, "you'll have 6 or 7 miles of gradual uphill, then all the sudden you'll be faced with a 14& upgrade for about a mile." He was right.  Thanks, Kevin, you made my day a little brighter. 
I checked the tubes tonight, and I'm not entirely sure what happened. I used the underwater method, and couldn't find anything in the first tube. I'm going to let it sit overnight and see if it will hold pressure or what the deal is.  The second tube had a little baby hole, so I have a feeling it was like that from the manufacturer.

North Hampton->Pittsfield, MA

1. Short Ride!
2. Basement flood
3. Sideline Saloon

1. Today was only 45 miles.  We spent about 30 miles of it on the Ozark Trail. Of course I got lost getting out of town in the morning, but that's pretty standard for me at this point.  The Ozarks consisited of one 3-5 mile climb followed by a pretty great downhill and then some more rollers. Lunch was around mile 25.  Right after lunch there was another big climb.  It was pretty steady uphill, again about 5 miles.  From there it was all downhill into town.  I somehow managed to get ahead of my group and then they stopped to check directions without me knowing, so I actually made it in to the church around 12:15 and a solid 15 minutes before the next grouo. This church is huge! It has so many rooms  to choose from to sleep in.

2. We were hanging out in the basement where it was cooler while waiting for dinner. We knew it was going to rain, and we were warned that a   corner of the basement would leak.  Out of no where, water started gushing out from under the boiler room closet. We started to panic and move stuff to higher ground and onto tables. In about a minute or 2 there was at least an inch of standing water on the floor.  Apparently there was a pipe that collects all the water from the roofs and part of it burst gushing water into the boiler room.

3. The next day was a build day meaning we could stay out later and sleep in tomorrow.  Just about all of us headed out to a bar.  It's hard to find a non-dive bar in a small town. Or finding one that would hold nearly 30 people.  We found one called the Sideline Saloon.  Some people were watching the hockey game, others(me) didn't care at all. Someone managed to get a free pitcher from a guy at the bar.  As the night goes on, there tends to be more singing going on.  Jukeboxes are a great hit.  I'm sure all the locals hate it, but we had a blast. 

Fitchburg, MA-> North Hampton, MA

1. Lunch
2. Reroute
3. Headwind

1. Lunch was a nice 3 miles off the main route and up a series of fairly short by super steep hills.  Once again we rode past lunch and had to go back to get there. It was in a state park with a lake to swim in. After climbing the hills, it felt great to jump in before lunch.  One of our trip leaders' co-workerrs provided lunch which was a great change from the standard cold pasta and leftovers.

2. We found out that the next road we were supposed to be on prohibited bikes.  Rather than risking it, the leaders decided to send us on a reroute.  Not only did it add another 5-10 miles, it  also took us on the greatly named Mountain Road.  This was a series of super steep long climbs. I decided to stay authentic and "bike and build" it rather than "hike and build: it. Once we got to the top there were some killer views into the valley and surrounding mountains. Coming down the hill was scary because there were a lot of curves and loose gravel but I hung on long enough to max out at 47 mph.

3. We encountered our first decent headwind. In reality, it probably wasn't that bad, but we were all pretty exhausted from climbing the mountain and it was so hot, that it was the last thing I wanted.  The last 10-15 miles of the trip were pretty flat, but it seemed to drag on forever. 

Johnstown, PA -> Pittsburgh, PA + Day off!

Today was another hilly day.  In the morning there were also a lot of dump trucks and semis.  We thought that at some point between State College and Pittsburgh, the hills would start being more down than up, but they still don't ever seem to stop.  Lunch was at the top of a big hill, I guess it's better there than having to climb right out of lunch.  I rode with Kristen and Shane, I was surprised because they normally cruise further back, but we had fun going down all the hills. There was a Subway/gas station across from lunch, so as soon as I pulled in I knew I wanted to get that instead of whatever was left in the coolers.  Turns out Chris had scored 20% off.  I also got a soda and the caffeine really helped me stay energized for the rest of the day.  I waited for the first group, but I wanted to take off by myself again because I didn't want to have to navigate downtown by myself.  The road we took out of lunch turned highway-esque, and ended with a big climb.  The rest of the day seemed to never end; when we got about 15 miles from the end, the road seemed to follow the top of a mountain and just kept going up and down.  I was relieved when I finally got a glimpse of the skyline.  The challenge just started then; we came through a kind of sketchy part of town, there were a lot of people and a lot of traffic and lights.  I was glad to be myself because I  could weave through all the cars to get to the end faster.  Of course there was one huge hill to climb including a construction zone even once we got downtown. 

We statyed at the Smithfield United Church of Christ, apparently the oldest congregation in all of Pittsburgh. Once again, our host was having  flooding issues. Showers were on site, and someone went to make sure they had hot water the day before, and apparently didnt turn the water all the way off so the downstairs showers flooded.  Rather than having 6 showers, we only had 2, but people came in staggered enough that there were no real problems.  We walked down to the river to take a look, and then we went out to a bar to celebrate being done with 7 straight days of riding.

Having a day off has been great! I woke up around 3:30, and rather than having an hour.5 to keep sleeping, I had as long as I wanted! Most people got up around 9.  We wandered off to find some famous breakfast place, but once we got there the line was really long, so rather than wait, we went to somewhere else.  The owner seemed a little out there, but the food was good.  We went back to the church to regroup before going to ride the incline.  Turns out there are 2 inclines, so of course we walked to the wrong one first.  We rode the second one, then walked to the park where the rivers meet. There's a regatta going on this weekend, so there were booths and things going on that we checked out for a while.  I grabbed some Jimmy Johns  and sweet tea for lunch which hit the spot.  I guess Chipotle is donating us dinner tonight, and then we got a group rate to go to the Pirates/Phillies game!

Tomorrow is the 4th of July, and we hit OHIO! So excited to get back there.  We're staying in Cadiz, which isn't the most exciting place, but it should be good. I'm hoping to maybe find some fireworks to pick up along the way.  Who knows. 

Build day 2

Today was our second build day.  This meant an extra 30 mins to sleep in! Our host provided breakfast, but for the first time we were actually able to help cook.  Everyone walked over to the build site a couple blocks away. It was actually a complete build site with the family already moved in since September, but the whole backyard was waaaaaaay overgrown.  A bunch of people went to help at the local ReStore because there wasn't a lot to do at the house and the chance of poison ivy hindered some people from working. 

There was a huge pile of gravel in the driveway, but at the time, we didnt think much of it.  We began pulling weeds and whatever else was growing in the backyard using a bunch of wheelbarrows to move the waste out the front dumpster.  Things were  going well when I noticed a group of people beginning to dig along the side of the lot.  Turns out the water run off from the lot pours out mud an leaves dirt in the neighbors driveway, they were threatening to sue, so we were putting in a way to capture this extra water.   We had to dig a trench all along the lot, 3 feet wide by 2 foor deep, about 50 feet long.  That was bad enough with all the clay and roots in the ground to get it all dug out.  After lunch we began moving gravel into the trench and running pipe within the gravel to catch the water.  We used wheelbarrows to move the gravel from the front to the back.  Out front there was a team of people with shovels loading each wheelbarrow.   We all continuously rotated around doing the various jobs,  because they were pretty exhausting. By the time we were done, we moved 30 tons of gravel.Showers were much appreciated tonight.

Before dinner we had our first town hall. We do these every Saturday, and basically we go around and  each say our high and low of the week and then discuss whatever issues we're having as a group. We talked a lot about chalking and general riding in groups things. We ran out of time to finish before dinner. Dinner was great as usual. Pasta, garlic bread, the works.  The sauce had a ton of veggies and other flavors in it. I asked the cook what all was  in it, and he used some italian word which roughly translates to "Italian whore," basically meaning they put everything in it. Desert was strawberries and nutella as well as some ice cream. 

One of the program directors, Natalie has been hanging out with us for the past few days, so she was telling stories about bike and build.  Since we had so many leftover bananas, a group went to walmart and got ingredients for banana bread before dinner.   We began making it, jamming to some 90's hits of course.  We ended up quadrupling the recipe.  When we got to the end, we added chocolate chips and some nuts;then we realized we had a bunch of food leftover that was going to go bad/uneaten.  Cookies, granola, muffins, brownies, basically anything went into the mix.  If that wasnt enough, the bottom of the pan was lined with bananas, and then another layer in the middle....and then more on top. I don't like bananas so I didnt try any of it, but everyone really liked it; probably because all of the sugar in it. 

At the build today, I was going to use my GoPro to do a timelapse of the backyard. I had it all set up and it was running perfectly.  When I got back tonight to look at the pictures and turn it into a video, I learned I didn't format the SD card ahead of time. This meant we were unable to see any of the pics and had to clear all of them in order to format it.  Currently we are trying to recover them on Daniels computer, but there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-4000 pictures, so it's going to take all night to recover. 

Tomorrow is a 70 mile ride.  I was told it has been rerouted from what it was in previous years in order to avoid a couple big climbs on the way out of town.  I'm really hoping to get caught in a rainstorm soon,  but it's not supposed to rain until after dinner tomorrow.    

Pittsburgh, PA-> Cadiz, OH

1. morning hills+bike path delirium
2. flats
3. OHIO!

1. Of course Pittsburgh is surrounded by hills. The very first part of the day started out nice rolling through town and along the river.  Soon enough, we found the hills; two long climbs totalling about 1000 feet upwards.   It was really early, I didn't really have a lot of breakfast, and I was probably a little dehydrated.  The combination of these made things a little weird towards the top.  We finally got to the bike path and had about 30 miles on a combination of two trails.  The biggest problem was it was packed gravel, so we maybe hit a 12 mph average because anything faster was too difficult.  I took off on my own for a bit hoping to get into a grove, but mostly I just had to stop and pee a lot, then I was hungry.   The last hour into lunch was pretty hard because all I could do was think about how hungry I was.  I rode with Jake into lunch which was better to have someone to talk to kill time. 

2. The other day, I woke up to a flat tire, I changed it, but got another one later in the day. When I checked them later in the night to patch the holes, I could only find a little baby hole in one of them. Today after lunch, I went to leave and my tire was mostly flat again.  I changed it again(using the last tube in my backpack).  When I got about halfway to Cadiz, my tire was flat again.  I didn't have a tube, and I knew my pump sucked.  I bummed a tube off Steve, and borrowed Sam's pump and told them to take off and I would catch up.  Turns out Sam's pump was rude(didn't work) so I went to use mine thinking it would be good enough to last the rest of the day.  As soon as I was almost inflated, the valve snapped off the tube making the whole thing useless.  So there I sat atop the hill with no tube or pump, and the next group was at least 30 minutes behind me.  There wasn't anywhere to lay that wouldn't have got me covered in ticks, so I turned on some tunes(Relient K new album of course) and waited.  I checked out the inside of my tire while I was waiting, and found a little piece of metal, hopefully that will solve my problem.   The next group came finally and I got everything fixed to finish the day.

3.  I've been pretty jazzed all trip to get to Ohio, so I was looking forward to it all day.   As soon as we hit the bridge over the river, we stopped to get the first O-H-I-O picture.  Ohio has treated me well so far, a little less hilly than PA, and the sky is totally a better shade of blue.  Per the recent standard, the last 10 miles seemed all hills. Coming into Cadiz was a bit rough.  From a distance, we could see a church on a hill and hoped that it wasn't the one we were staying at.  OF course it was, so getting into town was pretty much all uphill.   I'm pretty jazzed to get to a more familiar  part of Ohio tomorrow, and even more excited to finally get to the flats in the next 2 days. 

Pittsfield, MA->Poughkeepsie, NY-> Port Jervis,NY

1. sucky days
2. beds!
3. detours

Since we had two back to back days of similar riding, I'm just making one point.  We started in Mass. went through Connecticut  for a short while and then hit New York before lunch on the first day.

1. Day  one was the first day of getting up at 5AM.  I'm just now getting into the swing of falling asleep before midnight, so getting up at 5 was still way too early for me.  My legs have pretty well adapted to riding all day, so I wasn't really sore or fatigued, but it just felt like I was fighting off some cold medicine drowsiness all day.  Thankfully everyone else was having a great day, so I was at least able to stick with them and make great time. 

2.  We stayed at a boarding school which means sleeping dorm style, which means......drumroll....BEDS! I'm pretty sure I passed out as soon as I hit the pillow that night.  There was an incident with the van at lunch when someone flew by and clipped off the mirror, so it was late arriving to the host and I think we made good enough time that we got there earlier than planned.  Regardless, While we were waiting for the van to come we had TV with cable and couches to lay on too! I don't even remember what we were watching because everyone fell asleep for a solid half hour for the van to come.  Since we were at a school that was kind of out of town we were in charge of finding our own dinner. Someone stopped on the way in at a pizza shop and DMed(donation magic) enough free pizza for everyone.

3.  It seems like every morning includes some kind of detour. I think the roads in town often change names or run into each other so it's hard to figure out which road we're on.  Also, so far the states we've been in don't have street signs for both streets of an intersection.  Usually it only has the cross street so I think of you were in a car you would know more easily what road you were turning on, but on bike it's often frustrating to try and guess if you're at the right intersection to turn at or not.  In the morning I tend to ride with a group that stops for coffee early on.   This is funny because I usually lead out the group in the beginning and I don't drink coffee so I sometimes just don't stop for them.  Anyways, today we were cruising along trying to find a coffee shop and also find the bridge to get across the Hudson. The first several shops were closed, but we finally found a really cool hipster-ish shop in some small town.  I got a bagel which was great because food supplies were running low for breakfast.  Back to the detour: after coffee we continued down the  road for another mile or two until we got into another small town. At this point I knew we had missed the bridge so we turned around.   Turns out the coffee shop we went to was a mile beyond where the bridge was.  The bridge was a highway across the Hudson, and we were told to follow a ramp and eventually would lead us to the bike path. We followed the on ramp but there was no bike path. we weighed the options of just rolling with it, or trying to cross to the other side where the bike path actually was. We decided to turn back and go the right way to get to the path.

After lunch we rode into a small town and had to find an old rail trail.  There were no obvious signs pointing to it. There was a building that was clearly used to be a train station, but no signs of a trail leading from it.   A couple locals pointed us to the trail, but after inspection on Google Maps, we figured out it was the right trail going the right way.  I finally just pulled out my phone and used the GPS tracker to figure out where the path was.  Initially it ran right though peoples back yards.  After cutting through a fence gate and some parking lots, we were finally actually on the trail.  It was obviously an old rail right of way, actually one for a double track, but it consisted of grass, gravel, and in a couple lucky cases, packed dirt/gravel.  I don't remember what my final milage on the day was, but the people I was with said they were about 6 or 7 miles over the already 60 mile day. 

Build Day 3

1. Roofing
2. John
3. Sean

1. Today we were broken down into smaller groups to work on various sites around town.  Most people were clearing out a vacant lot to prepare for a house, others rode around in a truck picking  up stuff for the ReStore, others were painting apartments.   My group was tasked with replacing a section of roof on a Veterans house.  We spent the morning ripping shingles off the section; there were at least 4 layers but somehow it was still leaking.  We were supposed to get a delivery of plywood and roofing at 9 but it didn't come till 11:30. While we were on the roof we realized we didn't get enough plywood to cover, so our site coordinator went out to try and find more and pick up lunch.  We waited for about an hour taking a nap under the tree.   After lunch we were back up on the roof putting down the sheeting.  All of the sudden someone came and picked up our site coordinator and he left without much instruction. Since we were alone and without materials to finish the project, we covered the roof with a tarp and put all the tools away.

2. Our site coordinator was named John. He was really layed back and was originally from Ohio.  There were 6 of us, but he only had 2 harnesses and ropes to tie in with.  There were 2 extra harnesses that people put on without tying off to anything, just in case someone was taking pictures of us.  When we were eating lunch he had mentioned something about only being able to stay for the morning and someone else would be coming in the afternoon to supervise us.  Once we were working after lunch, he gave us a rundown of what we were doing, and then next thing we know, a car drove up, picked him up, and he was gone. It wasn't until we had everything put away and our ride back was 5 minutes away that he came back. 

3.  The neighbor, Sean Clink, had came over to chat with the neighbor, and then with us. Turns out he is a cop on out on medical leave for a couple days.   He was putting his gun into his holster in his locker and managed to get the key in the trigger area and it fired and grazed the tip of his finger.  At some point one of his police friends came by in his cruiser. We talked him into arresting Shane who was working with us on the site.  When he was getting ready to leave, we told him to go to one of the other groups and arrest Claire. Turns out she was using a weed eater and cutting down some illegal drugs, but he never got around to stopping by there.  When John deserted us, Sean offered us just about anything we needed.  He tried getting us into the neighbors pool, taking us to the lake to swim, showers in his house, taking us back to our host, or pretty much anywhere around town we needed to see.  This was someone who knew absolutely  nothing about Bike & Build and just happened to live next door and he was more than willing to do anything for us.  He is trying to get us a police escort out of town tomorrow.  It's people like this that make B&B so great. Just hearing all the different stories is awesome so I've decided to try and keep track of them on here. 

I'm going to try and pick just a couple major points of interest from each  day rather than dragging on forever on little stuff.  It's hard to believe that we've only been at this for  about a week and a half. It seems like so much longer.  It's also great to me to see how happy hosts are to have us.  If I were a host having 30 kids come crash for a night and have to make food for them, I would be really annoyed, but they have all been super happy to have us and have gone way out of the way to help out.