Plains, Rains, and Winds on our Wheels

I apologize for any typos that may occur in the following post as a
result of me typing this on my phone. We've had a lot of long days
lately that, along with having to cook dinner a few nights, have cut
down on time to blog. Fortunately, we had a short ride today, which
means a little time to update.

We spent our day off in Bartlesville pretty much eating all of the
amazing food that the Church of Christ there provided for us and checking
out the downtown area. We visited the Price Tower, Frank Lloyd
Wright's only skyscraper, and the Phillips 66 "Museum," a word which
here means "shrine to Frank Phillips, founder of Phillps 66 and our
hero." The highlight of the museum was certainly the Frank Phillips
song, which went something like:

Frank was a man,
Phillips was the name,
His spirit and his courage
Helped to bring him fame.
He had a little lady
To carry on his name
This is the story of Frank and Jane.

It was pretty awesome to say the least. We were all sad to leave
Bartlesville and the great food and kindness that we received, but we
needed to get across the country before the summer ended. So, the next
morning we headed on to Ponca City, our destination for the next
evening. This ride was where we started to hit the whole lot of
nothing that we have been riding through for the last few days. I find
it beautiful most of the time, but it can get a little boring after a
while. Claire, Dan, and I decided to write a song to help break up the
monotony, and I think it describes the ride well, so here are the
lyrics:

(In a hoedown style)
Well, I lost my mind in Arkansas
And then around the bend,
I went through Oklahoma
And I lost it once again.

Well, when I first heard 'bout the Ozarks,
Thought they would be a delight.
Now, my skin's a'bakin, my legs are achin',
And I can barely sleep at night.

My tired heart's seen tire parts
All along the road,
Badgers, possums, armadillos,
'Couple flattened toads.

We were pumpin' arms at passing trucks,
We hadn't gotten far
When crazy Dan put out his arm
And got a honkin' car!

And there's nothin' here in Oklahoma
To keep me from my pain
'Cause all these tunbleweeds and grassy knolls
They can get really lame.

The wind it blew into our face
And never gave us rest,
But we moved along and soldiered on
And always headed west.

Well, up the hills of Oklahoma
I could've sworn we were gonna die
When Benny Ryan, not even tryin',
He came a'flyin' by!

Well, lookie there, up ahead,
Lance is keepin' a good pace.
You woulda thought he liked the wind,
'Cept for chalkin "Windy... Sadface"

Well, good ol' Claire, she couldn't care
For the hills and wind,
But she pulled us through and before we knew,
We had finished once again.

Ok, so that song makes things sound kind of hard, but I assure you
that it's mostly exaggeration for effect, and we have a lot of
fun on the bikes. For context, Ben Ryan is one of the leaders on the
trip and a really strong rider. Also, we use chalk to mark turns, and
sometimes people write messages. It was a fun day, and thinking up
song lyrics helped pass the time. We stayed at the Lutheran Church in
Ponca City and once again got awesome food and a great place to lay our heads for free.

From Ponca City, we hopped on down the road to Cherokee, OK. For the
first twenty miles of the ride, all of the guys rode together in a
massive Peloton of sorts, so those went by pretty fast and were fun,
but after that the wind started to get to us, and the rest of the ride
was a good bit harder. Fortunately, around mile 65 a local directed us
to his private well where water was flowing freely from the ground,
and we got an awesome pick-me-up and rest from the near-100 degree
heat. We stayed in the Methodist church in Cherokee, where the pastor
was a former campus minister and knew to give us tons of food from the
moment we arrived.

Cherokee was our last stop in Oklahoma, and soon after starting the
next day we crossed over into Kansas, the first 40 miles of the ride
were amazing, with our first tailwind basically since Eastern North
Carolina. Some of my friends got up to 19 miles per hour from a dead
standstill without pedaling once. Then we turned. After that, we spent
a good deal of the day battling a strong crosswind, but we eventually
made it to Coldwater, KS, where we were camping on the local lake.
Camping was horribly hot at first, but the lake helped cool us down
and then the evening was quite pleasant. That night, we had an
incredible view of the stars that was simply awe-inspirng.
The next morning, we headed to Dodge City, KS, the semi-famous
gunslinging town, in a similar fashion, with tailwind to mile 40 and
bad headwind afterwards. We stayed at the Methodist Church in the
city, where we cooked ourselves a tasty fajita dinner and then headed
to bed.

Today was a pleasant, short ride from Dodge City over to Garden City.
We were warned that it would be a little hilly by locals, but that
term has a different meaning in Kansas, and the ride was pretty much
flat. At the top of one hill, there was a scenic overlook, but all
that we saw was a cow farm and wheat fields, so I think that someone
placed the sign there as a joke of some sort. We arrived early to
Garden Valley Church and have been just relaxing and eating ice cream
this afternoon.There are talks of a talent show tonight?

In the future, you should probably read this blog before a meal
because it will make you hungry. Happy summer activities, everyone!

I've seen tires and I've seen rain...

Well, another day has passed, and now I'm 75 miles down the road in
Bartlesville, Oklahoma, where we have a day off tomorrow. I never
thought that I would want a day off after only four days of riding,
but I am more than ready. The day started off kind of slow, since we were
trapped at our host site in Grove by a radar full of yellow, red, and
little blinking lightning bolts. Once the weather cleared up a bit, we
headed out into the crosswind for our ride west.

Nothing much happened in the first few miles until my friend Samuel's
rear derailleur hanger broke, rendering his bike useless for the day.
Fortunately, trip leader Ben, who was driving the van today, was kind
enough to lend Samuel his bike, and we headed on our way. We crossed a
severely swollen lake full of large waves from the wind and realized
just how much rain this area had received lately. A local told us
that they had already been hit with over 150 inches this year. I don't
know how much they normally get, but that is a ton of water.

The rest of the day was spent just pedaling our way into the Church of
Christ here in Bartlesville, where we were welcomed with snacks,
lemonade, and a list of local attractions, nearly all of them
involving Frank Phillips and the Phillips 66 oil company, which
apparently has a rich history in the town. There is the Price Tower,
built by Phillips and now a hotel, the Frank Phillips museum, the
Frank Phillips wildlife reserve, the official Phillips 66 musuem, and
so on and so forth. It reminds of Philmont, except devoted to Frank
instead of Waite Phillips. Tomorrow we'll hopefully get a chance to
see the sites after catching up on some rest.

Oklahama, where the wind blows sweeping down the plains...

Wow, sorry everyone that it has been forever since I updated my blog,
but I will try to do it on a more regular basis for the rest of the
trip, since I figured out a way to blog from my phone.

Ok, so we've done a ton of stuff since the last time I wrote on here,
but I'll try to hit the highlights. For dinner after Sewanee we headed
to this totally awesome place called a shutawka (probably spelled that
wrong), which was basically a summer camp for families and had been
there since the late 1800s. The houses there were beautiful, and
everyone treated us so well. We all left Sewanee the next morning and
rode all together with John, the leader of outdoor adventures at
Sewanee, and it was totally awesome to descend together in a group
like we were in a huge bike race. From there, we headed on to Pulaski,
where Mayor Dan treated us to dinner at his home and arranged for us
to stay at the local college. It was so great to have a home opened up
to us and to enjoy a delcious barbecue dinner.

From Pulaski we headed on our way to Adamsville, then to Bolivar, then
on to Memphis, our first day off. A few friends and I were treated to
dinner by our friend Claire's grandparents, which was delicious and a
lot of fun. Our waiter Minnie was quite nice and insisted on bringing
us juice to assist in replenishing our bodies for the ride. After
dinner, Claire's grandad drove us to downtown Memphis, where we
wandered the streets and saw the sights for a while before heading to
bed. We mostly just spent our day off relaxing and enjoying
sleeping in until 8 AM.

We left Tennessee the following morning when we crossed the
Mississippi and immediately began the exciting trek across Arkansas.
We met a strong headwind for the first time in a while and basically
pedaled without moving for thirty miles. When the flats finally ended,
I was more happy to see rolling hills than I had ever been in my life.
The roads in Arkansas were also in horrible shape, with bumps or large
holes in the asphalt about every twenty feet, just to keep things
interesting. Fortunately, the rough Arkansas roads were more than
redeemed by the incredible host sites throughout the entire state. In
Brinkley, we had a delicious chicken and rice dinner and had the whole
of the church opened to us. In Little Rock, where we stopped for two
days of building with the local Habitat for Humanity chapter, we were
treated to amazing meals by Chef Scott at First Presbyterian Church
and awesome provisions and planning by the volunteer coordinator
Julie, who even got us free tickets to a minor league baseball game.

Leaving Little Rock, we had our dirst century, meaning our first day
where we rode more than 100 miles. It was a great ride, and everybody
felt awesome upon arriving at the Prebyterian Church in Clarksville,
where tons of local residents showed up for the best potluck and
social since Belhaven in eastern North Carolina. Ben then treated us
to a fireworks show, and we headed to bed, confident that the 92 miles
the next day would be hard but nothing compared to the 105 we had
just finished. Well, the next morning we quickly discovered that
Arkansas has mountains, and this ride was not going to be a picnic. It
ended up being probably our hardest day since the Smokies. We all
eventually made it to Fayetteville, home of the University of Arkansas
and the birthplace of Wal-Mart. We ate another potluck supper and
headed to bed. It's interesting that I've started to judge a host
sight by what they feed us, but I suppose that's
life on Bike and Build. Today we left dear old Arkansas and headed for
Grove, Oklahoma, which seems to be a pretty cool place with an awesome
lake. Along the way, we stopped at the amazing three corners, where,
of course, the three states of Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma meet.
Now we are just hanging out and enjoying an early arrival.

Oh, if you want to sre an incredibly entertaining news ckip about our
trip, you should search for "Today's THV Little Rock" and then "Bike
and Build."

Rollin' Hills in the Volunteer State

It's interesting the things that happen on Bike & Build that you would never think possible. For example, on Monday morning thirty people managed to sleep in. That's right, thirty. Our wake up time was 5 am so that we could avoid most of the heat that comes later in the day. Well, by this point just about everyone was assuming that someone else would set an alarm. Surely we wouldn't all lie in our sleeping bags with little regard for the time? Right? Wrong. Fortunately, we did manage to wake up around 6 and still beat most of the heat. The ride was a nice one, with only one climb about halfway through to get over a ridge. The only reason this hill was so bad was the heat, which beat down on us as we trudged up the incline, making us literally rain sweat as we sprinted from overhanging branch to overhanging branch, hoping to avoid the warmth of the day. After that climb, we descended down into a valley and rode along some rolling hills (kind of a recurring theme of Tennessee) into Dunlap, where we stopped for some much-needed ice cream. We chit-chatted with the owner of the shop while we downed our scoops of rocky road, strawberry cheesecake, and praline pecan and then headed on our way to invade another National Guard Armory. Although the climb earlier was hot, it was definitely much warmer by the time we arrived, and we were grateful that this armory did not have a broken air conditioner. The staff of the armory were also very kind to us and gave us some MREs to snack on and also some cots for the evening. I was on laundry crew this week, so I spent the rest of the day washing clothes and then headed back for the first dinner that we prepared ourselves: spaghetti and rice, yum carbohydrates! After that, I quickly headed to bed, exhausted and ready for today's ride.

The town of Dunlap is seated in a valley, formed on one side by a ridge and on the other by the Cumberland Plateau, a large flat area that towers about 1,800 feet above the side of Dunlap. To reach the top of this nice hill, we took a lesser-traveled thoroughfare known as "Daus Mountain Road." Now, if that name didn't intimidate you slightly, perhaps the 1,200 or so feet that you'd climb in the first two miles would. Nonetheless, we were determined to reach the top and head on to our destination. The road snaked upwards at such a sharp angle that for the first mile it felt like your bike might tip over backwards. We pedaled and pedaled (or rather, moved our legs in a circle at a painfully slow cadence) until finally we reached the end of the steep section and then pushed on to the top. Interestingly enough, when you get to the top of a climb like that, all you can think is,"Hey that was fun. I feel great." All thoughts of the anguish and heavy breathing that you just put yourself through quickly disappear, and you are all smiles. After a quick lunch stop, we finished our ride into Sewanee, which is apparently The University of the South. I was not aware that there was only one, but it does seem to be a nice place. After setting up our tents on Lake Cheston, we ventured into town to explore the campus and enjoy a nice restful afternoon. The outdoor organization here on campus, led by a cool guy named John, gave us some advice about the town and got us in to shower at the local gym. Tonight, we have dinner provided by the mother of a girl who did the southern route in 2006, which should be absolutely fantastic. It's always good to talk to people in the local area and just learn about the experiences of others, so that'll be fun. Tomorrow we continue our trek onwards to Memphis (day off) by way of Pulaski.

It's so hot I'm gonna have a ... heatstroke

I wonder what it will be like to go back to life where people don't stare at you wherever you go. It's kind of strange that I've become so accustomed to riding bicycles with 29 other people wearing spandex and matching uniforms that I no longer think it's weird. Even when we aren't riding, we always manage to attract attention by doing something ridiculous or wearing matching t-shirts. For example, we rode our bikes down to Chick-Fil-A while we were in Maryville to get Michelle a chicken sandwich for the first time (apparently there aren't Chick-Fil-A's in Minnesota), and we managed to get plenty of glances while taking photos with the cow and his car. I guess it's just part of riding a bicycle across the country. On the other hand, even random people are so encouraging and supportive. When I was riding up the mountain to the NC-TN border, somebody leaned out of the passenger seat of their car and shouted at me not to give up, which made me feel awesome and spurred me on to the top. Once we got there, we chatted with an RV driver who gave us a donation and some Korean tourists who wanted to take photos with us. I suppose it is all part of the amazing adventure of riding across the country.

Today we headed from Maryville just down the road to Sweetwater, TN, only a 40 mile ride. I decided that I was going to ride with the fast group today in an attempt to beat the heat. I did ok for a while, but I was pretty exhausted by the time we got to go to the armory where we were staying. Unfortunately, the armory is quite warm, so most people just spent the afternoon lying around in an attempt to sweat as little as possible. I managed to sleep on and off for about two hours and awoke to find that it was still hot. I can't really complain, though, since it's incredibly awesome of the armory to let us stay here and use their facilities. Some of us also received guitar lessons this afternoon from Scott Wilkins, our local musician extraordinaire. It's been a pretty lazy day with a short ride, but tomorrow will be a long ride. Hopefully it will cool off a little tonight and we can get some rest.

Over the mountains

So, it's been quite a while since my last update, mostly due to lack of internet access, but I will try to summarize everything that has happened since Chapel Hill. We headed out of Chapel Hill for Winston Salem, where we stayed at the church of Bike and Builder Scott Wilkins and from there we headed on to Taylorsville. That was probably the hardest ride of the whole trip for me, mostly because I wasn't drinking gatorade and therefore felt like dying for the first 35 miles. Of course, we all know what comes after Taylorsville: the mountains.

I had been hearing since I signed up for the trip that the Appalachians were the hardest climbs of the entire route, so I figured it would be pretty hard. Going up to 321 was definitely the hardest climb for me, but arriving in Blowing Rock was a great feeling. We also got to talk to some locals in the town, which is always fun. After Blowing Rock, it was on to the Blue Ridge Parkway, our road for the next three days of riding. While it was definitely much harder to ride the Parkway on a bike, the views were so much more enjoyable. Getting to the top of a climb and looking out, knowing that you made it there under your own power, was an incredible experience. Plus, descending on mountain roads is a blast, and you don't have to pedal for miles. We rode across the Viaduct and then headed down into Linville Falls for the evening. There wasn't a whole lot going on at Altamont United Methodist Church at the time, and our only friends were the cows in the pasture in which the Fellowship Hall was located.

From Linville Falls, we headed out for Asheville, an 80-plus mile day, with 70 miles on the Parkway. I managed to ruin my tire while walking my bike through the parking lot of Altamont Church, which was incredibly amusing considering I wasn't even riding my bike when it happened. After that I set out for 50 miles of mostly climbing, which was fine until about mile 35, when my friend Claire and I just got burned out and decided that mountains weren't all that great. The next 15 miles consisted of frequent stops for Clif Bars, photos, and restroom breaks, but we finally made it. After that it was almost all downhill into Asheville, where we stayed at a YMCA. B&Bers Samuel and Maggie Kovach invited us over to their home for dinner, where we had the most incredible meal prepared by their mom, overflowing with salad, green beans, fresh fruits, vegetable lasagna, and other fresh foods that we had missed dearly. After dinner, a few people went contra dancing, but I just headed to bed.

The next morning, we had had a build day in Asheville, which was quite a relaxed place to work. We had a morning break for doughnuts and coffee, a pizza lunch break, and an afternoon water break. Samuel and I also got to drive an F-350, which was an exciting experience, even if it was only for about 50 yards. That night, we were invited to the Volvo Factory in Asheville (Volvo no longer owns their car division, but they do make construction equipment, tour buses, Mack trucks, and airline engines), where we were treated to a delicious barbecue dinner and plenty of banana pudding. After that, Cane Creek, a local bike company, presented us with sweet shock absorbing seatposts for our bikes. The unbelievable hospitality on this trip just never stops.

From Asheville, we headed out for our hardest day of the entire trip, with 17,500 feet of climbing over two mountains on our way to Gatlinburg. We passed through Maggie Valley and then hopped back on the parkway, where we descended into the Smokies. That first climb was hard simply because we hit horrible headwind the entire way up the mountain. We broke for lunch at the entrance to the Smokies National Park, where the forest ranger told us that she had seen us on the news (hooray!) and that we had to climb 3,000 feet in the next 15 miles (hooray?). So, we started out on climb number two, with the state line and then end of NC as the destination. I decided not to stop until I reached the top because I knew I wouldn't get back on the bike, and I made it to the top after riding at 5 miles per hour for 10 miles. It was such a great feeling to finish North Carolina, but the victorious sentiments quickly disappeared when a motorcyclist told us that one of our riders had crashed on the descent. Fortunately, he was okay, although his rear tire was ruined. After waiting for the van, we headed down into Gatlinburg. This town was quite possibly one of the ugliest places I have ever been. It was essentially Myrtle Beach in the mountains, which was not fun to see.

Throughout all of these rides, we all ate like hobbits. We would wake up and eat breakfast and then have a second breakfast at mile 25. About ten miles down the road, we would stop for a clif bar as a mid-morning snack. At mile 50, we would break for lunch and then ride the rest of the way to the destination, where we were greeted with more snacks and gatorade, followed a couple hours later by dinner. Food is good.

From Gatlinburg, it was a short ride over to Maryville, where I am currently staying. We were greeted by Cycology Bike Shop and the local Habitat for Humanity chapter, who provided us with dinner. After that we headed to Maryville College, our home for the three days we were here. It was definitely nice to sleep in a bed again. We had two days of Habitat building in the 95 degree heat, but we managed to have a good time building floors and placing stucco despite the blazing sun. We were provided with dinner one night by the Tomato Head, and awesome local restaurant with pizza and sandwiches, and the other night by Aubrey's, a sitdown restaurant where we got some awesome pasta and BBQ. I still am blown away by all of the kindness that we receive on a regular basis. Tomorrow we head to Sweetwater, TN.