Cycling Coast to Coast

Today was our 7th build day.  We’re actually staying at the Habitat for Humanity office in Amarillo, where they have a huge basement of interconnected rooms for us to sleep in.  The house we worked on today is for a family of Somalian refugees.  It’s a six bedroom, two bath home for a single mother and her 14 kids!  Most of the work we did today was painting, both the exterior and interior.  A few people also went to the Habitat ReStore to help out.

Just in the last few days, I’ve been having some lower back pain, probably due to my bike fit.  I got a professional bike fit at Belmont Wheelworks before the trip, and that had been working great for me during the trip, until recently.  I’m unsure what changed, but I needed to get refitted.  A few other riders also needed to get fit, so there was a van shuttle in the afternoon from the build site to a couple bike shops.  At the first bike shop, Bicycle Depot, the owner Randy was nice enough to set all of us up on a trainer and offer a few fitting suggestions, though he couldn’t do a full fit for us.  He also let Jose have the run of his shop to do some bike repair for Lauren, and didn’t charge us for any of it.  Unfortunately for us, there was a big triathlon in Amarillo last week, and a MS150 ride this coming weekend, so the bike shop was sold out of a lot of stuff.  So, after visiting Bicycle Depot, we hit up another bike shop, Hills Sport Shop, to finish picking up all the things that other riders needed.

Yesterday evening, after dinner, we all visited the Big Texan, a huge Amarillo tourist trap and home of the “free” 72 oz steak.  The 72 oz steak challenge is for one person to eat a 72 oz steak, a baked potato, three fried shrimp, bread roll, and a half salad in 1 hour.  If you finish it all, the meal is free.  Otherwise, it costs $72.  Many of us simply ordered a second dinner at the Big Texan, but Jorge made a valiant attempt at the steak challenge.  We all cheered him on, and at the end of the hour, there was only 9.8oz of meat left.  Even though he didn’t get the free dinner, he did Bike & Build proud.

As promised, here’s a little recap of the previous few days.

Day 5: Andover to Fitchburg, MA - 41 miles

The forecast was for a chance of rain, and it rained. : (

I rode with the fast group, and had a great time.  We got a bit lost before lunch, but luckily Erin, who lives in the area and got us back on track.  Our little detour even bypassed the first major hill of the day.  There were a couple climbs after lunch, and then a long steep descent into Fitchburg, where we stayed at the First Parish Church.

Day 6: Fitchburg to Amherst, MA - 54 miles

As our cue sheet for the day proclaimed, welcome to the Berkshires!  This was another rainy day, though better than the previous one.  There was a lot of  climbing (about 4,000 feet of it), with lots of long gradual climbs and some shorter steeper ones.  Soon after leaving Fitchburg, the fast group dropped me on a climb, and I rode by myself for a long while.  I stopped for a while on when I caught up with Jess R, who was feeling sick, and then rode with Devon and Johanna (at times) for the rest of the day.  The climbs were tough, it was somewhat frustrating to be slowly grinding up a hill in my lowest gear, and only going about 5mph.

The worst part of the day was before lunch, when we were riding in some hilly terrain through the woods.  Devon’s chain got screwed up somehow on a climb, so we stopped, and I took a pit stop in the woods.  Unfortunately for me, there were a bunch of mosquitos around, and I got bitten a lot.  I’m allergic to insect bites so these swelled up a lot, but more about that later.

At the top of the highest climb, we stopped to take some pictures.  You can’t really tell from the photos before, but from the top we could see Quabbin Reservoir, which is the primary water source for Boston.

 From L to R: Johanna, Devon, Me

 Devon

Me!

Our host for the night was the Hillel at UMass Amherst, and we went to some Bike & Build alums’ house for dinner.  The original plan for dinner was to take the bus to their house, but just as we left the Hillel, it started to thunderstorm, and we all got soaking wet waiting for the bus.  The trip leaders quickly reconsidered, and we ended up doing van shuttles to dinner.

Day 7: Amherst to Pittsfield, MA

This should have been a very hilly 55ish mile day, but I only got to ride about 3 miles.  My bug bites had swelled up so much that I was starting to get worried, so I asked Sophie if I could get taken to a clinic to get a cortisone shot.  Shortly after everyone left, Jess L called for a van pickup, because her knee was hurting.  We went to pick her up in the van, and then went to the UMass Amherst clinic.  At the clinic, there was a bit of a hullabaloo about if my insurance would cover the visit, but finally after some paperwork, they agreed to see me.  Instead of a cortisone shot, the doctor I saw prescribed me an oral corticosteroid, in a tapering regime.  I’m on it for 6 days, taking 6 pills the first day, then 5, then 4, etc.  Because the visit to the clinic took so long, the plan was for me to ride in the van to the lunch location, and then I’d bike the rest of the day.

After lunch, I got on my bike, and started riding.  About 3 miles in, however, I started feeling nauseous and had to stop, I’m guessing because I’d taken the first few pills without food.  So, I got in the van again, and rode in the van for the rest of the day.

Day 8: Pittsfield, MA to Poughkeepsie, NY - 84 miles

This was a very long day for all of us, and the longest ride I’ve done to date.

We crossed state lines on a bike! About 10 miles into our ride, we crossed into New York.  In the photo below, the 5 of us are attempting to spell out “NY” with our bodies.  If you can’t tell, I’m the diagonal portion of the “N”.

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There were some big climbs in the 20ish miles, and then rolling hills for the rest of the day.  Once entering the state of New York, we started to descend to sea level and had first lunch in the town of Hudson, on the Hudson River.  At lunch, Amol dropped some of his pasta on the ground, but he was so hungry that he ate some of it (the parts not directly touching the asphalt) straight from the ground.

Some time after lunch, around mile 50, we came across a farm stand and stopped for some strawberries.  We split a box for $5.  There were small and delicious, and really hit the spot.

Around mile 60, it started to drizzle.  We had a quick second lunch at mile 70, and at that point, we were so close to Poughkeepsie that we pushed hard to get in.  I was riding with Lindsay, and since she goes to Vassar, she knew here way around town and led us to campus for a stop to check email in the Vassar library.  After checking email, we followed Lindsay to our host location, the Oakwood Friends School.  Shortly after we arrived, it started to thunderstorm.

Turns out we got really lucky, both on account of the weather, and because Lindsay was riding with us.  Most of the group got stuck out in the thunderstorm, and the directions on the cue sheet were inaccurate in directing people to the host location once they’d arrived in the town of Poughkeepsie.  There were a lot of frustrated riders on the road, stuck in the rain as it started to get dark, and lost just miles away from their final destination.  Fortunately, everyone made it in safely.

Also thanks to Lindsay’s efforts, Vassar donated $300 to our trip to spend on food for the two nights that we’re in town, so last night we ordered out for Chinese food.

This host location is one of the best we’ve stayed in so far.  It’s a boarding middle and high school, so we have beds, free laundry, and showers, all at our host location.  It’s little things like that that we take for granted in normal life, but we’ve all come to really appreciate on the trip.

Day 9: Build Day

Today we had a build day with Newburgh Habitat for Humanity.  I was really impressed with the chapter; they’ve done a lot of amazing work for the greater Newburgh community, and have a large scale vision of how to improve the affordable housing situation in their area.  The former president of the chapter spoke to us briefly at lunch, and told us that there are about 1800 households in Newburgh that are in need of affordable housing.  They’ve completed 34 houses since their inception in 1999, including 2 houses that were built in early June during a Blitz Build of 5 days.  We got to visit the completed house, and it was a beautifully constructed unit.  Because Newburgh is a historical town, the historical society required them to make certain aesthetic modifications such as brickwork at the base of the house, and a flat-top roof with cornices.  Frank, one of the head volunteers working with us today, built the cornices himself in his woodshop.

The group split up today, and my group went to a warehouse to unload furniture.  Sacred Heart University had donated two full truck loads of used dorm furniture, and we were unloading it and transporting it to the third floor of a warehouse where the Habitat chapter had donated space.  In a month, they will open a ReStore store, where the furniture we were unloading, and other donated furniture, will be sold to raise money to build more houses.

Today was a build day, and we built with the Merrimack Valley Habitat for Humanity at a site in Lawrence, where I also happened to have completed my sweat equity.  It was really awesome to get the chance to return to the site and see how much progress had been made in the last month.  When Devon and I volunteered there in May, we were working on putting up interior walls on the first floor, and there was only the barest framework for the second story.  Today, I got to help put up rafters for the roof, and temporary flooring and scaffolding so that more work can be done on the attic and roof.

Since we have access to the computers here at the Pike School, everyone has been blogging alot, and I think there’s been sufficient coverage of today’s build day, so I’ll just post some photos.

For dinner tonight, we were graciously hosted by the Webbers again, who had a full Thanksgiving spread for us.  After we’d finished dinner, Joan and Bill (Chris Webber’s parents) gathered us all in the kitchen for cake, but before we dug in, we all went around and said a few words about our favorite parts of Bike & Build so far.  I’m continuously amazed at how genuine and passionate everyone is for this trip, and for this cause.  We’re only a few days in, but I know it’s going to be an awesome summer.

Tomorrow we’re biking to Fitchberg, and from here on out, I doubt the internet access will be as readily available and as great as it has been at the Pike School.  Certainly I won’t be able to update every day.

So, on to the pictures! (these are just a few of the ones I took today)

Yesterday, Devon and I got up really early to take the commuter rail out to Lawrence to volunteer with Merimack Valley Habitat for Humanity.  Their current project is three homes on Market Street.  When we got to the build site, we found that out that in January, a fire had destroyed the project.  The three houses were nearly completed, and two families were supposed to move in within a few weeks.  It was a pretty devastating tragedy, but MV Habitat has gotten a lot of support and donations, and they’re working hard to rebuild the lost houses.  The foundation is laid for two of the houses, and the third has the exterior walls in place for the first floor already.

Our main tasks for the day were to help build interior walls for the first floor.  Devon and I worked with a group to put up walls for the master bedroom and closet, and then support beams in the basement.  Since we were there on a weekday, many of the volunteers were regulars, and they were very warm and helpful.  I had a really fun time, and definitely got better at hammering as the day went on.