Trail ridge pass!

Top of the mountain!

Day 43 Loveland, Co to Estes Park, Co

Welcome to Rocky Mountain National Park!

28 miles

Unfortuantely, my neck was not quite well enough to ride today, so I vanned it with Kristie. Much to our surprise, there was a mistake made on the cue sheet and a 70+ mile day ended up only being 28 miles! Needless to say, everyone was in a fantastic mood as they rolled into the host!

Laura, one of our leaders, was upset that she will not be able to make the big climb up Trail Ridge Pass (highest paved road in the U.S.A!!) because she will be driving the support van tomorrow, so she and Chris decided to do the climb tonight! Props you guys! They arrived back at the host in Estes Park just after sundown. So impressive!

We've got some climbs ahead of us, kiddos....

I was in a muscle relaxer induced sleep for most of the ride but what I did see was absolutely breathtaking. I am so happy to be in Colorado and can't wait for the climb(s)!

Loveland, co

Beautiful Colorado sunset!

Build Day - Loveland, CO

I was unfortuantely unable to participate in the Loveland build due to an incredibly stiff neck (all is well after some muscle relaxers!) but all in all, it seemed like it was a really successful day. The Loveland Habitat chapter was super organized and split us into two groups that worked on two different homes in the neighborhood so that we would have keep busy. One group worked on siding while another crew was on the roof raising tresses. It is pretty exciting to watch tresses on a house go up - so much is accomplished in a day!

Hard at work up on the roof (picture compliments of Nicole :)

Loveland lake

Later that evening, we all headed downtown for dinner and the local cherry pie festival. A local art gallery invited us into his shop to help him create some bike related art. We all contributed (some of us who are more artistically inclined were more involved than the rest of us...) and used canvases and bike parts to make these really cool pieces. The art is later going to be raffled off and the money made will be donated to the Habitat for Humanity Chapter in Loveland. How cool?! Here is the link to the write up the Loveland paper did on the event: http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20100725/NEWS01/7250350.

Using maps of the U.S. and bike gears to create the base layer of one of the pieces

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Also, we were able to use some of the supplies in the studio to design and make a stencil with Paige's initials that we incorporated into the canvases. We held on to the stencil that was made and plan to paint in the trailer and on all of our bins.

Drew and Paul designing the stencil

Help us find a host in San Francisco!

Have a contact in San Fran? Want to help out 30 young cyclists riding across the country for the affordable housing cause?! We are looking for someone to host us (and our bikes, of course!) August 21 and 22 in San Francisco. Here is the link to the craigslist ad we have posted (yes we have resorted to craigslist...haha)

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/sbw/1876599671.html

We have until Friday August 7 to find one before we have to change our destination city! (Which we don't want to do!!) Let me know if you have any ideas! Thanks! <3p2sf10

Day 39 - Fort Morgan to Loveland, Co

82 Miles

Today I rode sweep with Elizabeth into Loveland. After an early morning flat, it was a pretty quiet ride as we were taking in the scenery. As the day went on, it grew hotter and hotter and our good moods began to diminish. That is until, Elizabeth screamed and I looked up and I realized we could finally see the Rockies! It was such an amazing and overwhelming feeling. (Appropriately, a combination of "we're finally here, we did it" and "oh my god, we have to climb those starting tomorrow!")

Elizabeth and I - "she's a super sweep, super sweep, shes super sweepayyyy"

We met Steph and Bree at lunch and received news that the route as routed was a bit treacherous and trafficky so we opted to ride with Becca on the country route instead. It was still, indeed a bit stressful with semis and all, but from what I could hear from the others, it was FAR better than taking the highway everyone else came in on.

Loveland was a bit tough to ride into. It was rush hour on a Friday. The only thing worse than bumper to bumper rush hour traffic on a Friday is bumper to bumper rush hour traffic on a Friday on a bike. It really gives you a whole new awareness of drivers and raod rage...let's just say that!

Once we were actually in town, it was great. There was a huge lake at the foot of the mountains that was absolutely gorgeous. I am excited that we will be able to take a deep breath and settle here for a few days, as we are building in Loveland as well. Its always nice to not have to pack up for a day!

Loveland Lake, Loveland, Co

After dinner we all headed out for a night of bowling to just relax and have fun. Who DOESN'T love Rock 'N Bowl any way? :)

Making use of the glow sticks Joel had mail dropped!

Thom and I at Cosmic Bowl!

Day 38 - Holyoke to Fort Morgan, CO

95 miles

Today is a new day...That is what we were all are telling ourselves. After an exhausting ride and an incredibly gloomy day yesterday, I think we were all looking forward to this ride.

The beautiful sunrise we were greeted by :)

After finishing up the morning chores and having breakfast with the host, the leaders suggested we do a shakedown warmup to get us going and excited for the ride...a little something to put some smiles on our faces...

Post route meeting shakedown turned dance party turned group hug...love you guys!

The ride ended up being a good one. We did have a couple of experienced riders take some falls, however. Its amazing how quickly you can lose confidence on the bike in light of the recent events.

Bike & Build is posting all information about Paige, the accident and her memorial services on the website. Please find any information you are looking for here:

http://www.bikeandbuild.org/cms/content/view/9188/1/

Camping p2sf style

Mass chaos...

Camping p2sf style

Our shanty town! (and yes, 31 people fit in those tents!)

We're riding for you Paige

We were awakened in the middle of the night by a terrible storm that resulted in all of us being soaked. At that time a few of us checked our phones out of habit and received a devastating email from the Bike & Build office. Earlier in the day, a Providence to Seattle leader, Paige Hicks, was struck and killed by an over sized vehicle while riding in the shoulder in South Dakota. The email was incredibly informative but it left all of us in our tent shocked and overwhelmed. Many of us didn't sleep that night.

Two of our riders knew Paige quite well. Connor played frisbee with Paige at Brown and Sarah also knew her from Brown. In addition, all four of our leaders had worked with Paige in planning our trip this year as she, herself was a P2SF09 alum.

The next morning was cold and dark. We had a 4 am wake up call due to our scheduled mileage for the day, and you could feel the somberness in the air almost immediately. As our leaders gathered us around to officially tell us about the accident, it really hit home. The scenario was far too familiar. Paige was a good, experienced rider. It was an accident, and a terrible terrible one at that.

sporting some "face painted" PH's on our ride

We were given the option to ride in the van because all of us were quite shaken up by the awful news. Many took the van option, and we all set out for our century day. Before the ride, as our only immediate way of showing our tribute to Paige, we each took grease off our chains and wrote PH's on our calves to demonstrate we were riding for her. We are thinking of Paige, the Hicks family and our fellow P2S riders. It is a sad sad day for the Bike & Build family.

As I said earlier, it was an appropriately cold, dark morning. When we finally made it to lunch, we learned that Sarah had an accident around mile 12 and was at the hospital. We had heard rumors of a broken collar bone as a result of flipping over her handle bars. We were all anxious for updates but had to continue on our ride.

We rode together in a pack of 8 for the entire 100 miles. The second half of the day we stopped every 6 miles to kind of regroup and chalk messages to each other.

Around mile 80 we got news that Sarah was in fact "broken" and would be needing surgery in Denver. As much as we all didn't want to admit it - we kind of knew then that she most likely wouldn't be able to finish the ride with us. As of now, we are hoping that she can meet up with us to cross the Gold Gate Bridge in August.

We Love You Sarah!

We crossed the Colorado state line today, a day we have been waiting for for weeks. It is amazing how quickly priorities can change and how quickly your world can be turned upside down. Crossing the state line was both bitter and sweet. It was encouraging to have something to celebrate and feel accomplished about, yet at the same time we were all so overwhelmingly emotional about our difficult and exhausting day. We send our warmest wishes and big hugs to you p2s'ers. We love you and we will do whatever we can to help you get through this!

Day 36 - Alma, NE to McCook, NE

75 Miles

Our ride into McCook was relatively uneventful. We had a waterballoon fight at lunch that was untimely due to the cold rain but what can you do? Haha, we also took some fun and creative hay bail pictures!

Scandalous hay bail shoot

We were all anxious to get to our "host" because for the first time of the trip we were camping! Woo! Little did we know what camping Bike & Build style means...

This is what it means: pitching 6 tents at a "campground" (i.e. highway rest stop) 9 people in 7 person tents, bins and bikes under tarps and trees, and extreme dampness due to the fierce lightning storms of the midwest. Haha. In all seriousness, we truly had a good time. We were able to get some serious donation magic (props to Kristy and Nicole!) and made a campfire and chillaxed with smores for the night. As much as we all love and are so appreciative of all of our hosts, it was nice to just hang out with each other in a really relaxed atmosphere. It was quite lovely :)

We love snuggle puddles - especially by the campfire!

Day 35 Red Cloud to Alma!

48.5 miles

A fun recap by Kristie (also on the B&B website):

Today was a glorious day! 45 miles of Nebraska's rolling hills and plains, with a lunch spot at a lake 8 miles from the host. I set off at a steady pace with Erica and Megan H and the first 38 miles flew by, except for a section of the road that was really bumpy and full of pot-holes, but we hit a freshly paved section and it was smooth sailing to lunch in Republican City.

Once we got to the lake we proceeded to eat lunch and admire the scenery. Then Nicole started making a big fuss about making jelly and cracker sandwiches so Erica and I decided to secretly eat the pile of cracker sandwiches she had so carefully crafted, knowing that this would cause an even bigger fuss. We walked down to the beach with our mouths full of crackers giggling uncontrollably waiting for the storm from Nicole. Sure enough a few seconds later came a shrill shriek from the coolers... "NO, NO NO YOU DIDN'T! GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW AND MAKE ME MORE!". Erica and I continued to laugh hysterically and walk away from her. I'm not sure why it is so fun to hear Nicole freak out, but it is. (Love you Nicole)

As more people started to arrive we started to swim. We then found out how fun it is to launch each other off of two people's arms out of the water. We did this for about 2 hours and then laid in the sun to dry off before our 8

About to be launched by Thom and Megan!

Back dive!

Connor flying through the air

When arriving at the host, we were greeted by the lovely members of the United Methodist Church. They fed us a wonderful potluck meal of tacos, pasta and veggies (just to name a few) and a variety of delicious desserts.

All and all a fantastic day, and by far the best lunch spot of the trip! Thanks Steffie!

We love twine...

Connor and I with the worlds largest ball of sisal twine!

Day 34 - Beloit to Red Cloud, NE - Welcome to Nebraska!

72 miles

“THRIFT + PERSISTENCE = SUCCESS” – Slogan of the World’s Largest Ball of Sisal Twine

Welcome to Nebraska! We love few things more than crossing state lines. While Kansas was surprisingly cool (for the first 3 days at least…) we were hoping that our travels into Nebraska would bring us cooler weather and perhaps some change of scenery. Neither of those things happened, unfortunately. Nebraska is just as hot, and arguably hotter than it was in Kansas and the corn phenomenon continues as well. Oh well…I guess this is why we are all anticipating Colorado so much!

Much of our rides look like this these days!

Don’t get me wrong, there were definitely sights to see on today’s ride. Our first stop was roughly 20 miles into the ride where we found the “World’s Largest Ball of Sisal Twine” - a stop needed for Bike & Builders years to come. The ball was in fact huge. It was started in 1953 and as a visitor you can purchase twine to add to the giant ball to do your part. We were unfortunately a bit too early (7:30 am) for the “visitors center” (someone’s house) to be open, so we were unable to contribute…maybe next time!

Our next momentous stop was at our halfway mile marker of the trip – 2,071.5 miles!!!! We once again, chalked, celebrated than moved along our way!

Shortly thereafter, we bike to Lebanon, Nebraska to visit the geographic center of the United States of America. While neat to see, it was kind of a let down of a stop. It was pretty much just a flagpole with a plaque and a weird 4 pew chapel? Anyway, we made a party of it as best we could and hung out at the geographic center for a few hours.

Thom, Megan, Emily and I at the geographic center!

The very "official" geographic center sign...

We arrived in the SMALL town of Red Cloud and unpacked the trailer in the Red Cloud community center. We explored around a bit (the downtown was a single street with about 4 blocks on it…) Red Cloud is the hometown of author Willa Cather who wrote a number of books taking place during the westward expansion. We visited her house and the Willa Cather museum. I didn’t end up getting a book (I’ve had to send home 3 books already due to my bin being over capacity…) but I did find this quote that I absolutely love:

“”I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do. I feel as if this tree knows everything I ever think of when I sit here. When I come back to it, I never have to remind it of anything; I just begin where I left off.”

Day 33 Manhattan, KS to Beloit, KS

95 Miles

2,000 mile marker baby!

Woohoo! Today we have hit our 2,000 mile marker! I cannot believe it! We were all pretty excited to celebrate the accomplishment so at the 2,000 mile marker we all stopped chalked the occasion and had a mini dance party in true Bike & Build fashion. The rest of the ride was pretty anticlimactic as we rode for 94.4 miles on the same road that we started out on that morning. Gotta love the flat west!

95 miles of nothingness...

To occupy our time we of course did some serious sharking. We have also introduced a new game, that as I am writing about it, I realize it sounds absolutely ridiculous, but its great I swear! So as you can imagine, there are many cows out here in Kansas (and the rest of the Midwest). As we ride by cows in pastures we all yell “hey cows!” as loud as we can to see how many turn around and look at us. Its pretty funny and absurd to see them all turn to look at you in unison. Hey - don’t knock it until you rock it. I am determined to get this on video. Stay tuned.

Oh, hey cows...

This ride was unbearably hot. It was a heat index of 115 and the only gas stations we hit were in Manhattan and there was not another until we hit Beloit. Ouch...

Beloit, KS

Day 32 - Still in Kansas!

Lawrence to Manhattan, KS

81 Miles

Today was a great and easy ride. I rode into Manhattan Kansas with my friend Becca and we never even looked at our mileage (a rarity!). It was an incredibly hot ride but most of us even skipped second lunch in an effort to get to the host and out of the heat. When we arrived around 4:15 most of us passed out for a full 2 hour nap before dinner (consistent 4 am wake up calls will do that to you…)

We had to scramble last minute for some donation magic meals but it ended up working out ok! It was such a modge podge of a meal – leftover fried chicken, pizza from 2 different restaurants, hot dogs from our cooler…you get the idea. We excel at leftovers.

Tonight I gave my affordable housing presentation on section 8 and the government’s role in helping to solve the AH crisis.