275 miles and lots stories and new friends!

Eat. Bike. Build. Sleep.   Blog?? Well I am being very successful at the first four but seriously lacking at blogging. So here is what you have been waiting for, epic stories and pictures from week one of Bike and build aka Best summer ever!

Please excuse spelling and punctuation errors as I am trying to do this on my phone or tablet and it is turning out to be slightly challenging.

Also, there is a list of my teammates blogs on the right who are posting stories and pictures so if I don't have anything new, make sure to check out theirs.

First off, thanks so much for my family in Florida for picking me up from the airport and letting me acclimate to this crazy humidity. I really enjoyed going out to dinner with you all and playing shuffle board with everyone at the year round retirement summer camp.

The first day of orientation was a bit intimidating but quickly became lots of fun. It was a bit of a struggle to learn 31 new names and very interesting to start attaching people to their Facebook profiles that I have been following. On top of learning names, it is also helpful to know who's bike is who's...

Out of the 32 of us, only 2 people did not get bikes from Giant so there are many multiples of models and every bit of personalization helps. My bike is the problem child because it is then only one with arrow bars and there for the only one that can not be flipped over. ( see right side in above picture)

Orientation was full of presentations about the program and affordble housing and also jam packed with safety talks. Our first bike ride was the Safety Shakedown! 18 miles of sun, fun and safe riding! Oh and the first flat tire.

Build day in Jacksonville Florida
Unfortunately I do not have any photos from this day, but I spent the whole day hammering nails and rough framing a home. It was so much fun! At the end of the day, we had a hammering contest and I tied for the win with 3 hits. Then the contractor came upstairs and showed us all how it was really done with one hit.

Bike!!!!! (Finally)
Wheel dip!!!

Starting out small, this was a short 30 miler down the A1A along the coast to St. Augustine. It is the oldest city in the US settled by Spaniards. Took lots of videos with my helmet can and sometime in the near future I will figure out how to load those here.

The next two days we increased milage and rode long flat straight roads. Kinda boring for a girl from the hilly winding roads of the northwest.

And then finally Perry to Tallahassee Florida... HILLS! Short rolling hills and lots of them. And we even had a break from the never ending headwind. I was having a blast speeding up the hills and flying on the descents. I left lots of chalk encouraging my teammates to love and embrace the elevation.

Today we just finished a build day with Good News Outreach helping them retrofit their mobile home community to be termite resistent.

Check out the blogs along the right for more stories and pictures. I am going to work harder to keep taking pictures starting today.

Goals for Week 2:
Take more pictures!!!!! Minimum one every ten miles.
Blog at least twice.

I just spent 2 hours catching up on the past week and now I can't get the pictures to load. Here is my compromise...

Its 9:30pm and I have to be up at five for a 80 mile day. So while you bear with me one more day, Herr is the link to our group blog...

http://bikeandbuild.org/rider/route.php?route=SUS&year=2014
 Click the pencil on the right side for the blog depending on your browser.

Bike maintenance party. Our flat count for the entire group is around 20 and we have had 2 sliced tires and lots of chain grease on everything.

You are all amazing!

Thank you so much to everyone so has contributed to Bike and Build and for your support as I embark on an adventure of a lifetime. Your finiancal support has been absolutely incredible and we blew the $4500 fundraising minimum out of the water. The current total is $6133!!! I can't thank you enough for helping make this trip a reality and I can't wait to start sending out postcard cheer all summer long!

Training ride!????

Here is a short movie B&B released on why we ride.

Wonder who are the recipients of some of the grants B&B distributes? Check of this video of a 2012 grantee in Teton Wyoming (and you can see some awesome snow suits). Link

See you later Bellingham, spring was beautiful and full of adventures! (Which is one of the reasons I had such a hard time blogging, so here are some pictures to make up for it)

Mt. Vernon Tulip Festival.

Baby goats! Sit down and they all just on your lap and want to cuddle.

70 mile, 4500 ft elevation gain, training rode with my dad.

Trying to get my bike back in the box, way more difficult than it looks.

My brother graduating from Mt. Angle Seminary. 

Shipped my bike but still needed to continue my training. OK, not really, but I thought it would make a funny picture. It would be way to much work to ride a wheel the small any significant distance.

Biking, Birthdays, and Bowling

Hello Spring! A week of sun and temperatures in the upper 50s! Time to break out the tank tops and shorts...

I started out last Monday with lots of motivation and a 6:30 am start to ride my bike to work. 10 miles later, I was a little less motivated and a whole lot of wet. Semi trucks with out mud flaps are the worst and I was really missing my new water proof shoe covers that were sitting at home. But, on the up side, the ride home was amazing! 68 degrees and a beautiful 30 mile ride home through the farm land and along the lake. It was so warm, that I even road home without leg warmers and it was a new experience to feel the wind in my hair... my leg hair that is. Now I understand why men cyclists shave their legs. Sometimes it is fun to skip the shaving when on a long trip, but I don't think that will be part of this summers trip.

It's 4H season, time to take your Alpacas for a walk down the road.

It was so nice, I went of a few more rides during the week. I am slowly collecting all the needed gear and really dialing in my bike. I think one of the reasons I was so motivated Monday morning, is Sunday, my dad and I spent the whole afternoon working on my Giant. We dialed in the shifting and added my aerobars and wider handlebars to accommodate my football player wide shoulders.

World's Best Bike Mechanic and Dad.

As it happened, Saturday was gorgeous and also my 25th Birthday. To celebrate, Deb, Eliza and I rode our bikes 40 miles and Deb showed us some amazing new places! I also now have a noticeable bike short tan line. No reason to fight it, cause it is going to be extreme by August 2.

This road is closed to cars! How awesome is that!

Eliza, Deb and I all smiles in the sun.

Riding on the Lummi Dike. This was a smooth section of the road. Prior to this was jaw jarring pot holes. Now I know my road bike can survive some serious terrain.

And to finish off the day, we had some fun bowling...

An outfit perfect for her personality.

Chase in his Grandma's disco suit and Kellan loving some suspenders.

Kellan's rock star bowling technique.

Bike and Build update to follow, but just wanted to share some spring shenanigans.

How Bike and Build Stacks up against de Tour...

For as long as I can remember, my grandpa recorded every stage of the Tour de France as it was televised at 5am. And then every night, we would bring the VHS home and watch it, with my dad commenting about all the cycling greats. I have always wanted to travel to France and watch the race during one of the mountain stages, since this is really the only point when they are going slow enough that you could actually see them. These stages also have the best spectators.

So why am I talking about the Tour? Well my co-worker pointed out that my daily and summer mileage would be like me riding my own Tour. That makes me really glad that Bike and Build is not a race. But just to see how the mileage matches up, here are the numbers for 2014.

Date	Tour	Bike&Build
5-Jul	119	0
6-Jul	123	29
7-Jul	98	100
8-Jul	101	66
9-Jul	97	36
10-Jul	120	110
11-Jul	145	43
12-Jul	100	0
13-Jul	103	79
14-Jul	100	42
15-Jul	0	40
16-Jul	115	0
17-Jul	114	96
18-Jul	124	72
19-Jul	110	81
20-Jul	138	85
21-Jul	0	59
22-Jul	147	99
23-Jul	78	0
24-Jul	90	73
25-Jul	129	62
26-Jul	33	64
27-Jul	84	76

 
Well, thankfully we are not riding as far or as fast as the peloton, but it will be cool to think of myself riding the same days as the tour. And just to throw out another fun fact, I am going on my training rides with a bike and boyfriend that have raced against Tejay van Garderen (winner of the White Jersey in the 2012 Tour de France).

Taking pictures while riding uphill, a skill that does not help you a faster rider.

Trying to keep my excitement managable...

Hello March Madness and what it’s already March 10th! This means I have 67 days until Jacksonville, roughly 58 days to ride over 335 miles, 35 more days of work, $1365 more dollars to raise, and excitement that just keeps building!!

So what happened in February?
*I raised an additional $2000!
*I miserably failed at getting on my bike and riding any serious amount of miles.
*I continued volunteering with Habitat for Humanity.
*I tried a 3rd saddle and still didn't like the fit.
*I have sewed lots and lots of cheerful spring birds for folks that have donated. I also got t shirts and have been making thanks you cards gallore!
*Getting to know the other riders on SUS and they are all amazing!!! I can't wait to meet them all in person.

Goals for March:
*Have a fundraising brunch with my soccer teams.
*Ride my bike over 100 miles. And get a bike fit session.
* Send out at least 20 more letters.
*Hang posters about the ride at some local shops.
*Reach $4000!
*Bike some more!

T-shirts for donors who contribute $100. They were donated by friends who own a screen printing shop. They are awesome!

The bird on the far right is what I am giving to folks that contribute $50. I was getting tired of making birds so a friend came over and we made dinosaurs and chickens also, then for more change I made a goat.

Close up of the shirt logo I created.

Thanks for reading!