yes i know i suck at blogging...

my apologies for not keeping up a blog (but hopefully you have kept somewhat up to date on our trips happenings via other riders blogs... as my mom has so often done) but honestly, we dont have a whole lot of free time and we rarely have internet access. and yes mom other people are good at keeping up with their blogs, so why can't i? truth is, i would rather spend my short afternoons off exploring the town/city were in than tracking down a library or internet cafe. so here it goes on the update, i will try my best

the riding...
sooooo much harder than i expected. its getting better now that we're several weeks in (the reason? its a toss up between us getting stronger as riders and the fact that we're finally out of all the ridiculous mountain ranges). MA was a really tough place to start by providing several early riding days in the Berkshires. Looking back at them now, im sure we could manage them better (they were only 60 mile days on average and now were most often busting out 90 mile days) but at the time those mountains kicked us in the ass. i (along with other people) questioned my ability to complete the trip. unfortunately, i did lose hope on one hill during those very early riding days and walked my bike up Prescott hill (the hill that will forever live in infamy on our trip... yea Ali, no more climbs?, sure). but good news, i havent had to walk anything since and i dont think ill have to again on the trip (cause now ive handled way worse hills)!

those worse hills came in Pennsylvania! I had only been to Philly and suburbs before this trip and had no clue as to the extent of rolling hills that PA had in store for us. Don't worry i caught on pretty quickly. I remember in particular a 3 day stretch in amish country PA where we did two 80+ mile days followed by a century (100 mile day), which up until this past week in Missouri, had been the most difficult stretch. Strangely enough the two days before the century were much harder for me than that long day into State College. The preceding days consisted of lots of climbing (really ugly switch backs in the woods) and when you cant see the top of a hill it makes the climb that much harder. So literally every time i thought i was going to die and perservered until the "top" of the hill, i would turn a corner only to find more hill. Luckily the century ride into State College was more rolling hills through the open fields and although most riders have tagged this day as their hardest on the trip, i was riding by myself/got in the zone and finished the ride in good time and even better spirits (the ride itself had only brought my odometer to 98.5 miles, so i even got back on my bike after we had gotten to the host site to ride downtown and bring the reading to 100). i do really enjoy riding by myself every once and a while and oddly enough these days often provide my best performance as well.

so i know im not touching on all of the states (we were in NY for a few nights, and biked shortly through NJ and WV) but for the sake of time im going to move onto the midwest... starting with ohio. A bunch of riders from our trip are from ohio so they told us a bit about our rides before we had them. The first day riding though proved to be much more hilly than anyone anticipated and turned into a trying afternoon, but the rest of ohio consisted of flat land and some gorgeous bike paths. I didnt realize how much open farm land ohio had, and although seeing the same kind of land all day does get exhausting and boring, i must say i really enjoyed ohio for the cities and small towns that we visited (ill talk more about the towns later).

indiana did end up being a bit hillier than i had anticipated (i dont know who put it in my mind that the whole midwest was flat, but its not) but it was manageable. despite the nonstop view of cornfields, indiana and illinois had mostly decent biking days and i know i cant complain about monotony yet because we havent even entered the desert.

and now for missouri... oh missouri or shall i say misery. i think our whole group will attest to the incredibly hard time we had getting through this state (not that its entirely over, cause the host site we're at right now altough close to OK is actually still in MO). The past week was so hard because every day was a 90+ mile ride and not only was the terrain consistently hilly, but MO added ridiculous headwinds and hurricanes to the mix.

[i think i need to make a side note here about the weather we've run into throughout this summer: one of our leaders who went on a trip last year told us that his group had only encountered 1 day of rain and riders complained about having brought a rain jacket in this bags at all. i want to say out of all the dozens of riding days, we can probably count on one hand that number of days that it hasnt rained... yes thats right hasnt rained. i swear, one ridiculously aweful storm cloud is following us all the way from one coast to another. and its not just rain, its pelting in your eyes/windstorm/lightning all the time weather]

so that said, we've had some pretty rough and long riding days. not to mention the days that were intended to be a bit shorter but since this route is fairly new and less travelled, we encounter cue sheet problems which send us on long detours. the other day for example, a 94 mile day turned into a 106 mile day. but i guess thats part of biking across the country, getting lost every once and a while is simply part of the game. i dont mean to make all of this riding sound so negative, there are some great riding days also. today was gorgeous outside and a much welcomed shorter ride (of only 80 miles), so we took it easy on the pace and just had a relaxing afternoon (reminding me that i actually do love riding still) and the next few days are again going to be shorter rides, so yay!

the people...
everyone that we've visited (in terms of our host sites) have been sooo amazing. we have been so lucky in terms of donation magic (as we call our free dinners), receiving potlucks at multiple church sites, deals at local restaurants, or just amazing dinners out provided by visiting parents (yay and much thanks to bens parents/lesleys parents!). bottom line is we get fed veryyyy well and thats pretty difficult considering the amount of food we have to eat. its estimated that on long rides we burn about 5000 calories meaning were recommended to consume approx. 7000/8000 per day. just think of it as... whenever we're not on our bikes or sleeping, were eating. we're eating constantly.

locals that we meet when stopping on our ride days have been incredibly supportive also. one woman that we met in a diner at dinner one night actually showed up the next morning at the school we were staying with a hot breakfast! we had an early wakeup that morning cause it was a century that day and she must have stayed up the whole night making us food. things like that just blow me away, it was incredible and it made me really happy that there are people in the world who care so much and go that much out of their way to help others.

the cities...
there are so many amazing places that we've visited so far that i can barely figure out where im going to get the time to go back and revisit them all (cause trust me there are quite a few on the list). we've had days off in Pittsburgh and St. Louis both of which pleasently surprised me. I hadnt heard to best things about Pittsburgh, but ended up really liking the city. We went out one of the nights we were there to Station Square for drinks and then explored the streets the next day (including a Pirates game and the Andy Warhol museum). St. Louis was another really fun day because there was a lot going on downtown with streets closed off and tents set up for the allstar baseball game/homerun derby. so i guess we lucked out that we happened to be visiting at that time.

other places that i loved (but we didnt have days off in necessarily) included yellow springs, bloomington, and... (!!!) columbus. yes i loved columbus (maybe cause a few of the guys are from here/ohio state and knew where to show us around) but either way something was just really comforting and intriquing about columnus and i wish we could have explored it more. yellow springs was a pretty small town also in ohio which had the cutest downtown main street shops and it had a bike path. bloomington (city where indiania university is located) was also really pretty/gorgeous campus and surprised me.

my worst experience so far...
this would have to be last week, when i had my first fall off my bike. several people have had falls already and i knew my time would come at some point or another but it wasnt actually my fall that was the bad experience it was the situation which surrounded my fall. i only sustained minor scratches and got right back on my bike after it happened so the fall itself really wasnt a big deal. the problem was that i fell because a car with a trailer/camper hitched to the back almost certainly intentionally drove me off the road. we were riding on a road with a couple feet of shoulder width when he drove by way to close (didnt beep to warn me, didnt go a safe distance away into the other lane even though there was no oncoming traffic, and yelled something angrily out the window) not to mention all of the groups of bikers that passed me after it happened and saw that i had fallen knew exactly which car it had been before i even mentioned it because that same campus had almost clipped them as well. this vendetta against bikers really isnt shared by most drivers (dont be freaked out mom) but it does happen. so hopefully thats the extent of injuries that will be sustained on the trip.

my best experience...
i would have to say just overall, the people i have met. everyone in our group is so positive and supportive that even when people are having the worse day ever and are doubting their ability to finish up the ride, theres always someone at your back. even when everyone is cursing the weather and the mistakes with directions, we all have an understanding that we can get through it and that we will get through it with flying colors. it didnt really hit me until the past few weeks, but this actually is an amazing this that i'm doing... that we're all doing.

so on that note, i must say goodbye. unfortunately its rather late and i would be up all night if i tried to write as much as i could/want to. so till next time!