Bike & Build - 90 mile warmup

Hello from the road!  I am currently in Oklahoma - nearly halfway into my cross country ride from Boston to Santa Barbara with Bike & Build this summer.  It has been fun, exhausting (mostly from leader duties, to say nothing of the biking), and generally awesome.

As we made our way out of the mountains and into the midwest, our days have been getting longer.  A week ago or so was our first century day, followed by a 90 mile day in to Bloomington, IN (famously captured in Breaking Away). 

And lo and behold, when we rolled into town there was a bike race happening a block away from our overnight host.  Well, between peer pressure and my own secret desire to race my bike I decided to sign up for the Women’s Open.  I had 90 miles under my belt already, but that just meant that I was really warmed up, right?

As they started call ups I realized that Becca Finley - of Marian University - was on the line.  Oh crap, I thought, this is going to be really fast and I’m not quite sure how my legs are going to hold up.  And fast it was.  I was hanging on for the first 20 or so minutes until I unfortunately (or fortunately for my legs maybe) got caught behind a crash and lost contact with the peloton.

I spent the last half of the race with a two other riders, then by myself when they clearly didn’t want to work, then with two others that I bridged to.  The racing, however, is not the interesting part.  It was my fan base of 31 Bike & Builders who were cheering at the top of the incline with letters painted on their chests doing coordinated cheers and the wave and ridiculous things on every time I came through.  The announcer took note of the mayhem and spent a couple laps talking about Bike & Build and how I had already biked 90 miles today.

I finished for 20th.  Mehh.  But it was maybe one of the most fun races I’ve done.

I will be sure to post more updates throughout the summer.  Here is a list of fun/crazy/weird things that have happened so far:

-Epic rest stop involving minigolf, rootbeer, ice cream and a train ride through a field

-Given a warning by a sheriff for riding naked (see backwards chamois pic below)

-Free Chuckie Cheese tokens

-Free tickets to the City Museum in St. Louis (maybe the best playground ever!)

-Full on Thanksgiving Dinner in June

-Awesome generosity from our hosts and local restaurants.  We have worked donation magic in nearly every town.  Including free Chipotle in three different cities!

-So much ice cream!

-Ridiculous quad muscles.  And tan lines (although considering that it's me, maybe they should be called burn lines).

And finally, I hate to end on a sad note, but yesterday Paige Hicks, one of the riders on a different Bike & Build route, died after a she was struck by a passing oversized truck.  She was a trip leader and a current student at Brown University.  This is the first death for Bike & Build and the community has come together in a big way to deal with this terrible tragedy.  It is yet another reminder to all cyclist to be aware of their surrounding at all times.  She was on the shoulder of the road, doing all the right things and yet this still occurred.  Please keep her fellow riders and family in your thoughts.  

Ride safe.

-Courtney