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Published: July 18th 2018
This morning I woke up with a smile on my face as “Ophelia” played and Sabrina snoozed next to me. Sabs and I went to college together at PBA and I told her about Bike & Build when I was training in 2014. She wanted to do it with me but wasn’t able to do, so instead she sent me snail mail and would call and exclaim “Leasha you’re biking across America!!” as she was so in awe of our trip. So then in 2016 when she signed up, I thought about doing it again (seed to do another trip was planted!), but decided the timing wasn’t right (trying not to have regrets!) and I went to see her and her team finish in Santa Cruz (fun fact: Nora Jane was also on that trip as Sabrina’s leader!). So now, in 2018, we will get to spend a real Bike & Build day together! Life is a dream!!
After snoozing and enjoying the moment for a bit, I deflated my thermarest as I laid there soaking it all in. I shimmied into my shams and zipped into my 2018 jersey. After packing up my bag (the worst after laundry day
since I didn’t pre-pack!) I jumped to breakfast crew with the Ellies (elephants). We shortly realized that although we did have coffee grinds (thank you alum!), the coffee pot had no coffee pot ? So I grabbed one of the Dunkin Donut gift cards Noah had DMed back in Charleston, threw on my cleats, and walked two blocks down the street to Dunkin Donuts.
On my walk down, I had second thoughts for going by myself. Though I had asked Sarah to join (we’re always on the look out for coffee!), she had chores to do as did everyone else and I couldn’t find Sabrina so I just left. Once I ordered the two boxes of joe, I called Sabrina and asked if she could walk down and help me carry them back. As I waited for the coffee and Sabrina, I finished up my town facts (nothing like waiting until the last minute!) for Hudson—our destination for the day!
Sabrina came and helped me carry the coffee back and we arrived mid breakfast, much to everyone’s pleasure—I don’t want to know what it would look like to see us without coffee ? We grabbed a slice of
bread with peanut butter, some strawberries and blueberries, and split a banana. With coffee, fruit, & peanut butter, we can take on the world!! I sat with Sabrina, Sasha (another SC2SC16 alum), Amanda (she came back for the night!!!!!!!), and Marty (P2S08 alum). After a few cute pics were taken, and yummy food inhaled, we cleaned up and finished getting ready for the day.
Once the group was sunscreened up and ABCs complete, Beth lead route meeting and town facts were presented by yours truly. I’m also in charge of journal and sweep today with Sarah! During our count off, our number got up to 36! Every time an alum joins us for a ride, we give them a number so although our team had 17 to begin with, we now can count up to 36! Dylan is 30, Sasha 31, and Sabrina 32–SC2SC16 is representing on K2C! For town facts I informed the team of a fee fun facts about Hudson, including that on the 4th of July back during the 1800s, two boys set part of the town on fire by playing with fireworks! Though no one was hurt, it cost what is equivalent to $11+ million
dollars to rebuild! Be careful with your fireworks kids! ?
Then it was time for our cheer and we were all so pumped because Amanda was back and all felt right with the world again! The alum were impressed and we were all fired up to ride bikes. In typical K2C fashion, it took awhile for everyone to get rolling, which was fine by me today. We were then able to announce our sweep challenge for the day—“team building”—best pyramid/piggies back ride, with bonus points for creative background or setting. The SC2SC16 crew (Sabrina, Sasha, Dylan, & Nora Jane) joined Sarah and I on sweep and we rolled out as a strong 6 pack.
Our morning ride started out with entertaining call outs from Sasha such as “ew hole!” and “weird stuff!” that kept me laughing all day. We rode past some runners (high school maybe?) and gave them all high fives as we passed. Too bad we didnt go for the high five challenge today for sweep! We stopped to let a few groups get ahead and chalked for Anne Davis. Yesterday was the anniversary of her crash and since we were building, we took advantage of
Had to stop for this photo for Breezer
A rider from my NC2SD14 trip goes by Breezer Hill, or sometimes Breezy, and she loves dogs sooo this was perfectthe opportunity to honor her this way today. Her riding buddy that day, Laura Stark, who was paralyzed from the chest down from the accident, just dipped her wheels into the pacific yesterday after completing her “crash to coast” ride on her adaptive bike with the help of some of her teammates along the way. Freaking incredible!!
Our ride continued and we stopped around mile 15 at a gas station for sunflower seeds and Gatorade. It was so fun and crazy having Sabs as my riding buddy at a casual gas station stop on our bike ride! Talk about worlds colliding and sweet friends! We spit seeds and she stretched since she hasn’t rode a bike since last year ? You’d never know it though!
We continued the additional 15 miles to lunch, which was outside a school. We munched on hoagie sandwiches from Maureen (NC2SD16 leader who I love!), pretzels and hummus, nd I drank water out of one NJ’s despised yellow cups and coffee in another. I chatted with one of the NC2SD16 alum who also played lacrosse in college (D3 on the west coast) and we exchanged stories about our lacrosse experience and how much
we miss the sport and inspired each other to look into local city teams. Our team song “Winnebago” then was cued up, much to Chris’ dismay, and a spontaneous dance party broke out! It was so fun!! Although the song gets stuck in your head and you hate yourself for loving it, it’s such a good song to listen to and get everyone in a good move and you can’t help but dance!!
After our dance party & peeing behind the shed, it was time to get back on the road. I was able to ride behind Sabrina so we were able to talk and catch up a bit about life, her new job as a flight attendant (& how I should do it too!), our mutual friends, and relationship update status’.
We stopped at a gas station across the street from a fancy CVS (CVS!!) where I bought a cold, small double shot espresso canned drink and Dylan bought a pineapple mango Gatorade. Beth & Jana we’re in leader van duty and met up with us there for a bit & we all chatted best options to move a cat across the country. A few pitted and
spitted sunflower seeds later, we rolled out with Sabrina in the lead.
We approached a hill that had some cracks in the road where we were riding and Sabrina slowly lead us up the challenge. She was not sure of herself, but with everyone cheering her on loudly & proudly, she and in turn we, made it up together! The magic of Bike & Build! We then got on a bike trail where we came across a beeeeeautiful outlook so of course we had to stop to take some photos! We took a pyramid one for our own sweep challenge and Sabrina and I took a few cute ones together as well. We ate more sunflower seeds and I may or may not have spit the seeds on Sabrina on accident while she was filming a video ? We came across a family that was riding from Hudson and as they were rolling away from the look out, I noticed her back tire was flat so I offered for us to help her pump it up. Dylan had a fancy do-hicky on his pump that fit her hybrid tires so he was her hero for helping her pump it
up to feel like a new bike again!
With only a few more miles to the host, we rolled onwards and of course that meant upwards as well since there is always a hill where there is a host. After riding through downtown and up the hill to the host, we arrived 50 miles stronger and so happy after a magical ride. I barely even had to look at my cue sheet since everyone did such a good job of leading! After grabbing a quick snack with Sarah, Sasha, Sabrina, and I went outside for a good ol’ cold hose shower with an amazing head fixture.
After changing, Sasha, Sabrina, Dylan, NJ, & I went outside to sit/lay under a tree and chat while waiting for an hour or so for Sasha’s boyfriend Hayden to pick her & Sabs up. We chatted about life, jobs we’re in/coming from, and about Dylan’s girlfriend Stoodz who he met on SC2SC16. Once Hayden arrived with his fresh skin fade haircut, they got their stuff together and I packed up a few things I could do without in my bag (gotta make room for all those thrift finds!) and gave them to
Sabrina to ship to me later. After a few hugs and “I love yous” I waved them goodbye, I mean see-you-later, and walked around aimlessly.
Magpie was also outside swinging for what had to be hours and perhaps facetiming or snapchatting all the while. She said her fitbit tracked that she moved equivalent to 3 miles! Swang for 3 miles! lol. I ran into Jess who was having a bit of anxiety after going for her walk and wondering if there was a dinner presentation since it would be her & Noah that would need to present. After nailing down that it was a causal dinner and no presentation was necessary, she was able to relax before dinner. Since Sarah and I were sweep, we got first dibs on the pasta and meatballs, salad w/veggies, watermelon, and cooked veggies: beets & mushrooms! I sat with Chris, Sarah, Magpie, Dylan where we shared some interesting conversations...aka Sarah was having Chris take a quiz that I would rather not be a part of ?
After dinner, we went outside by the trailer to take a picture with the hosts. We then all sat down & started a massage train! With
Kristi to my back and Jana to my front, and about 8 friends or so deep, it was a nice team bonding moment! At one point Kristi asked me:
“Aly you’re so tense, you stressed about something?”
“Yeah always!” Alycia
“Do you need to talk about it?” Jana
“Probably” Alycia
Cue the nervous and silly laughter. I could tell Jana was genuinely concerned, as well as Kristi, and I just mentioned we could talk about it later over beers. I really didn’t have anything in particular in mind that I felt stressed about, just general life outside of Bike & Build may be creeping into my thoughts. I feel like everyone probably has stuff they need to talk about, which is why I responded the way that I did.
As the massage train started to break up, I decided to walk wit NJ, Dylan, Magpie, & Marty into downtown and check out the local brewery Madusa. They had fun stickers—laser cat & laser kitten! However they didn’t have the laser car beer I had my eye on from our research earlier. The walk was a lost a mile long but the time went quickly as we walked
downhill. I settled for the brew Cup of Wonder & we played a round of darts. I had never learned how to score darts before so Dylan taught us how. Magpie not only needed help with how to play/score darts, but also on what to order so I went up and ordered her a Luminary, to which I think she was pleased. I also texted my brother Zack because its his 26th birthday today.
On our walk home, we stopped at the microcremery ice cream shop, where we ran into Beth, in an attempt to go to the speakeasy that was attached there. With Marty striking out in luck and us running out of time, we decided to walk back to the host. I found some of the crew watching “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and so I joined Kristi, Jana, Carly, Chris, and Ryan. I almost didn’t go to get beer bc I too wanted to watch a movie, but after hearing about how long it took and how horrible of an experience it was to set up and pick a movie, let’s just say I’m glad I decided to go see the town instead!
Since it was time
to wind down, I brushed my teeth with Kristi, let in a bumbling Beth as she was locked out of the host, and laughed at Jana and Carly on their blow up mattress that promised to deflate in a matter of minutes. Back in my room that I didn’t have to share with anyone, I placed an order of Canadian flags for the team for the end of our trip to be delivered in our last mail drop. I then set an alarm, which was the first time in a while, since I wasn’t sleeping in a room full of 15 other thermarests. Feeling very happy about today being the BEST DAY EVER and the many wonderful blessings it brought, I went to sleep happy and grateful for another day well spent on Bike & Build ?❤️
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