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Published: July 11th 2018
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This morning started out with an earlyyyy wake up call at 4am in an effort to get us on the road and rolling early so we could get through the day. Bad news: Ron does indeed snore in his sleep ? So with the little sleep I did get, I managed to squeeze into my most comfortable shams for the day and pack up my ish and leave outside in the pitch darkness before 4:30am. Since the Ellies and I are on overnight crew, Carly found her promposal and Noah came sprinting to her to ask—it was so great and of course she agreed! She was so surprised and pleased! We watched the sunlight begin the break into brilliant shades of pink before eating some cereal and coffee for breakfast, once again on the floor in a circle.
Eventually we had our route meeting, which was lead by Beth, and town facts were lead by Carly. Though I planned on riding with Jess & Ryan last night, I ended up riding with Jana, Carly, & Noah, with a guest appearance from our host, Vance, joining us for the first 10 miles. Though he’s a local and a cyclist, so he
knows the roads really well, he was definitely not on the same page of safety that all of us were trained on. I was excited for this ride team, especially since we would be riding into Jana’s home city and we were one of the first teams to leave—which helps on long days.
Our first 10 miles were hilly and though Vance suggested taking a different route, we agreed it would be best to stick to our cue sheet. He then bikes back the miles he rode with us so he could get going with his day and we had 90 miles still ahead of us. I was excited for this ride because we would be passing through some of the area that I lived in for 3 months while traveling for Booster. We had some hills, some trails, and some construction with a giant hole in the middle of the road. Luckily since were bikes, we didn’t let that stand in our way! ? NJ & Aiden caught us and past us and then Carly dropped her bikes. The cabin wasn’t moving so we thought it may be something major with the derailer or something, but when Mikey
& Sarah rolled up to the rescue, Mikey determined that she merely knocked her breaks out of line. Embarrassed we couldn’t figure that out for ourselves, we rolled on, but not before Sarah fell over too. Great start to the morning ride friends! ?
After riding some familiar roads, we arrived at 1st lunch (hooray for 2 lunch days!) at the cutest little town in a gazebo! Jana actually used to race with her crew team in this town—small little world! We ate some delicious chicken salad that Emily made for us in Richmond and a brownie, among other things, explored the town visitor center & befriended the woman behind the counter, and walked down to the waterway boardwalk for a quick minute to snap a photo before reapplying sunscreen & gearing up for the next 40 miles.
We rode out and were welcome by a gigantic hill climb, which I did not appreciate very much, especially in this heat! All was well & of course we got through it together because that’s how’s Bike & Build rolls. We rode through beautiful Alexandria with all the beautiful houses, including the smallest house I ever saw! It was a
door and small window wide! We then got on a trail and rode past the airport and at mile 70 were greeted by none other than Casey, one of the B&B PDs (and previous rider/leader who I hosted for leader retreat last year!). She had plenty of watermelon, strawberries, & blueberries, and pineapple to go around, as well as some...interesting..watermelon cookies. It was great timing and so wonderful to see her on the trail!
By this time it was tarting to get late so we had to roll on and in Jana’s excitement missed our bridge and doubled back a mile or so to cross by the Jefferson Memorial. We continued up the trail and stopped at the Lincoln Memorial to take some photos and I was so glad we did! It was surreal being there after having ridden our bikes there from Key West! We took plenty of photos before rolling back on the trail. We got to second lunch at mile 80 where we filled up on water and snacked on a chocolate pop tart.
After Manders took our photo, we rolled down the trail and a mile later Noah got a flat—stubborn piece of metal!
We were able to take it out using a helpful cyclists’ pliers who stopped to help us after I asked if he had pliers. Amazing! However after pumping it up, the tire didn’t hold and Noah was worried something else was wrong/stuck in his tire. So he & Carly walked back to lunch van and Jana & I rolled on for a few miles before waiting for our shuttle. We figured it would be better to split us up so there would be room in the shuttles. I was pretty disappointed we got picked up at mile 81 because we were only less than a mile from the Maryland Stateline. Though there probably was no sign on the trail, I still wanted to be able to ride my bicycle into Maryland.
We snoozed in the van on the way to the Lish’s house (B&B alum parents’ house & Jana’s distant cousin) waking only to see the “Welcome to Maryland” sign. We were welcomed with not only a comfortable home stay, but also a bbq and beers. We were all directed to set up camp in the basement where I found a sleeping mattress topper pad and immediately claimed it
as my own. I laid down on it and was joined by Chris, where we had our own little cuddle puddle. A few minutes later as I set up my stuff, Amanda said it was Beth & Chris' since she thought she just saw them cuddling on it. Turns out she mistakenly thought I was Beth--not the first time that has happened on this trip 😊 When I walked outside NJ offered to grab a beer for me & we were joined by a few SC2SC16ers from Sabrina & Nora Jane’s trip so we all sat outside enjoying the patio, dinner, & beers while exchanging Bike & Build stories. Meg’s brought us some much needed silverware (hooray for more forks!!) and we chatted through the evening, stopping only to quickly shower. We also enjoyed some of those delicious-but-horrible-for-you cookies and it was a nice relaxing evening.
Eventually everyone started turning in and I hated with Casey, Ron, & and Lish as the SC2SC16 crew arrived back from their beer run. Casey was planning on sleeping outside on the comfortable patio couch and I was tempted to join her since it was our first night with minimal humidity in a
while. However, since I was able to snag a mattress topper pad and a real pillow & down blanket (!!!) I turned into the basement where we were all sleeping, slumber party style. It sure was nice to be in a home surrounded by the people you grow to love like family all in one room ?
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