The last long time

Dear Everyone that has been attempting to read my blog. I realize that I have not updated my blog since the first week and it is now week 8. There needs to be a trifecta of amazing things for me to get to update it. 1. I need Internet access, 2 I need to borrow a computer, 3 I need to find the time. There have been 2 times where I have had the trifecta and then the computer crashed while I was trying to post the blog. So here is an update of things that happened state by state.

Montana: Amazing riding. If I could redo any portion of the ride it would be the first 2 weeks. The scenery was breath taking and we got to ride up and down mountains and along rivers and trees.

Idaho: The hardest section of the trip. For the 4 days we rode in it we had a head wind each day. All the rides were 80+ miles if I remember correctly. It was really cool to see Rexburg with the BYU campus. Everyone was really nice there and we had dinner with a New Testament class at the college. Interesting fact, there is only one bar in this college town because Mormons don't drink, instead there was an ice cream shop on every block. I guess Mormons love their ice creams. haha

Utah: This was the high desert territory. We were usually around 7000 feet in elevation which made all the rides sort of hard. There was a dry heat which was nice because sweating actually worked to cool your body. We did another century. We were not in Utah that much and all the days were the same.

Colorado: AMAZING. We had some serious climbs on back to back days. The first one was up over Rabbit Ears pass to an elevation of 9000+ and the second was over Berthed with an elevation of 11300 feet. They were both challenging but Berthed was harder. I was tired from Rabbit ears. I finally reached the top of Berthed and got a picture by the sign and then it started hailing and raining. It was absolutely crazy. The hail hurt as it hit me because it was being blow by the wind so fast. All the riders that were already at the time ran into the bathroom/ information area and waited out the storm for about 20 minutes. Some riders that were still climbing had a lot of fun riding in that storm. On the way down I reach 50.85mph which is crazy fast for a bicycle, but amazingly fun. I recommend everyone try it if they can stomach the fact that if they crash you will probably spend a month in the hospital.

Kansas: The theory goes Kansas is flat as a pancake. This is absolutely false. I had to go into my mountain climbing gears to climb some of those hills and on the way down I got over 30 mph. That doesn't sound like a pancake to me. It was also really hot not. We had a week of riding where the temps were over 100 degrees and sometimes the temp on the road was over 115. We attempted to beat the heat as much as we could by having 4:30 breakfasts and riding before sunrise. This helped some but not enough. To give everyone an idea of how hot is was at every rest stop I would take my gloves off and wring out sweat. I got sweat guards for my wrists after a few days of this and those would get completely saturated and then my gloves would get completely saturated.

Missouri: We finally got a break from the heat with a day that was only 98. It was a nice state. There were a lot of corn fields and stuff. Not a while lot happened. There was a 10 mile stretch of road that was absolutely amazing. Perfect black top, hardly any cars, twisty and turny through the country side. There were 2 hills on this road, 13% and 11%. They were pretty tough but since we hadn't been climbing all day I just powered up them. Then I hit 44mph on the way down. It was really fun.

Illinois: This is the state that should have to reputation of being flat as a pancake. It's nice to have some flats to just crank of the speed and go hard all day, or for portions of the day.

Overall the ride is going great. It's a lot of fun and I'm making some great friends.

Stevens Pass

I woke up today and the weather was mid 40s and being in Washington it was misty. I piled on my winter gear for what I thought would be a long and cold 70 mile day up and down the back side of Stevens pass.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevens_Pass It was 16 miles to the 4000+ elevation top. It was HARD. WOW. The way up was freezing, I saw my breath at one point! It took almost 2 hours of hard climbing to get to the top. They said once you are at the top the hard part of the day is over and the rest is downhill. The ride down was FREEZING!! I maxed out at 43mph which is the fastest I've ever gone on a bicycle. 

      About halfway down I saw blue sky and joked with the people around me that we better cherish that cause it will be the only blue sky we will get today. Was I wrong, and thankfully. I slowly shed all my cold weather cloths as the cold and miserable day turned into sunny and 70's. The farther and farther I descended the warmer and more sunny it became. It was an amazing transformation. It was amazing to see how everyone’s moods changed throughout the day. 

      Not only was the 50+ miles after Stevens pass a gradual downhill, but we also had a TAILWIND!! I have never been so lucky. It was absolutely amazing, I rarely saw the speedometer slip below 20mph. This gets better though. The entire way down was the most amazing scenery I could imagine. Most of the time we were side by side with a white water river down inside 2 huge canyon wall. I was constantly getting out my camera and snapping photos the entire way down. Today was by far the best day of the FBA, which is hard to believe because the other days were pretty amazing too. 

First Day

So my bike got to Seattle safely and we did all the orientation and ice breakers this weekend. Today was the first day of actual riding. We did 36 miles and it was pretty fun. Allen and I were the sweepers today and we successfully did our job to perfection. The sweepers are the people bringing up the rear and making sure people do not fall behind. Todays weather was amazing. It was like 60's with a tail wind. The route was also really nice with most of it being on a bike path. I got to see the mountains from a distance, they still have snow on them and man do they look BIG!! We will be doing a major climb over them in 2 days. It's going to be crazy and amazing fun. Thanks for all your prayers.

Fundraising

I just wanted to tell you that I REACHED MY FUNDRAISING GOAL!!! I will be able to bike the entire Bicycle Adventure from Coast to Coast. I'm really excited and this should be a great experience. I leave on June 10th to go to Seattle and I'm shipping my bike out tomorrow. This is going to be one good summer. :)

First Post

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