Day 6 – Clairton, PA to East Liverpool, OH

June 5^th:

Our ride today was about 68 miles, and we were excited about entering our next state – Ohio!  We rolled out at about 7:30am, which might be a new record for us.  We’re slowly getting better at accomplishing our morning routine in an appropriate amount of time.  I was with an all-boy crew of Kevin, Kyle, and Gino.  Before we started going, I said to them “if anyone gets a flat today, I swear…” — jokingly, of course.  We barely got to the end of the first street before Kyle yelled out “stopping!!” He had somehow managed to get his chain caught between the frame and the cogs/rings and couldn’t pedal anymore.  We had to work on it a bit before we were able to get it out, and it left our hands covered in bike grease before the day really even started.  Kyle decided to use his excess bike grease as eye black so he could look more badass on our ride.  Pictured below are Kyle, Gino, and Kevin.

We were back on the trail in no time, and we again took this gravely trail for most of the day.  This time, it was the Montour Trail.  We were getting sick of this terrain, but at least on this day, there were more twists and turns to break up the monotony of the straightaway path.  Part of the greenway was paved, which made for an easier ride on that portion, but this was also the section that had the most pedestrians, so we had to keep slowing down.  We were riding in a big group for much of the ride since we were on trail where we didn’t have to worry about cars being able to pass us.  We had quite a few falls this day though, including myself.  I didn’t get that badly banged up, but some did.  We mostly keep falling because we’ll get lost, and then we’ll slow down, try to turn around in a small space, and then we don’t unclip from our pedals in time, so we go crashing to the ground.  This is exactly how I’ve fallen TWICE, and it’s always embarrassing when it happens.  My teammate Jo has accepted her fate as a frequent-faller, and has decided she has a quota of 2 falls daily.  Cuts and scrapes can get messy, but that’s what first-aid kits and caring teammates are for.

We’ve been playing a game called “what are the odds” where someone will say, for example, “what are the odds that you’ll drink that whole gallon of milk?” and then the other person will say “1 in…[insert number between 1-100].”  These two people then countdown from three, and if they both say the same number between 1 through whatever, then that person has to drink the whole gallon of milk.  If they don’t say the same number, no one has to do anything.  Welp, unfortunately for Adam, he had to chug the milk because him and Kevin said the same number.  Adam’s a big dude, but he didn’t make it through the whole gallon because that’s not feasible for any human being, and he had to sit out for a while afterward.

   

We trooped on through the rest of the day, later getting caught in a quick but heavy downpour.  We were ending in Ohio, but we went through some of West Virginia first!  Only briefly were we in WV, though, and we settled for this state sign because we couldn’t find one for Ohio.

We then crossed the bridge over the river into East Liverpool, OH!  It was great to finally get to the host before 5pm.  I went to bed knowing I didn’t have to ride the next day because I would be on my first day of van duty!  <– that exclamation point at the end was a half-hearted one.  I’m not thrilled that I don’t get to ride everyday like I did on Bike & Build, but a common saying of mine is “it is what it is.”

Day 5 – Service Day turned Rest Day in Pittsburg, PA

June 4^th:

We were supposed to have a day of service today, but it was cancelled at the last minute.  I spent the night with many of my teammates sleeping in the nursery of a church in Clairton, PA.  Pro tip: if you ever have to sleep on the floor in a church, find the nursery.  Generally, the floor is carpeted and squishier than a normal carpet floor, which makes it delightful to sleep on.  Most of us slept in until at least 8am and we decided to spend the day in Pittsburg, which is not too far away.  There’s not much going on in Clairton, to be honest, so we thought our day would be better spent in Pittsburg.

We headed out in our two vans.  I don’t know what it is, but it’s always so much fun to be in the chaotic, tightly packed van with everyone.  You’re entirely too close to one another, with thighs and arms touching one another and sticking together because everyone is sweating despite the fact that the AC is blasting, and the music cranking.  You always feel bad for the person who called “shotgun” and is now regretting that decision because everyone in the back is yelling at them to request a song, turn the music up, turn the music down, crank the AC up, but no, wait, now it’s too cold… lots of complaining from the back, always.  Anyway, that made it sound like a not-so-fun experience, but it really is because everyone is excited about where we’re going for the day and we’re just singing along to songs that we all know.

We briefly stopped by the cancer hospital in Pittsburg and dropped off the chemo care packages that we had made the night before, and then we headed to the Southside.  It’s a cute area with great restaurants, shops, bars, etc.  We made a team trip to REI and then dispersed.  I went to a local coffee shop to use their wifi, and Sean came with me to get a latte, like the sorority girl he is.

The group I was with got lunch donated by a local Mexican restaurant called El Toro Loco.  Hilda, the woman who owned the restaurant, was so sweet and generous!  Matt thoroughly enjoyed his meal…

Sean and I decided we wanted a beer next, and we found a bicycle bar right next door to the Mexican restaurant!  How convenient!  We bought some stickers for our bikes as well.

We then walked around the area, and while many ventured 2-3 miles down the road, Sean, Sam and I chose to stay in the immediate area because, in case you weren’t aware, we’ve been biking up mountains for days.  We went to the Goodwill thrift store so I could get a couple of things, and I happened to find a shirt that said “Just another sexy bald guy.”  I remembered that one of my teammates was planning to shave his head, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to buy it for him.

We went to another restaurant later for dinner, and then hung around until the rest of the team made it back to where the vans were parked.  When we were all back at the vans, we drove to a spot Emma, a Pittsburg native on our team, knew of to see the sunset!  Overall, a fun and restful day.

Day 4 – Confluence, PA to Clairton, PA

June 3^rd:

We “slept in” until 6am this morning and packed up at our host family houses to get back to the church around 6:30 for breakfast.  We then went to the local bike shop, where the owner fixed up many of our bikes.  It was very nice of him, but the problem was that it was just him and 30 cyclists.  It took forever!!  We didn’t leave Confluence until 10am… I couldn’t believe how late we had left.  If any of my Bike & Build teammates are reading this, I hope you can sympathize with the level of impatience and stress that I felt for about 3 hours waiting for us to get the show on the road.  It is always, and will forever be, “like herding cats.”

We rode on the Great Allegheny Passageway again today… all day long.  It’s a very nice trail, but 70 miles of going straight with little to no scenery change was mentally difficult.  My group made the most of it though.  It was Flora, Kellie, Halle, Brett, Kendra, and me.  We played contact, a word guessing game that I was introduced to on Bike & Build.  We played “would you rather” and other good road-trip games, too.  We joked about how much our butts hurt and how we were SO OVER this trail that seemed to never end.  We did get to see waterfall right off the trail, and we crossed a few bridges over the river.

When we asked each other about what we studied in school, what we “wanted to be when grow up,” etc, Flora told us she was studying linguistics in college.  “What could you do with that degree?” we asked.  “Get your PhD in linguistics… then be a linguistics professor.” So when we asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, we all cracked up when her response was “I think I want to go to nursing school.”  We let her practice on Halle, who had a small wound that needed to be wrapped up.

I won’t write much about this day because it was fairly uneventful.  We took just one trail for most of the day, except for the last 10 miles or so that were on roads toward the town of Clairton, PA where we will spend the next two nights.  We made chemo care packages for the patients we were scheduled to deliver them to on June 4^th, but the hospital ended up cancelling our service day at the last minute.  Sleeping in was an alternative option that everyone seemed okay with, although we don’t want this to happen often.  I won’t complain though because I’m unbelievably tired from these past few days that have been extremely challenging.

Thank YOU for your continued support!!  I appreciate the words of encouragement that you all have been sending me!

And lastly, a photo of Flora being a weirdo and showing off her “panic vest.”

Day 3 – Bedford, PA to Confluence, PA

June 2nd:

Ohhh boy, what a long, wet, cold day this was for us (yes, even in June, the Appalachian Mountains can be very cold).  It was another 4:30am wake-up call, which only got us on our bikes by 7:30.  We have some serious improving to do on our morning routine.  We made it out and although it was raining and we were tired, we were excited to get this second day of climbing over with.  We had been told by alums that the second and third days of the trip would be the hardest days we’d have, and we were ready to get over that hump… or rather, mountain.

My assigned team included Matt, Kevin, and Blonde Sarah (I feel like we need a better nickname for her, but we’ve been calling her this or Tall Sarah because we have another shorter, brunette Sarah on the team).  We started out strong and we were the front team for quite some time.  We took a very short water break and got back on the road quickly.  Though the rain had not stopped, the day was already an improvement from the day before!  But this didn’t last long.

We climbed some really big and long hills.  I rode with Sarah for most of the time, and we generally waited for Matt and Kevin at the top.  The weather was not improving at all, but rather the rain was starting to really soak and penetrate our gear and give us that chill to the core feeling.  I hated stopping so much because every time we did, I felt entirely too cold.

At one point, Matt decided that he needed to be picked up by the van because his chain kept dropping when he tried to put it in a lower gear.  It happened to me a couple of times, but his was really acting up and something about his derailleur just wasn’t quite right.  We pulled over in front of a house, called the van driver, Maeve (she’s not on our team, but she is a program coordinator for 4K for Cancer and will be with us for the first few days of the trip), and left our bikes out front as we walked up to ask the owner of the house if we could stand in their garage to avoid the rain for a little while.  We stood shivering in their garage, feeling miserably cold but thankful to at least be out of the rain for a bit.  When he came back into the garage and saw us huddling in a circle hugging one another for warmth, he offered for us to at least come inside and stand in front of the heavy duty construction light that they had in the kitchen.  They didn’t live at the house, but they were renovating it and working on the floors, and it was at least a little warmer in front of the large warm light that had been on for a while.  We moved to the front room of the house so we could look out the window for Maeve to come by in the van.  I took this photo, for which the caption is “Maeve?” because every time we heard a car go by, we’d look out the window to see if she was there.

Finally, the van arrived.  We had decided that everyone would get in the van until the lunch stop, but there wasn’t enough room in this van with everyone’s duffle bags, so Sarah and I took one for the team and continued riding.  Unfortunately, we were right at the bottom of a huge hill, so we immediately started climbing.  Honestly though, it was better than going downhill right away because we were so cold.  We passed by some pretty farmland though.

Lunch was at a laundromat.  By that I mean that the van drivers had gotten food donated and brought them to the laundromat so we could eat there and also dry our clothes before riding for the remainder of the day.  It was kind of crazy.  One woman walked in, said “whoa” and then walked out.  We kind of took over the place.

We rode on through hills and hills and hills.  We finally got to the Great Allegheny Passageway, which we were on for about 18 miles.  It was nice to be off the road for a bit on a quieter trail.  It’s not paved, but rather sort of a hard, compact dirt/sand/gravel road.  It was compact enough for road bikes but we still felt the vibrations on our hands and arms as we rode along.

We had to cross a bridge at one point that was covered in thick mud.  We walked our bikes but everything still got caked in it.

We came to a point where a tree trunk had fallen across the trail, and we decided to do some trail maintenance by moving it.  I’m still waiting on my check from the state of Pennsylvania for this work.

We eventually took the exit off the passageway to Confluence.  The van driver had written the chalk incorrectly off the exit, so we took a wrong turn for a couple of miles.  We then had to re-route, which took us up a massive hill.  It was not a fun ending, but we made it to the church where we had a delicious spaghetti dinner.  We had what’s called “home stays” that night, where various members of the church offered to take in a few riders each for the night.  Most of us got our own beds, a nice warm shower, and we all got to do laundry, which was much needed after a rainy, gross day.  My “host parents” were Mr. and Mrs. Steele.  They were so welcoming to us and we’re thankful that they brought us into their homes for the night!  After a long day, it was so nice to lay down in a real bed for a good night of sleep.

Day 2 – Waynesboro, PA to Bedford, PA

June 1^st:

Lack of service and/or wifi are to blame for these blog posts being delayed!

Climbing day #1, DONE.  It was an early morning and another late night.  But we all safely made it, with only one group getting very lost (luckily, I was not in that group).

The first 20 miles of the day weren’t bad at all.  It was rolling hills and pretty farmland that was leading straight into the Appalachian Mountains.  I often had to remind myself that I wasn’t in North Carolina, but rather in Pennsylvania.  I guess the Appalachians look mostly the same throughout the region.

We stopped for water breaks roughly every 15-20 miles.  While I understand stopping to refill water bottles, hydrate, etc, this process has been slowing us down quite a bit.  “Quick water stops” have been turning into 20-30 minute breaks that cause us to have a severe case of “lunch legs” afterward.  You’re tired because you’ve stopped for too long, and you’ve lost momentum.  So your legs become sore and when you get back on the bike, you have to work to get warmed up again.  It’s not fun.  It’s easier to just keep going, especially on days when you’ve got some mountains to climb.  However, being that it’s the first week, we haven’t really figured that out yet as a team.  After these really tough days, I think we’ll understand that we need to put a time limit on our breaks.

So after the first water stop, we biked a little more and then began the climb.  I feel a little guilty for leaving my assigned team on the climb, but when everyone climbs at different paces, it can be difficult to go up together.  So I battled to the top, passing by many of my teammates and trying to give words of encouragement along the way.  Once I made it, I cheered on teammates who had just conquered the toughest hill they’d ever encountered!  It was a wonderful sight to see this sign and view:

 

We hung out at the top of the climb for, again, entirely too long (we’re learning…).  The ride down was awesome!   I don’t have a bike computer, so I can’t tell you how fast I was going, but I’m certain I broke the 35 mph speed limit.

We stopped at the lunch break and then when we were finally ready, we headed for the second major hill of the day.  It didn’t come for a while, and there were a lot of rolling hills before we got there.  These weren’t the ideal rolling hills, but more like the kind where you had to use as much momentum from the previous downhill to get you as close to the top as possible, but it was never far enough, so you had to put it in “granny gear” to get to the top.

Before we reached the next long climb of the day, two of the assigned teams for the day, including mine and another, kept on overlapping each other.  We would pass them, then they would pass us; members of our team would ride with them, and really it just became a really big group riding together.  We must have had at least 10 people, and even though we were on back roads with not many cars, that’s still too many people to safely ride together.  At one point, both teams pulled over like we had been doing most of the day to wait for other team members after a hill climb.  When both of these teams made it to the top, we met a man who must have been in his late 50s or early 60s.  Before we realized what was happening, he had gotten out of his car, and he came around introducing himself and shaking each of our hands and asked for our names.  He then thanked us for what we were doing, and asked for a pen to write a check to the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults, the non-profit program for which 4K rides.  He told us that his 25-year-old daughter had just passed away from cancer.  He was in tears as he was telling us about her life.  It was emotional and heartwarming and a reminder as to how lucky we all are to be alive and well enough to be taking on this crazy adventure, as well as a reminder of who we are riding for.  We thanked him for sharing his story and promised we would dedicate riding days to her, as well as some of his other family members who were battling cancer.

At this stop, we also realized that there was a detour ahead.  There was some construction along the route that we were on, and our ride directors wanted us to take a 4 mile detour.  A few members of the two overlapping teams were arguing that we could just walk our bikes through the construction area instead of taking the 3 mile detour on an already tough day.  Our ride directors argued that this was deemed unsafe, and that we should take the detour.  It was a back and forth that seemed to be going nowhere, and again took TOO long!  My 4K teammate Sean and I decided to ditch this arguing situation.  We weren’t on the same assigned team for the day, but we decided we needed to keep moving and just take the detour like we were told to do, even though it meant a longer ride.  In hindsight, it was probably rude to do this, but trust me – karma is real.  We ended up having to take a gravel road for much of these 4 miles, part of which was uphill.  Road bikes are NOT meant for gravel roads!  The bikes that everyone else received for the 4K are cyclocross bikes (I think they are, anyway), which means they are more capable of riding on these gravel roads, but I was too short for these bikes because they were only offered in men’s sizing.  Therefore, I was given a women’s road bike instead.  It’s certainly easier for the hill climbs, but not so easy on gravel roads.  It was sort of a nightmare, but maybe we deserved it for being impatient and not being team players.

Sean and I joined another group that called themselves the “Cheetah Girls” (an old Disney channel TV show from our generation).  Sean claimed that he was Raven in this scenario – not an important detail, but a funny one.  As we were riding with them, we turned onto a road called Mountain House Rd.  I told my teammate Lizzy that if you ever see the word “mountain” in a road name, you can go ahead and expect a climb.  We finally hit our second big climb of the day and I took off from this team.  Again, I realize I’m not being a team player, but I did this all the time on B&B and I was never deemed as a bad teammate, and I just really enjoy climbing alone, so I did it anyway.  I made it to the top and had a great view of the mountains in the distance.

The last part of the day felt pretty long.  We lost a little bit of momentum and it felt hard to keep going.  Bedford was a cute little town and the church hosts welcomed us with open arms and delicious food!

Later that night, we had a meeting where we all took a turn to talk about why we’re doing 4K and what we want to get from this summer.  While I was initially upset that this long meeting was happening, given that we had only slept 5 hours the night before and were about to only get 5 hours of sleep that night as well, I was thankful in the end to hear the stories that my teammates shared.  It was an emotional night and I learned that many of my teammates are more directly linked to the cancer community than I could have ever imagined.  Many have lost a parent, a sibling, a friend to cancer; one of my teammates has battled cancer himself.  I’m thankful for my teammates’ ability to put themselves in an incredibly vulnerable situation and share experiences that often brought tears to their eyes as well as everyone else’s.  We managed to make it through with many tears but also many laughs.  I think it created a more open and comfortable environment for those who were afraid to share too much.  While I do not have the direct link to the cancer community that many of my teammates have, I’ve learned from their stories and I’m thankful to share this 4K experience with awesome people!