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Biking to and building in Kansas City, Missouri!

Slated to be our longest day yet on the website (106 miles), we awoke at 5AM to get ready to ride.  I was real tired for some reason, pretty sure that night I saw the RAAM rider come through caught up with me haha, and didn't really get outta my sleeping bag till 5:30.  The church made us breakfast which was good, I had two things of oatmeal and bagel, and was packed in time to get my bin out before they started loading the trailer!

video: final (i'm working on embedding it)

The ride

After getting our cue sheets, on which there were a lot of turns, we found out that it's only a 90 mile day! (the website had said 106) That still means we get two lunches though

It was an absolutely beautiful day to ride today, and we had nice roads! At mile 10, we stopped to stretch and I'm pretty sure that by the end of the trip I'll be able to put my whole hand down in front of my toes with shoes on.

The miles flew by, and I'm pretty certain it was because we had a decent tailwind the whole way.  The terrain was rolling, with some pretty decently sized inclines and declines.  On one of the downhills I hit 46.3MPH still pedaling, in Lance's book I read he said that they break 70 down the Alps...that's craziness.

By mile 30 I was starving, since I hadn't eaten since breakfast and was banking on this lunch stop.  As we passed a gas station at mile 30 and one at mile 31 where he could've pulled over I was thinking "Derrick....you're killing me!" But as we climbed to the top of a hill at mile 32, lunch! It was at a super nice little park, with SHADE: worth the two mile wait haha.

I headed out with the faster group of Noah and Sharif and Emily and Emma and Mark, among others, and we set a good pace for the next 30 miles.  Again the miles seemed to fly by, and possibly the funniest part of the day was when this biker dude passed us on a chopper bike (handlebars higher than his head) going into town, Mark and Noah and I tried to look as cool by putting our hands up and turning them to go faster.  Then he must've stopped somewhere in town, because he passed us again and when he did, all 3 of us immediately put our hands up just like him haha, all in sync.  It was pretty great, I'm sure it was one of those "you had to be there" things.

We caught up with Joe and Aileen and Tio who had left lunch before us, and as soon as we did Joe turned around because his camelbak nozzle had come off.  Noah pulled at a moderately fast pace for like 6 miles, and then when Joe caught back on he asked me if I wanted to crank it.  I thought he meant go up and give Noah a break, so I grabbed his wheel.  But we hit the front and then just kept on cruisin.  Turns out Joe's speedometer wasn't working so he didn't know how fast he was going, and just felt like hammering.  For a good two miles he pulled so hard that I could barely stick, at like 23 up the hills and 28 down them.  After that I pulled and barely increasing my effort, I was going all out.  Sitting in the aerobars, our speed picked up to close to 30 across the flats and after about two more miles I looked back and realized that I had just gapped Joe a little. That was the hardest I have ridden yet on BnB and it felt great.  We happened to be at mile 64, so we waited for the other riders and van to catch up for lunch #2!

My awesome habit of not wanting to hop right back on the bike after eating and cooling down kicked in, and I tried to nap in the sliver of shade next to the building whose empty lot we were in.  It was heating up for sure, and I was trying hard not to get back in the sun.  I did lay my jersey out on the pavement though so it would dry haha.  After an hour and half of eating and with two unsuccessful attempts at a nap (my phone had turned itself off by this point) I wanted to get going again.  Pretty much everybody had come and gone, so I headed out with Jesse and Alyson who were taking it easy(er) for the day.

After we got riding and got some wind, the heat didn't melt us lol and again with the slight tailwind, we made great progress toward our host.  We got in to Raytown, MO and our wonderful hosts at the Blue Ridge Presbyterian Church and I was at mile 93...so I rode around the streets crit style and got in 100 miles! Ended up with 103 on the day.

Building!

The heat was intense, I don't know how hot it got exactly but with humidity I was melting haha.  We rebuilt a porch for a lady who has owned her Habitat home for 31 years, it was the first one that Kansas City's affiliate had built, and they're the 8th oldest in the nation.

Kansas City

Hey avid readers! Lots of pictures of the past three days which have been wonderful, biking my first century (100mi) and working with Habitat here. I'm choosing sleep over blogging tonight, but ill have stuff up soon I promise haha. In the meantime check out the press coverage and make sure to watch the video of the live news I was on, links on my twitter (on the right side of this post). Thanks for reading and goodnight!
PS I'm curious to see how this worked from the phone!

Jefferson City and Sedalia, MO

The past two days have been awesome on the road and in the towns we have stayed in.  So much has happened that I think it would be next to impossible for me to write it all but some highlights were: jumping off a (10ft) bridge during the ride to Jeff City was fun, the ride to Jeff City was good all around (minus the flats), and Mark and I got to see Jure Rovic ride by who is leading the Race Across America! That was all yesterday and today's ride wasn't as enjoyable with rain and busier roads, and a spill, but we're all doing great and tonight, we had chiropractors and a massage therapist!!

Holy bug bites!! Joe got it the worst

On our way to Jefferson City, we were on the Katy Trail, a packed cinder bikeway, for 80 some miles (the whole way).  The night before I had looked up online where and when the RAAM, Race Across America, would be coming through Jeff City and from what I could tell, it was at 2PM only one block from where we were staying! So Jesse and I were pumped to see and potentially ride with some RAAM guys and we took off as early was we could in the morning and hit it real hard.

We hadn't had any problems the day before from the trail, but just a little over an hour and 20 miles in, I got a flat.  As soon as we rolled to a stop, we were covered in mosquitoes though.  So Jesse and I literally ran with my rear wheel as we took the tire off, put a new tube in and put the tire back on.  It must have looked totally ridiculous to the guys biking by but when we yelled mosquitoes they understood haha.  To pump the tire while running, I held the tire, and put the pump against my chest, and Jesse had to pump it against my chest.  There was definitely no time for pictures, but at lunch you can see what they had done to Joe who had to change a flat as well.

Not more than 10 miles later, I had another flat.  We had tried to get out fast to get there, and were prepared with enough clif bars to go straight through...but these flats were killing us.  The first one had taken 20 minutes to change while running, and there weren't as many mosquitoes near this one but still it was very frustrating.

We made the decision to take the highway, Highway 94, that ran parallel to the trail and right into our destination, because we were only a small way there and had already used two of our three tubes! The highway was not busy at all, it was only a two lane, and was about the same speed as the trail because while the gravel on the trail provided rolling resistance, there was an equal headwind on the unsheltered road.  As soon as our tires hit the paved road, it was unbelievably smooth haha and we made it the rest of the day without flats.

Jesse really for some reason needed a picture frollicking through the field lol

Another benefit of being on the road was the view. As we approached Jefferson City, it was spectacular to see the skyline in the distance become closer. It doesn't look like it in this picture, but we could see the capitol building clearly from 10 miles out. It's neat kinda seeing the destination like that

When we got into town, Jesse and I knew we were well ahead of everyone else so we headed right for the RAAM timecheck.  We happened to be early though, and saw a bike shop on the way that had potential.  It was a pretty cool shop, and I picked up a patch kit haha.

We rode out Jefferson St looking for the timecheck, our host church at the First Presbytarian was only one street over.  We rode out there for a mile, and over some sizeable hills (really steep, their hills aren't huge but they build roads straight up them haha).  Problem was, after about 10 miles and 45 minutes of searching allllll over the place, we couldn't find anything at all that could have been the timecheck.  So we headed back to the church, and caught up with some others to check out the capitol building that we had been riding toward for so long.

Jefferson City is the capitol of Missouri, and the capitol building was nice

They also had some really pretty fountains

We were all starving from our long day, and got some really good pizza downtown!

Mmmm pizza

We headed out there again to look for the timecheck with the others that had came, but still nothing.  The bike shop hadn't heard about it, which was lame, but they let us use their computer to check the location.  Sure enough, we were right both times but there was just nothing there yet....they should have been set up at 1.

We went back to the church and showered and had a great dinner, all awesome as always.   I think I'm running out of adjectives to describe the generosity that we have been shown by our hosts, and how we have eaten like kings.  We gave a presentation, and Britt told her story of involvement in the affordable housing cause, which had to have given everyone in the room chills.

After dinner, Alyson Jesse Mark and I headed back out there again to find the timecheck, but at the place it should have been still found nothing! We looked on Alyson's blackberry, and she had the idea of checking the personal blog of the leader rather than relying on the RAAM website.  Sure enough, the leader Jure Rovic had a website (http://jurerobic.net) with a GPS tracker but it didn't load on the phone so we called someone back at the church to look at it on my computer.  She looked and determined that he wasn't super close...at least 50 miles out (so a few hours) so we headed back the very hilly mile to the church.

Using his website, and the RAAM site, Mark and I determined that he would be in Jeff City at about 1:30AM.  We had put so much time and energy into seeing this guy that we weren't going to let the Bike and Build curfew stop us from walking the block over to see him ride by, so Mark and I woke up at 1 and went over there to see.  After about 20 minutes, he should have been there because the GPS had shown him at the timecheck, only a mile away.  But we hadn't seen a single thing all day, and decided to bike baaack out there to see.  It was night, but we didn't see a car the whole time we were out there and Mark's lights were real bright.  Back out we went, and...

We found them!

It was an RV and a minivan in the gas station parking lot.

They were working on his bike in front of the RV

The van carries his extra bike, extra wheels, GPS and mapping equipment and food for the day

Jure was inside the RV sleeping for an hour, we got talking to his mechanic and his strategy was to not sleep for the first 48 hours, then sleep one hour every night.  He showed us the equipment, and told us all about it.

The official RAAM book, that's one time check's worth of directions!

His bike was sick, and he even had two

So all in all, he had 8 people in the two vehicles supporting him.  A full time cook, doctor, two mechanics, and drivers who needed to be equally as sleep-intolerant as Jure had trained to be to drive the van all day 10 feet behind him.  On the bike, he carries only one water bottle, and that's it! No computer, no food, nothing on his back.  Anything he needed the hand to him from the van.  They get directions to him via loudspeaker from the van behind him, and it's actually RAAM required that it be right behind him at night all the time, equipped with mega headlights and flashers.  After chatting for awhile, we headed back to the church to see him come by.

Here he comes

We cheered him on, at 3AM on the desolate downtown street, and as he stopped at the light and we were chanting "Keep it up" we got a mumbled "Alright" it sounded like haha.  So we actually got to see the leader of the Race Across America, heading for his 5th win!

Four more days for Jure!

To Sedalia

Today we headed out for shorter day, 61 miles, to be spent on Rt 50.  It started out slow, I was sore from the hard ride the day before and from my 2ish hours of sleep haha.

I was riding behind Britt when she took a spill on the road, the road surface was about 2 inches higher than the shoulder, and created a curb that is a disaster for road bikes.  She hit her hip pretty hard, but she's going to be fine!

The whole group had stopped, and after we got started again, at about mile 20 we spotted a Sonic. Remembering that I had a handful of free coupons in my hand, between Derrick and I we had enough to get our whole riding group free Cherry Limeades! They were good, a little too carbonated and sweet for Emily but on a positive note Jen rode into Sonic without going face first on the sidewalk this time haha!

Sonic!!

Lunch was pretty uneventful, as was most of the day.  At some point, it started raining real hard and cold and windy, so I made sure that our last rider had a strong tail light because from the front I couldn't see a thing on the road.

Home?!?

Our hosts at the First Baptist Church in Sedalia are awesome, and provided us with not only an excellent dinner, but with a massage therapist and two chiropracters!! I felt like a pro, getting my post-race massage haha.  It was great, and I wish I could get an adjustment every week.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day into Kansas City, where we will build for two days, and I'm headed to be at 10PM for our 5AM wake up!!

Hope you enjoyed reading!