andy reagan only the interesting stuff

West Virginia: Marlinton

Marlinton, WV

Our second day out of Charlottesville, after the extremely hilly ride to Lexington, we crossed into WV and I was on sweep for the day.  Two riders are sweeping every day, I get to do it four times total, and sweep's job is to ride behind the last riders to make sure that everyone makes it in for the day, carrying an extra tire and lots of encouragement!  This was probably one of the toughest days that we will have, especially to sweep, since people's legs were dead from the huge day prior and there were some very unrelenting hills.  But my gearing caught up with me a lot, and it was hard to keep a good cadence up some of the grades.  Climbing out of the saddle at 3-5mph slowed my cadence to 30rpm, equal to a full pedalstroke every two seconds (death slow)!

We caught up to the other riders pretty quickly still after our half hour break, probably because of the speed we took some of the climbs at, Kristen was doing awesome.  And there are pictures of us all crossing the border, but it was raining and we were in a hurry so I left my camera covered up haha.  I was worried for awhile that we wouldn't make it into the host by dinner, it started to rain, and there was supposedly a huge climb left.  When we got to that climb, I went on up (my knees could no longer take the slow hills at low cadence) and it was only a mile! So I came back down, helped the others up as much as I could (gave Heather a push lol) and it started pouring as we made it to the top but it was 5PM and we only had 12 miles left so it was good.

I pulled into town, and when we took a rest at the town sign, a man pulled up in his car and got out with a big camera.  He asked if we were Bike and Build and we told him yes of course, and he wanted to take our picture for the Marlinton town paper! He took our picture there, and went ahead of us into town to take our picture as we rode in.  That was pretty awesome timing.

When we got into town, we celebrated for the camera and were excited to be there....but little did we know that "take a right turn and two-three miles to Mount View church" was going to be so far and up a massive climb...and that last climb was pretty tough after the false finish.  But we made it there, had awesome showers on site, and they had put together one of the best meals yet.  The peanut butter fudge was just awesome, and there was more food than I knew what I could do with.  We ended up taking a lot with us for lunch.

Turns out the pastor was a bass player in their church band, and on our group we have an awesome guitarist (two), a drums players, some great singers and so we went upstairs to the santuary and jammed with the whole group for a few hours.  I got up and sang some gospel songs I knew with everyone, and Will who is our awesome guitarist and singer ended the night to an excellent rendition of Country Roads, it was great.

To Lexington, VA

Today was the longest, and by far the hilliest day yet, and the riding was the most beautiful I have EVER done. We started bright and early with a 5AM wake-up call, but weren't leaving the house until our usual 7:30 because there was a lot of cleaning and packing up to be done, since we had been there for three days.  We headed out some beautiful, rolling country roads on over to a mountain, up that mountain and onto the very hilly and VERY beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway.  We started the day at 750ft above sea level, undulated and climbed to 2500, kept climbing to 3300, then back to 2200, up to 3200, back down...and again and again haha. I was in awe of the scenery all day, loved climbed and jumping in the river here in Lexington was the most refreshing thing ever.

I have a record number, 54!!, pictures today! Some of the them are a few days old, and those will be first, enjoy!

Dinner at the Barracks, was delicious (and of course picture worthy), props to Emma and Emily!

Our route meeting at the Barracks, where I handed off the discostick

Derrick at McDonalds near the end of a hard day to Waverly

Jesse was still energetic somehow though haha

Joe was done for...

Sleeping that night was really tight, luckily I had a wall space but I ended up setting up a tent anyway!

We sorta-finished painting the trailer that night, thanks to lots of hard work! The bikes on the top are my handiwork

The back side looking good as well

The map looks legit

My lunch the following morning before heading to Charlottesville, I think the cheerios made the PBJ more of a breakfast food haha

It was Raleigh's Birthday!!

The route meeting that morning!

At lunch, the trailer looking even more legit

Sarah and Christina in C'ville, we checked out the shops downtown when we got there

I got a delicious Bodo's bagel, which we also had the pleasure of eating for lunch both build days and for both breakfasts they donated the day olds!

The L7 had been reserved for Lauren's graduation haha

Our sleeping situation was slightly cramped, with Mark Emma and I on one bed, but it sure beats the thermarest

I picked up some bottled cheerwine as well!!

Today!!

Kristen was relaxing before our long ride

Everyone getting their bikes ready at the crack of dawn

My sandal tans are pretty awesome already

The roads at the beginning of the way were really nice

Everyone was enjoying these first few rollers!

Especially Emma!

As we got further in, we could start to see some mountains

Sarah was crushin it early

The roads were really nice

Yay!

The bikes...couldn't do it without 'em

After that we ate some clif shots in preparation for the big climb, which I hit hard from the bottom and was by myself at the top off.  Mark wasn't far behind, and neither were Emma or Zach so we rode back to them and kept on going.  The climb had been hyped up for the past few days and people were freaking out a little, but it was probably comparable to Harding, just maybe a little steeper.  The down side of going on up so quick was that I missed the Cookie Lady though...dissappointing.

Perhaps the best moment of the trip was reaching that very first scenic overlook:

The view was UNREAL, this picture really does no justice at all

It was epic

Gun show on top of the mountain!

As we kept on going, there were more scenic overlooks with truly breathtaking views

Emma had to hold back the tears it was so beautiful haha

All of our names on the road!!

Lunch was early at 30 miles, a pleasant suprise, and I made a organic pb (super runny), regular crunchy peanut butter as the glue, swedish fish, jelly, goldfish, pretzel sandwhich haha, it was yummy

Happy campers at lunch

Jolly Jesse!

Time for Joe's nap haha

Mark had to pee like every five miles, we think it's a problem lol

The views were just unreal the whole way...I don't even know how to describe biking through them

Zach was excited!

I look like a giant haha

We kept going up and down these massive climbs, and my endorphins were going crazy, we were all pretty high on life biking through the mountains.

The water stop at mile 70 was an awesome suprise, right as we were running low on supplies I ate a delicious clif bar

We got off the parkway on US-60, taking a 6 mile descent into the beautiful little town of Lexington, VA.  The descent was so steep that I was going over 50MPH (the only one in our group to hit it, thanks to the aerobars and full-size cranks!) for like a whole mile, absolutely cruising through the turns at 45.

After it leveled out, we were still hot and saw a very inviting river, and since we were the first group decided to take a swim!

Swimmin river!

Emma going swimming!

Mark is rockin the tan lines

Zach hiked his bike across the hard way haha

Jesse caught up as well

The swim was super refreshing!

Jesse was out cold once we got here haha

I got to spread everything out which is nice

And now I'm going to pack back up for a 5:30AM wake up call! Hope you enjoyed reading and the pictures!!

Charlottesville, VA!!

On Tuesday we biked here, and for the past two days we have been helping build with Habitat for Humanity here in C'ville.  A handful of group members, including two of the leaders, went/are going to UVA so they know the area which is cool!

The ride here

We took 15N for like 25 miles which wasn't super fun, but for the last 20 miles we turned onto some nice country roads which were awesome.  Emma and I were both reminded of Blacksburg, as the roads were shaded by the trees and there were some small hills!

Going up one of those hills, I happened to be riding with Caroline for the first time when she broke her chain! Luckily, Mark also showed up with a chain tool and I was able to get here bad link out, a new one in, and she finished the day on it!! First time I've had to do it on the road, and glad that I knew how to help her out.  She also happened to take a slide off the road, and I got to use those four bads of medical supplies that I brought to hook her up! The supplies are now in the group med box, which is where I had hoped they could go all along, and I haven't tried to put my box back together yet but it should be roomier!

Coming into town, I was riding with two wahoos, Will and Emily.  Emily was suuper excited to be back in Charlottesville and lead us all into town fast haha.  We stopped at the "lawn" and got a UVA history lesson.  I was okay being on the road with four UVA people, but as I got closer I had to put my Hokie arm warmers on and hold back to boo's haha.

I overcame my predispositions though, got a bottled cheerwine, and admit that it is a pretty cool town!  We got dinner at the Haven, and went out to Southside bar (or something like that) and then to a karaoke bar.  They couldn't talk me into singing, but it was a lot of fun haha.

My favorite quote of the trip so far was the night before, when we all laid down on our thermarests and I heard this psssssst sound and was like "Someone is deflating!" Definitely had to be there, but it was great lol.

Hanging out the day before leaving for Charlottesville

The nice country roads to C'vill

The UVA lawn

Build Day 1

Our trip is partnered with Habitat in Charlottesville, and we give them a yearly donation of $35,000 in addition to two days of labor.  That (32x2x8) 512 man-hours, one person would have to work for 13 weeks to match that!

There were three sites that we went to: a mixed income community close to the town, a house they are reselling out in the booney's, and the Habitat ReStore.  For the first day I worked on a house in the mixed income neighborhood, and put up fireproofing external drywall because the houses were too close by code.  It was pretty heavy, and we put up scaffolding for the second floor and put Tyvek wrap over the whole thing.

It was good, I really wished I had taken a time lapse of the whole thing, it would've looked so cool going up!

The whole group at the build site, we biked there!

Ready to build!!

Build Day 2

We switched up the groups and I went out to Louisa to help get a house ready for some new occupants.  The grass hadn't been cut this year, and it was up to my shoulder almost! When our person, Andrea, asked us who wanted to mow I thought of how I liked mowing our yard and riding around, so I volunteered.  She said the mower was in the shed, and I headed to get it.  I was first thrown off by the fact that the door was a foot off the ground...and when I opened the doors, a push mower!! And I looked for that sticker that says "self-propelled"...but it was nowhere to be found.

So, I spent all day today doing what I think could be best described as cutting through the Amazon forest with a push mower.  By lunch, there was not a dry spot on my shirt! I worked that mower right into the ground, until it starting spewing white smoke from burnin up all it's oil.  The house looked way awesome after our group was done, with the others mulching and spreading stone onto the pathways and cleaning and weeding and weedwhacking while I was mowing.

Tonight we had dinner at Bike and Build alumni's house, and it was delicious! Our town hall meeting was great, and I'll end this post by sharing my own highs and lows.

Lows: missing out on streaking the UVA lawn and the sprinkler park today, and my performance in thumper lol

Highs: helping Caroline with her bike, and geniunly enjoying myself in Charlottesville over the last few days

Looking forward to: climbing hills tomorrow, leaving this time zone, and the beard off that has begun with the men shaving tonight!!