College life
Semester Recap and Ready to Bike & Build!!
May 12th
The end of the semester was crazy still and between studying for finals, preparing for a cross country bike trip, and selling still more cycling clothes I had no chance to blog but I’m now ready for the trip, done with finals, and in Yorktown with my girlfriend at her house, the trip leaves in ONE WEEK from VA Beach!
School
Mass and Energy Balances: A. My best class this semester, I didn’t really study at all for the final because I wanted to concentrate on O’Chem and I only needed a 50-something on it to get an A in the class. Well, it was actually realllly hard and I was worried, but I got an 81 which left me with a 96 overall still haha, the class average at the end was a 63.
Organic Chemistry: B-. I studied really hard for the final, but somehow did pretty poorly on it…and ended with an 82.4 which rounded down to B- …which was pretty dissappointing. I accidentally missed one HW assignment, and that was the difference, I went in and talked to my professor but he can’t really do anything.
Those are the only classes that I know my grades in….I’m still waiting to find out what I got on the Calculus of Several Variables final, which I studied all weekend for and think I did really well on. I felt like I walked out with a 100, but that usually isn’t the case haha. That final can count up to 50% of our grade too! Syntech lab and ES are totally in the air too…I’ve always done well in ES and my grades have been good, but every semester I’ve done 5 extra credits (the limit) which add 5 points to my final grade in the class…and this year I was more involved but so busy that I only wrote one extra credit paper, so that worries me a little. I’m going to cut myself off of speculation here haha….I’m just going to have to wait!
Our ES Action Project Manuscripts (which were ALOT of work) got put together and published into a book! The book came out really well, and is our keepsake of sorts from the ES class. The class series is over now, which is sad, after four semesters of getting to know everyone it had become a pretty tight-knit little community, but we’ll still all see eachother! Check out this article in VT News about the book.
Cycling Clothing
On Monday after my last final, I officially turned over all the clothes (10 boxes), the two huge binders of orders, and a GIANT computer folder full of spreadsheets…and went over the whole thing with her. Sounds like she’s really excited for designing the kit this year, which sounds like it is going to be sweet, she’s going for a “retro” look! Think Team Radioshack in the Tour de Gila this year.
Overall, I’m glad that I did the clothing this year, but it was wayyyy more work than I could’ve ever guessed. There are a few reasons that I think I made it so much more work, I’m pretty sure I ranted about them in an earlier post though haha. I think that kit came out really well, and if anybody is still looking for one (we still have lots of extra’s…) email Ashton Graves!
Bike and Build
Last, but certainly not least! I’ve been spending the past few weeks really getting ready for the trip, last Saturday I took a long ride with Hayden Shea and Greg Pfister, and worked on my tan lines. Squeezed in a physical and PPD test at Schiffert, got my volunteer hours with Habitat for Humanity in Roanoke signed off, and with everyone’s help finished raising $4,000!!
So I’m really good to go…it’s crazy now to think that in LESS THAN A WEEK I’ll be biking across the country…man did it sneak up on me. I’m beyond excited for it though, and I’m going to miss my family, my friends, and Lauren over the whole summer but it will hopefully be an experience of a lifetime!
I”m also really excited for my parents to come down to see me off, they rented a beachhouse and my best friends are coming down too! And my uncle Carl and Jean will be coming to the beachhouse to see me off as well! Flattering for me that everyone is going to come down to see me off on my trip, but I think they really just want to spend a few days on the beach haha 
That’s all for now, I will be blogging every few days (as internet access permits) during the trip so stay tuned!!
And pictures!!
Just a few random ones I could find on FB haha.
Before doing the Mule Hell Robeaux, a charity ride in Wytheville
Struggling to hang on to Reid and Justin through the gravel section, gravel is hard!! They ended up riding away for 1st and 2nd haha
Dominating the rock climb on some May Day carnival thing on the Drillfield haha
The hammer, however, was not my specialty lol
Hard at work, here my ES Action Project group working on the Manuscript
And Lauren trying to drown me in the river haha, look on the far right
Craziness
Apr 28th
My last couple weeks have been crazy, and I haven’t had a chance to blog at all. In fact, it’s 1AM now and I should be sleeping for a big test I have tomorrow. But just a quick update:
I have been spending lots of time sending out more clothing orders, updating the VT Cycling website, studying for tests (lots of them), and planning the community bike ride that went down last Friday.
I’ve attached the 7-page manuscript describing the whole process that it took to plan the ride, which is a pretty good read! Click here: Tour de Blacksburg Community Bike Ride Manuscript
And here’s a link to flyer: Apr23 Community Bike Ride Flyer
All in all, things have been going great, I did very well in Mass and Energy Balances, well enough in Organic Chemistry, and am optimistic about today’s test.
The Bike and Build trip is only 21 days away from right now…and there is so much left to do!! Forms and making a presentation, and training!?!?!
I have been healing up very well from when I got crashed out in the home race, and am thankful for that.
That’s all for now, I needed to get something up here haha, more to come hopefully!!
Here’s some fun pictures from the ride I suppose:
My new bike! ...not
Community Bike Ride turnout!
Our sweet poster
Me riding my bike haha...
A day in the life
Apr 5th
(of Andy Reagan) goes something like this:
1:00 AM going to sleep after getting back from a weekend at the beach and getting settled
7:00 AM alarm goes off, but don’t want to get up so put it on snooze
7:30 AM now too late for D2 breakfast or to wet shave, decide to sleep for another 15 minutes
7:45 AM rush out of bed, get dressed and on the bike to head to to 8AM class
7:46 AM start day 1 of my photo project, by taking a picture of myself at arms lenght with the the “canon” at eye level. I plan to take them daily for a few months and combine into a time lapse. we shall see
7:53 AM get to class early!! brought the bike into class, came in the back door and left the bike in the back of the room, but he’s just handing out tests until:
8:04 AM get my mass and energy balance test back and got a 100! my raw was a 96, and he curved the class average 56 to a 62, so I got two points added on to the last test since Blackboard (online grading system) can only handle 100 lol
8:30 AM doodling in class, taking notes, and plan out my agenda for the rest of the day
8:50 AM bike back to Lee, it’s warmed up to like 70s. some guy walked out in front of me and I locked my rear wheel hard and powerskidded across the drillfield. the near death experience wakes me up a little more
8:55 AM back in the room, try to decide whether to get breakfast at d2 or hold out for lunch…the banana I ate in mass and energy will have to suffice
8:57 AM open mail.andyreagan.com to 38 new emails…sweet!
9:15 AM after sorting and replying to tons of email, quite a few about VT cycling jerseys 
, decide to start on the Vector Calc HW
9:20-11:20 work solid on the HW…learning a lot from the book and txting some ppl to keep my busy. waiting to see if Stephan responds so I can go check out his MTB and to see if Kieth Shields is at Tech so I could show him around!
11:25 AM stephan responds, and so I hop on my bike to go out to Foxridge to check out his MTB for sale, meet him at owens
11:30 AM on the way out to Foxridge to check out the bike, absolutely beautiful day outside…I’m hungry though
11:40 AM riding the MTB around the parking lot…the brakes are pretty iffy and the shifting isn’t great. for $200…idk, I tell Stephan I’ll think about it and let him know
12:00 PM back at campus, call Ruthie to see where she wants to meet, which is Torg but we compromise at Owens so I can get food
12:05 PM bike tied outside owens, having brought my vector calc stuff after I left Lee, head in to get food. all the lines are pretty long…so I just get pasta (no line!)
12:10 PM eating and waiting for Ruthie, she shows up after a little while
12:20 PM she’s gotten food, and we go over the HW problems that were the most troublesome. for once, the help is evenly spread I think
1:05 PM we finish up a pretty productive study session at owens, and I head to Lee Hall to grab a VT shirt before heading to the engineering open house
1:20 PM back to Lee, up to my room, back down and over to squires I prepare to recruit prospective students into galileo
1:21 PM grab a CT on the way in, and the open house is actually pretty empty (not suprising since it’s 85 and sunny out). I read pretty much the whole CT…some interesting stuff. it’s not very long.
2:15 PM after recruiting some freshman into Galileo, head to Vector Calc class
2:20 PM the earliest i have ever been to this class, I start txting both shields and Lauren and javier
2:30 PM dr floyd shows up right on time as always, and despite txting the whole time, I had a front row seat and interacting with dr floyd a lot during class, answering questions and i followed everything. probably the best class yet, understanding-wise, and no doubt in my mind that it was from doing 3 hours of HW for that class during the day…my blood was running with surface integrals
3:30 PM get an email that I got a package, always exciting!
3:45 PM class actually ran all the way today, for like the first time, and I hop back on the bike to go see how Lauren is doing
3:50 PM she’s not feeling well and has a lot of work to do today, never a good combination, and is trying to relax under a tree on the drillfield before her 4PM class, I walk with her to class
4PM head to owen’s mailroom to pick up my package, sure enough it’s a big one from Amazon! so tempted to open it…
4:05 PM go wait at the chapel for people who didn’t get my email about changing the time of the SAYG ride I posted from 4:15PM to 5:15PM so that Brett could come. I sit in the beautiful day and open the package, and put the tail lights together. altogether the box includes three tail lights, lauren’s helmet, her speedometer, a front bike light, my new cyclocomputer, and I’m sure some other stuff i forgot about.
4:18 PM will massey shows up, and I tell him about the change of time. I think he headed out for a ride anyway, nbd, i just didn’t want to leave anybody stranded
4:30 PM back to Lee and up in the room, begin getting ready for my ride and putting away some of the stuff I got. I go to put the cyclocomputer on, but want to take my time and do it right and don’t really have time before the ride
5:00 PM Lauren comes up after her class to take a nap, where she won’t sleep too long
5:05 PM Hayden comes to my room, and we pump up his tires and head over to the chapel for the ride. I wake up Lauren before we leave…
5:17 PM Brett shows up to the ride…and we wait for about two more minutes but no one shows. Head out tom’s creek rd to do the regular SAYG loop. the sun has gone away a little….and rain is threatening but we go regardless
5:45 PM a beautiful overcast condition to ride in (serious haha), Brett outsprints me to a town sign right before we get onto the Huck
5:55 PM starts to rain pretty good on the trail…but we’re not on roads, and we won’t melt so nbd
6:00 PM the rain turns to small hail, and it hurts!! we take refuge under 460
6:05 PM we venture out again, but the hail starts coming even harder and luckily theres another small tunnel right ahead
6:10 PM soaking wet, the hail starts getting bigger and bigger, and wind begins to pick up, blowing it straight through the tunnel! freezing cold and getting pelted with golf balls of hail, having to yell to hear Brett or Hayden…it’s crazy!
It was crazy!! the chunks were huge
6:20 PM we venture on…and make it back. the clouds clear completely and it’s back to warm sunshine! hayden and I head back to the dorms and then straight to d2
6:30 PM David Lynch joins on his birthday and we eat a glorious feast at Dietrick 2. (no one actually knows what d2 really stands for).
7:25 PM check mail on the way back, and my MTB pedals are in the mailbox!! along with 5 letters which are presumably for cycling clothing. I’m feeling popular haha
7:40 PM do some cycling stuff, think about what we can talk about, about the website, at the meeting and draft a few new designs on paper
8:15 PM cycling meeting is pretty chill, don’t do a whole lot….
9:00 PM get ice cream at Deets with Reid, Ben Rice, Jacob Aber, Tyler, Zach Morrey, and Nick S…cookies and cream heaven
10:00 PM back at the dorm room, clean off the bike and put on the new speedometer, carefully taking my time. the head unit is tiny, I really like it. I’m pretty interested to see what my cadence is like on the road…
11:00 PM head down to Lauren’s room to say goodnight…talk for a little while. she’s finishing up her essay
11:30-now PM write an excruciatingly detailed post about my productive day!!
Well, hope you enjoyed haha, one of these days maybe I’ll try to tweet my whole day lol. If every day was like this, I’d get a lot done… K later!