Team F(b)LAIR

Daniel, Jessica, Me, Blair

Meet Team F(b)LAIR, the best crew team of the five. Of course, I'm bias. Originally, we toyed with just calling ourselves team Blair because the first week we all wandered around like deer in headlights with Blair kindly instructing us seeing as she was the only one who really knew what was going on. We have survived a trip of water inundated camp-sites, no kitchen, monsoon rain with lightning, and of course a few accidental elbows thrown in tight sleeping arrangements (sorry Blair!). Nothing brings a group of people together like vandalizing streets with gigantic pink arrows and encouraging messages, or trying to fork sliced vegetables off the bottom of a still hot oven, or toying with the idea of a "family" bed in the home stay house that only had one room that did not smell of dirty ferret cage. (I'm sad to say Blair and I unwittingly made the budget van cab smell of ferret cage the next day on crew...eww!) .

Definitely friends...family for life.

Use Your Dragon Skills

Unsurpisingly, Kansas and Missouri have been fairly ordinary and pretty boring. We've been doing 90+ miles almost every day, though we've also been consistently 2-4 miles short of doing a century. So, to spice things up we decided to enact our "dragon skills" and spend and evening doing some recreational fire breathing. Surprisingly, breathing fire is extremely easy! All it takes is one secret ingredient, a lighter, and the ability not to aspirate before you have the chance to exhale/create a fire ball. My one tip is to hold the lighter a good distance from your face to insure intact eyebrows when the fire breathing fun is over.

Columbus in under two weeks!

Denver

Blair, Jessica, Amanda, and Chris
Denver Solidarity Ride

Denver Solidarity Ride

Summit, Monarch Pass

So, this is a little out of order, and a little bit of back tracking. On our way through Colorado, we reached the summit of Monarch Pass, which is the highest point we will bike to on the trip. I felt awesome when we reached the top at about 11,300 feet, but quickly got altitude sickness after resting at elevation and eating a bologna sandwich...I'm thinking the sandwich had something to do with the illness. Thankfully, with a team full of doctors, everyone knew to sit me down and give me water until I was stable enough to bike down without veering off the mountain pass. It was an awesome feeling to still be able to finish even after wanting to curl up into the fetal position for a good 45 minutes. Can you tell I want to vomit in the picture? No?...good.

From there we eventually ended up in Denver for our first solidarity ride. Basically, we set up a booth at a giant tent sale, and people paid to ride with us to the stadium. 20 miles on our day off! It was an enjoyable ride, thought my knees could have used the day off. That evening, in celebration of Cinco de Mayo, we headed to a Mexican restaurant for margaritas (virgin margaritas for me) and some guacamole. The interesting combination of Cinco de Mayo decorations and people dressed for derby day made it one of the most interesting and fun nights of the ride...aside from prom, of course. On the ride back from the restaurant Denver decided it would be fun to hail on us, but thankfully the weather cleared up to just the brutal head wind we faced the next day during out century. 

Century

Completed my first century today! It was horrible. It was also amazing. We rode 105.5 miles from Pueblo, CO to Eads, CO with a 15-25 mph head wind the entire day. This is what made the day absolutely miserable. In an attempt to combat the wind we decided to have the team draft behind the vans. This entailed the vans driving between 10-15 mph while the entire team rode in pairs behind them, essentially eliminating the wind. Perfect! In theory yes, in practice not so much. While it did make 20 miles much easier, it was an awkward balance between going slow enough for the slow riders to keep up, and fast enough to keep the fast riders from ramming into the back of the van. Needless to say the idea was abandoned for the last 25 miles of the ride. These 25 miles were by far the most challenging. Not only had we already been riding for 8 hours with a head wind, but now we were racing the sun. Must finish before the sun sets! I am proud to say that I finished, and after such a difficult day, walking into the Eads School Gym was one of the best moments of this trip.

Gunnison

Hanging out in Gunnison, CO on crew with Blair. We drove the budget truck down early in order to give a presentation to 400 or so elementary school students. With a few hours to kill before the presentation we've taken over a table at the local coffee shop and are enjoying an awesome lunch. Nothing like a spinach based quesedilla when every other day has been either pb&j or a ham sandwich!

Ride for World Health Prom 2012

Amanda and Laura

Blair

Blair

Chris and Josh

Jessica

Erin

Fuzzy Ben

Jess

Jessie

Lisa

Mark and Reena

Ben

Last night was the first every Ride for World Health Prom. I showed up at the condo in Telluride, CO to a makeshift prom; and I won a bed in the bed lottery! So, we all danced awkwardly to old prom songs and took classic prom photos. It was an amazing night!

Summit of Boulder Mountain in Boulder, UT

Utah

Utah has been both good and bad to us. The views are gorgeous, but the drivers(and police) are not happy to share the road with cyclists. While some drivers in campers will give a thumbs up while we slowly make our way to the 10,000 foot summit of Boulder Mountain, others call the police to complain about having to slow down in order to pass us as we try and stick as close to the white line as possible without being blown by the gusts of wind into the rumble strip. I broke 40mph in Utah, both an exhilarating and horrifying experience. It is one thing to speed downhill enjoying the ride, it's completely different when the tail wind is relentlessly pushing you downhill. A for weather, until yesterday's storm that made it too dangerous to ride, it has been beautiful. Our first night of camping in Bryce Canyon was extremely enjoyable, but we were rained and flooded out of the Natural Bridges campsite. Internet is very unpredictable as we are staying in small towns with maybe one coffee shop, and no garuntee of wi-fi. Also, national parks are dead zones in terms if cell phone reception...beautiful beautiful dead zones. Hopefully, Colorado will be more conducive to blogging and posting pictures.

Nutella!

Internet has been non-existent the past couple of days, and even now it is spotty. The past few nights we have been camping, first at Hole in the Wall in the Mohave Preserve, and then in Shoshone. We arrived in Las Vegas on the 17th. Even in Vegas Internet was scares! Thanks to awesome planning, I was able to meet up with my grandparents in Vegas. I cannot even begin to express how nice it was to see a familiar face, eat a good meal, and sleep in a real bed. Also! Along with a contribution from my Aunt and Uncle, they bought the team eight jars of nutella. Since I am on crew tomorrow, I am going to make a nutella pie for the team. But shh, it\'s hopefully going to be a surprise!

We Are Young - Fun

I think this is the unofficial theme song for the ride. Every time we get in the vans to go to the start of the day's route this song is on the radio. Its actually a great pump up song when we're all in the vans in our kits with the excitement of the ride in the air and the music is blasting so the base makes the whole van vibrate and move.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8zslGAqy5k

San Diego to Huntington Beach 4/11/12

Total Distance: 43.63 miles
Total Time: 5:24:06
Moving Time: 3:54:23
Min Elevation: -39 feet
Min Grade: -7.6%
Max Speed: 26.58 miles/hour
Average Moving Speed: 11.17 miles/hour
Elevation Gain: 2,557 feet
Max Elevation: 213 feet
Max Grade: 5.9%

Today we kicked off the ride by dipping out rear tires in the Pacific Ocean. It was freezing! The wind was blowing us over, practically, and there was a salty rain. The first 20 miles to the snack stop were beautiful once we left the beach, that is until we turned a corner and hit a wall of rain. Thankfully, the rain only lasted about 20 minutes or so before stopping. The route then took up through Camp Pendleton, where we had no support vans because only those with an active military IDs are allowed to drive through the base. We had a beautiful lunch by the beach, and finished in Huntington Beach where we cooked and ate dinner out on the beach and watched the sunset. Today was difficult, but there is marked improvement everyday. I did have to hop in the sag wagon, but this is a no shame ride. Soon these long days will be a breeze! *fingers crossed

Pacific Ocean Start

A quick video of everyone un-racking their bike and getting ready to dip the rear tire in the Pacific Ocean!

San Diego Ride 4/10/12

Total Distance: 36.32
Total Time: 4:33:00
Moving Time: 3:22:21
Min Elevation: -40 feet
Min Grade: -8.6%
Max Speed: 25.20 miles/hour
Average Moving Speed: 10.77 miles/hour
Elevation Gain: 2,438 feet
Max Elevation: 477 feet
Max Grade: 9.7%

36 miles and change was a nice surprise seeing as I was expecting a 50 mile ride. We started at The University of California San Diego, after giving a lecture on sever acute malnutrition, and biked back to the JCC where we have been staying. There were some amazing climbs and hills that I am extremely proud to say I completed. Tomorrow we're off to Huntington Beach, CA for the official start of the cross country ride. I am going to sleep well tonight, I'm exhausted. However, I'm not sore! Knock on wood it stays that way!

I also had my first adventure with sink laundry today; I realized I should smell decent enough for the pack to stay with me. Here's hoping my jersey drys by tomorrow morning, because I'm fairly confident riding in a wet jersey is not a experience I want to have.

San Diego Ride 4/9/12

Total Distance: 22.25 miles
Total Time: 3:28:32
Moving Time: 2:26:15
Min Elevation: -21 feet
Min Grade: -8.5%
Max Speed: 25.43 miles/hour
Average Moving Speed: 9.13 miles/hour
Elevation Gain: 2,045 feet
Max Elevation: 467 feet
Max Grade: 5.6%

...definitely not a ride for the weak of heart or the weak of mind, that hill is a soul crusher. Time to curl up in my sleeping bag with my heating pad and ibuprofen for tomorrows 8am 50 mile ride!

San Diego

After thirty-six hours in the vans, the team has finally arrived in San Diego. For a couple of days we will be in "retreat", where we will get to know each other, get into the routine and get used to riding in a pack on the roads. Today we are riding 20 miles, tomorrow 50 miles, and then Wednesday is the big day. On Wednesday, the team will set out on an 80 mile ride to Huntington Beach! The 80 miles should not be too bad with a stop 20 miles in, lunch 40 miles in, another stop 60 miles in and the end at 80. A nice eight to nine hour day to kick of the cross county voyage.

The Route

The Ride for World Health 2012 route is almost a perfect b-line from San Diego to Washington, DC. Below is the rough outline of the ride, showing the start and end points, as well as the "destination" cities where event days for the lecture series will take place. The farthest distance traveled in a day will be 120 miles by bike and the shortest distance will be 55 miles by bike.

• San Diego, CA
  
• Los Angeles, CA
• Las Vegas, NV
• Cedar City, UT
• Telluride, CO
  
• Denver, CO
• Kansas City, MO
• St. Louis, MO
  
• Louisville, KY
• Cincinnati, OH
• Columbus, OH
• Washington, DC