The Adventure Begins/Began....

Hey readers! If you have been avidly checking this page you deserve a detailed update about what has been going on. I hope my twitter posts have provided something to assure you that I was still alive, but I know that you can't convey much through a twitter post. This has been a great trip so far, I can tell you that much for sure. So many great people and so many awesome things to see.

Providence, RI is a very nice city for us to have started out in. Even my cab driver from the airport to my hotel was very supportive and interested in the trip. Orientation started at the Brown University Hillel and it was very quickly clear that this was a trip like no other. Bikes were being put together, sleeping pads distributed, and at the same time everyone was trying to get to know each other. That first day was mostly icebreaker games and logistics. Everyone got along super well.

The next day was more orientation including a "shake-down" ride in the area to make sure our bikes were all working well. They also had a Bike and Build alumni come and give a type of motivational speech about leadership and stuff like that. I don't think it was anything new for the 30 born leaders there, but it was interesting.

Then there was the first build day. we painted a habitat house in providence and got acquainted with Herman, the director of the Providence area Habitat affiliate, who is a very interesting dutch guy who has worked with many previous Bike and Build trips.

Our first riding day came all too quickly and we went down to the Brown University boathouse to have a wheel dip ceremony, in which we all dip our bike tires in the Atlantic Ocean to mark the beginning of our trip. From there we rode to our first destination, Pomfret, CT, where we got a great welcome from the First Congregational Church of Pomfret.

After that was Granby, CT. I had an interesting adventure on the way to Granby because I got separated from the group I was riding with. Somewhere along the way I missed a turn, but fortunately for me three other bikers ahead of me had taken the same wrong turn. When I caught up to them they were asking two local people, one of them the mailman, for directions. We figured out that the directions our fearless leaders had given us were actually pointing us to a dirt road that was under construction, so we may have been better off taking the wrong turn, since we were going basically in the right direction. Since being lost also had caused us to miss the designated lunch stop, we stopped and ate at a local pizza place. They were very interested in our journey and fed us some very delicious pizza. Our day ended at the First Congregational Church of Granby with a very relaxing yoga session.

Our next day was a ride to Kent, CT, where we stayed in a very nice school gymnasium. From Kent we rode to Poughkeepsie, NY where we got to do a little swimming and clean our bikes. After Poughkeepsie was Roscoe, which was a tiny little town where we stayed in another gym. We gave some local kids a bike clinic and they asked lots of inquisitive questions about our trip and about how our bikes worked. We went to sleep before the sun had even gone down, to prepare for our longest ride day yet.

We got up at the crisp hour of 5am and started our 85ish mile journey. There was beautiful mist everywhere and it was a very nice start. I got my first flat tire that day and discovered that there were some pretty big gashes in my tires. With those replaced, the day continued and I made it to Binghamton, NY. We had our first day off in Binghamton and we got to go see Toy Story 3, which was a great movie.

The next day was a comparatively short trip to Wysox, PA where we saw our first significant amount of rain. Also, consequently a day I decided not to bring my rain jacket with me, but fortunately I got to the building we were staying in before it really got nasty.

That brings me to today and our trip to Wellsboro, PA which was a pretty ugly trip since we had to drive along side tons of oil trucks and other noisey, un-bikefriendly vehicles.

More details to come and I promise there will be more frequent updates from now on. Be sure to click on the "Route Tracker" link to the right if you want to see where we are, what were doing, pictures and other rider's journal entries. Thanks for Reading!