Casper, WY
Total Distance: 55.62 milesRide Time: 3 hours 14 min
Avg. Speed: 17.48 mph
Max Speed: 35.7 mph
Bike: July, 12th- I don't remember the whole ride but I do remember being on Rt. 25 for awhile which was construction. About half way down 25 there was a construction women ushering us off to the side of the road. Okay before I tell you the rest of the story I need to tell you that I decided, as did a lot of other people, that we would never ride in any motor vehicle during any part of this trip. So far I've ridden my bike from point A to point B everyday. Even if I get lost, my bike brakes or night falls, I will get to the destination even if I walk. Anyway, so this women tells us to get off the road and that we can't ride on 25 because there isn't enough room. We ask her if we can walk along the side of the road. No, she says. How about we ride on the construction part of the road? No, I need to put you all in the back of the pickup and bring you to the end of the construction zone, 5 miles away. At this point we are getting nervous because their are no options. We ask again if we can ride on the construction side, No! you'll each get a $500 fine. All of the sudden Rich takes off down the road, so Eytan and I take off down the construction road. Of course at this point everyone with us follows. I admit that the decision was very selfish and I wasn't thinking of Bike and Build and how we came across as a team. It was selfish because I felt trapped and out of options. I couldn't get vanned, or put in a car. It ended up that the lady called the police after we left and told them to give us all $500 tickets. The police didn't agree with her and said just to let us ride. Never the less, it was the fastest 5 miles of my life. We all got off the exit, excited and scared. But we didn't ride in a truck and thats all that mattered at the time.
The second part to this story is called the naked mile. It's tradition if you ride across country on a bike that you have to ride at least one mile naked. So a little of the exit on a very desolate road with only jackrabbits onlooking we did it. We pulled over stripped down and road 1 mile with nothing but shoes and out backpacks. A few cars got quite a show. An older women even drove by slowly laughing as we scrambled to put our clothes back on. It ended up being a fairly good day, with many lessons learned. Long day in two days!
Build: July 13th- We were able to sleep in a little and even watch some TV before going to the work site. They weren't ready for 30 volunteers so when they told us to put sod down on a habitat house lawn, we were done in less then an hour. After that we headed a few blocks up to work on a second habitat house. There we made a retaining wall and did a lot of trimming and spackling inside the house. It was nice giving our upper bodies a workout for a change, even if it was hard.
Ride on!
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posted by Todd Johnson @ 10:22 AM
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