Eastern Time!

Whew.  It's been a busy couple weeks...

We have made serious progress since my last update (which was all the way back in Kansas - now we're in Indiana) - we're back in Eastern time!  The two highlights have been Olathe, KS (a suburb of Kansas City) and St. Louis, MO.  In Olathe, we had a hero's welcome complete with a gigantic American flag; this thing was seriously about 50 feet long.  That night we were honored at a Kansas City Royals game on the biggest scoreboard in major league baseball:

On the ride to Olathe, we experienced the steepest hill of the trip - it was only about 100 yards long, but it was an 18% grade.  It looked like we were about to bike up a wall, and some of the cyclists mentioned their front wheel was lifting off of the ground while pedaling.  We then continued onwards through Missouri.

I want to take a minute and go into more detail about Missouri.  This state proved to be the hardest point of the trip so far for two reasons.  First, it was continuous climbing.  Missouri is full of rolling hills, so some days we would literally alternate climbing a quarter mile then descending a quarter mile for 100 miles.  That turns out to be a huge amount of climbing (probably around 8,000-10,000 feet in a day).  As if that wasn't hard enough, it was hot - I mean ridiculously HOT.  The temperature was on average 105 degrees with 90% humidity, resulting in conditions that felt like 115 degrees.  At these temperatures it is an absolute chore to stay hydrated.  Let's take a moment to do a little math:

You are supposed to drink a bottle of water every 10 miles in normal temperature.  In this temperature, I averaged 1 and a half bottles every 10 miles.

Each bottle is 24 oz.  1 and a half bottles is 36 oz.

For a century, that equates to 36 oz. for 10 10-mile stretches = 360 oz. of water.  To give you a handle on the amount of liquid that is, a gallon is 128 oz.  So, I'd drink about 2 and a half gallons of water a day.  Whoah.

That amount of work gives you a sense of accomplishment and pride - the people on this team are working extremely hard in some harsh conditions.  Don't let anyone ever tell you biking is easy.

But enough about the conditions.  The next stop was in St. Louis, home of the world famous St. Louis arch:

And yes, that's the team playing around in the fountain.  We are very mature for our age...

We've visited a couple of different chapters along the way.  We visited the University of Missouri, Indiana State, and we're currently at Indiana University.  Tomorrow we'll be heading to Indianapolis for a much deserved day off.  The weekend after next, we'll be back in Blacksburg - I'm putting out a call to all friends to come visit while we ride through.  I'll post more details a little closer to the date.

That's all I've got for now, hope everyone is enjoying their summer - its flying by!

Get The Heck Outta Dodge!

Since Denver, we've been riding pretty hard and we are now in Kansas.  The temperature in Eastern Colorado/Western Kansas has rocketed up into the 90's (and in several places, over 100 degrees!); I personally wish we could go back into some of the colder weather we experienced earlier in the trip.

Right after our stop in Denver, we had another day off in Colorado Springs.  In one of the coolest programmed events of the trip so far, we got to see behind the scenes at the US Olympic Training Center:

We got to see where the wrestlers train, where the gymnasts train, the swimming pool, and even got to eat in their cafeteria.

We also got to meet THE Bruce Rogers - the Bruce Rogers who inspired Journey of Hope in 1987 by riding across the country for Push America.  He still actively bikes (and is still pretty good at it too):

Since then we've been riding through extreme heat.  Our first stop in Kansas was Garden City, home of the world's largest municipal swimming pool.  That night we were also treated to Golden Corral, giving the team a chance to show off our incredible appetite (we had two poor waitresses constantly running back and forth the whole time).  Last night we stayed in Dodge City, KS (birthplace of the phrase "get the hell outta Dodge") where we were treated to a wild-west museum, a mock gunfight, and a can-can show:

Tomorrow we ride to Wichita for a day off.  Apparently tonight we get to eat some gigantic steaks for dinner - I can't wait!  Everybody enjoy your humpday!

P.S.  Can't wait to see the final Harry Potter in a couple of days - it's already getting rave reviews.

Arrival in Denver

Sorry it's been so long since the last post...we've had an extremely tough stretch on the road and I've been too tired (read: lazy) to put anything new up.

After leaving the Cushman ranch, we racked over the Tetons into Jackson, WY to start our stretch of centuries. This is why we racked over them:

An extremely high grade and no shoulder made the Tetons just a tad too dangerous to bike over.  We did have a string of bad luck afterwards also - a stomach virus made its way through the team and we had a crash, but everybody is pretty much back to normal.  I was one of the lucky 5 people on the team who did not get sick and managed to bike every ride.  Oh yeah, and we got to see some wildlife!

On the last century day (from Casper to Wheatland) we got caught in a couple of crazy storms.  At one point, this is what we were outrunning:

We could see individual streaks of lightning a couple miles away from us.  It was a little disconcerting, but pretty cool at the same time.  We were all happy to finally make it to Colorado (our 5th state), despite Wyoming's best attempt to hold us in.  When biking from Wheatland to Cheyenne, we experienced constant headwinds of 15-20 mph with gusts of 30 mph...try biking in that for 5 hours and tell me you aren't frustrated.  We averaged about 6-8 mph the whole day, making it a miserable day.

The day after the obnoxious headwinds proved to be the polar opposite - it was one of the prettiest rides we have done so far (not to mention the team hauled tail).  We ate lunch in Fort Collins, CO (our first stop in the state) at Raising Cane's, the first restaurant we've been to that had respectable sweet tea.  After leaving Fort Collins (home of the Colorado State Rams) we headed to Boulder, home of the Colorado Buffaloes.  We spent the 4th of July watching fireworks on a rooftop.

Yesterday we had a police escort from Invesco Field (home of the Denver Broncos) to the capitol building in the heart of the city.  We got to meet Chad Coltrane (CEO of Push America) and Bruce Rogers (the rider in 1987 who inspired the beginning of Journey of Hope) and now have some free time to explore the city.  Tomorrow we head to Colorado Springs where we have another day off - I'll post more when there's more to post.  In the meantime, have a good week!

P.S. We met up with North Route in Denver.  That's Chris Anger on the far right, one of my brothers from the Virginia Tech chapter.