Today was a quick 42.6 miles from Saratoga to Rawlins. Due to some construction on the highway and a helpful staff at the WY Department of Transportation, we made the highway into a bike path for part of today! There were lane closures affecting the highway shoulder, so the WY-DOT gave us permission to ride on through the dead lane on I-80 West today. The road was milled and had bumps along the way, but the chance to ride our bikes on a highway without having to worry about traffic was a pretty sweet experience. Some riders even got to operate a bit of heavy machinery!

Today’s sweep challenge (given by the last 2 riders of the day for us to complete along the ride) was to find the weirdest things we could along the side of the road and bring them back to the host for judging. I hit the jackpot. Along the highway I found what must be the creepiest baby doll of all time, you can be the judge!

Some other folks found an oversize load sign, a giant N, railroad ties, skulls/bones, leather chaps, it was a good day for treasure hunting!

Most riders made good time and got to Rawlins pretty early. We had some time to kill before we could get in the host which was spent eating Thai, going thrifting, and hitting up the local WalMart.

Over dinner and chatting a local radio host noticed us and came in to chat and do an impromptu interview of a few of our crew. Shoutout to you Rawtown Rick – thanks for making time for us!

All-in-all a pretty great day!

-Celete

The coldest morning of our trip so far, 44 degrees while the team was getting ready for a 62 mile ride. We biked around the block for pancakes provided by a local diner, which were delicious. After getting the fuel necessary for a long trip, we hit the road.

I rolled with James and Paige, later picking up Neeva and David Mog. The first half of the ride was cruising through the misty mountains, a relaxing experience on my end. As the day drew on, it began to heat up a bit. We made it to lunch to refuel and take a rest, the mosquitos were relentless.

The post ride lunch was mainly downhill with a couple long climbs. The crest of the final climb opened up to a view of the valley, all downhill from there! Easy breezy into town, followed by a shower and an ice cream stop. All in all a solid ride.

-CTM

Today was quite the day! We started off at the base of the Rocky Mountains in a town called Cañon City on our way towards Fairplay.

The ride started off on relatively barren roads with gradual inclines of a few thousand feet, making the ride both enjoyable and challenging. After a quick hour-long lunch nap, we carried on into the Pike National Forest where we had our first full view of the Rockies which left us in awe.

Twenty miles later we made a pit stop in Hartsel for some ice cream (per usual), and then carried on for the last few miles of the journey. Unfortunately, due to a major detour that interfered with our route, we had some difficult encounters with traffic that rattled some of our riders, but we rallied together as a group and used the event as a learning experience. Overall a pretty great day! 😀

-David Kelly

The day started by fueling up with amazing Chorizo breakfast burritos, and coffee cake provided by Will and the members of the community Presbyterian church in Rocky Ford. After breakfast, John, Frieda, Adam and I headed west for our 58 mile ride to Pueblo.

It was another day on Route 50, and just a few miles out of town I could see the Rocky mountains on the horizon. This was the first time seeing such large hills in the distance since the Blue Ridge Mountains. As we rode farther into Colorado, it started to feel more and more like the West. We had Prairie dogs run across the road in front of us, and we started to pass large ranches.

Eventually we rode into Pueblo, the biggest city we have been in for quite some time. We crossed the Arkansas river again and soon we arrived at Westminster Presbyterian church. We got in a van and shuttled to showers, then I took a nap before dinner. We shared a great meal with the church members, and soon after we set off to the nearest Thrift store, hunting for outfits to wear for our B&B Prom in a few weeks.  Almost everybody left with a fun new outfit to wear for the rest of the trip. After that I headed back to our home for the night to sleep before the build day the next day.  

-Henry Courchaine

Today was a van day from Lamar, CO to Rocky Ford, CO. I was a safety navigator for James, and we scouted out and set up a lunch spot while cruising through Eastern Colorado. The landscape changed quickly as we crossed the state line yesterday, from corn and wheat fields to open grassland. Apart from the physical changes in scenery, the changes in trip dynamic are pretty apparent!

After passing the halfway point, we have gotten to know each other pretty well, been through tough Missouri rides that swamped us with thunderstorms, beamed us with unrelenting Kansas sun, and challenged our mental strength with endless rolling hills of Appalachia. I’ve noticed that the other riders have much more confidence- starting the day with excitement (or annoyance, when looking at an elevation map) instead of dread- has been a huge transformation from the beginning of the trip. Any apprehension has melted away and turned into eagerness to tackle the day. Even in challenges separate from biking- navigating without internet available, handling occasional falls- have been unable to stop any one of us. It’s awesome observing the mental and physical strength of the other team members, and attempting to take on some of the same strength to get through tough days has been incredibly humbling. 

-Andrea

Today’s ride day across the Colorado-Kansas border into Lamar, CO was a smooth 101 miles which marked the halfway point of our trip in miles (~2009 of ~4018) and our first official century (a 100+ mile ride). 

While this may not be the first century ride of Bike and Build for some of our riders, such as the 94 mile ride into El Dorado, KS where some groups opted to ride an extra 6 miles for ice cream to complete a century, or the accentidal century on an 85 mile day in Kentucky where Sean and Freida’s group missed a turn and went an extra 15 miles “off cue”, today was the first day where the intended route exceeded 100 miles. And due to some favorable conditions, it was a perfect day to have the significant majority of our team complete such a high mileage day: 

Another wonderful route on highway 50 with the wide shoulders, flat Kansas terrain and good weather which provided us with low temperatures, favorable winds and a bit of cloud cover…

… a timezone change which gave us an extra hour to complete the ride…

…and one of our most anticipated border crossings of the trip. One rider later spoke about how seeing pictures of a Bike and Build group at the border of Colorado 3 years ago was a significant snapshot in her mind as a partial inspiration for participating in CUS 19.

Almost all of the ride groups today took a similar relaxed ~13-15 mph pace, which resulted in enjoying our lunch breaks and border crossings as one large group, and an overall feeling that despite riding in separate 2-5 person groups, all 31 of us shared roughly the same mentality that today’s century day was one to relax and savor. Thank you Kansas for the flat rides, wide roads, and favorable weather that provided us with many conversational opportunities, but we’re all now looking forward to the beautiful Colorado terrain and Rocky Mountains ahead.

-James

Today was a wild 57 mile ride from Dodge City to Garden City. Flat and easy terrain the whole day, with some fantastic tailwinds for the last 20 miles.

Wolf, Fran, Alexis and I found a wind turbine manufacturing plant about 2 miles out from our host and spent a decent 50 minutes exploring. GE wind turbines are 116 ft. long and a blade weighs more than 36 tons.

The photo below depicts our sweep challenge: “best western”, up to your own interpretation. We specifically selected a dystopian future/post-apocalyptic western.

The YMCA of Garden City was gracious enough to host us for the night. The crew spent the evening jumping between ice cream at Sonic, racquetball, stocking up on groceries, and some wonderful haircuts brought to us by our very own Freida Pan.

There also was a near tornado sighting but Kansas decided to keep it’s weather in check, instead.
– Melissa

We set out bright and early on the 4th heading towards Dodge City, Kansas. The groups cruised through the first 40 miles of cornfields to the premiere lunch spot at an old school sign stating that we were at the halfway point between San Fran and New York. 

After lunch, the Kansas heat steadily increased and the headwinds picked up. Unfortunately for Sean, our American flag bearer, this created some serious drag, but he powered through the last 37 miles of flats nonetheless. All groups successfully completed the ride, and even sweep (Sean and I) arrived in Dodge City by 4:30!

To our surprise, there was a sweet water park across the street with two big water slides, a climbing wall overhanging the pool, and a lazy river. A group of us hung out for a few hours and attempted evening out our jersey tans (no luck). Afterwards, we enjoyed some tacos at our host and went to a distillery in town to view the fireworks. It was a successful holiday!!

-Alexis

Carolyn, the executive director of the Stafford County Economic Development, and our other hosts provided a great breakfast to get us energized for the build day. Everyone piled into the vans to get to the new Co-Op Facility and I started by edging the walls and ceilings (and got a lot of useful paintings tips from Paul). Later, Frieda and I worked on laying adhesive for rug tiles and it got really messy, but we got a lot of work done. Everybody also got to see a historic photo gallery building which they were now planning on leasing to resident artists. Then, after finishing up at the works site, they took us to see and learn about the history of the Stafford County Flour Mills. Every one of us were gifted a bag of Hudson Cream flour and our hosts got us these delicious empanada like things called beirocks. 

People went to see a wheat harvesting combine at a nearby farm. Riding on the combine with Mog and talking to the guy harvesting was super cool and interesting. Overall, I think my favorite part was when the two kids of the host family told us about what they wanted to do when they grew up and taught me that I could chew wheat grains and the proteins in them would make it into gum. Making a lot of progress on the Co-Op facility and learning all about Saint John made this build day a great one. ?

-Sean

It was an early, warm, summer morning. We woke up at 5am to a wonderful breakfast of burritos and coffee cake prepared by Newton First Presbyterian Church. After breakfast burritos and coffee cake we had our route meeting in the parking lot. Galen, 92, from Kansas, prepared his recumbent bike in the parking lot alongside our riders. Galen rode with us out of town as the sun rose. His two pieces of life advice were to exercise every day and to keep negative thoughts out.

As Galen broke off at the edge of town, we pushed on towards the next towns on the way to St John. Our first stop was in Buhler for a snack in the shade of the water tower. We drank fat drops of water as they fell from a leak high above.

As we rode on, we stopped for lunch at a field to bask in the breeze and the hay bales. The goal of beating the afternoon heat motivated us to push on. 

Eventually, we saw camels and had to stop for a picture. A welcome break from a long day in the saddle, we watched the camels and snacked on granola bars. Shortly after, a highway worker drove up and told us there was a house with ice water in 2 miles. We were there in no time and sat down in the shade to ice cold water from a cooler on the side of the road. We wrote a thank you note and pushed on.

After turning north towards St John’s, we encountered a fierce headwind. Even though we only faced it for 2 miles, it drained us mentally and physically. The hot tub and pool at our host motivated us to push to the end and we arrived at the IOOF Lodge in St John’s thoroughly exhausted. We met our hosts and an energetic and intelligent young boy named Garrett. Spending time with him and our hosts, we learned about their lives and what they do for fun.

After a wonderful pasta dinner, we learned from Carolyn and the economic development organization of Stafford County about the issues the community is facing, how they are working to combat them, and how we were helping the next day. After the meeting, time in the hot tub recharged us enough to make it to our sleeping bags for a much-needed night’s sleep.

-Gilbert