Jacqueline Watts

So I?ve long ago submitted to the fact that my blog would be more of a beginning, middle, and end rather than a continuously updated story and I apologize. But here is what I will write about the last several weeks of my trip? the desert. And just a quick disclaimer, it?s pretty long so wait till you have a good chunk of time to sit down and enjoy it.

the rides?
I believe I left off talking about the not so wonderful roads and extremely lengthy routes of Missouri. I wouldn?t hesitate to say that that was the most rigorous stretch of the trip. And though I expected the Southwest to be much MUCH flatter than it was, the climbs were not nearly as steep and painful as the northeast. Oklahoma ended up having some of the hottest days on the trip, with a few afternoons around 105 (and when added with horrible headwinds and hills these days proved to be some of the worst). We lucked out when travelling through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona because for the most part the temperature was on our side. Most days were around the upper 80s or lower 90s, cooler weather fronts which I?m guessing are pretty rare during the summer months. What I didn?t know is that there are mountain ranges everywhere! We were constantly surrounded by peaks, which besides the climbs (gradual, for the most part) were amazing because we got to coast down switchbacks and get a full panoramic view of the land for miles around. There was one ride (in New Mexico) that had a full 14 miles of downhill, descending right into the town we were staying (that?s something we dream about, and though the leaders told us it was coming we didn?t believe them).

But not all rides in the Southwest were that nice. The ride into Flagstaff was one of the hardest strictly because of the headwinds. Regardless if the terrain were downhill, if I stopped pedaling for longer than 5 seconds at one time, I swear I would have started drifting back up the hill. It?s pretty demoralizing to be working so hard and literally going nowhere.

We then encountered some more difficult rides when we entered the desert of Western Arizona and inland California. Although the 120 mile day is the most ridiculous sounding, it was in my opinion not the hardest. There was a ride just a few days before with mileage in the upper 90s and heat around 115 that nearly killed me. Even having woken up by 4 am and leaving before 6, there was no way to avoid the hottest part of the day. The thing that really got to me was that my bike computer (which tells you how many miles you?ve gone, and how many you have left on a particular road) broke earlier in the trip and the town we were staying in that night (Salome) was so small that it was never on any of the signs on the interstate. Consequently, I thought I was getting close, had already run out of water, but there was no sign of the town and I was convinced that it didn?t exist. That day was one of only a few that I literally didn?t think I would make it into the host site.

The 120 mile day and the 90 mile day which followed were also pretty difficult, but were manageable thanks to the lack of 115 degree weather (I say this as if it were cool during those rides, but they were still in the high 90s or low 100s). The hard thing about the 120 day is that there was actually nothing, not one gas station or business, from Parker, AZ that morning until we reached Twenty-nine Palms, CA that afternoon. And since everyone rides at different paces (meaning some people are further behind than others) and the van was forced to go all the way into our host town in order to fill up on water. That left quite a few riders including myself without water and without a last lunch stop. Not cool, but there wasn?t really any way to avoid it.

the host sites?
While enjoying amazing potluck dinners and donated food in the northeast and midwest, the leaders warned our group that we probably would not be eating quite as well when we got out to the southwest (not because people wouldn?t be as accommodating but because we would be staying in smaller towns and such making it more difficult to host so many of us). This definitely proved not to be the case. We still encountered town upon town which went out off their way to graciously provide us with dinner, breakfast, and of course a comfortable overnight stay.

In New Mexico, we stayed in a small town near the border called Portales, where a church not only provided our meals but also contacted the town mayor who then declared it Bike and Build day and gave us a police escort for the next morning! Best town ever. In Twenty-nine Palms (the night after our 120 ride), we split up and were put up in the congregants homes where we got showers with fresh towels and beds (two very rare commodities which were unheard of during this trip). In Sanders, AZ, we stayed at a fire station and not only did we have a nice grass courtyard on which to lay when we got in that afternoon (and which we slept under the stars that night) but they also provided us with the coolest shower ever, two fire trucks spraying with hoses on either side of us. And although this site actually turned out to give us one of our biggest scares of the trip, one of our rider?s bike got stolen (don?t worry it was recovered the next day by the fire chief), I loved it.

the days off?
Before this trip, a whole day on a habitat build site would be really strenuous work and definitely wouldn?t fit under the category ?day off.? But over this summer that?s what we called them. They were a much welcomed change of pace and provided some rest for our biking muscles and use of the muscles which we had almost forgotten about. In Amarillo, we built on a fairly new habitat project where the first home (of a planned twenty) was being put up. Our group managed to complete all the roof tresses and helped nailing walls in place. Being a big fan of heights, I jumped at the chance to balance on the frame of the second story lifting and nailing tresses in. I also managed to jump (or rather fall) off, but no worries I?m fine and was right back up to finish the job.

The last build site on our trip was in Palmdale, CA where our group split up to work on the renovation of multiple homes, including fixing the roof of one house, yardwork of another, and leveling/prepping of land for laying a driveway (the job which I was working on). This work day was organized by Youth Build, a program setup in Palmdale for kids who have dropped out of school but have been encouraged to learn more about construction. The program gives them a chance to receive a trade degree. All in all, these last two build days definitely provided us with a decent amount of work (which was hard for some sites when 32 people arrive) and were very surprised and happy with our progress. A crew of 32 hammers really can do quite a bit of damage (in a good way of course).

We also had a couple of real days off in the southwest, including Roswell and the Grand Canyon. Roswell was interesting to say the least. All I can say is that the city would not exist had it not been for the Roswell Incident? everything and I mean EVERYTHING is alien themed (even the streetlamps have eyes on them). I can imagine that it would get old pretty quickly, so not really my first choice of places to revisit but it was fun. The Grand Canyon on the other hand, I could visit every year for the rest of my life and I would never grow bored. It was beautiful. A couple other guys and I got up early on our day off to go see the sunrise and spend the day hiking. Although we decided against doing the really long hike down to the river and back (which the park strongly advises not to do in one day), three of the other guys from our group completed it with no problem. I did a 6 mile hike down South Kaibab Trail to a lookout called Skeleton Point. That evening a few of us took a trip to another lookout point on the rim which was supposedly a great spot to view the sunset (which it was), but unfortunately the bus system didn?t work quite as efficiently as we expected and we got stranded miles away from our campsite and were forced to hike back in the dark. So our day off turned into quite a far distance of hiking and exploration. Overall, definitely worth it.

the cities (or more like villages)?
Well I?ve already talked about Portales (one of our favorite New Mexican settlements), so I guess I?ll move on to Pietown. Tiniest little town on the top of the mountain, so cute/quaint/quirky. I knew it was going to be a stay to remember when I was informed that morning that our host house did not have an address? it was simply titled, the Toaster House (and yes we were further informed that this house was named such because the front yard would be covered in toasters). Although it proved hard to find sleeping space for all 32 of us, I loved the feel of the town and had fun guessing the theme of other neighboring houses.

Arizona had more in store than I had expected. I ended up really loving Flagstaff and Prescott (despite the name, which all of us riders associate with Prescott Hill in the Berkshires at the beginning of the trip). Both seemed very out of place in comparison to the usual desolate desert surrounding them and, in a way, their wide, brick mainstreets resembled small northeast towns. We happened to be staying in Flagstaff on the first Friday of the month, which means we came just in time for their monthly art festival. Not only were the main streets very cute and bustling during the day (I got Thai takeout and ate it in the main square), but at night there was even more going on (live music, a fashion show, a movie playing in the square, and just lots of people everywhere). It was a much welcomed respite after the windy ride in. Prescott also had a very quaint downtown with a center quad of green grass (I wondered how much water they go through to keep it that way) surrounded by main streets full of shops and restaurants. So just when I had ruled out the desert as a habitable place, these towns popped up and surprised me.

the best afternoon?
Okay so besides the afternoon when we finally arrived at the Pacific (which I will explain shortly), I must say my favorite afternoon was when we first entered New Mexico. After stopping to take pictures by the state sign (a usual ritual), we came across a sign advertising ?Joe?s Boot Shop? with who knows how many hundred boots and hats, so of course the guys wanted to stop (and good thing we did). Upon entering, we were greeted by Joe himself (now I must explain something: Even being only a group of 6 at the time, we are still sporting matching spandex. So when we walk around somewhere, we stick out like a sore thumb). That said, we stayed in this shop for awhile talking to Joe and a couple of the other ladies about our trip, were offered free shirts, and a short while later Joe offered to treat us to lunch. Now this was not just your normal lunch outing. Joe brought us out back where his Texas style limo (there really is no other way to describe a limo with large horns on the front and an external microphone that plays buffalo sounds) awaited to take us to the only real authentic New Mexican restaurant, as he described it. He also brought a friend of his who owns a cattle ranch of almost half a million acres, a real American cowboy. And I am ashamed to say, strictly out of habit (I swear I didn?t even think about it) Caroline and I ordered chicken at lunch? oops! Joe joked that on any other occasion a lady ordering chicken would have to pay for her own lunch. But it was a very memorable afternoon at that.

the most unfortunate morning?
Sadly enough, not everyone was fortunate enough to go the whole summer unharmed. On the ride out of Flagstaff with barely 2 weeks left in the trip, one of our riders, Sarah, had a bad fall. A piece of plastic bumper got caught in her wheel and wedged between the wheel itself and the brake causing her front wheel to stop in its place. She flipped over her handlebars and landed hard on her elbows. Luckily we were still in the city (it could have been much more difficult to get treatment had we been out in the middle of nowhere) and she was admitted to the hospital where she ended up needing surgery to put pins in her left elbow. Despite the pain from her surgery, Sarah decided to finish out the trip with the group (in the van of course) and got to ride the last mile into Santa Barbara with everyone (in a three-wheel bike), which was really great.

the end?
I must say, it was rather surreal seeing the ocean after such a long absence and such an eagerly anticipated arrival. Upon reaching East Beach in Santa Barbara, we all dropped our bikes and ran/jumped into the Pacific. There was lots of splashing, hugging, singing, and of course champagne spraying. And shortly after, we all brought our bikes down to the shore for our Pacific ocean dipping ceremony. At last our bikes (and we, ourselves) had made it every inch from ocean to ocean, coast to coast, Atlantic to Pacific. Even as I write this (5 days later), it still doesn?t seem real.


So there it is, a quick overview/highlight of my stories and my travels. Now it?s back to the real world (something most of us spent the last couple weeks dreading). I?m not going to lie, I will definitely go through Bike and Build withdrawal and being on the bike with nothing to do has given me countless new ideas for future adventures. So as for doing it again, I?m not sure I would primarily because I can?t imagine anything matching up to this first and most amazing of experiences. But if asked by someone else, should I do it? I wouldn?t miss a beat before answering yes. If not for the cause and contribution to affordable housing organizations than for the beauty of the country. And if not for the beauty of the country than for the shear challenge of riding up seemingly never ending climbs in sweltering heat through ridiculous headwinds. For so many reasons, I would say without a doubt that this summer was the most incredible time of my life.

my apologies for not keeping up a blog (but hopefully you have kept somewhat up to date on our trips happenings via other riders blogs... as my mom has so often done) but honestly, we dont have a whole lot of free time and we rarely have internet access. and yes mom other people are good at keeping up with their blogs, so why can't i? truth is, i would rather spend my short afternoons off exploring the town/city were in than tracking down a library or internet cafe. so here it goes on the update, i will try my best

the riding...
sooooo much harder than i expected. its getting better now that we're several weeks in (the reason? its a toss up between us getting stronger as riders and the fact that we're finally out of all the ridiculous mountain ranges). MA was a really tough place to start by providing several early riding days in the Berkshires. Looking back at them now, im sure we could manage them better (they were only 60 mile days on average and now were most often busting out 90 mile days) but at the time those mountains kicked us in the ass. i (along with other people) questioned my ability to complete the trip. unfortunately, i did lose hope on one hill during those very early riding days and walked my bike up Prescott hill (the hill that will forever live in infamy on our trip... yea Ali, no more climbs?, sure). but good news, i havent had to walk anything since and i dont think ill have to again on the trip (cause now ive handled way worse hills)!

those worse hills came in Pennsylvania! I had only been to Philly and suburbs before this trip and had no clue as to the extent of rolling hills that PA had in store for us. Don't worry i caught on pretty quickly. I remember in particular a 3 day stretch in amish country PA where we did two 80+ mile days followed by a century (100 mile day), which up until this past week in Missouri, had been the most difficult stretch. Strangely enough the two days before the century were much harder for me than that long day into State College. The preceding days consisted of lots of climbing (really ugly switch backs in the woods) and when you cant see the top of a hill it makes the climb that much harder. So literally every time i thought i was going to die and perservered until the "top" of the hill, i would turn a corner only to find more hill. Luckily the century ride into State College was more rolling hills through the open fields and although most riders have tagged this day as their hardest on the trip, i was riding by myself/got in the zone and finished the ride in good time and even better spirits (the ride itself had only brought my odometer to 98.5 miles, so i even got back on my bike after we had gotten to the host site to ride downtown and bring the reading to 100). i do really enjoy riding by myself every once and a while and oddly enough these days often provide my best performance as well.

so i know im not touching on all of the states (we were in NY for a few nights, and biked shortly through NJ and WV) but for the sake of time im going to move onto the midwest... starting with ohio. A bunch of riders from our trip are from ohio so they told us a bit about our rides before we had them. The first day riding though proved to be much more hilly than anyone anticipated and turned into a trying afternoon, but the rest of ohio consisted of flat land and some gorgeous bike paths. I didnt realize how much open farm land ohio had, and although seeing the same kind of land all day does get exhausting and boring, i must say i really enjoyed ohio for the cities and small towns that we visited (ill talk more about the towns later).

indiana did end up being a bit hillier than i had anticipated (i dont know who put it in my mind that the whole midwest was flat, but its not) but it was manageable. despite the nonstop view of cornfields, indiana and illinois had mostly decent biking days and i know i cant complain about monotony yet because we havent even entered the desert.

and now for missouri... oh missouri or shall i say misery. i think our whole group will attest to the incredibly hard time we had getting through this state (not that its entirely over, cause the host site we're at right now altough close to OK is actually still in MO). The past week was so hard because every day was a 90+ mile ride and not only was the terrain consistently hilly, but MO added ridiculous headwinds and hurricanes to the mix.

[i think i need to make a side note here about the weather we've run into throughout this summer: one of our leaders who went on a trip last year told us that his group had only encountered 1 day of rain and riders complained about having brought a rain jacket in this bags at all. i want to say out of all the dozens of riding days, we can probably count on one hand that number of days that it hasnt rained... yes thats right hasnt rained. i swear, one ridiculously aweful storm cloud is following us all the way from one coast to another. and its not just rain, its pelting in your eyes/windstorm/lightning all the time weather]

so that said, we've had some pretty rough and long riding days. not to mention the days that were intended to be a bit shorter but since this route is fairly new and less travelled, we encounter cue sheet problems which send us on long detours. the other day for example, a 94 mile day turned into a 106 mile day. but i guess thats part of biking across the country, getting lost every once and a while is simply part of the game. i dont mean to make all of this riding sound so negative, there are some great riding days also. today was gorgeous outside and a much welcomed shorter ride (of only 80 miles), so we took it easy on the pace and just had a relaxing afternoon (reminding me that i actually do love riding still) and the next few days are again going to be shorter rides, so yay!

the people...
everyone that we've visited (in terms of our host sites) have been sooo amazing. we have been so lucky in terms of donation magic (as we call our free dinners), receiving potlucks at multiple church sites, deals at local restaurants, or just amazing dinners out provided by visiting parents (yay and much thanks to bens parents/lesleys parents!). bottom line is we get fed veryyyy well and thats pretty difficult considering the amount of food we have to eat. its estimated that on long rides we burn about 5000 calories meaning were recommended to consume approx. 7000/8000 per day. just think of it as... whenever we're not on our bikes or sleeping, were eating. we're eating constantly.

locals that we meet when stopping on our ride days have been incredibly supportive also. one woman that we met in a diner at dinner one night actually showed up the next morning at the school we were staying with a hot breakfast! we had an early wakeup that morning cause it was a century that day and she must have stayed up the whole night making us food. things like that just blow me away, it was incredible and it made me really happy that there are people in the world who care so much and go that much out of their way to help others.

the cities...
there are so many amazing places that we've visited so far that i can barely figure out where im going to get the time to go back and revisit them all (cause trust me there are quite a few on the list). we've had days off in Pittsburgh and St. Louis both of which pleasently surprised me. I hadnt heard to best things about Pittsburgh, but ended up really liking the city. We went out one of the nights we were there to Station Square for drinks and then explored the streets the next day (including a Pirates game and the Andy Warhol museum). St. Louis was another really fun day because there was a lot going on downtown with streets closed off and tents set up for the allstar baseball game/homerun derby. so i guess we lucked out that we happened to be visiting at that time.

other places that i loved (but we didnt have days off in necessarily) included yellow springs, bloomington, and... (!!!) columbus. yes i loved columbus (maybe cause a few of the guys are from here/ohio state and knew where to show us around) but either way something was just really comforting and intriquing about columnus and i wish we could have explored it more. yellow springs was a pretty small town also in ohio which had the cutest downtown main street shops and it had a bike path. bloomington (city where indiania university is located) was also really pretty/gorgeous campus and surprised me.

my worst experience so far...
this would have to be last week, when i had my first fall off my bike. several people have had falls already and i knew my time would come at some point or another but it wasnt actually my fall that was the bad experience it was the situation which surrounded my fall. i only sustained minor scratches and got right back on my bike after it happened so the fall itself really wasnt a big deal. the problem was that i fell because a car with a trailer/camper hitched to the back almost certainly intentionally drove me off the road. we were riding on a road with a couple feet of shoulder width when he drove by way to close (didnt beep to warn me, didnt go a safe distance away into the other lane even though there was no oncoming traffic, and yelled something angrily out the window) not to mention all of the groups of bikers that passed me after it happened and saw that i had fallen knew exactly which car it had been before i even mentioned it because that same campus had almost clipped them as well. this vendetta against bikers really isnt shared by most drivers (dont be freaked out mom) but it does happen. so hopefully thats the extent of injuries that will be sustained on the trip.

my best experience...
i would have to say just overall, the people i have met. everyone in our group is so positive and supportive that even when people are having the worse day ever and are doubting their ability to finish up the ride, theres always someone at your back. even when everyone is cursing the weather and the mistakes with directions, we all have an understanding that we can get through it and that we will get through it with flying colors. it didnt really hit me until the past few weeks, but this actually is an amazing this that i'm doing... that we're all doing.

so on that note, i must say goodbye. unfortunately its rather late and i would be up all night if i tried to write as much as i could/want to. so till next time!

Hello all and welcome! So the title of my blog is a bit misleading... yes I did decide on a trip of this sort because I didn't know what else to do after school ended, but there are a million other reasons that led me to sign up for Bike and Build. One being the fact that I love Habitat for Humanity/building houses. Also biking is an awesome way to see the country side (I mean really there's only so much you can get out of being stuck in a car in traffic on the interstate...) And lastly and most importantly, the issue at hand... affordable housing. I'm sure everyone reading this has noticed increased foreclosure and housing problems locally, maybe the issue touches close to home or maybe you've only witnessed it second hand, but the more I learn about it the more widespread and serious I realize the problem really is. So I may not have gone into the trip with the mindset that I have now, but my dedication to the cause grows daily. For this reason, I must say that I am in awe of the generosity and amount of support that I received in fundraising for this trip and would like to thank each and every one of you for your contribution.

So as for the biking...
I'm not gonna lie, I've been talking about this trip for ages and its only now hit me just how real it is. Orientation started on Wednesday (my birthday!) and in true Jacqui fashion I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off all morning trying to finish packing and buying last minute equipment. But alas, i made it (albeit 3 hrs late) and met the 31 other people that I will be biking across the country with! No worries, my nerves were immediately settled when i got there, cause everyone in our group is really, really cool and super nice/helpful. So I don't need to be told twice when our trip leaders say 'this is going to be the best summer of your life' because I have no doubts.

We had some presentations from former riders about what our typical riding day will look like (lets just say I'm not entirely thrilled for the 3:45 am awakenings which will happen further down the road when we reach the desert), but everything I've heard so far has comforted me and convinced me that I will have no problem making it to Santa Barbara (::knock on wood::). We only took a short shakedown ride yesterday along the coast in Revere to practice riding as a large group, which surprisingly is a lot different than riding alone (how I trained for the most part). In large groups the leaders encourage us to communicate all the time (which inevitably involves lots of yelling) in regards to which direction cars are coming from, potholes or construction, turns, etc... but that kinda works out well for us cause then everyone walking down the street notices us and asks what we're doing. And this is where our awesome bike and build spiel comes in handy... the more we can get the word out the better. I'm not sure, that may have been my indirect way of tell everyone who reads this to TELL THEIR FRIENDS!! but yeah.

So, it wasn't until this morning that we actually departed from Boston on our way to the west coast... although counter-intuitively we did not head southwest out of the city, but rather north to Andover, MA. We started this morning by biking down to the beach in Revere for a quick tire dipping (yes we really do intend to go all the way from coast to coast, Atlantic to Pacific) at which point it started to rain. But that was kind of expected seeing as the weather forecast is rain EVERY DAY for at least the next week... fun fun. That aside we were all still really pumped to get on the road and get some miles under our belts. Our ride today was rather short... okay correction, really short (only 20 some miles), but it took a little longer for me than most. Not because I wasn't up to snuff on my training or slower than the rest of the group or anything like that. It took me and two of the other guys on the trip 3 hrs to get that short distance because one of our fellow riders got not one... not two... but three flat tires on todays ride alone. So it wasn't until the third change that we finally found the puncture in the outside edge of the tire (just a quick explanation for those who don't know, but bike tires have the inner tubing as well as the actual outer rubber tire and changing a flat often involves simply patching or replacing the tubing putting the outer cover back on). So three inner tubings later we finally used a makeshift way of patching the outer tire by placing a folded dollar bill on the inside, then replacing the tubing, then pumping up the tire so it suctions the hole. This method had been mentioned randomly for like 30 sec by one of the leaders during a discussion and it totally worked!!! yea super cool, i think. So we made it! And now the three of us have mad experience when it comes to changing tires!

Tomorrow's our first build day in Lawrence, MA so we're all keeping our fingers crossed that its not down-pouring too much (otherwise it may be canceled). Hope everyone's doing well and staying drier than I am!

Peace!

P.S. I just realized that accessing this through the Bike and Build website doesn't let you see titles/pretty backgrounds/etc... (its not very blog-esque) so if you want to see the actual blog its http://jacquisbiketrip.blogspot.com.