So, the past week has literally been filled with ups and downs. We’ve had a few big climbs. The first was Togwotee Pass on the ride from Dubois to Jackson, WY, a climb of 3000 feet spread over 30 miles through mountains. After spending the night in Jackson (which is a super cool city I will be returning to someday), we climbed Teton Pass. Teton Pass was so different than Togwotee, and was only 4-5 miles but super steep the entire time, around a 10-12% grade (eek!). Look up the bike path on Google Maps. Switchbacks for days! It took about an hour, but was super fun to climb and accomplish. It was one of those moments I will never forget. After Teton Pass we had a 20 mile downhill into Idaho, where I topped out at 47.3 mph. Not bad for the Rockies, but I was hoping to break 50 mph .

Unfortunately, I’ve had an ear infection that has made this past week rather painful with so many climbs. I refused to not ride through this part of the county, and will not let an ear infection get in the way of enjoying this incredible scenery and terrain. Onwards!

We only spent one night in Idaho, on a gorgeous plain surrounded by mountains, before heading into Montana! Let me tell you, Montana has the most incredible scenery I have ever seen. Beautiful lush mountains with a plethora of rivers, lakes, wildlife, and quaint log cabins.

On Saturday, we rode first into West Yellowstone, MT for our last day off of the summer, which we spent exploring Yellowstone National Park. Anything I describe about the park would never do it justice, so I’ll just post a ton of photos for your enjoyment. It is truly an incredible place. Some highlights include: the coolest geology that this geology nerd has ever seen, history lessons about pioneering, Old Faithful (of course), bison and elk, and swimming in a hot spring! Enjoy the photos, and if you’ve never been to Yellowstone, get there! It’s truly an incredible place.

I’m now in Bozeman, MT, about to head to Lincoln and eventually Missoula. Two weeks from today we arrive in Seattle! It’s hard to believe how soon that is. In the meantime, check out these awesome photos.

So, before you enjoy the photos and videos I’m posting here, I have a pretty huge announcement to make. Now that I’ve told my sister, parents, and some friends individually, I wanted to make it public here.

First, some background. As you may have been able to tell from following my log of this trip, every day on Bike and Build is a wonderfully unpredictable adventure. From our earliest wake ups at 4:30am until the second my head touches that tiny camping pillow, my sole task for the day is to get from point A to point B on the designated route. Other than that, my quest is of my own design. Everyday is an incredible adventure filled with new lessons and experiences, and filled entirely with new, real relationships between my fellow riders and me. As I tend to say here, Bike and Build may not be real life, but it’s filled with real moments.

I’m not quite ready for this adventure to end. Though I do have three more weeks (of mountains!) ahead of me, I have been thinking hard on how I can continue to grow and experience life in the fulfilling reality in which Bike and Build thrives.

After much thought (and some advice from my sister who made the same move three years ago), I have decided to move to Seattle! Two of my closest friends on my trip will be joining me, and the three of us will be making way in a new city! With a some family there already, a strong engineering industry, and an infectious affinity for adventure, this big life decision feels like the right thing for me to do.

I’m more than happy to talk more about this with anyone who wants to. Give me a call if you have a chance! In the meantime, enjoy some photos and a few videos from my adventures the past few days.

Ride on,
DH

I’m in Wyoming! Like South Dakota and Nebraska, I really never thought i would be here, but it is an awesome state so far.

So, you may be wondering why I have not posted words in a while. There’s a few reasons for that. First, we’re busy! We’ve had almost entirely 90-110 mile days for the past week, which leaves us totally zonked by nightfall. Second, I really disliked Iowa and Nebraska (and really any state that is filled with more acres of corn than people), so I’ve tried to stay away form posting negative things on this trip. Still, I will say now that I am glad to be out of the Midwest and clearly entering the west! We had a very sudden change of terrain after leaving Chadron, NE, where it was flat prairie land. Almost immediately into our ride we were met with beautiful scenery of buttes and mountains in the distance (photos attached), which we began to climb! After weeks of flat, climbing was really fun. Today was a 1700 ft climb, which puts us just around 5000 feet above sea level. It’s interesting how already, with the elevation change, I find myself breathing harder and pushing more up hills. We’ve got some short mileage days (50-60) coming up, which I assume is because of more climbing. Into the west!

I’d also like to mention someone we met on the road – John Horsfull. On our day off in Chadron, NE, I was walking to a coffee shop when this guy biked by me with four pantiers (suitcases that fit onto a bike, which make your bike heavy but are useful for touring when there isn’t a support vehicle). I stopped him and talked to him for a while to see what he was doing. Turns out John is 24, from London, and is spending the summer biking from NYC to San Francisco. Having never been to the US before, he decided to do this task alone and is doing it in support of UNICEF. He has apparently been riding 1-2 days behind us, hearing about us from locals and seeing the remnants of our chalk on the ground (which we use for directions). He was really excited to finally meet this group he’s been hearing about for a while. Instead of pushing on for the day, he decided to hang out in the afternoon and at night and ride out with us the next day. He rode all day with us today (which I’m sure was a nice change of pace from being alone for a month) and will be doing the same thing tomorrow! He also has a blog (that he is much better at updating than I am at updating mine), and you can read about his journey at his personal website. John is a great guy, and we’ve enjoyed having him with us the past two days. Best of luck to him as he continues! I know that I could never bike cross country with out the support of my 30 other P2S riders.

Take a look at some more photos from the past few days, also attached here. Photos include: how I spent my day off in Chadron, an awesome panoramic, a historical marker about the Buttes (one of many I’ve stopped to read recently), some more scenery, and a photo at the Wyoming state line! That’s 12 states!

Ride on,
Dan

I don’t have time to write now but I wanted to upload some videos and photos from the past week.

I also want to give a shout out to my friend Nate Kane. Nate does this really cool thing where each week, he posts one 49-second film comprised of seven 7-second videos (each from one day of the week) to his website. Since June 13th, his clips have focused on Bike and Build, and they give a pretty good impression of what life is like on the road. You can see his “7 by 7s” by following this link.

Ride on,
Dan

tb

For the past few days, either we’ve been chasing storms or they’ve been chasing us. It’s hard to tell. On Friday, we got clobbered by a huge thunderstorm that forced us to take cover for about two hours. There was intense wind, torrential downpours, and tons of thunder and lightning. We were lucky enough to find shelter in the middle of nowhere, first on someone’s front porch and eventually in their barn. Once we were all in the barn we were soaked and freezing, so we did a bunch of physical activity to warm up. I’ve attached a video of us trying to warm up. Even with being sidelined for almost 90 min total from the storm, we still rode one hundred miles!

Today is our first day off. After celebrating last night in Marshaltown, IA, I got to sleep in for the first time all trip! I naturally woke up at 6am (biological clocks are pretty cool) but forced myself to go back to bed and awoke again at 10am feeling rested. We spent the morning at a crafts fair, the afternoon seeing a movie, and now I am about to relish in the day off by taking a nap inside! I’ve taken my fair share of roadside naps on Bike and Build, but almost never inside. Time to nap!

Ride on,
Dan

I don’t have too much time to post, but I wanted to give a quick update:

Today, I rode my first century! Yes folks, that’s 100 miles in one day. Take a look at my odometer for the day for proof.

Also, we rode across the Mississippi River today to cross from Illinois into Iowa. Crossing the mighty Mississippi was something I’ve wanted to do for a while, so crossing that off my list was cool. Take a look at the video I took while on the bridge.

In other news, hellooooo Iowa! Unfortunately, I don’t have any good stories from today since all we did was ride through 100 miles of corn fields. We did play dodgeball against a local youth group tonight, and got our butts handed to us, but it was fun anyways.

Ride on,
Dan

Make sure you read the post below, but because I haven’t posted in a while, ima post a bunch of photos from the past week. Enjoy!

So, it’s been a long while since my last post, which was in Gambier, OH. I am now in Bloomington, IL, which means I totally skipped blogging the rest of Ohio, Indiana, and the first two days of Illinois. Today, we’re on our way to Peru, IL (lawlz), and unfortunately I am riding in the van with some stomach troubles. Hopefully I just ate something funny and it’s just a 24 hour thing, so I can be back on my bike tomorrow.

But, let’s go through a few highlights from the past few days. It’s funny how after weeks of hills that drove us crazy, our terrain suddenly just flattened out on the ride to Columbus, OH. For the past 8 days, we’ve had nothing but flat, country roads lined by corn fields. Believe it or not, I miss hills! The flat terrain, however, has been great for crossing one thing off my bucket list: I can now ride with no hands! On these skinny tires, I’m pretty proud. The key is leaning back on your seat and going at least 13 mph to get the natural gyroscope of the bike wheels turning. We tend to flap wings, play the air drums, and snack while we’re on our bikes, all with no hands.

The flat corn lands have also been really cool as an engineer. We’ve been riding through tons of wind farms the past few days, each of which has dozens of wind turbines. They’re very majestic looking, and I also think they’re super cool from an engineering point of view. Attached is a video I took while standing directly underneath a turbine on a windy day.

The theme number these days has been 100. Since the terrain has flattened out, our daily mileage has increased. Whereas on the east coast (and even into PA) our mileage ranged from 40-70 miles per day, these days we average 70-110 miles per day. Our mindset has changed so much that when we had a 76 mile ride two days ago, everyone was so excited for a short and easy day. We flew through the rest of Ohio, rode clear across Indiana in two days, and are crossing Illinois in three days. Tomorrow we hit Iowa! That’ll be my 9th state that I’ve ridden my bike through. But the theme number of 100 doesn’t just apply to our mileage. We had awful temperatures of 100+ degrees from Dayton, OH to West Lafayette, IN (a three day stretch) and it was an awful 116 degrees on blacktop during out 90 mile ride to West Lafayette. I’m proud to say that despite the heat, I rode all those days without dehydration or heat exhaustion issues. Still, it’s just brutal to ride in those conditions and took a lot to keep a clear head. After those long rides in awful heat, I’m fully confident that I can handle whatever this trip throws at me. I’ll be just fine on our 108 mile ride this week, which is something I never would have predicted a few months ago.

Yesterday, we had our fifth build day in Bloomington, IL and it was the best build day yet. When we arrived at the site, all that existed was a slab of concrete that was the foundation. When we left 8 hours later, all of the first floor walls (both interior and exterior) were built and installed. It was really cool to be able to directly see all our progress. I’ve attached before and after photos for you to take a look at.

Ride on,
Dan

So, a few notes from today. First, I biked 87 miles today (that’s a lot!)! Also, it was 90 degrees outside. And it was a hilly 87 miles. Today was really tough, probably the individual biggest physical challenge I’ve ever had, but I did it! I’m pretty proud of myself if I may say so.

Today really started last night with the ceremonial shave for Mustache Monday. Some of the guys and I let our beards grow out all week in anticipation of awesome mustaches. Personally, I’m rocking the mutton chops that blend into the stash. I look absurd, but its fun.

After a 5am wakeup (ouch) I rode with “Team Pie” where we searched all day for pie. Spoilers: we were unsuccessful all day, but still had fun. Around mile 57, we found this enormous and beautiful lake where about 10 Bike and Builders were already swimming. Alex and I decided we didnt want to get out shorts wet (since riding 30 miles with wet shorts is… well, just uncomfortable) so we decided to skinny dip. The whole group then joined us! In the middle of the day, maybe 15 sweaty bikers were just swimming naked in this lake. It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, after maybe 15 minutes some guy in a golf cart told us we had to get out. It was awkward to explain that we were all naked in his lake . We jumped out, put clothes back on, and headed back to our bikes. I got a great photo of the retreat, which is attached.

No sooner had we walked back to our bikes when my parents rolled up! They’ve been in Ohio for a couple of days now, and tracked me down using Google Latitude. Thank God they didn’t show up 10 minutes earlier!

Once we got back on the road, we tried to find a short cut on a bike path that would take us to Gambier and Kenyon College, but because of some big storm the path was covered by about half a dozen trees (photo attached), so we turned around. I was getting hangry by then (angry because I was hungry and still biking) so I destroyed the last 10 miles or so to get to Kenyon. It was hilly and hot, but food is a powerful motivator to a cyclist.

Now, I’m in a dorm room at Kenyon, and even though it’s 8:30pm, I’m probably going to go to bed. Gotta get up at 6am tomorrow and bike again! Should be an easy 58 miles tomorrow!