Post #14 - It's started!!!

Oh man, Bike and Build has finally started.  After months and months of preparation, mile after mile of training, dollar after dollar raised, and now its here!!  I feel so blessed to have had such great support from everyone at home.  And now I am blessed to have a totally awesome group of people to ride across the country with me. 

So arriving Thursday was kind of like the first day of camp.  A lot of peoples parents dropping them off, people trying to figure out where there stuff goes, and all that fun stuff.  Of course we did the classic ice-breaker type games.  Trying to learn 29 names is pretty tough for me.  I'm slowly getting them though.  We really do have an awesome group from all over the place:  Alaska, California, New York, Michigan, and everywhere in between.  I have been dubbed as the bike guy, which I am cool with, I like working on bikes.  So I helped some people get their bikes put together and adjusted. 

I love the sight of so many bikes all in one room!
  

So today we got up from our awesome night of rest on the floor nice and early.  Did some more orientation stuff early on, and then we got to go on our "shakedown" ride!  Basically just a short practice ride to get everyone used to riding together.  It was super fun!  We got to ride over this awesome bridge!

On Saturday we did our first build day. It was super cool. In Charleston they have a lot of historical codes to help preserve the character of the city. So we worked on a ladies house doing a restoration. She grew up in the house as a little girl and we were fortunate enough to be able to help out so she and her dog can move back in as soon as possible. The house has been completely gutted down to the studs.

It was such a great experience getting to help out. I did my fair share of hammering, and oh man were my neck and shoulders letting me know today on the bike.

So today we actually did our first day of actual riding!! We got sent off by our amazing hosts, Trinity United Methodist in Charleston. They prayed over us and we proceeded down to dip our tires into the Atlantic Ocean!

So we headed out to Moncks Corner, South Carolina. The group I was riding with only missed one turn... Not too bad I thought. We ended up riding around 40 miles. We ended up at a nice little church with an awesome lake we all jumped in before our showers. Pretty much an awesome day. So now we chill til dinner! Whoop whoop!

Hammock Chillin'

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