Mascoma Lake Ride

So here are some pictures from a training ride I did recently in the area around Hanover. It's a good 35 mile loop from Dartmouth to beautiful Mascoma Lake, where the school sailing team practices, and back. Pretty hilly, with lots of cool views (though these pictures don't really do it justice). The more I see of the Upper Valley, the luckier I feel to be going to school up here.

Your typical rolling New Hampshire hills.

Your typical shady New Hampshire road.

Mascoma Lake

My bike happily relaxing in my room after the ride.

And so it begins...

Hi everyone! So this is the first of what will hopefully be many posts as I chronicle my journey across the country this summer. Thank you so much to all of you who are here reading this, and especially those of you who donated; this adventure wouldn't be possible without you.

A whole lot of the last three months has involved getting ready for this trip: fundraising, riding, logistical stuff, getting the gear, what have you. I do think I have most of what I need now- bike, cambelback, all manner of extra parts, obnoxious safety triangle, losable $5 sunglasses, arm warmers, leg warmers, indestructible endurance-riding tires, etc., etc. One thing I do regret a little is not having been able to train more on the bike. I was rowing all spring (until last week) which didn't leave me too much time or energy for other physical pursuits, but in any case, I'm riding now, trying to build up those different muscles. The Upper River Valley area around Hanover is probably the most beautiful place I've ever ridden- I'll try to take some pictures during my next ride and get them up here.

Another thing- I am now proudly finished with my "sweat equity," which is Bike and Build's fancy term for the pre-trip prerequisite of working for 10 hours as a volunteer at a housing site. I worked at two different houses two separate weekends, both of which had been hit hard by Hurricane Irene last year; neither family had any idea what was coming, and both ended up with 4 feet of water in their living rooms. The other volunteers and I worked on exchanging new windows for rotting ones and shoveling silt out of basements. It's a little cliche to say, but it really was inspiring seeing theses people trucking on after such a arbitrarily life-shattering event, and it felt great doing something concrete to help, something you could stand back from at the end of the day and say, "I did that."

So that's about it for now. I'll do another update as orientation gets closer (June 7- less than three weeks!), but for right now, there's exams to get through and riding to do...