West Virginia, Mountain Momma

So again, my apologies for it being so long (10 days?) since my last post. In the intervening time we basically rode our bikes through Appalachia, over some real mountains and often in intense heat. The mileage was high and between eating, sleeping, hydrating and biking, free time was hard to come by. I'm not going to go through a blow-by-blow like I usually do, but here's the gist of it.

I think I left off last time in Maryland. West Virginia was next, and it was by far the hardest state. Two days in particular stand out. One was only forty miles, but with some ridiculous climbs. It was hot that day, and I worked as hard as I could to finish before the heat of the day, managing to get done by noon. This one I rode alone (a no-no I later learned). When I stopped now and then and my bike stopped clicking and the wind in my ears went away and my breath caught up with me, there was this great zen feeling of being fully present, hot and sweaty though I was- just me, the bike, and the hills. The other day was truly ridiculous, probably the hardest yet. Ninety miles to Parsons, WV, but with about the same hill density as the fourty mile day. There were several times twhen I thought I wouldn't make it, but in the end I trucked through with two other guys (Kyle F. and Robert), each of us rallying the others on. Ten miles from the destination it started to rain hard, and this gave the three of us, sopping wet, to a nursing home up the hill. We waited out the storm here, rebelling in the towels, sugar and hot coffee showered upon us by Theresa the caretaker. The final six mile descent into Parsons through post-storm sun-pierced mist more than made up for the whole ordeal that was that day. It just kept going and going and going. Potentially the most fun I've ever had on a bike.

The rest of that week we spent traversing West Virginia, dipping up into Ohio and then back down into Huntington, WV for our first build in ten days, where we stayed in a crazy multilevel Methodist church and did some dirt moving and dry walling.

Next, it was onward into Kentucky. A few very long days, including a 117 day into Paris, KY, our longest ride of the whole summer. It was, in a word, haaaaard- the temperature approached our mileage (the Midwest is going through a record-breaking heatwave right now). The last thirty miles were surreal- we were all so exhausted, riding up and down these hills into the sunset, everything orange, with wheat fields unfolding on both sides. The dull pain and the beauty melted together, and it felt like we would be riding like that forever.

We finally got a much needed day off in Louisville, which I just spent tooling around town with a few people, hitting up some funky food establishments and seeing a movie (Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom- I highly recommend it).

Finally, we headed north into Indiana today. The ride was finally, mercifully, somewhat flat, which made for some fun, fast pacelining. We got to our church earlyish in the day, and one of the hosts was generous enough to let us use her home pool, which was a dream after the 100+ degree weather.

It's amazing how much profess we've made already (1200+ miles), and how much we've seen. The trip has been hard and uncomfortable at times, but the enthusiasm of the everyone we talk to about Bike and Build, host or not, is really energizing, as is the sheer fact that we're self-propelling ourselves across the effing country. Another highlight has just been getting to know my twenty-nine fellow riders- we are each other's only constant on this thing, and it helps that there are so many nice, genuine people.

And now here are some pictures. I'll let them speak for themselves this time.