1/3 of the way there!!

Just a few picks from the last few weeks! 

On our way!

Hello All!

Sorry about the weeks of absence, the past few days have been absolutely awesome (if a little chaotic). Annamaria and I arrived in Providence sufficiently nervous to meet our 29 new biking buddies, and were very happy to learn that everyone in our trip is really chill and have great senses of humor, we're totally set to bike across the country with these folks! Anyway, here are some of the photos we've taken so far - expect more at some point!

           Before we leave NY for RI

                     All of the bikes!

          First build day in Providence

              New Jersey baby!

              High Point park in NJ

    We got lost, but look what we found!

                      Pennsylvania!

        Pretty church in Ashfield (?) PA

       View from Schuylkill Haven, PA

     The whole crew at a playground in    

                   Stroudsberg PA

                     Harrisburg, PA

We can almost taste it -

- the Providence air, that is.

This is (almost) the day we've all been waiting for. Annamaria and I only have SEVEN DAYS LEFT to lounge around and sleep in until we arrive in Providence for our Bike&Build orientation! We are both well on our way to being ready for the journey (actually I considered myself ready last November, but apparently I had other things to do). Here's my checklist:

FUNDRAISE $4,500 for affordable housing.                                         $4,300/$4,500
RIDE 500 miles.                                                                                      ~430/500
BUILD for 10 hours at an affordable housing site.                                 12/10
RESEARCH affordable housing and CREATE a presentation.             COMPLETE

I don't know Annamaria's exact info - but we know that we both will bike away from Providence on June 9 for an awesome summer.

These affordable housing presentations seemed annoying at first, mostly because it was work I had to do after graduating college - and who wants to do that? But it really wasn't bad. The homeowner I interviewed from Las Cruces, NM told me all about her experiences before and after working with Habitat for Humanity. I was shocked. It's the kind of thing you read about but always assume doesn't regularly happen - "This would never happen where I'M from, people don't live like that EVERYWHERE." Yes, they do.

Let me give you just a taste of what life was like in her previous apartment:
- Mold. Everywhere.
- Holes under the sinks and in the walls. (Landlord never fixed it.)
- Neighborhood: unsafe and drug-filled. She was uncomfortable leaving her children alone at any time of day.
- Kids sick all the time. Asthma and coughing for months on end.
- The mother herself diagnosed with depression and bipolar.
- None of the family would have company over.

Now what life is like in her Habitat for Humanity home:
- Clean conditions.
- Safe neighborhood - she has started going to school during the day and working nights and weekends, leaving her kids at home alone.
- Family has normal allergies, etc. but no lasting illness.
- Mother's depression and bipolar symptoms have vanished, self-confidence has gone up.
- The house is now a home for friends and family of kids and mother.

Amazing right? All I could do was congratulate her on getting out of her previous apartment and doing all the hard work that was required of her to move out. She told me she felt empowered after working for two years to get out, and that the two years she's lived in her new home have felt like a dream - "I still have to pinch myself sometimes."

So yea, affordable housing is important to the normal folk of America, and I'm pretty darn excited to start biking and building in ONE WEEK to help living conditions of people in other towns across the U.S.

In closing:

A short celebration of the fact that I have officially GRADUATED from Stony Brook University with my Bachelor's in Biomedical Engineering! And congratulations to all of my fellow graduates, from Stony Brook and elsewhere, because we are officially free (unless you're going to grad school).

I also want to send out a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has donated or supported Annamaria and myself in any way. We need to have a list of people to send post cards, photos, and knick-knacks to along the way, eh AM?

More later,
KAS

Best Day of Our Lives!

If you hadn't heard, yesterday we held a Doctor Who Raffle at one of our favorite bars The Way Station.  If you haven't been there, let me tell you, it's amazing.  The staff are so friendly and all the regulars are always down to chat and always down to donate.  When we began talking about the raffle we had 3 prizes but after telling The Way Station community we started the day with 12 ridiculously awesome prizes! Among my favorites were a Cyberman Shower Radio (Didn't know that existed? Me neither.) and a K-9 shirt:

                          

      Anyhow it was all going fantastic when they told us they were going to do a fourth screening and wanted to know if we were going to stay for this one as well.  At this point we had watched three screenings of the same episode and Kathryn could see my tired dying soul in my eyes so she decided that...yes, yes we would stay for another screening.  Swallowing my impulse to cry I prepared myself for another 2 hours of raffling and episode watching when out of nowhere Steven Moffat walked into the bar.  If you don't know who that is, he's one of the most famous writers of Doctor Who.  He also writes for the shows Sherlock and Coupling... in short, he's a pretty big deal.  Just when Kathy and I were about to flip out and my brother was on the brink of "who is this? I can't relate with your emotions right now", Matt Smith himself (The current actor who plays The Doctor) also walked into the bar.  It was amazing.  We were beside our selves in excitement.
     After they got seated and the whole bar prepared to watch the final screening of the night, the MC called Kathryn and me on stage to make a last call for the raffle.  So there we were standing on stage in front of one of our favorite actors and my only orders from Kathryn were "hand me the mic when your done, so that I can describe Bike & Build".  So what did I do?  In a frantic trance I introduced both of us, I announced the raffle, I described Bike & Build and gave the mic straight back to the MC.  When I realized what I did I thought Kathryn was going to punch me in the face... I don't think I would have minded either.  I stole her one chance to speak directly to Matt Smith himself in front of an audience.  I don't think she'll ever do a favor for me again.

"Hey Kathryn can I borrow a pen?'"

      

Despite setting my self up for what will now be a very awkward summer, it was a very successful night! In total we raised $375 for affordable housing and met the people of our dreams.  Job well done I'd say.

Again a big thanks to our donors!  And don't forget to be awesome!

-Annamaria

Long Windy and Rainy

Hi All,

Well, we've done it. Annamaria and I have proven that we are unafraid of the rain and the wind. We rode a total of 42 miles today in less than ideal conditions, our first 'long' ride. Hooray! It didn't actually end up raining even though it was supposed to, but we think the fact that we were not deterred by the idea of rain deserves some sort of medal. Anyway, we had fun on the ride until the very end about two miles out Annamaria noticed her back tire was very flat. Don't worry though, she got through it.

Biking on Long Island in post-rain muggy, windy, gloomy-ness is not ideal for the health of the bikes. It was like we brought them to the beach on a rainy day (which I guess we technically did) because there was sand in every crevice of the bike. So how do you get the sand out of your bike without using a garden hose? Our answer: take a shower with it! In hindsight, we should've taken a photo, but we didn't. So use your imagination to envision each of us using our dorm handicap-friendly showers to give our bikes a good rinse after putting them through so much. Don't worry, we dried them properly so they won't rust.

The next two weeks are finals weeks for us - but I don't have any finals! So instead I will be full time fundraising/house building/bike riding. This Wednesday we're gonna finish up our building time with the Nassau County Habitat for Humanity, so that will be an awesome exhausting day. Next Sunday is a big day for us as well, on May 19 we will be at the Way Station in Brooklyn running our Doctor Who raffle while the season 7 finale is played at the bar. Don't worry, Doctor Who will be back next year. If you're around Brooklyn that day - stop by, say hi, enter to win awesome prizes and support affordable housing!

Summary of this post: Don't worry.

More later,
KAS

Ho My Gosh It's May!

Time has been flying by and there's only one more month till we're off.  That means we have one more month to hit our goal of $4,500 each or we can't help build and spread the word this summer so please donate if you haven't already.  Also please help by spreading the word to your friends and family.

On another note, I recently got the chance to catch up with an alum of the Bike & Build program this week and was given a few tips:

Tip #1: Wear sunscreen!

     Despite wearing sunscreen just about every day apparently he still has a cycling tan almost a year later.  Sexy cycling tans here we come!

Tip #2: When using clip-less pedals you're going to fall but it'll be ok!

      Kathy has already had the pleasure of this experience, ripping up her knees a little bit, but I have not. And I fear that it is imminent and will happen when I least expect it...but I guess it will be ok..

                                          Me on the right falling..
                                          Kathy on the left saying "HA!"

Tip #3: Bike with different people in your group every day.

     At the start of our trip we will be complete strangers.  Together we will have raised ~$135,000 but our journey will have just begun.  It will be a tough trip full of stressful days; days when we will be building houses after long days of biking, and days when we will have to bike after building.  The better we know each other the more support we can give each other and the more we can support affordable housing.  I can't wait to become part of our team.

Till next time,

Annamaria

The Life of a Celebrity

Hello All!

This week was more low key than the last one, but even so we managed to do a lot. We got our presentation assignments from Bike&Build, continued to train (almost) every day and were successfully interviewed about our upcoming summer plans.

At Earthstock last week, we met Samantha Olson, a grad student at Stony Brook who (very generously) decided to interview us about our experiences with B&B so far. Since Annamaria and I were interviewed a couple months ago by our friend Leah Winfield for the Stony Brook radio station, we are old hands at these kinds of things (she said... very pretentiously). For my part, I felt pretty awkward trying to get the words to come out of my mouth in a sensible order. I do believe, though, that we managed to get through the entire interview without completely embarrassing ourselves. After she talked to us, she got a couple clips of us riding our bikes and then we were done! She also said that she was going to send the interview to the editor of Newsday and then get back to us, so we are extremely excited about this possible fundraising opportunity.

We also got an e-mail from our fearless leaders about part of the sweat equity that is required before we can suit up to bike and build across the country. The Affordable Housing (AH) Curriculum is a lesson plan that helps us learn all there is about the affordable housing problem across America. Here is a snapshot of what the curriculum entails:

Before May 30th, each of you will

• Volunteer for a local AH organization at a build site (we have already started on this point - Hooray!)
• Research that AH organization and interview someone who works for it
• Interview a family/homeowner who has benefited from that AH organization
• Create a presentation on the AH organization and the family/homeowner
• Research AH issues and fun facts in 2 towns on our route

These bullet points about affordable housing will definitely make us more aware of the impact AH organizations have on families and on employees/volunteers for the cause. The research on AH issues in 2 towns will be pretty interesting/useful as well - every morning during our pump up routine the person with that day's destination will tell the rest of us a little bit about the town we will be going to. This might be my favorite part of the research we are assigned to do before the summer because learning about new places and then traveling to those places is an awesome way to spend time.

Our towns - 

Annamaria: Hannibal, MO and Eurika, NV

Kathryn: Wellston, OH and Montrose, CO

On a different note, due to sudden popularity we have decided to extend the deadline of our Doctor Who raffle by TWO FULL WEEKS. So don't forget to enter to win a beautiful handmade DW quilt, a fully funtional Sonic Screwdriver, or a TARDIS key chain! 

As always, we are massively grateful to everyone who has donated (time/money/patience) so far, and hope that everyone will tell all their friends about the AH cause.

More soon - 

KAS

Keep Calm and Bike On!

     HOLY POOP!  These last few days have been exhausting!  It feels as if we were fundraising non stop this weekend.  First off was Stony Brooks Earth Day fair, Earthstock,  where Kathryn and I set up an exhibition about Bike & Build and a trainer (which turns your road bike into a stationary bike, courtesy of Campus Bicylce!) and biked all through the the fair from 11am to 2pm.  We switched off every hour of course but it was still pretty draining.  There's proof of this somewhere because about 10 different journalism students came by to take unattractive sweaty pictures of us as well as to record interviews about affordable housing which I'm sure consist mostly of heavy breathing and very few words.  We thought it was a bit curious that they would insist on interviewing the person biking and not the person manning the poster prepared to field these sort of questions with more than one syllable.  Our efforts were not for nothing however, one of the reporters it turns out writes for Newsday, and has decided to do a full piece on us this Saturday!  This is one of those rare instances where stoked doesn't even begin to describe how excited we are.  In the end Earthstock was a great success as far as getting the word out.

     On Saturday we did the whole shindig over again for Stony Brook's Science and Art Expo only this time we each rode for 2 hours (actually Kathryn rode for an extra 30 min because she's a bit of an over achieve *cough cough* oh excuse me).  By the end of these two days  we were $100 closer to our goal and ready to keel over.  Lucky for us we got to sleep in till 10 on Sunday but at 12 it was back to work because we had taken on the important role of providing the Greek Olympics with snacks and lemonade as they fought head to head in prestigious activities such as the wheelbarrow race, water balloon toss, and clean your space (yea I had never heard of that one, either).  Though this event proved to be a bit more low key, Kathryn and I did discover that we are incredibly skilled at three legged races.  I'm not sure when that will come in handy though.

Well we are one step closer but still so far away.  Please continue to tell your friends and family about the cause and as always we want to give a big thanks to our donors so far!

Earthstock and Expo and Perineum... Oh My!

Hey everybody,

This week was a bit of a rest for us on the fundraising front - but that was just in preparation for this weekend coming up. Two, possibly three!, fundraisers in a row. Friday, Saturday, and (maybe) Sunday.

Friday is the Earthstock festival at Stony Brook, and we will be there raising awareness for the affordable housing cause and displaying our Doctor Who quilt. We will also have a trainer set up with one of our bikes so we can bike in place, hopefully this will make people more aware of our cause and demonstrate our efforts. Saturday is the Stony Brook Science and Arts Expo, similar to the Makers Faire, at which engineers/artists/creative people display their talents and things that they have made with their various passions. Friday's Earthstock lasts from 11 am to 3 pm, and Saturday's Expo lasts from 10 am to 4 pm. This, all in all, adds up to 10 hrs of biking in place, which means we will be incredibly uncomfortable for 5 hrs each - let me explain why.

The bikes we got for B&B are great, we are getting used to them and getting better at biking long distances with the clipless pedals and everything. But the fact that we're riding for longer periods of time means we're spending lots of time on our bike seats, and that sucks. You would think that since we're getting a bike for biking across America the seats would be magnificent - but they aren't. It's the most uncomfortable bike seat I've ever sat on. During every ride there is a lot of pressure where there shouldn't be, and the discomfort lasts even after we get off of our bikes. My question is why they would  give ANYONE saddles that aren't the best. That's some sensitive tissue down there, and I don't see any reason to put it through that pain. We are both planning on getting a different seat, one that isn't torturous. Maybe that will happen this week and we will be able to bike in comfort.

Sunday is the Engineering Olympics at Stony Brook, put on by the engineering sorority AOE, and the engineering fraternity SPD. Annamaria and I are hoping to be selling refreshments at this event like lemonade (pink AND yellow), cookies, chips, etc... you know - the sort of unhealthy food everyone expects at sports events.

More soon!
KAS

How do you measure, measure a year? How about graphs!!

Seeing that we are half way through the time we have to fundraise and train, I've decided to give everyone some fantastic visual representation of our progress thus far!  Because what's better than Excel graphs!?  Well probably a lot of things but here we go:

Figure 1:  So half way to beginning our trip and we are very nearly half way to our goal.  Which means we really need to step it up.  Which we will!  This coming week we will be fundraising at both Earth Stock and Stony Brooks Science and Arts Expo a.k.a Makers Fair.  We are also still holding our Doctor Who Raffle so please continue to help us reach $4,500 by either entering the raffle or by just donating. 

(Note: I am in fact closer than Kathryn :P)

Figure 2: Here we clearly have some statistical error.  I'm not sure where the math went wrong but I'll be sure to clear it up by the time my next post is up.... Damn it Kathryn!

Figure 3: I think you can clearly see what's happening here.  Kathryn is some where in the range of a perfect 10 but unfortunately for her my ratings are well just over...9000!

That just about sums it.  Keep a look out for my blog post for DivaCup which should be up in the next week or so.  And as always, thank you so much to our donors and if you haven't yet donated yourself please $5-10 is all we ask.


See ya next week,

Annamaria

PS.  Stats from today's training. I'm gettin there.  (I think 900 Calories is a lie)

Workin' our Sweat Equity

Hey all!

The past couple weeks have been pretty productive for Annamaria and I. Bake sale, shopping (for gear), Doctor Who raffle, training, Diva Cups, and tomorrow we're doing out first volunteer work with the Habitat for Humanity in Nassau County! Like she told you on Monday, Annamaria and I went to the bike shop across from campus last week and got a SWEET deal on clipless pedals and cycling shoes. That's all it takes right? We're serious cyclists now, aren't we? We also started our Doctor Who raffle which is completely awesome, if I do say so myself, and everyone who is anyone should be entering to get some cool DW prizes.

This pedal/shoe combo takes some real getting used to. We of course practiced clipping in and out before we started riding; but the first time we clipped in and started pedaling I felt as if my bike and I were going to be physically connected forever. Clipping out seems counterintuitive as first, I thought that as long as I had a good 30 seconds to stop I'd be fine. Turns out, that's not true. The problem with being clipped to your pedals is that if you lose your balance or need to stop NOW, it's tough to get your feet out in time to stop your fall. So it is clear to new clipless pedalers (like us) that they should expect to fall at least once when learning; I can be an over-achiever, and as such fell TWICE on my ride on Monday, while Annamaria has fallen exactly 0 times (I call this showing off). The first time I fell didn't hurt at all, I was able to bounce back up like I was made of rubber and jump back on my bike. I thought "That wasn't bad, I'll be fine," but I was being cocky, and the universe got me back shortly thereafter. The second time I fell was about a quarter mile away from my dorm, and it was terrible. I sat next to my bike rocking quickly back and forth breathing deeply (like Peter Griffin from Family Guy) for about 10 seconds before stumbling to my feet and slowly getting back in the saddle (this photo doesn't do the pain justice, in my opinion).

Oh, woe is me.

Anyway, the Doctor Who raffle! If you haven't figured it out by now, we are pretty big DW fans and think that everyone else should be too (because, obviously, DW is legit). If you, or any of your friends, are Whovians, make sure you inform them about our raffle. The prizes are : handmade Doctor Who themed quilt, 11th Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver, and a TARDIS cell phone alert charm. To enter the raffle click on DOCTOR WHO RAFFLE! at the top of the page, log in with your Facebook or e-mail address, and donate $5 to Annamaria or I. This gives you 5 entries into the raffle - after donating there are ways to get more entries (follow us on Twitter, like our Facebook page, etc.). There are 22 days left for these prizes, so make sure to tell everyone about it.

Tomorrow, Annamaria and I are going to volunteer at a build site for six of our ten required Sweat Equity hours. We will clearly be the best volunteers to have at a build site, what with all our experience, and will leave our mark on this sure-to-be fantastic house. We're pretty excited about it.

To everyone who has donated up to this point (time, money, patience, etc.) we want you to know we are extremely grateful. To everyone who hasn't, shame on you! Just kidding, obviously, but we would really appreciate some donations! Bike&Build has provided us with a timeline for fundraising, and it says we should have $2,000 for affordable housing by April 6. Neither one of us has that (although Annamaria's pretty close), so help us out! We are going to seriously help some American communities and families this summer, but only if we are able to fundraise (reminder: it's tax deductible).

More soon!
KAS

P.S. We passed 2,000 views on our blog this week, woohoo!

...And You Get A DivaCup... And You Get A DivaCup...

Just got DivaCup's donation in the mail!  

A cup for each woman on our ride.

Thank you so much for making our lives on the road that much easier!

Going Clip-less

WE RAISED $4,500 LAST WEEK!

April Fools we're each still ~$3,200 away from our goal:\ but we are closer however, and we are currently holding a raffle to get us closer to our goal! A Doctor Who raffle that is! In case you didn't notice the RaffleCopter widget above, we are raffling off a Doctor Who Quilt, a Sonic Screwdriver, and a Tardis Key Chain! For those of you who do not know what any of those things are, except maybe the quilt, you should still enter.  If you win I'm sure you can find a Whovian* some where who would love you forever if you gave them the gift of opening doors with sonic waves... that's what the quilt does.

Anyhow on other new Kathryn and I finally got cycling shoes and clip-less pedals last week.  Thanks to our deal with Campus Bicycle we got an incredible deal on both the shoes and the pedals. (We use our own money for gear btw) If you unfamiliar with clip-less pedals that are actually the opposite of what you might think they are.  Though they say they're clip-less they are in fact clips which cycling shoes clip into.  Further research on the subject has led me to believe that the only reason they are called clip-less pedals is for veteran cyclists to laugh at newbs when they say it wrong.  Why would you wanna be clipped in to your bike?  Becuase it's hilarious to watch people fall as they fail to twist their feet out.  Well that and the fact that you can then pull and push on pedals so that you no longer rely solely on your quads.  It might seem like it wouldn't make too much of a difference but our average speed went up 4 mph the on our first ride with them.  Which is a lot when you think that before we got our clip-less (clip) pedals it would of taken us 416.6 hours to go from Rhode Island to California but luckily now its only approximatly 297.6 hours.  Which then means that if we did not sleep or stop and ate on our bikes as well as pooped while we pedaled it would take us 12 days! Sorry, I was having too much math fun.

Over and Out!
          

*a person who watches Doctor Who

Bake Sale Success!

Hello, all!

First of all, we would like to thank everyone at Stony Brook for making our Bike&Build Bake Sale a massive success! In total, we were able to raise about $200 for affordable housing, which in my opinion is fantastic. Thanks to all the students, faculty, non-students (those from U of Alabama), friends, etc for buying baked goods and donating time and/or money. You are all awesome.

At this bake sale we had SIX different kinds of cookies! My amazing sister (The Kitchen Politico) donated more than 200 cookies worth of cookie dough to our cause, and these cookies are legit. Seriously. A friend of ours (It's on Fire!)  donated some baked goods as well. All in all, Annamaria and I pressed some buttons on the oven and put the frozen cookie dough in until they smelled delicious; but we are still worn out from this experience, it was sort of overwhelming.

These are the cookies we had:
Molasses (my Grandma's recipe, and just about the best cookies ever)
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup
Monster w/ and w/o Toffee (crunchy PB, butterscotch and chocolate chips, M&Ms, and oats; Annamaria's favorite)
Oatmeal Currant (one of my favorites)
Chocolate Chip w/ Pecans
Citrus Sizzlers (lime w/ cayenne pepper, another of my favorites)

(I slept on the floor)

And our friend made Chocolate Loaf Cake, Chocolate Pudding Tarts, and Egg Custard Tarts.

Looks good, right? 

More big news - we both got our bikes this week! We were both up before our mail room was open yesterday, and as soon as they opened their doors we went to get our (enormous) boxes of bike. Annamaria put hers together immediately, I don't know where she found the time - mine is still in pieces: 

This means that we will start training for real, whenever we're free. But we will get our 500 miles in and be pumped for all day bike riding this summer!

Also, in a couple days we will be starting a raffle! We aren't sure how many prizes there will be yet, but there will definitely be one top prize of this awesome Doctor Who themed quilt (made by my mother!) and hopefully a Sonic Screwdriver. 

(We'll have a better photo in a few days)

We are still in the process of setting up this fundraiser, and will keep everyone posted on the progress. Hopefully it will be extremely easy and convenient for everyone involved. If you have any Doctor Who friends, let them know! The raffle will be through Rafflecopter, and it will be set up on this blog in a couple days, if everything runs smoothly. (Also, if you're not a Doctor Who fan, you should become one. Because it's awesome.)

So check back in regularly, because our wheels are really getting rolling (ha)! And we would love a ton of involvement from everyone. 

Geronimo!

Cycling Divas

     For Kathryn and I spring break does not lack of productivity.  During these past few days Kathryn and I have been kicking ass and taking names!  This week while visiting her grandparents and her sisters family Kathryn has been preparing every aspect of our bake sale fundraiser on Tuesday. That means securing a table, getting ingredients, printing our logos and confirming with our volunteer cooks all while keeping her grandparents company.

     My week began when Kathryn and I asked ourselves the question many women before us have asked.  How am  I gonna coup with cycling all day long during my period? (Just lost any male readers...) Luckily I had experience with an answer to this tricky question known as The DivaCup (a magical device which will make you forget you period exist, save you hundreds of dollars and decrease your carbon foot print... yea magical).  Realizing that this same problem would exist for every woman on our ride I immediately emailed The DivaCup company about our dilemma and boy did they come through!  They were stoked about our cause and were so eager to help they have offered to donate at cup for every one in our group...well for the women folk at least.  Problem solved! But that's not all! They also would like us to write a post for their blog about Bike & Build.  We're so grateful for their interest in affordable housing and would like to thank them for their donation!

Also major thanks to all our donors!  Next time we post we'll both have our bikes!

- AM

Spring Break! Woohoo!

Alright! So our Spring Break started today and we are both off on great adventures which are extremely exciting. I am off to Virginia to visit some family, and Annamaria is off to North Carolina to visit a friend of hers. Also, we both were able to order our bikes this week! Woohoo! Hooray! At the moment, though, I'm slightly more inclined to be excited about Spring Break because I'm all about the instant gratification.

Over the past couple weeks we've really been getting into a lot of cycling stuff. Before, we (I, at least) were more the kind of people who liked to go on bike rides and ride to class, but didn't really know anything more about cycling in the 'real world' (Annamaria knows how to work on bikes and I know vaguely how to change a flat). But we've been reading up on some of this stuff and it's gotten us super pumped! Not to say that we aren't intimidated; there is so much gear to have and know about, and frankly, the cycling community is enormous. 

Luckily, our Bike&Build route has its own website which has so far been incredibly entertaining and helpful. Who knew that going on a 15-20 mile ride without eating on the way would be bad for you? Would anyone have guessed that wearing spandex and cycling for 8 hours a day would create issues with your 'saddle area'? And wait... I really don't want saddlesores.* So the four fearless leaders of our B&B trip created this website to help us all with the transition from non-continuous-cycling life to continuous-cycling life (Thank you, fearless leaders!). You know when you're walking toward someone directly in your path, and neither one of you knows which one is going to move? That's kind of how some of their tips feel, because sometimes it's more like "Some people think this is good, but others think that is good. Just try them both." so you're kind of back where you started. But all in all, it's a lot of really great information! Annamaria and I didn't really know where to run first. 

But we decided on our LBS (local bike shop). Like Annamaria said in her last post, the bike shop right across from Stony Brook said they would give us a gear discount! Once we get back from Spring Break we'll pick up the most needed gear and be ready and rolling (ha) in no time! Another thing we'll be able to do is start our sweat equity, which is our time volunteering at a local affordable housing construction site. Sweat equity gets us to the point where we won't feel out of place on a build site when we join people across America on build sites (good idea, eh?). 

Also, we have been getting more exposed to some of the cycling magazines and websites out there, which only make us more excited. A new magazine started earlier in March, called Bunyan Velo, which is available to read free online. While only one issue has so far been published, it's enough to make Annamaria and I head out on our bikes for who knows where with a sleeping bag and some food. The entire issue is dedicated to stories of cyclists who have gotten on their bikes to go wherever the wind takes them. These cyclists write about their trips through Mexico, around the Great Lakes, or simply their love of winter riding. 

So basically, we are super pumped for everything that's happened so far, and we would like to send our super big thanks to everyone who has donated to our cause so far! If you haven't donated (or even if you have) and find that you've got some extra cash, we would be extremely grateful if you chose to give to affordable housing through either of us (Annamaria or Kathryn)!

* Everybody should know all of these things. 

Progress

     This past week was our first week with a training routine and I have to say, I quite enjoyed it!  I cannot say the same for Kathryn however.  Being in charge of training has meant having to survive prolonged death stares from Kathryn which seem to say “some day when you least expect it, bad things will come”.

Case in point:

     In order to give her a way to get back at me and in light of the fact that most of what I eat consists of Nutella I have decided that Kathryn will be in charge of Nutrition.  Not that she is much better at eating right… Anyhow for those Doctor Who fans out there, Kathryn and I are working on organizing a raffle with the grand prize of a Doctor Who wall hanging brought to you by Kathryn’s mom!  I’ve seen some of her work, including a Weasley sweater she made for Kathryn, and it’s amazing!  It will take some time to make but we’ll be sure to post the final product and details of the raffle.  We’re also looking for prize donations from local businesses in order to have a Stony Brook raffle as well.

     Speaking of local businesses, Campus Bicycle, the bike shop across the street from Stony Brook University has been kind enough to give us a gear discount!  (I’ve been put in charge of gear too btw)  We are so thankful, and can’t wait to check out their stock.

Since we have not perfected our own bike tricks yet I leave you with this video:

I want to ride my bicycle!

Greetings everyone!

First of all, if you haven't donated yet, why not? You should really get on that, it's an amazing thing to do and all the cool people are doing it. (Donate to Kathryn, or to Annamaria)

Annamaria's last post surprised me (seriously, I had no idea this was happening) by saying that we would start really working out this week (8:30am!!). Monday and Tuesday I used some of those stationary bikes that the gym has, and Stony Brook just opened up a new fancy-pants fitness center with new fancy-pants equipment, so these bikes are more like video games. Seriously, you can steer these bikes and catch dragons while you're pedaling in place. Honestly, it wasn't as bad as I remember stationary bikes being, but still not the time of my life. On Wednesday we had a rest day (yay!) but tomorrow it's gym time again at 8:30am.

Also, surely everyone has noticed (or remember that she told you last time) that Annamaria and I have reached the $1,000 needed to order our Bike&Build bikes! This is super exciting and we are biting at the reins to get started. But first we need to go to our Giant bike dealer and get sized so we won't be in huge amounts of unnecessary pain by getting a bike that's too big or too small. We were all pumped to go on Tuesday but, get this, our Giant dealer is closed on Tuesdays (ONLY on Tuesdays), so we are going to go on Thursday instead. Then we'll send Bokoo Bikes our sizes and they'll send us our bikes and everything will be peachy!

Even though we have >$1,000 now, that's only about one-third of the way to our $4,500 goal. For the past month or so we've been brainstorming a lot about possible fundraising ideas, and here's a sample of the ideas we've come up with: Bake sale! Yes, a bake sale. Everybody loves cupcakes and cookies, and bake sales bring in some pretty sufficient funds for organizations on the Stony Brook campus. Raffle! (If you are part of a company that would like to donate something for us to raffle, e-mail us.) Stony Brook students, you know all those things that you hate to do? Like going outside to get food, waiting for the bus to take you grocery shopping, maybe even taking out the trash? For a small donation of $3-5 we will do these things for you! Just e-mail us or comment to get our attention.

Lastly, most of you probably know (or... I don't know... do you?) that March is Women's History Month! A whole month dedicated to remembering the contributions of women worldwide, which Annamaria and I think is worth a mention. Both Annamaria and I were blown away last week by a PBS documentary "Makers: Women Who Make America" and I have made it my personal mission to share it with everyone I know (or don't). As many people often forget, it was less than a century ago when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution granted women the right to vote (Woohoo!), but activists still had their work cut out for them  fighting discrimination and speaking out against domestic violence. In this documentary, activists, authors, actors, entrepreneurs, and law enforcement officers talk about what the Movement was like during the last half of the 20th century.

As always if you have any comments, questions, or answers feel free to contact us!

Our Training Schedule/What Kathy Doesn't Know

     If you haven't noticed our awesome new fundraising thermometers, Kathryn and I have both hit the $1,000 mark. Much thanks to our family and friends!  This means that we will soon be sent our bikes and that we can now bring our affordable housing awareness to the road.  It will be my first time riding a modern road bike and Kathy's first time teaching me her ways, so in order to represent Bike & Build accordingly Kathy and I have a lot of training ahead of us.

     Luckily Bike & Build helps us outline a training schedule. Starting this month and into April we will be starting by biking 10 miles about 3 times a week.  Seeing as we don't have our bikes quite yet however we will be following our usual routine: eating and watching T.V. Just kidding.  Kathy might not know this yet but we will be going to the gym 3 times a week as an attempt to make up for our lack of bikes.  We usually try and go to the gym at least a few times a week but from now on it is set in stone and our work outs will be geared more towards biking (no pun intended).  Our campus recreation center just got some new simulated spin bikes so we'll be sure to give them a go. If anyone has some good cross-training advice we'd love to hear it.  Of course nothing is like the real thing so once our bikes are out of their boxes it's go time!
   
      In May we are expected to try our first 65 mile ride and our average ride should be 20 miles.  Hopefully by this time we will be gear masters and eating miles for breakfast.  If not we better get crackin.  We have to ride 500 miles total before June and my total (and I think Kathy's) so far is zero.  This will soon change however, starting Monday our new routine begins!
   
     Our schedule for this coming week (Kathy definitely doesn't know about this):

Monday: 3:45pm Tae kwon do (counts as gym)

Tuesday: 8:30am Gym- 30 min stationary bike, 30 min weights

Wednesday: Rest Day - (Kathy has no class so she can work out all day while I rest)

Thursday: 8:30am Gym - 40 min swim

Friday:  Rest Day

Life on the Road

Hey everyone, I'm going to be writing my second post in a row! Time sort of got away from Annamaria and I, and it was better for both of our schedules to switch up our days.

One of the things that I am most looking forward to during Bike&Build is, well, the biking. Spending every day in a new place seeing new sights and meeting new people will be one great way to pass 10 weeks. You may ask "Where will they sleep? What will they eat?". Fear not, I have the answers!

A typical day in the life of a Bike&Build-er starts at 6am. We'll crawl out of our sleeping bags, pack up and eat breakfast; this is followed by a 7:30 morning meeting at which a leader of our trip will outline the day's route and distribute directions, and we all do a last minute tune up of our bikes. After the meeting, we're off! We'll take our time with the morning ride, stopping for photo ops and interesting places along the way in small groups of 3-4 riders. By 11:30 it's lunchtime, the support van that will be following us around during the summer with extra gear and all of our luggage will set up at a lunch spot where the whole group will meet up again and get some food in our bodies. After lunch we finish the day's route, and by 4:30pm the whole group will have arrived at our host for the night! At this point, all 30 (or so) of us will be smelly and sweaty, so *hopefully* there will be showers awaiting us at our destination, and we finish our daily chores (grocery shopping, cleaning, etc). We eat dinner with our amazing hosts in our new place and then give a presentation to the community about what Bike&Build is, and generally raise awareness of the affordable housing cause in the U.S. (Annamaria and I will be well practiced in that by then!).

There are days, however, when we don't bike from one town to the next. We have Build Days and Days Off - let me explain these days that need no explanation. During Build Days we get up and, instead of setting up to continue our ride across the country, we go to a construction site with an affordable housing organization and build a house (raise the roof!). I'm sure you can imagine what a Day Off entails - we hang out, relax, explore, and have fun in a host community.

As for our hosts, they will usually be community centers, churches, YMCAs and the like who are gracious enough to allow a group of 30-odd bikers sleep on their floors for a night or two. They are pre-arranged by our group leaders, and can even be nice enough to provide us with dinner and/or breakfast during our stay! Sometimes we will need to cook for ourselves, and in this case we shop and cook as a group; our lunches on the road will be picnic style usually including a sandwich, fruit, juice, etc. By the time we're done with our day we will certainly be ready for some sleep, and excited to get up the next morning to do it all over again!

On a different note, I hope some of y'all were able to tune in to hear Annamaria and I on the radio last Friday! We were really excited about the opportunity to spread the word about our cause (and hopefully snagged some new readers). We are also trying to think of some fun and interesting ways to fundraise, so I have another plea for help. If you have ever needed to fundraise for anything (seriously, anything) tell us how you did it! Bake sales, info booths, making a spectacle of yourself, another crazy idea that you've never seen done by anyone else. Tell us your stories!