Bikes, Camera, Action!

Happy Valentines Day!

     For those of you in the Northeast you may have noticed we got some snow this past weekend.  We even got Monday off from school and Kathy had her first proper snowball fight.  Oh the memories.  Also this past weekend my boyfriend gave me his belated Christmas gift: a GoPro Hero3 HD camera!  This means that awesome training/trick/informational videos are coming your way.  Tricks you say? Yes, tricks!  Maybe not quite the tricks featured in the last video I posted, but I promise you they will be awesome.  Kathy says she'll just be filming but I'm sure we can get her to try something.  Of course bike tricks will have to wait till we receive our bikes.  Kathy and I are still each roughly $800 short of getting our bikes and that's if we decide not to upgrade any of their components.  The bike which Bike & Build has selected for our trip across the country is the Giant Avail 3.  Were both pretty stoked about this model but it's important that we have ample riding time before our trip to grow accustomed to them and replace anything which may be unsatisfactory, like the saddle for instance.  So it's important that we raise this money sooner rather than later any amount you donate helps.

     For those Sweet Frog (frozen yogurt) lovers out there in the Stony Brook area, Kathy and I hope to hold a fundraiser with them in the weeks to come.  With any luck 20% of their revenue for a day will be going to affordable housing so stay in touch to learn how to participate by simply eating frozen yogurt.

Please feel free to leave a comment or email us we'd love to hear any suggestions or opinions!



Here's one of my favorite trials video, enjoy:

Special thanks to our donors thus far and please continue to tell friends about our cause!

Oh, the places we'll go!

Hey everyone!

As I type there is about 28" of snow on the ground outside my dorm room in NY - I hope everybody in the area has stayed warm and dry as Nemo wreaked havoc!

Well, as you know Annamaria and I have not yet been able to order our bikes - we are planning on posting videos or photos of rides we take, how long they are, etc. However, since neither one of us has the required $1,000 for our bikes(ahem!), I'll fill you in on the details of our route for the summer instead.

We said in our first post that our route takes us from Providence, RI to San Fransisco, CA (from here on out it is referred to as P2C) - just one of 8 routes crossing the entire country. There is a Southern route (Florida to California), a Central route (Virginia to Oregon), a Northern route (New Hampshire to British Columbia) and five other routes in between. All national routes begin on the East Coast in the beginning of the summer and finish somewhere on the West Coast at the end. For those busy cyclists who don't have the time in the summer that us college students have, there is the Capital Ride - a route that takes just two weeks in July to help out from Richmond, VA to Philadelphia, PA, and a week long Chris Weber Memorial Route in the winter; starting in Orlando and finishing in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, this ride is for Bike&Build alumni only and is dedicated to the memory of 2005 trip leader Chris Weber who passed away in 2007.

P2C crosses 17 states, going west through New England and climbing the Rockies to end up on the beach in northern California. Here is a full look at our itinerary:

You may say "Hey! They're only building for 14 out of 82 days on this trip!". That is completely true. However, on the days that we aren't building houses, we are going to be cycling through America raising money and awareness for the affordable houses we build, and we might throw in some cycling safety as well.

In the future, I will be posting information on various towns we will be building in or riding through, and what we plan to do for the community. If anyone has a particular town they would like to know more about, tell us!

More from us soon,
Kathryn

Where did my money go?

Hey all, Annamaria here!  

     Kathy and I will be alternating our posts every 5 days.  Today is my turn. 

     Normally, I would post how many miles we were able to do last week while training but unfortunately neither me nor Kathy have a bike yet.  For Bike & Build to send us our bikes we have to have raised $1,000 and passed a safety and policy test.  Right now Kathy is coming in first with a whopping $241.00 while I'm in second with a mere $105.00.  So help me out!  This brings me to the main topic of today which is where does the $4,500 we each raise end up?  Well if only $4,500 are raised than approximately 45%-55% are donated to local affordable housing organizations sometimes affiliated with Habitat for Humanity.  35% is used on programming costs, and only 10% is used on admin*.  A good way to look at these percentages is that half goes straight to affordable housing organizations while the other half goes to facilitating awareness and in turn more donations!  Currently there are 30 riders on our route which has previously been able to raise a total of $180,119* and over the year Bike & Build has raised $4 million.  Help us raise the bar!  

     Last Wednesday we had 79 views, if everyone had donated $20 we would have raised $1,580 in one day!  Please take two seconds to donate what ever you feel you can afford:)

     I will leave you with this awesome video: 

We'll be sure to post a video of our tricks once we get our bike!