Pics from charlotte to forest city to ashville

Tree roadblock detour leaving charlotte

Bike metal man

Some pretty views on the first tough climb of the trip to ashville

I'm in maryville,TN right now and I will blog hopefully soon about our past couple mountain days. It was intense! And beautiful. We climbed up the smokey mountains to cross into TN and I've never felt so accomplished. going down a mountain at 42 mph was like being on my own personal rollercoaster. It was so exhilirating

Two mountains... One goal..TN

Today was an even greater feat... 90 mile ride up two mountains. A 8
mile climb up the second mountain... Too extreme. The smokey
mountains? Yeah... Been there done that BAM!

I'll make a longer post once I find a computer...

Ride to Ashville

The greatest day ever. A day up a mountain with a long climb.
Beautiful views. I am satisfied.

Stopping

Stopping can be one of the most dangerous things a cyclist does. It is probably one if the easiest ways to get into an accident if you don't know what you're doing. You need to yell "stopping" or stick a five fingered hand behind you so people around you know your intentions. And usually, somebody will always make the mistake of not downshifting when they start pedaling again (which slows you down even more and makes you more vulnerable).


I've had these experiences, along with everyone else on the trip. Yet, stopping on this trip has been one of the most pleasant decisions I've made. We're moving so fast everyday from road to road, town to town and it's good to slow down. Take some time to "realize" and "appreciate."


For example, on our way from Chapel Hill to Winston-Salem, Timur and I stopped to save another turtle in the middle of the road from certain death. Our official committee for roadkill is up to a count of about 120, so I wasn't about to let this guy become another number:

He was hiding in his shell, too scared to move

In his new safe location...

And then in Chapel Hill we stopped and took a seat in the planetarium to witness some stars and this giant machine... quite a marvel, but also an easy way to fall asleep if you've been building a house all day.

Upon arrival to a church in Winston-Salem, a game of knockout was considered necessary in the church gym. Sometimes you just gotta stop cycling and pick up a basketball. Even after cycling a hilly 90 miles and getting lost...

And then sometime you'll be biking and see some goats and freak out because... THEY'RE GOATS!!

Our stop in Charlotte, NC led us to Zach's house - a former Bike and Build alumni from NC2SD 2007 (the first time the route happened). He was a true pioneer and quite enthusiastic about our trip. But please, if you will, imagine 31 people packed into a tiny North Carolina home. Sometimes we just needed to stop and realize how insane that was... and then after that - PARTY! Well, not really, but at least take load off after a long travel from Winston-Salem to Charlotte.

Even when we did some remodeling with the Davidson College organization "Hammers," we needed a break to play some monkey in the middle.

And then another POOL PARTY!!!

So maybe you can tell by this post that all my time is not just spent biking and building. There's a lot of time to do an assortment of things (if you can stay awake after 5+ hours of cycling). But back to my rambling; Mornings are chaotic - we all wake up at 5AM and scrabble to clean up everything from the night before and get all our gear together. We need to eat breakfast, fill the lunch coolers with peanut butter and other foodstuffs, make the gatorade, get our cue sheets (for the route), write a thank you card, make sure everyone's bike works, make sure we haven't lost anything and then BIKE. And then biking usually takes 5-7 hours. We typically get a little lost, eat lunch somewhere along the way, and then once we arrive at our host location we need to scramble and get our shower stuff together so we can get shuttled to the local YMCA (or wherever we get a chance to shower). Then, if we're lucky, get a nice dinner from the host and then do about a gajillion other things. Maybe an exaggeration, but as you can see, we're always moving about and its pretty chaotic.

It's easy to get flustered and lost in the motion of things (especially since what I described above is a pretty typical day). But I think the most important moments of this summer are when we stop doing all those things and just take some time to get to know each other. Just hanging out. Stopping and realizing what we're doing. Sitting on the curb waiting for the van after a shower, talking about fine cheese. Everyone is slowly revealing their personalities and falling into their comfort zones. Any initial impressions have mostly been completely wiped from my brain and its interesting how different you can come to view a person after knowing them for a week.

This is the most rambled post I've made, so now I'm going to STOP. And Neel wants to use the computer..

Sunny Sunny Days

This is the third day we've been in Chapel Hill, staying at the Chapel of the Cross Church. Today was our day off and boy is it good. Tommorow we got a 90 miler to Winston-Salem with a lot of hills. Time to work on that climbing technique...

We spent yesterday building with Habitat for Humanity around Chapel Hill and we made some awesome progress (pictures shown below). Even in the face of rather unsultry temperatures, we accomplished a lot and it was even more satisfying because we got to meet the homeowner. And is it turns out, our route (NC2SD) donates a major chunk of our fundraised money to Habitat for Humanity in this area (Orange County, NC). I'm not sure of the exact amount, but I know we helped fund a significant amount of the house we were building and made it possible. Pretty cool stuff.

Something that takes some getting used to is all the food that people throw at us. Since we're all living on very limited individual and Bike and Build funds, we usually scavenge any leftover food everytime we eat at a church/a build site. Right now, we have a cooler packed with tons of yougart, soda, apples, bananas, peanut butter, icecream and pita bread. And the church we're staying at always makes too much food for breakfast/dinner, so we literally have an entire fridge of meatloaf, bagels, cream cheese, fried chicken, hummus, and about 50 other things for us. I'm sure we'll end up taking most, if not all, of this stuff with us when we hit the road again tommorow.

Here's a photo from that century (100 mile ride) we did to Wake Forest the other day. As you can see, we all take ourselves very seriously on this trip:

This was the stop at about mile 65 on our accidental century to Wake Forest. We all commiserated together, and ate a lot of snacks. It was one of those unplanned things (my favorite) that just worked out really well.

After taking a beautiful ride from Wake Forest to Chapel Hill (passing thru Duke University), we were greeted by Alf at the Chapel Hill church.

Chilling with some kids at the bike clinic, and teaching them their bike ABC's (air, brakes, cables). I think some of them even enjoyed riding their bikes more than I did because there were a couple of speed demons who loved to dash around. It was fun:

The day of building - we came to a house that basically didn't have much except a foundation, and added A LOT of framing and walls.

Matt working hard:

My shadow (saw a lot of that yesterday - it was hot!)

The epic moment right before putting up the first wall of the house. It was quite a sight to see.

All this framing was done in one day. I personally thought building was harder than cycling, but it was still really good work we got to do.

Some designs on the walls of East Franklin Street in Chapel Hill:

I've never been here before, but it is, as a friend of mine would say, a pretty crunchy place. It reminds me a lot of Charlottesville in many ways. It also has really nice people at the Ben and Jerry's. I lost my wallet there and then I got a call from them the next day telling me they had it. WORD! I'm real glad I found that. Losing stuff has become pretty a common theme with everyone on this trip so far and its ONLY been a week. I'll be lucky to arrive in San Diego with a pair of socks and my bike in one piece at this point ;)

And finally, the POOL PARTY from today's day off. Sarah lives in Chapel Hill, so her parents invited us all over to their house to hang out, eat and swim. It was a great way to take a load off.

A short photo story:

Oh yeah.

The great thing about this organization is that Bike and Build sort of functions as an extended family. Along this trip so far, we've met probably at least 5 different alumni who have come to just hang out with us or help us in some way, or just come and yabber about how much they love Bike and Build. It's a totally chill thing and these people come out to US because they feel so passionately about Bike and Build. Their enthuasism is contagious. It makes me think long and hard about the overall experience I'm going to have this summer (overwhelmy positive, it appears).

I'm writing this, only a week into this 9 week trip, and can hardly imagine the next couple weeks which involve biking up a MOUNTAIN and thru the desert. Time to go take a nap... yes...

UNC

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

From: Sharif Morad <sharifmorad@gmail.com>
Date: May 21, 2009 5:57:03 PM EDT
To: "sharifmorad.bikes@blogger.com" <sharifmorad.bikes@blogger.com>
Subject: UNC

Today we biked from Wake Forest to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and now we're all in a church watching Cash Cab:

It wasn't a bad ride, and we passed thru Duke along the way. Very scenic and a lot of downhills (always good).

Yesterday, when we biked to Wake Forest, we got a little lost and most of us ended up doing our first century (100 miles). It was EXTREME and took from 8am to 6pm - yes that is 10 hours of cycling. I don't think anyone ever thought they could bike that much, but we all did it and basically crashed after showering and eating.

We are in Chapel Hill for 3 days - tommorow we will build with Habitat for Humanity and Saturday is a FREE day!!! Sarah has offered her house for a pool party because she lives around here and I'm so stoked. So stoked. I get excited just thinking about it as I peck away on my IPhone.

We also did our first bike clinic today. Basically we arrange for kids in the area to come hang out with their bikes and we teach them about basic bike maintence and saftey. It's a way to how back to the community that is nice enough to host us.

Ah a maildrop just came in. I need to go check and see if any if you love me enough...

UNC

Today we biked from Wake Forest to the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill and now we're all in a church watching Cash Cab:

Las fotos

This is what happens when you have a birthday on Bike and Build. Especially when your name is Ginger and you fail to mention to everyone that it is your birthday. "You can ride, but you can't hide"

These are some photos from Nags Head beach on our first day riding, wheel dipping ceremony.

Hanging out and itching to go

This ones for you, Mom and Dad:

I told Ginger and Andy to look majestic and this is their interpretation...

A nice photo of two out of four of our fearless leaders. Playing in the sand...

LEADERS:

Gabe - (foreground) Reliable, Loud, Enthusiastic, Killer Stache

Anna - (in the sand) Similar, less loud (no stache)

Amy - (no photo) Camera shy...just kidding

Steve - (laughing in next photo) infectious laugh, embodies all traits above as well

They guide us, prepare us, and somehow manage to get us all to take care of one another. We are lost (literally), without them.

Steve and Gabe:

View from on top of the "Welcome to Nags Head" sign:

Hitting the road on our first day (66 miles). We were in this road for about 60 miles ... an endless stretch of swamp and road

Think of me riding my bike and trying to take a photo in front of me. Now, appreciate the detail. Read this again. Marvel at my feat:

The road didn't actually look like this, but I'd like to think that it did

From my ride today doing sweep

Keeping friends company while changing a flat. TEAMWORK!!

Some of the healthy food I ate at Cubies (local burger joint) after our 54 mile ride. Did I mention that eating takes on a whole new meaning after cycling? I'm pretty sure my calorie intake per day has at least doubled. This phonomena, I like it.

And finally, the design on our trailer from last years trip. We just whitewashed the trailer and now it is being repainted with fresh ideas. Whdat will they be?? Stay tuned. Comment if you are reading this; I know a lot of unfamiliar people are - SHOW yourselves! Are you not entertained!?

You have received new photos from Sharif Morad.

-- Email sent with the "Multi-Photo Email" iPhone application --

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