PS

Send me an email at sharifmorad@gmail.com if you want to see something
here, or you approve, or you just read my blog. I'm curious

More Colorado

1. Look at that view!!!!

2, 3, 4. Holding rocks up and more red rocks at the Garden of the Gods

More Colorado

1. View from the summitt yesterday

2. Entering the Garden of the Gods

3. Posing in part of the Garden

4. View of the top of Monarch Summitt before the major descent

5. Amy taking it all in

Colorado Photos

1. Summit we reached today. Highest elevation we will reach all trip. I sent a lucky few a postcard from here. It was a 22 mile climb

2. Summit we reached yesterday

3. View from the top of the mountain (Monarch)

4. Road between the Rocky Mountains

5. Views of the Rockies from the towns we passed through along 24

Beauty is real

Dear Colorado,

You rock. I love you. You are so beautiful and I want to ride through
the Rocky Mountain region forever. Your terrain is ultimate.

Highlights of the past two days (100 and 80 miles for Buena Vista and
Gunnison)

-Reaching two high peaks and gaining a lot of elevation. We're talking
high thousands here and moving at a pace of approx. 5 MPH

-Getting to the top of Monarch Crest today with an elevation of 11,312
feet.

-Following said summiting with a group Cupid Shuffle Dance

-The descents of the past two days down the mountains. Flying through
8 miles of terrain in less than 10 minutes maxing out at 45
MPH...yeeehaaaw

-Riding through the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs (pictures
above)

-Meeting at least 4 other transcontinental riding groups or persons
along route 24. We met people riding from Blacksburg, VA to Portland
and a group going from Canada to Mexico along the Divide.

The pictures!!!

Fotos

1.the (shy) Alex Riemondy and my sweat stained jersey on a road over a lake.

2. Me laughing about someone or something or biking or whatever

3. Beautiful sunrise view over the Arkansas River on our ride over the Big Dam Bridge.

4, 5. A game of Mini Tank (get on all fours and plow into each other till you fall) funny

Fotos

1. One of MANY group hugs

2, 3. Double piggy back on Stephen after a build day in Little Rock. Admirable.

4. A typical lunch stop mid ride. I think that day Chick Fil-A donated food to us

Some oldies but goodies

DAY OFF

Look, we found Wendy!

Snapping a little back to civilization, Stephen, Amy, and I are at a
Starbucks in Colorado Springs. Say what you want, think what you may -
we're taking it easy with some coffee and internets. Steve man is
doing job applications, Saunders is cue sheeting, I'm blogging, and we
all have too many inside jokes to keep us laughing and everyone around
us wondering. This is our last day off of the trip. It gives me peace
of mind and a refreshed feeling to have a day of nothing. Time you
enjoy wasting is not time wasted.

Today comes after our build day with pikes peak habitat. It was a
beautiful area with mountains all around - so fresh and vibrant. And
it wasn't blistering hot like all the southern build sites! We laid
foundation down and a week from now SC2SC is gonna come and build for
a week and COMPLETE the house. That's right. Bike and Build is
building an entire house. We work together as a whole organization
it's neat. I am bike and build. At first I felt like I was signing up
for a trip, kind of like doing a camp adventure - where I was an
observer being led along for the experience. But I realize now that
that notion was all wrong and that I'm doing my own leading, creating
my own journey, and giving up myself for something bigger and greater
than me. I represent bike and build and it's very cool to be a part
of something like that. When someone in a gas station comes up to me
and asks why all these funny looking cyclists are coming in, I get to
give them the spiel and represent us. It's not just me on this trip, I
and everyone else MAKE the trip. Its different to me, especially since
I've always delegated myself as a floater and individual; I have found
comfort in this group and find my experiences to be really great and
completly worthwhile. All I'm trying to say is that this is awesome...
I need a thesaurus because I'm starting to overuse that word.

Other people are taking the day in full speed and with the spirit of
Colorado. More than half our group woke up at 5:30AM (not me! :) ) to
go skydiving, white water rafting, and rock climbing. These people are
crazy. We spend the past month BIKING across America and then on our
day off they want to do more physical activity. I'll be happy today to
get new bartape from a bike shop.

My bike is getting the makeover it deserves. I get such a fuzzy
feeling everytime I tune, clean, and take care of my bike. How nerdy.
But take care of your bike and it will take care of you across the
country...
New brake pads, tires, chain etc etc thanks to the maildrop we just
got (thanks mom and dad) and THANK YOU Ms Thompson for the brownies.
Loved that you sent something.

Last night was fun too...went out to some Mexican joint and took it
over in our typical swarm fashion. Margarita madness. Completly loud
and obnoxious - we clear an area pretty quick. But I think other
people look at us and can tell how much, yes I'll use the word, love
is floating around and see that our ruckus comes from a place of good
heart. If that makes any sense at all to anyone but me. Anyway it was
really fun and it didn't even need to be said, but weight of our
progress and accomplishment really rides on the shoulders of everyone.
It's something to felt instead of said.

I'll try and follow this post with some fun pictures and memories
since I have time. Next four days of riding are intense climb days and
will be tough but hey, I've already biked halfway across the country.
What's next?

For Freedom!!

Yesterday I did the most physically exerting thing I've ever done. By
the time I got to the host location, I was too exhausted to blog or
really do anything. Two things were on my mind - eat and sleep. And I
did that. But yesterday was also the most awesome day: I biked 127
MILES from Rocky Ford to Colorado Springs. Sure there were about 25
flats between everyone (i had a nail and a staple) and that was
frustrating, but lets just take a second to consider this
accomplishment. Started biking at 5:30AM and arrived at 5:00PM. Tons
of rolling hills and valleys and the Rockies and pikes peak in the
distance. Total elevation gain 1800 feet and now we're at an elevation
of of 6000 feet. Woaaaahh

It was hard, it was tough, but we've all been mentally preparing for
this for the past month. This was the longest ride of the trip and
man, I've never had so much inspiration in my life. We all went to
sleep early and woke up early to get our stuff together and get way
pumped. We had a couple motivational speeches from our group, lots of
fierce facepaint, and some jams. But folks, we really got amped up
when Gabe painted half his face blue, lined us up along the sidewalk
with our bikes, and rode out in front of us screaming like a mad man
and gettin us reved up a la Braveheart. He gave the whole William
Wallace speech adapted to biking and it was fierce. I'm sure someone
got it on video. It was really hilarious. A sign of a good leader? I
think so.

Anyway awesome day yesterday. We're inspiring I'm inspired. I feel
accomplished and it was intense. Now I'm on the way to our build site
today and we're laying foundation down.
Day Off Tommorow WoOOOHOOO!!!

Mountain Standard Time

Let's see... I'm pretty tired right now because we just had a 100 mile day. And it was hot, hot, hot. But boy do I have some fun things for you readers.

Right now I'm in a church in Lamar, CO. We crossed into Mountain Standard Time. Woah. We've had a long past couple days of riding with no breaks, but man, we are STRONG! It was 98 miles on one road. Everyone's killing the road, booking it to the west coast. I think today some of the riders were pacelining at 30MPH on the way to the first lunch stop (40 miles). Maybe an exageration, but actually not, I think its true. We are killing it. We ate lunch in a graveyard today. Concidence? I think not.

Tomorrow is a "break" day (80 miles, hardly) and then after that we bike 124 miles to Colorado Springs baby. And then a build day and a rest day. The central US route will be in Denver and MAYBE we will get to meet them. I think a Bike and Build mixer is in store. How cool would that be? I'd be really curious to see how other groups on this trip are and share all the crazy stories we have and our experiences. This is such a unique trip... an experience... a memory to last forever. Damn its cool. Never in my short span of life have I ever spent everyday doing something and constantly thinking about how shocking, amazing, and awesome it is. Everyday is like the the drive to the first day of college, or the day before summer starts, or even the day before I came on this trip and meet these people. Ya dig? I am constantly reinvigorated.

Last time I blogged was the morning of the day we had a scavenger hunt. It was an easier day (60 miles, haha), so there was a list compiled of things to do. It was a looooong day because we took a bunch of detours. My group was outside for about 5 hours and only went about 15 miles. The reason was that one of our scavenger hunt items was to milk a cow. Not so easy, as you can imagine. After visiting several farms, we were directed to a dairy farm. We found it, but it was on a gravel road that took about 10 miles to get there. Tough riding, but totally worth it. It was just about the most ridiculous thing I've done so far while riding. Thousands of cows - the smelliest place you can imagine - all riding the carousel of milking and waiting for a chain to hit their heads so they get off the carousel. Ben was the brave one and decided to milk a cow (only after being really afraid of getting kicked in the face by the cow).




He also took a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u41FT_kHbN0


And here we are being given a tour of dairy farm, by the lovely 11 days due Daisy. Like I said, ridiculous.



All together, all our different groups were able to do things such as solicit kisses from strangers, get handcuffed (that was me), make trades with locals, go on a date with a grandmother, find a bullwhip, and carry part of a kids playhouse 6 miles on our bike (go Ginger go).


Two good videos.. these are keepers:

When we were at the University of Ozarks, (we stayed in a dorm), we were interviewed and taped. They got us after we did a century and even got some footage of us jumping in the fountain we weren't suppposed to (lifes too short, right?). They did a short video of us. Its cool and I say a little something in it as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF7RncJetfU

Also notable, and HILARIOUS. When we were biking to Little Rock, AR (back in the day).. several of us had a strange encounter with a man on the road who drove up beside us and started filming us while talking to us. He sounded very southern and was asking a lot of questions and we had no idea what to think. Upon further inspection, we noticed a baby deer nibbling on his ear in his lap. what? Exactly. He turned out to be really cool and offered accomodations to us next year. Flathead2020, this goes out to you. Here is the video of us and his deer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1Z_0GqW2f4

Bullet update

A quick recap of the past two days in a concise manner:

-biked 90 miles to a new state, Kansas. It was a very rainy day, but
quite fast and everyone flew on our way to Coldwater, KS (population -
dwindling)

-we camped out by a lake in Coldwater. Tents were first annihilated by
a storm but then it got much better. This picture is from everyone
hanging out by our tents, chilling and watching the sunset. Some went
canoeing, others jumped in the lake, and we had smores that night. It
was all topped off by some star gazing. Andy was able to turn off the
only lamppost by us, so we were in total darkness watching the stars
and some heat lightning. It was surreal.

-woke up pretty late after camping and made our way to Dodge City (we
got the heck into dodge instead of out of it). 85 miler - it was
pretty hot and I ate at a diner in the middle of nowhere after 10
miles. i was nearly falling asleep on my bike after that. Oops. But
made it here, no problem.

-another happy fathers day shout out to all the fathers.

-additional shout out to Kim Thompson, who I'm told is an avid reader
of blogs and a fan of mine. Nice

-also a happy birthday to Amanda on this trip who now currently has a
bike wrapped in toilet paper an streamers all over her bike as well as
a princess crown attached to it. So much love..

OnWards we go... And today we have a scavenger hunt organized by greg
and Gabe for our bike ride. Sweeet

Death on 8 legs

Oh and here's and tarantula we saw on the road a couple days ago.
Probably a sign of the strange terrain and animals to come

Mr. Phillips, Toby, Me

There you have it.

A little wisdom - like he told me - we're all put in certain places
and times for a purpose. We just have to open our eyes and see the
oppurtunity. Fortunetly I was in the right place and time for my bike
to compleltely malfunction.

b&B...

A different way there

Right now it's my chore group's turn to do laundry. So Amanda, Dylan,
and I are at some very sketchy laundrymat in Cherokee, OK. There is no
one here and not even employees here watching the place. The bathroom
is locked. A few machines dont work. Theres an old Dr. Pepper machine
next to me and also one of the washing machines is violently shaking
around as its rinsing. We need to do everyones laundry so it takes
awhile, but it gives us time to chill and hang out. And do things like
update my blog. As you can see, we carried in 31 cyclists dirty
clothes in two tarps (one dryer ok clothes and another for non dryer
(like our jerseys))

Anyway today was very different day. But, as it were, it turned out
very well for me. We had a 70 mile strech on one road today and the
headwinds were KILLER. I mean this was probably one of the hardest
riding days because the wind would literally throw you off your bike.
If you had no hands on the handlebars, you would get blown of the
road. It was harder than climbing a mountain. In any case, hard day.

But then came a wonderful man by the name of Butch Phillips. This is
our story.

Butch's son is a rider on the Central US route this year. Mr. Phillips
plans on driving his VW bus to Canon Beach on the west coast meet his
son when he gets there. But until then, he found out that our trip was
coming near his town, so he decided to stop by our lunch stop and
bring us ice cream and cold drinks. He found us himself and did such a
great thing for strangers, and then he went a step further.

I was biking after our first lunch, at 32 miles and it was so
difficult to pedal because of the wind. I pushed too hard on the pedal
and then poof, my chain broke and my back derailed flew off (see? I
have calves of steel). Unfortunetly this meant my riding for the day
was over so I had to call the van to pick me up. A bummer, sure, but
it was a crappy day for riding anyway..

The real issue was finding a bike shop in the middle of nowhere (where
we are) that carried a specific part for my bike and was able to fix
it. Long story short, mr. Phillips found out for us that a bike shop
with the right stuff was 70 miles the other direction about an hour
and a half away. Amy, the van driver for the day, could have driven me
there but it would have really messed up the day for our whole group.
So Mr Phillips said he would drive me. This man, this gracious man and
wonderful human being, and his dog Toby, had lunch with me, got me a
tshirt from Eskimo Joes, and helped me deal with the repair funds. He
then drove me to Cherokee, about 140 miles away now, and brought me
back with the rest of the group. I had an awesome day and learned a
lot about him.

I can not thank him enough and that is why this post is dedicate to
Butch Phillips.

I may have arrived at our host in a different fashion, but hanging out
with the car dealer/part time sheriff/and storm spotter (all Mr
Phillips) made it a fantastic day.

You might not hear the same thing from everyone else though heh...
They're pretty grumpy with cycling because it was such a tough day and
we have 90 miles of the same tommorow. Life works in strange ways

This church is prayer conditioned

Just another great quote from one of the church marquees along our
ride today. I'm also partial to "Caution: exposure to the Son will
prevent burning." That one made me laugh for a long time on my bike
today. The signs get more and more clever.

I'm in Ponca City, OK now.

This picture is of Bennet and the sky this morning after our 4:30 AM
wakeup. It was really beautiful and a nice way to start the roughly 90
mile day. It was a pretty ride with some quiet backroads and quaint
scenery. I saw some dogs in the same pen as some goats at one point.
Even though it was 96 degrees and there were 20-30 MPH winds it was
still okay. Because you know what? There are only good days and great
days.. I have yet to have a bad one. Honestly. This day was a great
day because we took a detour and went to a water park about 10 miles
from our host. We overtook "Fun N Sun" waterpark and got a bunch of
confused looks from all the 10 year olds there. Imagine a bunch of
young adults all wearing cycling shorts spandex having the time of
their lives in a kid dominated waterpark. That was us and THAT was a
lot of fun.

Today begins our 8 day strech of riding. It will be tough and it all
builds up to Colorado Springs where we have our longest ride day of
124 miles. I'm pretty used to my bike now though (it's about time,
right?). Like I said before, cycling 70 or 80 miles is no longer a big
deal for me and I really enjoy it. I've found my groove, as have most
of the other people on this trip. I understand now why everyone who
does this trip rants and raves about how great it is.

It took a couple of weeks to work the kinks out - getting used to each
other 24/7, forming a group cohesivness, moving past the soreness,
being tired all the time, the early wakeups, the constant movement,
the bike problems etc etc and so on and so forth. But now I have come
to embrace all these things and they are just a matter of fact. I'm
used to this lifestyle and I really like it. It's sounds strange to
say after a month, but I finally feel like I'm doing the bike and
build thing. I feel part of this group, an odd team, something bigger
than me and I go to sleep every night knowing that this experience
will and IS transforming every one of us. This is it. Call me an
idealist, but I will scoff because I get the feeling that the 30 other
people with me realize this also. And that just makes the experience
so much better, don't you think? We're all here to do some good, make
a small difference, and have a GREAT time. San Diego here we come. 1
month to go...

PS I did a shout out to the moms, and here is my early fathers day
shout out to the dads. I know you're out there following as well and
supporting all of us. Keep on keeping on and being proud. It means a
lot.

Summertime and the login's easy

Greetings from Bartlesville, OK. This picture is from the presentation
we just gave about bike and build to the church that is hosting us. We
try and give these presentations whenever we can so people get a
better idea about what we're doing. We give some stats, explain a day
in the life, and show a sweet bike and build promo video (which you
can find on the website) that I never grow tired if watching. Today
our presentation group (these 5 - we rotate every week) even showed
off some of their tan lines...

Our rest day was today and we explored downtown and some of us went to
go see the movie Up. It was a Fantastic movie and I highly recommend
it. Stranger even, is doing "normal" people things like seeing a movie
after being on this trip so long. It was nice though. Our hosts at the
First Church of Christ have been awesome to us and provided buses to
the places we went today. This is good news, I tell you, because the
heat and humidity is killer. Who thought the Midwest would be so hot?

Had this trip started? To echo Dylan's sentiment in his journal entry
- absolutely. We're half way there and the bonds, inside jokes, and
comfort grow stronger each and every day. Of course it gets hotter
(we're wakin up at 430am tommorow to avoid the heat!) and the rides
longer (124 mile day in Colorado Springs), but it's all just part I
the experience - we're in it together.

I forgot to mention the ride into this town - that was yesterday, but
we left much later than we usually do in the morning because of some
serious storms. Once we got rolling, though, we were flying with tons
if tailwind. At one point I was coasting at 20MPH. It was awesome. Got
here fast, although it was nearly 100 degrees in the later part of the
ride.

Last night we took over the bowling alley (and bar...) and had some
cosmic esqe bowling followed by some impromtu dance partying. Hilarity
ensued. Fun was had by all. Maybe even some pictures later.
Interesting to note, however, is how when we have a day off the next
day, everyone still falls asleep by 1130 and wakes up the next day at
9am (considered "sleeping in" by our standards...)

And the adventure continues!

state signs and in three states at once

You have received new photos from Sharif Morad.

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

I just ate at a Chinese Buffet in Oklahoma

Today was an "easy" day... we rode 73 miles from Arkansas, hit the state line of Missouri, and then came through to Grove, Oklahoma - where I am now. 3 States in one day, not bad, huh? I'll post pictures of the signs later tonight. There were a lot of Walmart trucks on along the way.

Riding gets easier every day and its nice to have these days of riding where the mileage goes down everyday. First we had 102 miles, then 85 miles, today 73 miles, and I think tomorrow is something in the 60's. Wow that's crazy. I remember training and thinking a 20 mile ride was long.

A couple of things, dear readers, that you may be interested in.

If you go here - http://bikeandbuild.org/rider/route.php?route=NC2SD&year=2009 - you can see where we are in the US, and in addition, you can find links to other rider's blogs, read the 'official' journal of what we do everyday, and view some photos that have been uploaded. I think its really neat to look at that map - we are nearly HALF WAY through the US. I have literally traveled from host to host on a bicycle - no car ride or walking or anything. Just good ol' biking. It's amazing what we're capable of.

I mentioned it in an earlier post, but here are some links to some videos Ben posted - they're pretty cool. It's one thing to read about what we're doing, but when you actually see a video of us on our bikes - where we are for about 5-6 hours a day - its pretty neat. Its us in our element.

Watching Timur descend down the mountain from atop the mountain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFomf5V53_8

Just another day on our bicycles (we don't normally ride with this many people together, so maybe its a little misleading, but it happens sometimes):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsKcHfUOs_o


List of 10 Reasons to do Bike and Build:

10. The massive amounts of food you eat because you burn 2000+ calories a day

9. The constant high of endorphins everyone is on because you're biking so much

8. The places you sleep; so far - an armory, camping out in front of a church, and in various churches (there's a tae kwon do class going on in the room below me right now). What an adventure

7. Peanut Butter Jelly Time. All the time.

6. The views you see and the speed you feel (or don't feel because its windy) on a bike. Ernest Hemingway:
"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle."

5. The 5AM wake ups. Maybe not so much a good reason, but it leads to basically being done with your responsibilities for the day by 2.

4. All the armadillo's you see. Unfortunately, they've all been dead. I have yet to see a live armadillo and have seen about 20 dead ones.

3. It happens everday we arrive at a new host - Duffel bag diarrhea:



2. POOL PARTIES!



1. *Drum roll please*
The people. The other 30 people with me and the all the generous, curious, and doubtful people we've met along the way.

(And views like this):