bike beyond _ 02 | what blog??

Heyyyyyyy blog world.

Update: BIKE BEYOND IS DONE. WE MADE IT TO SAN FRANCISCO. LIKE A MONTH AGO.

I’m sure most reading this are WELL AWARE of the fact that WE DID IT. TEAM BIKE BEYOND COMPLETED THE 4200+ MILE JOURNEY FROM NEW YORK TO SAN FRANCISCO ON AUGUST 11TH, 2017.
Yes, I did have to write that in all caps. Not yelling, but very excited tones.

I should also mention that I was able to raise $10,700 for Beyond Type 1 and as a team, we raised over $750K!! THANK YOU TO THOSE THAT CONTRIBUTED. Your generosity means SO much.

By now, you’ve seen many finish line photos on the Facebook, multiple posts from my teammates and myself trying to explain feelings no words could ever really convey.

As I’ve been back in the real world, getting back into the swing of work/life balance and sharing my bike beyond experience with everyone, I’ve heard a lot of “I loved following your instgram stories during the ride,” and also a lot of “you never blogged. you said you were going to blog.”

Well… you’re not wrong. I didn’t blog. After I created this whole thing and told everyone and their dog, FOLLOW MY BLOG IM GOING TO SHARE ALL THE THINGS WITH YOU STRANGERS… I posted once. My bad.

Truth is… when it came to it, I didn’t want to blog.

Rolling in each day after 50-100 miles of casual, slow, flat riding (not), all I wanted to do was eat all the food, blow-up my sweet sleeping pad and crash for the night… whether the lights in the gym went off or not. I said it in my one and only blog post during the ride — I was trying to just live in the moment. Ultimately, sharing day-to-day in-the-moment snapshots via Instagram Stories turned out to be the best way to share the ride. For those of you that were able to tune in, glad you liked it! For those of you who weren’t connected to that tech, I’m sorry I dropped the blogging ball. It’s new to me. SO, I figure now that the ride is over, I’ll share with you some learnings/highlights. I’ll also post a blog I started when we were halfway, called “Frequently Asked Questions.” And I’ll post a bunch of pics — because thats the best part anyway, right?

 

Here are the top questions I’ve been asked by everyone since I’ve been back:

What was the BEST DAY??
Vail Pass. Everyone please go ride this.

What was the WORST PART??
Tie between Kansas and Nevada.
Love the people we met in KS, but for real ITS NOT FLAT. And its hot. And humid. And all farmland.
Nevada…. oh man. First — no one tells you it gets harder AFTER the rockies. Nevada –also not flat — requires 3-4 climbs everyday. It’s all climbing, all the time. And it’s hot. It does get points for visual appeal over KS though.

Does your ass hurt??
Yes. But… you kind of get used to it..?

Did you meet a lot of awesome people?
Absolutely. Outside of the Bike Beyond Team and Beyond Type 1 crew — who are all the best — we had AMAZING hosts every night. Met incredible families who joined us at events or drove hours to meet the team for a 1/2 hour. Strangers would see our van or shirts and share their type 1 connection. Donations came from people we met for 5 minutes. Stories of encouragement and inspiration were shared until you felt as if you had known someone your whole life.
We owe so much to both the cycling and type 1 communities throughout this country. THEY made our ride what it was. And we couldn’t have done it without them.

Have you been keeping in touch with the team?
Hell yes.

 

 

Stay tuned for FAQs and some more pics from the road. I’m not sure what will come of this blog moving forward, but I’ve got more events and swim-life moments on the radar that could be shareable. We all know I can’t commit to a regular blog, so this might be my sometimes blog. We’ll see.

Happy Sunday.
-a