Day 8: A Love Letter to My Team

Lexington, VA to Roanoke, VA — 67.5 mi, 3,419 ft

Today was one of those days that felt like, maybe the novelty of biking across the country isn’t so novel anymore and it kind of set in that this routine we’ve been doing for the past week, we will keep doing for the next seventy days. Not in a bad way of course. Just that, now that it’s been a little over a week, the team has more or less found our routine. Because of a pretty uneventful but still amazing day, I’m kind of treating today’s blog as a diary of my thoughts and feelings that I’ve had over the past week.

When you apply to Spokes, the first question that you will be asked is, “Why do you want to do Spokes?” The answers that both myself and the rest of my team gave were along the lines of “super cool, adventure of a lifetime, important to spread STEM education, and all the other awesome reasons to do spokes.” But to be honest, my most real answer is that I wanted to build great friendships with a group of people that I’d never met before, because for me, I find that the most fulfilling part.

Obviously though, this was my daydream and when it comes down to making real connections with real humans, it’s nerve racking. I’m thinking, what if we’re actually all super incompatible and everyone hates me and finds me annoying and blah blah.

My other greatest fear of Spokes was that I would simply not be physically capable enough to do it. For some context, I’ve never considered myself to be or been considered by others to be an athletic person. When I would tell my friends and family that I was biking across the country, they were just convinced that I was lying or joking (and I would too, don’t feel bad if you thought this at first). Or, they would just get extremely worried for me and ask if I’m sure this is something I can do. On top of that, Spokes 2025 would not stop fearmongering us about how physically hard it will be, especially the first couple of days. I think from all of this, I built up a lot of anticipation and anxiety for our first biking day (that was also 90 miles, so almost double anything I’d done before). I was honestly convinced that I would need to be SAG-ed out.

Somehow, though, like 300 miles and many large hills later, I’m still intact. I credit a lot of this to my team because everyone’s been incredibly supportive of each other, but I also credit a lot of this to myself.

I started today biking the first 15 miles with Aarushi. Aarushi and I have been roommates for the past four years at MIT, so I would say she is one of the few people who knows me best in the world. We decided to do a little debrief on how we’ve been feeling thus far about the trip (you can read more about how Aarushi’s been feeling in her most recent blog but this blog is about me). I told her I was “feeling good” (because I’m actually really terrible at debriefs) and she told me that she’s noticed a kind of “Nunu explosion.” From her eyes, she says it seems like I’m thriving. After some more reflection, I realized I am truly having the time of my life and I’m so thankful and appreciative of every single day I get to spend building deeper friendships with the wonderful people on my team, seeing places I’ve never seen before, leading learning festivals to excited kids, and getting to know the kind people who host us every night.

But back to my team, I actually love them all so much. And maybe some will say it’s because we are in the honeymoon phase so of course we love each other right now, but I really feel like Spokes 2025 couldn’t have assembled a better Spokes 2026. I feel like every single person cares deeply for each other. We all operate very selflessly for the betterment of the group. For example, as I’m writing this blog, Nate and Drew are outside getting bitten up by mosquitoes, trying to fix my bike chain that keeps falling off. I also think that we communicate well and can be fun and silly when it’s time but also serious and productive when it’s necessary.

However, 7 strangers suddenly forced to spend 24 hours a day for 75 days together will inevitably stir up some conflicts. Everyone has different personalities, priorities, opinions and we somehow have to align in a context that none of us are used to. While I wouldn’t call this specific instance a conflict, tonight was the first night we had to do some deep talking with each other in what ended up being a 3 hour long team meeting. I won’t go too much into the details, mostly because it’s kind of boring. But what it boiled down to was that we needed to communicate our priorities to each other during bike days and how those priorities affect our pace and our group schedule. At the end of the day, we have one shared goal which is to have a lot of fun and enjoy each other’s company this summer. As long as we remember this, it will be an awesome summer.

I love you all,

Nunu