What’s up everyone, it’s Charles, here to recap our rest day in STL! After our first century ride yesterday, we all seized the opportunity to sleep in this morning. Everyone fixed themselves a breakfast as we mapped out our plans for the day, eager to explore our first major city since DC.
Nora, our host, had recommended we check out the farmers market in Tower Grove Park the night before, so we all set out for that around 10:30. Even though we’re a biking team, I’ve found a strange reluctance to tour the places we visit on my own bike. Part of me is trying not to spend any more time than I have to on the bike. But the other part of me likes to separate the biking aspect of Spokes from my rest day adventures because of the other hassles — pedaling on clip-ins without biking shoes on, having to find a spot to lock my bike, wearing a helmet. We all opted to walk the 1.5 miles to the farmers market, so I think the other Spokies were also happy to spend some time walking for once.
The farmers market was lively. A jazz band was playing music. There were a lot of booths selling all sorts of things. Sweets, BBQ, pet food, plants, art, woodworked pieces, earrings, and on and on. I bought baklava at a Mediterranean treats booth and the seller threw in an extra Oreo finger for me. Ishaq “got clocked as Nigerian by a Ghanian couple” and bought their algae lemonade. (Review: “it was ass”). Ruth, Ramona, and Joseph cooled down in the fountain water and probably doubled the average age of the population frolicking there.
Biking mural!
A few booths where we entered the farmers market
Live music 🎷
The fountain and more booths
I keep taking pictures of my food after I’ve devoured half of it
After walking back and sweating profusely in the deadly Missouri heat/humidity combo, the Spokies ate a few bites and split up for afternoon adventures. Tian crashed out and started swinging a pillow around violently. Greta went out for a run (yes, she is not right in the head). Joseph, Sarah, and Ramona went to a coffee shop to get some work done, then biked to the park and did some more work. Ruth biked to the art museum and got tacos. Ishaq, Tian, and I went to the zoo.
We didn’t really feel like biking to the zoo, so we were going to walk, until we realized we literally have a minivan. Instantly buoyed by this revelation, we made it to the zoo in high spirits with cool body temperatures. Since I was the most excited about the zoo, I guided us. We only got lost a few times. (I’m directionally challenged). The zoo was great quality bonding; we yapped so much at times we hardly even realized we were trying to see all the sights in the zoo. We had a great couple of hours; and best of all, the zoo was free! Shoutout St. Louis.
Tian crashout Tian crashout
View from Forest Park
The art museum
This weird warthog thingy (forgot already)
Tortoise!
Bro might be the thinker
He just like me fr
He just like me fr
He just like me fr
He just like me fr
He just like me fr
The giraffes
Greta made her famous Thai quinoa salad and lime ginger chicken+tofu for dinner and we chatted with Nora and her husband Alex. Two of the buffest dudes I’ve ever seen — friends of our hosts — came over and said hi. Ramona, Sarah, Joseph, and I worked on the bikes for a bit and then we all wound down for the night. If only we could stay another night, but alas…
Murphysboro, IL to St. Louis, MO — 101.4 mi, 2540 ft
surprise suprise! sarah is back sooner than you thought! unfortunately (as you may have read a few blogs ago), tian took a nasty fall in some gravel, and is taking some time to recover in the car. if you did not get the Fall Out Boy reference in the title, today was our 1st of 3 century (or 100+ mile) rides! she gracefully gave up her blogging day so that we could hear about this feat from the biker’s perspective. get better soon tian!!! ❤️🩹❤️🩹 get cozy ‘cause this is a long one…
our day started bright and early around 6am at our warmshowers host jessica’s house. i had taken the time the night before to roll out my legs and stretch a bit, and i was definitely thanking my past self for that this morning. biking is tough on the legs, of course, but now that we are through the initial 2 weeks of general discomfort and soreness, there are other parts of my body that are starting to hurt that i was quite surprised about: my hands hurt from putting weight on the handles, then that tension extends to my shoulders and neck, my back will sometimes hurt from being hunched over for so long, my knees have started having some problems occasionally as well…i think stretching and rolling will be my saving grace, just gotta stay consistent ‼️ we had a lovely breakfast of pancakes, sausage, and fruit (which i washed down with some milk, per usual), got ready and packed, and set out around 7:30am—pretty close to our goal of 7am. we even got some team pictures before we left! good hustle spokes!!!
as we set off for our 1st of 7 legs of the day, i was feeling GREAT, and SUPER excited to take on the challenge of a century ride. i settled in with ishaq and greta, and we talked for a bit about how we envisioned our futures (living situation, family, etc.) charles eventually catches up, and we hit our 1st of only 4 climbs of the day (for context, in the hiller parts of virginia and kentucky, we could have up to 20-25 climbs over a 70-80 mile ride!!!) i am VERY curious how garmin calculates climbs: is it a specific ratio of distance to elevation gain that must be met? a certain bar of grade? what are the garmin gods doing?? 🙂↕️ anyways, our longest one was up first, about 1.5 miles: i consider anything above 0.5 miles to be a considerate distance, so i was not a super happy camper going into this. even with ishaq’s beckoning to catch up, i eventually fall behind the group. as probably our slowest climber, “spokes is a marathon, not a sprint” is a mantra i have to repeat to myself very often. towards the end of the climb, though, i see ishaq coming back down the other side of the highway. “why is he back here? is there a route problem? is someone hurt?” are all questions racing through my mind. turns out, he came back to help me finish the climb! the extra support (both physically and mentally) truly made my ride, and reminded me that spokes is something we are all in together, no matter our various abilities, strengths, or weaknesses 🥰 we spent the next few miles attempting to catch up to greta and charles, and while it was in vain, we made it to the 1st rest stop very speedily. i ate an apple (skin and all—shocking to some of you, i know), and we played on the playground, naturally. there was a shoe kicking competition on the swings between ishaq and charles, but both we’re quickly humbled once greta—a “real shoe kicking demon” (as dubbed by charles)—came into the ring. as some of the others start playing some complicated version of monkey in the middle invented by middle school charles, ramona, ruth, and i take the opportunity to start the next leg.
yummy
ramona w/ her cookie 🍪
my apple
park!
we love centripetal force 🌀💥
results of the shoe throwing competition
not gonna lie, i was FLYING down the 2nd leg: with the combined power of music and flat, straight ground, i was cruising around 17-20mph, putting down laps of 5 miles in around 17.5 minutes. this leg held sights of the occasional patches of wildflowers and a few sets of train tracks, which were lovely! i pulled into the 2nd rest stop singing “I Bet You Think About Me” by Taylor Swift (ft. Chris Stapleton), munched on one half of my DELICIOUS egg salad sandwich (less than after i sadly dropped some on the pavement :((), tried and failed to find a bathroom, took a generous donation of electrolyte tablets from joseph, then proceeded to the 3rd (and my favorite rest stop): a coffee shop 🙏🏻
for the 3rd leg, i decided to switch it up a bit and try to watch TV while biking—specifically the first 2 episodes of dan dan dan i had downloaded on netflix. while i had almost finished the 1st episode a few months ago, i decided to just start from the beginning. while this strategy works on side streets, it’s a bit too much on busy roads and highways, so i ditched television for the last few miles and went back to music. lately i’ve been listening to high tempo, high energy pop to keep my rpm up, especially on flatter, more boring stretches (if you got any recs, drop em! plz i’m desperate). eventually i make it into town, and i see that garmin wants me to bike straight into a building. huh? i laugh and assume that this building is new and hasn’t been updated into garmin’s maps yet, manually reroute, and eventually make it to the car, where ramona and ruth are also ranting to joseph (our main route planner) and tian about the aforementioned route error. we eventually all make our way into steam coffee house, get drinks and food, and settle down for a longer break. i start digging into my 2nd lunch—some of last nights curry with rice, chicken, and plantains—along with an iced chai latte with raspberry and apple cinnamon muffin i had bought from the cafe. we all do taste tests of each other’s food and drinks (like usual), calculate how much of our personal funds we’ve spent on spokes (props to tian for being at only $7!!!), then wander back out at of course the hottest part of the day to keep going 🔥 🔥
egg salad 🍳
lunch!!!
we’ve come a long way! ⚡️
i honestly can’t remember much from the 4th leg. whoops. while heading out of sparta, i catch up to the car before it turns into walmart for a grocery run, take a selfie, then keep chugging along. later on, the head winds start to dampen my spirits a bit, things start to hurt, and in the distance, amidst dark clouds, i see a few bolts of lightning. yikes. i make it to the church for our 4th rest stop, the rest of the team arrives a few minutes later, and THEN the car pulls up. we all give them a hard time, saying we had been there for half and hour already (it had only been max 10 minutes), then all sit down in the shaded grass to chat. i snack on the newly purchased dried mangos. we all talk and laugh, and while i can’t remember what it was about or why, all you need to know is that this is a pretty usual thing for us :))
some views
some more views 🌽
dried mango for snack :))
as i head out for the 5th leg, i call my twin sister brooke for the 4th time, and she FINALLY answers. we we’re supposed to call while i was biking and she was running, but she tells me she slept in and decided to run at night instead. now, she is tanning outside while watching the 3rd season of squid games that had dropped that day, which she eventually hangs up on me to watch instead of keeping me occupied on my very long, very hard bike ride. rude 😐 i then call sierra, my best friend at MIT, and we catch up while she plays stardew valley. i nearly get hit by a flatbed truck that comes within 6 inches of my left leg, my life flashes before my eyes, and i eventually decide to let her go after my service gets spotty. i catch up to ruth and ramona right before the 5th rest stop, and as ruth announces that she is going to pee behind the van, and i complain about how i’ll have to wait until the next rest stop to go myself, we pull into the stop and realize it has a porta potty. yippee! this stop was some kind of track for flying model aircraft, and was the only thing within miles that could even be set as a marked rest stop, so we got really lucky. i was peacefully eating the 2nd half of my egg salad sandwich in the driver’s seat when joseph decided to check the radar and ruin my so far pretty decent ride: “yeah, it’s DEFINITELY going to rain before the next rest stop.” i grab my rain jacket out of my duffel, and after waiting forEVER to use the bathroom after a spokie that will remain anonymous (*cough* *cough* CHARLES *cough*), set out in a pack with ruth and ramona, straight into the storm ⛈️
joseph had mentioned that a few miles into this leg, we would hit a really nice bike trail that would lead us straight into st. louis, and that it would be best to make it onto the trail before any storms hit. we get onto the trail (before it storms!), and it is NICE. getting to bike on clean, designated paved lanes miles from any highway or road after almost getting hit by a gigantic automobile earlier in the day was a RELIEF. as we made our way into the city on maintained bike lanes, past speedy light rails, i felt very thankful for the innovation that is public transportation. while people in boston complain about “the T,” coming from las vegas (which has NOTHING), i think it is AMAZING. if the T has no fans, i fear i am 6 feet under. after i get a call from joseph with a VERY IMPORTANT question (the color of sun glasses he was buying for me), and charles gets a scam call about a seized package of his in texas (he hasn’t had anything shipped in days), the “storm safety” groups get a bit mixed up, so i start riding with charles, while the pairs of ishaq and greta and ramona and ruth go on ahead. it sprinkles on and off, but we don’t get hit with anything NEARLY as bad as we have had in the past few weeks. PHEW. charles and i talk about pets and other things, we make our last climb, and turn into the family dollar just outside of eastern st. louis (the part still in illinois). i take a look at and approve the glasses that joseph and tian bought for me (thanks guys!), chug a strawberry milk to get a jump start on my protein intake and recovery for the night 🍓 and start making my way to the arch with the terrific trio once again consisting of myself, ramona, and ruth.
storm chaser-core
more egg salad
shame 🫵🏻
rain jacket 🌧️
my new cycling glasses!
🍓🍓
after being on city streets for a few miles and getting a few light honks with seemingly mixed signals (a polite request to move over? a gentle encouragement to keep going? we’re going to be optimistic), we start seeing the arch popping in and out of view in the distance! a friend of mine said it was underwhelming, but i thought it was pretty cool (no hate to you, sierra!) as we start crossing the bustling bridge into missouri and st. louis proper, ruth—our life-long boston native—is BEAMING with joy at being in a real city again. “the buildings are big and tall!” she cries! i love cities myself, but my fear of being within inches of speeding cars took over, and i gently asked her if she could stop breaking to take pictures and videos so we could get off the bridge faster. love you ruth!!! 💗
finally, we enter a grassy, wooded park, and as the tree line breaks, we at LAST see the arch towering above us, set over an open area with the mississippi river on the left, and the city of st. louis on the right. i had looked on apple maps earlier in the day to get a solid idea of how far we had biked into the united states, but this truly solidified how far we had actually gone! joseph and tian eventually join us from the car on their bikes, we take pictures, some of us buy stickers at the gift shop, and we start the last 5 miles of our journey to our warmshowers hosts!!
we love parks! 🌳
hello ramona!
ruth’s bridge 💗
spokes ft. the arch
did you know the arch is the smallest national park in the united states?
about a mile out from our hosts and JUST before i officially hit the 100 mile mark, my dad calls me! he tells me about an emergency simulation event he went to at the local military hospital through his honorary commander position with the air force base in vegas, and says i’ll be a great er doctor one day. i let him know that my garmin beeped to signal i had hit 100 miles, he congratulates me on my 1st century, and i let him go once i make it to our hosts place. to have so many supportive people in my life—whether it be my family, friends, classmates, track teammates, and now my fellow spokies—on my side while i pursue these big goals i have set for myself—biking across the country, vaulting higher than ever, graduating MIT and going to medical school, and simply becoming the best possible version of myself—is truly the biggest blessing in my life ❤️
we get settled in with our host for the night nora, who makes us pasta (spaghetti and penne, because she understands like me that spaghetti is not a top-tier pasta) (i will die on this hill) with meatballs and salad for dinner. she gets us hooked on love island, we meet her 2 dogs and 2 cats (one of them being a maine coon that kept rubbing up on me that is NOT helping with my distant dream of owning one, even though i am SERIOUSLY allergic to cats), and—after a bit of logistics reworking and GRACIOUS help from our host—the spokies eventually decide to stay in st. louis another day! we all get ready for bed, and i crash the bed duo of ruth and ramona, squishing 3 people in a 2 person bed (thanks guys), exhausted but excited for the next day’s rare opportunity to explore rather than just pass through 🏙️
YAYYY
post-ride electrolytes
FIRE. post-ride fuel
glued to love island 🏝️
cats :))
…ok i know this was a long one. sorry!!! it was 100 miles, there was bound to be a lot of story to tell! to go back to my short tangent from earlier, though, this wouldn’t be the story it is without the people. joseph mentioned a few blogs ago the sentiment that quite a few hosts have shared with us that we seem to be an especially close-knit group (spokes or otherwise), and i couldn’t agree more. i am thinking back now to a few months ago when i first got accepted to spokes—realizing i’d be gone my whole first summer home from college, i considered trying to push off my acceptance to the next year, or even take the chance and apply again the year after, not knowing if i’d ever get accepted again. now, i can’t imagine having done this with anyone else. a big thank you to my fellow spokies for everything—from cooking meals, refilling waters, and fixing bikes to providing much needed encouragement, perpetually lending a hand (figuratively and literally), and sharing so. much. laughter. i’ll probably miss that the most once this is all over 🥲
ANYWAY, this thing is NOT yet over, not even CLOSE, so here’s to TAKING RISKS and STAYING PRESENT!!! see you next time as we continue to make our way across missouri from jefferson city to sedalia!
Harrisburg, IL to Murphysboro, IL — 51.6 mi, 1,314 ft
Charles made a huge deal about the stars aligning, blah blah blah, but here I am, a driver and a blogger, for the second time 🤯 — you’re not so special.
Moving on from the Charles-bashing, let’s talk about more important stuff. Sherie’s French toast casserole was waiting for me in the kitchen, so I spent the morning hurrying through my packing. At breakfast, I learned that an epic ping pong battle went down between Ishaq, Charles, and Tian last night — so epic that Charles and Tian slept at 3am. Charles apparently wanted to “psychologically crush her”… I’m not sure he succeeded (Tian cannot be crushed). During this recap, Sarah is constantly removing the top pecan layer of her French toast casserole slices because she’s allergic to nuts. Ramona and Greta gladly take it.
We left before 10am today (minor success), and I headed to a Dollar General to get the group some sunscreen and Ramona some non-mint toothpaste. I couldn’t find electrolytes, so I’ll order some non-fruit punch ones later — Ishaq loves the flavor but Greta and Ramona don’t and I prioritize them.
While driving later on, I run into Ishaq, who yells, “WAIT.” I slow down, concerned, thinking he needed something from the car. He gets to the window and slyly grabs onto the right mirror. I glare at him, realizing he just wants a free ride. I drag him along for a bit, but, concerned about crushing him, shoo him away.
Rest Stop 1 was a random grassy area. The only memorable part was a fluffy dog that gleefully greeted Ramona (and vice versa). He even tried to get a free ride in the car!
I continue driving and run into Ishaq again. Being the bum he is, he clung to the car AGAIN, this time on the left side to be “safer.” We make good progress for a mile, chatting for a bit, passing Ramona, and carrying him through a mini climb, before the guilt of cheating finally catches up to him. We bade farewell, and I continued my solo journey.
I arrive at Rest Stop 2, Crown Brew Coffee Co. I get a vanilla matcha latte, take out my laptop, and start writing this blog, all while eavesdropping on some cops interrogating a man in the corner.
I’m rudely interrupted by a call from Sarah. “Tian fell.” I jump in the car and meet the bikers 2 miles back, where a gravel turn took Tian down. I look down and Tian is sitting on the ground, her leggings ripped and blood showing. Sarah grabs her first aid kit from the car and skillfully cleans and applies gauze to Tian’s wounds. Greta provides emotional support, and Charles just stands there. Ok he actually helps a little. I’m standing around, sipping my vanilla matcha latte, watching this all go down.
Once Tian’s cleaned up, she hops in the car, and I drive her to Crown Brew Coffee Co. I continue writing this blog while others order lattes and eat their lunches on the cafe’s really comfy couches.
Everybody scatters, and Tian and I go grocery shopping at Kroger. She wants to make curry for dinner, so we struggle (I struggle) to find ingredients that are both yummy, easy to cook, and affordable. I spend five minutes deciding whether I want to make chicken katsu for dinner, overconfidently convince myself I can do it without a thermometer and stock up on chicken breast—then ultimately decide I’m not skilled enough after spotting frozen chicken patties and grabbing those instead.
We leave with yet again too many groceries to fit in our cooler, then head to Rest Stop 3 approximately 20 minutes after the first biker arrives there (sorry Ramona).
Tian and I arrive to a cute gazebo. I hand the bikers strawberries and unripe apricots. Sarah eats all the strawberries. Then everybody starts lounging about. Tian is on the table, Ramona is also on the table. Sarah is watching Charles scratch lottos. But where’s Greta? Ah ha, she’s laying on the grass, of course.
While I’m eating a delicious avocado-hummus-mayo-provolone-turkey sandwich, Greta comes up to me with a present. I’m afraid it’s a pile of mud, but she hands me a beautiful flower bracelet she made while rolling around in the grass. I’m so honored I immediately start taking multiple photos. But these photos aren’t good enough. They need to be more… heavenly. We enlist Charles and he takes a fire photo.
The Creation of…?
Here’s some bloopers:
After that mini photoshoot, Tian and I drive home. She listens to me spill all my tea for half an hour, and continuously comments that she “enjoys seeing how my mind works” (somehow this doesn’t feel like a compliment). We arrive at our host, Jessica’s house, shortly before a FedEx truck rolls up. Tian hops out of the car, signs her name, and triumphantly shows me her new phone, which she was stressing about all day because of the required signature.
I say hi to Jessica, bring all our bags in the house, get tired and sweaty and start recruiting others to bring stuff inside. Sarah manages to turn the leaf blower on while bringing her bike to the basement, and we struggle to turn it off as high speed wind is blowing in our faces. Joseph swoops in to save the day. I then help Tian prep for dinner then promptly ditch her once the cooking starts (that’s ok Sarah and Ishaq are helping her). Crazy Greta goes on a run, Joseph works on tomorrow’s route, Ramona and Charles fix up some bike chains, and I plan on continuing this blog.
Before that, I unpack my suitcase, prepare my clothes for the next day, then suddenly realized that a fate that had befallen Charles two weeks ago had now befallen me — I forgot my bib at Sherie’s. I frantically upend my suitcase just in case it’s hidden in a secret compartment I’ve never seen before. I then confirm with Ishaq, who did laundry yesterday (and when Charles lost his bib…), that bibs were hung to dry in the bathroom of the main house. I was staying in the room above the garage, therefore hadn’t entered the main bathroom since showering yesterday. And of course, no one else put leftover laundry in the car because I WAS THE DRIVER. I ask Ishaq for Sherie’s number, but get told no one has it — I should contact her husband, Brad instead. I text, I call, I wait, but no response. It’s 6pm. If I want to drive the hour back to Harrisburg, I need to go now. I decide to take matters into my own hands. Using my impressive internet sleuthing techniques, I find Sherie’s number online. She doesn’t pick up at first because of stranger danger, but after texting, she responds, and we coordinate a bib pickup. Luckily, she’s going to the Walmart Supercenter tonight, only half an hour away from Jessica’s. I bring my blog to the present, drive to Walmart, and pick up my bib.
On my way back from Walmart, I fill up on gas. The receipt doesn’t print all the way, so I spend several minutes sticking credit cards into the receipt slot to pull it out. Success! I look at the credit card number — not mine. I frustratedly walk into the store to have the cashier print out the receipt, and he offers me a free drink as an apology. I walk out of there smiling, a cup of sweet tea in hand. I am easily appeased.
Nothing sweeter than a free sweet tea
I come home at 8:30pm to everyone enjoying dinner without me. I learn that we’re planning on leaving at 7am so we arrive to tomorrow’s host at 7pm (we’re biking 100+ miles). I’m sad, because that inevitably means less than 8 hours of sleep. And I love my sleep. I scarf down my food, help organize our still overflowing cooler, then wrap up this blog. I may be the most timely blogger of all time — this is getting published at 10pm day of. You’re welcome, and good night.
Madisonville, KY -> Harrisburg, IL – 90.32 mi, 2,533 ft
No one said that a cross-country cycling trip would be easy, but man this is ROUGH. I feel like I’ve been tested so many times and after getting hit by an absolute wombo-combo of bad experiences recently, I’ve been in trenches deeper than ever before. I already mentioned the probably broken rib thing previously (it still hurts), but as of late there’s been so much more. The country got hit with a bad heat wave starting our day getting to Bowling Green (Day 17) and I became very aware of a new danger previously unknown to us – heat exhaustion. Having lived in the Southeast my whole life, I’ve always had to deal with extreme humid heat in the summer, and I figured myself equipped to handle it in the coming days. I made a big deal out of staying hydrated and with electrolytes to avoid heat exhaustion, but I made two major miscalculations on my own end. The first was that our two non-biking days in Bowling Green, mostly in the comfort of being inside with AC, reduced my heat acclimation. The second is that, despite living in the Southeast my whole life, I usually didn’t go outside in the heat, mostly because I would often end up feeling sick if I stayed out too long! So wouldn’t you imagine my surprise when I wound up being the person to tap out midway through the day yesterday because of a combination of heat exhaustion and back pain! I felt miserable yesterday, and to top it all off, my shampoo spilled inside of my bag, emptying out onto all of the contents inside. Luckily none of my stuff was ruined, but 4+ hours of cleaning shampoo off of all of my personal belongings after such a rough day was anything but fun. I went to bed hoping tomorrow would be better.
where we slept the night in Madisonville, KY
the shampoo incident
I woke up the following morning with absolutely no motivation. I was tired, still having to deal with cleanup following the shampoo incident and was not at all looking forward to another absolutely miserable day on the bike. The heat was, after all, going to stick around for a couple more days. I managed to get going eventually, though Charles described my look getting out of the door as being between homicidal and suicidal. Things got better, though. I took it slow, chatting with Charles for the first part of the day as we passed dozens of corn fields, a sign of the approaching Great Plains.
Charles riding along the corn fields
I was feeling a lot better than I did yesterday, but eventually the heat and my back pain (was a bike fit issue, now solved) started getting to me again. We crossed into Illinois from Kentucky, across the Ohio River. Shortly after, at our third rest stop, I decided I would once again tap out, if only as a break from the heat so that I could bike again for our last segment. I had hoped that I would have acclimated enough to the heat by this point, but I still wasn’t quite there. I really wished I could’ve continued, but I decided at the start of the trip that my health would always come first.
Crossing the Ohio River over the Shawneetown Bridge
I rode with Tian to our last rest stop: an ice cream shop called 4 S Dairy Barn. There we all indulged in some sweet treats, as has become tradition on this trip. I looked at how all of the other bikers seemed. Was I really the only one getting hit this bad by the heat? Some people definitely seemed energized, especially after the ice cream, but others definitely looked more tired. Everyone has to fight their own battles and face their own demons on this trip, and it’ll be apparent at some times more than others for each individual. What’s in front of me is my own fight, and it’s up to me to face it head on. Even if it felt like my mental fortitude was melting away as quickly as my smoothie was, my mom didn’t raise a quitter. So, I got back on my bike.
The ice cream stop posting us on their Facebook
We eventually all made it to our destination, where our wonderful host Sherry had a tub of watermelon waiting for us. As we all settled in and ate dinner, she mentioned how our team seemed very close compared to other years of Spokes. It’s a sentiment that I’ve heard shared by a lot of our hosts who have hosted Spokes teams in the past. We were eight college students who didn’t even know each other before we started planning for the trip, and now we’re all a tight-knit group of friends, discovering more about each other with every passing day. It’s quite a special thing, really.
Sunset at Sherry’s house in Harrisburg
Spokes so far has seemed like a microcosm of life itself. Each day is filled to the brim with so many new experiences, lessons to learn from, and discoveries about myself and the people I’m slowly starting to call family. For each low, there’s a greater high to be received, and for each high, there’s a more devastating low to be had. A never-ending amplified oscillation. Can it be stopped? I fear it’ll keep on going until my own spokes stop, whenever that may be.
Bowling Green, KY -> Madisonville, KY – 84.8 miles, 4,439 ft
Today, like too many Spokes days, technically started at 12:00am. Many of us share the the night owl quirk of getting more energy as the night wears on, and tonight was no exception. In fact, tonight was particularly exciting because we were sharing the night with two new Kentucky friends. On our first rest day in Bowling Green, Tian left the house at 6:00pm to “go get groceries”. When she didn’t come back until 9, we all suspected her grocery mission must have been a cover for some other mischevious scheme, but then she asked for help unpacking the groceries… and we realized shereally had just gone shopping and that we really would be feasting the next night. In fact, there was SO much food we suspected we might need some extra help finishing it all up…
Fear not, Spokes put on our extrovert hats and made some new friends at the Bowling Green learning festival. Along our travels, we interact mostly with hosts and learning festival coordinators (who are usually older than us) and students (who are always younger than us). While I’ve loved getting to know everyonewe’ve met so far, I’ve missed getting to interact with new people my own age. Luckily, this void was filled yesterday by two super cool students from WKU, Libby and Khalil. Khalil, a recent WKU graduate, runs an education startup from the WKU Small Business Accelerator, located just down the hall from our learning festival. We met Khalil in the morning during check-in, and he ended up helping us out with the learning festival all day! I met Libby a couple hours later, when we were both photographing the bottle rocket workshop. Libby is a summer intern at the WKU Herald and she had come to the festival in order to publish a story about our event. We started chatting during the learning festival, but we realized by the end of the day that there was still so much we wanted to talk about. Thanks to Tian’s grocery shopping foresight, we were able to invite Libby and Khalil to join us for dinner at our Airbnb, which was a double win for us–more hours to spend with awesome people and more people to help us finish Tian’s gargantuan (and delicious) meal.
Before we knew it, it was nearly 11 o’clock and everyone was still gathered around the table chatting. My family often talks about kindred spirits, a phrase we adopted from L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. You know you’ve found a kindred spirit when, despite whatever differences in where you’re from, what you do or who you know, it somehow feels like you’ve always known each other. Libby and Khalil are definitely Spokes kindred spirits.
(Unfortunately, we had so much fun we forgot to take a single picture…epic fail. With no photographic evidence, who knows… maybe this was just another one of Greta’s crazy dreams.)
After Libby and Khalil left and we finished the rest of our tasks for the night, I did eventually drift off into dreamland. When I opened my eyes again around 7am, I was stocked up on (almost enough) beauty sleep, my bucket was still filled from the night before, and I was ready to continue making the most of Day 20.
By this point in the trip, the morning tasks were routine. I readied my snack bag, lubed my chain, and pumped my tires. Filled up my water bottles (one with water and one with electrolytes), curated my Spotify queue, slathered on my sunscreen. Order doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s go time.
my epic snack bag: granola, almonds, banana chipsjoseph: lubemaster
Time is of the essence, especially today. It was day one of the heat wave rampaging across the country and temperatures were soaring into the high 90s before noon. We knew we were going to be cooked (literally). Nothing like a little perspective to keep you sane, though. Back home in Virginia, my family’s AC was out, so I knew I should at least be grateful for Mother Nature’s ever reliable fan, the westernly winds.
With our personal and communal tasks in order, all the bikers set out towards our first destination around 8. Sarah was our driver for the day, and Ruth was in the car recovering from her mysterious illness (possibly, but probably not, pneumonia). Ruth spent the day tearing through her book, The Lady With the Dragon Tattoo, and Sarah was hard at work driving and finishing up her blog. Unlike me, Sarah is a pro at publishing her blogs in a timely manner…
ruth hogging all the shade to read her bookenjoying the coveted car acsarah… hard at work or hardly working?leftover sweet potato noodles from tian’s dinnerguess the pizza’s wattage
One of the highlights of today was the joy of discovering leftovers for lunch. Last night, I had packed myself not only a leftover burrito, but also a leftover box of sweet potato noodles with tofu and veggies. When I tell you… they. were. DELICIOUS. SO GOOD. Tian has been on the leftover game from day 1; and Tian is always right… I probably should have converted sooner.
Besides meals, today was full of lots of little happy moments. Ishaq and I swung by the John Prine Memorial Park (shoutout to Grandad, my favorite John Prine fan!)
narrowly avoided death by barrel racehello in therenonchalant ishaqhire me chipotlelazy bumssay cheese!
We bought Haagen Dazs ice cream bars at Dollar General. Or, more accurately, I bought Haagen Daaz bars and coaxed the rest of the team into eating them with me. For some reason, the team hasn’t yet realized I have impeccable taste, and keeps disapproving of my group purchases. Their loss, I guess. Luckily, today was hot enough that no one could put up a fight and all the Haagen Dazs bars were consumed:)
Everyone has their own ways of dealing with the heat. And when I say “own ways”, I mean some people like to nap lying down and some people like to nap sitting up. I personally, am a lying down napper. The heat did take it out of me more than I expected. Along some of our longer stretches, I could feel my body working overtime to both keep the bike moving and keep me from overheating (like my laptop when I write code without chatgpt…) I much prefer being hot than being cold, though. One time, my mom told me I had to choose whether to complain about summer or winter because I couldn’t get annoyed about both. I chose winter, so… no complaining for me.
hydration maxxingdead to the worldcar queen
By the time we made it to our final rest stop, we’d made it through the worst of the heat with out spirits intact. The mood was goofy, as it often is at the end of the day. Ishaq showed off his manly strength by pushing the minivan in neutral. We were all very impressed… until Sarah and I gave it a go and turns out its actually not that hard. Ishaq did look pretty cool in this picture though. Also at this rest stop, Charles got up to his usual tricks and made Tian feed him a bit of her bibimbap. After pretending (?) to take an enormous bite, he backed off, but the damage was already done. Tian then tried to shove all the contaminated bibimbap into his mouth. Guess he got what he asked for?
tian’s smile says it allokkk ishaq
Once we got our giggles out, we locked in for one last stretch of road to arrive at our destination for the night! We were hosted by Life Christian Center in Madisonville, KY. Pastor Jon, Isaac, and Steve cooked us a delicious meal, and we all sat and chatted while we ate. There is nothing like arriving someplace to a home-cooked meal, and I am so grateful for the incredible generosity of our hosts. I definitely want to repay the favor someday!
Finally, we ended the night packing our lunches and preparing for the day ahead (our first day in Illinois!) I went to sleep surrounded by all the Spokies, curled up in my sleeping bag on the gymnasium floor. Like usual, I woke up all the way on the other side of the gym. But that’s a story for tomorrow…
Yes, you can stop complaining, I, Ishaq, am indeed back on the blog. Today was out second full day in Bowling Green and the day of our learning festival.
Keeping it real with y’all, I dont really know what happened today, I was just along for the ride until someone said,”you know you’re blogging today right?” But anyways… it was a successful learning festival with dozens of young minds being molded by our quality teaching and engaging lessons. The setup in the morning was very smooth and the kids were wonderful as per usual. In out machine learning lesson, taught by Tian and I, we had our first ever class perform perfectly on our first activity and all the kids had fun making data to train our happiness detector. Also were able to try out some new extensions to our lesson to teach more about different kinds of machine learning problems. All in all, very successful festival.
greetings from the lovely town of bowling green, kentucky! 🌳 i’ve given you a biking blog, i’ve given you a learning festival blog, time to round it out with a rest day 😴 (i just checked and sadly there will be no driving blog from me, but i can give you everything else :))
after the previous night’s fun and games of seeing our AMAZING airbnb for the first time; having a BOMB mac and cheese, watermelon, and salad dinner made by some of the team with ishaq as head chef 🧀🍉 (vegan brownies were eventually brought out for dessert); watching 21 jump street and playing the card game “we’re not really strangers” until the wee early hours of the morning, i got out of my cozy cubby bed bright and early at 10:30am (it probably would have been MUCH later had i not set an alarm…) 💤
thinking i was one of the later ones, i made a quick bagel with cream cheese, poured myself a glass of milk, and headed outside to catch up my parents on the events of the last few days via text and pictures (if you’re reading this, hello! 💗) eventually, joseph and ramona come back from the grocery store, and i am enlisted (willingly) to carry groceries back inside and start helping with breakfast. i am delegated the incredibly important task of DJ-ing for our lovely chefs, and spend a few minutes personally queuing up the best tunes off my various, distinctly named spotify playlists 🎶
soon, we have eggs, bacon, and pancakes as various spokies start wandering into the kitchen. at some point, ishaq disappears and returns with insomnia cookies from down the street (THANK YOUUU), and i decide i must have both a 2nd breakfast and a snickerdoodle (or two)–carb loading, of course! 🥞🍪
eggs and bacon 🍳🥓
various forms of carbs
insomnia cookies!!!
a glimpse at my music taste 🎸
i hung out for a while at our STUNNING airbnb provided to us by our learning festival partners in bowling green, procrastinating the various odd tasks i had to do, before deciding i should probably be at least slightly productive with the 2nd half of the day. i threw on a pair of sweat pants and my favorite MIT track and field hoodie, grabbed my laptop, and made the 10 minute trek in the humid, 85-90 degree kentucky heat to spencer’s coffee—recommended to us by the owners of the airbnb ☕️ if there is one thing i think i have the leg up on compared to my fellow spokies, it’s being slightly heat tolerant: blazing heat to me is like a warm, nostalgic blanket. what can i say—i like feeling like a lizard baking in the sun 🦎☀️
i got my usual iced chai latte and a strawberries and cream muffin, and got to work 🍓 before answering emails and other things, though, i first decided that i wanted to make a ranking list of all the iced chai lattes i’ve had on spokes. after reviewing my debit card history (yikes…) and recalling my previous drinks and experiences to the best of my ability, i compiled my list (with locations, days of purchase, notes, and scores, of course). eventually, greta, ruth, and joseph arrive to also do some work with me! we grind for a bit, i step out for a sec to call and chat with my mom, and greta gets a bloody nose :(( but as the evening draws closer (and because the cafe closes at 6pm), we pack up our stuff and start making our way back to our place.
spencer’s coffee!
my current spokes 2025 chai ranking
some guy outside with a parrot lol 🦜
now with friends!
an email from one of our learning festival partners 🥹
back at spokes headquarters, it’s burrito night! there’s rice and meat, beans, chips and guac, and other various side dishes on the way 🌯 gloria, a friend of greta’s from MIT who happens to live in/near bowling green, has also joined us, and brought scallion pancakes! i think i ate half of the container while working on (and maybe slightly stressing over) my sorority recruitment application. some are consuming the otter pops charles bought a few grocery runs ago and has been dying to freeze and consume (i call them otter pops, but i hear they have other names) 🧊 i break and walk around the house to take a few pics of our place for the blog. after a day of catching up on various things, everyone is chatting, relaxing, and getting ready to eat. life is good! 😌
once food is ready, we make our way out to the chairs in the mini backyard to eat, continue chatting, and enjoy a little bit of the milder summer heat. eventually, gloria makes her way home, we tag team dishes, and the team starts making their way to bed to prepare for our 4th learning festival. this would be our biggest one yet—we would have the usual 4 groups, but each would have around 15-20 kids!!! spoiler alert: we ate it UPPP 🚨‼️
ramona + greta’s room
blog writing and route planning table
tian’s room
joseph and i’s room!
view from my cubby!!!
ishaq + charles’ room
the most amazing shower experience ever.
kitchen! 🥑
snack table
laundry couch
living room
mini backyard
wowww
front porch!
chatting outside
i went to sleep in my lovely cubby bed (an idea that i WILL be stealing one day), dreaming of the lush kentucky greens we would soon be leaving behind for a quick detour in illinois, then a leg in missouri. after our learning festival tomorrow, we have a pretty decent stretch before our next non-biking day, long enough to the point where i’ll be driving the first and last days of said stretch! by the time we set off, i will have had 3 whole days of rest. nice 😎
as i am finishing up this blog, i am parked at one of the rest stops on our way to madisonville, ky—our last stop in kentucky! being 20 days, over 800 miles, almost 2 states, and 4 learning festivals in (or, about ¼ of the way through), i can confidently say spokes is something that has, is, and will change me forever—something that i will smile back on for the rest of my life. even the 15% grade hills of 4-5 days ago are already forgotten in favor of beautiful views, delicious food, smiling kids, and the bestest of friends (the feeling of accomplishment after a long ride or steep climb is pretty great, too, though). getting to explore more of the country i’ve lived in all of my 19 years up close has been incredibly eye-opening. it’s been an honor giving back to my community and sharing the same joy and excitement of STEM i’ve felt many times throughout my own life. the good—no, GREAT—food and deep conversations with hosts, friends old and new, and teammates…i could go on and on, but i’ll end my ranting now ❤️❤️
doing hard things feels both totally AWFUL, and freaking AMAZING.
until next time, which will be a 90-miler to jefferson city, missouri!
with love,
“schmitty” 💗
edit: apologies to ruth for not getting a pic of her room :((
Mammoth Cave National Park, KY to Bowling Green, Kentucky — 32.7 mi, 1,342 ft
I woke up and gleefully announced my sleep score of 79 to the other campers. What changed, Ruth? you might be asking. Didn’t you have horrendous sleep for the past two weeks? How did your sleep score triple in a single day? The answer: sleeping in the car. I highly suggest you try it sometime.
In all seriousness, somehow sleeping upright was just what I needed to successfully sleep through the night without waking myself up in a coughing fit. I felt good enough that I was ready to tackle the day’s bike ride, all 33 miles of it. But first, we decided to do a self-guided tour of Mammoth Cave, totally not because we didn’t plan ahead enough to book a guided tour.
The cave was cool (literally) and had surprisingly more historical relevance than I would’ve expected. It contains minerals like saltpetre that are essential for gunpowder formation, and enslaved people were forced to mine it in the 1800s.
We waited in a line for 5 minutes to see some northern & southern cave fish, got to the front of the line, realized there were no fish, then left wondering about the human psychology of queues.
We left the cave, spent an absurdly long time getting ready to leave (Greta ate a whole sandwich), then finally got biking to our one and only rest stop. Although I was having difficulty breathing on the uphills, Greta and Ishaq were kind enough to bike with me for the 15 short miles.
You can’t tell but I’m dying next to Ishaq and Greta
We made it to the vast expanse of the rest stop parking lot, found the bikers ahead of us, located Charles, our driver for the day, then all stared at the looming logo above us: we made it to BUC-EES.
Yooo it’s Charles, remember me? From yesterday? The poor guy whose blog got hijacked? Well I’m back to dish out some sweet revenge and, more importantly, write about my favorite place in the entire world1 — the epitome of American consumerism — Buc-ees.
BUC-EE’S! BUC-EE’S! For the unenlightened, Buc-ee’s is a gas station chain known for its endless chain of gas station stalls, its huge convenience stores, and squeaky clean bathrooms. It’s Costco meets Disneyland meets gas station at the peak of the mountain that is modern Americana. They own world records for largest convenience store, longest car wash, most gas station stalls, etc. If the scale still isn’t setting in for you, let me add that it’s primarily a Texas chain. ‘Nuff said.
A fraction of the gas station stalls
Shoutout the Smith’s Grove Kentucky Buc-ee’s
I’d been raving about Buc-ee’s to the team for like the past week, so everyone’s expectations were high. I was especially hyped for Ramona’s encounter with Buc-ee’s because she is very easily impressed by the US’ innovations in vice culture. S’mores, ice cream floats, scratch-off tickets, Camel Crushes. And… laundromats (“like they spin… and it’s so cool”)? Maybe she’s just easily impressed in general. I also secretly suspect word about the industrial revolution has not yet reached Latvia.
After locking up our bikes in a big bike pile, we go into the store, which is big enough to lose track of people very quickly. I use the wonderful restrooms, then pick up a triple meat sandwich (sausage + brisket + turkey). I devour the sandwich outside as everyone sits down at the spot with their Buc-ee’s purchases. I ask about everyone’s impressions. “Overstimulating,” “awesome,” and “MURICA” are common refrains.
Ishaq recaps his Buc-ee’s haul (“I went in and just went full consumer mode”) before I go in for a second time to buy a round of treats for myself. I wind up buying fresh glazed nuts, cherry maple jerky, assorted sours, peanut butter and caramel popcorn with cinnamon, and milk chocolate covered raisins 😋.
Bike pile
Me eating my triple meat sandwich
Joseph showing off his own triple meat sandwich
Glazed nuts were so good I only thought to take a picture when there were two left
Rest of Buc-ee’s haul
View from the parking lot
Ramona mid-slurp
One happy camper
As the bikers get ready to leave, I go in for a *third* Buc-ee’s trip to buy some beer for our rest day chillaxing. (spoiler alert: they did not make it to the rest day). Ramona is in fact impressed by Buc-ee’s. So impressed she buys merch on the spot.
Ruth’s back! (wooo the crowd goes wild)
I’m feeling extremely stuffed from my brisket sandwich, but I gather myself and hop on my bike. Ishaq is feeling lazy and joins Charles in the car, but Greta’s vow to stay with me throughout the day doesn’t waver. She plays my 2000s hits playlist, “dancing in my room,” and we jam along for the next 17 miles. Somewhere along the way, Ramona joins us, and now all three of us are jamming. Per usual, flash rain about 3 miles out from our final destination attempts to derail us. We bike through the downpour and come out the other side completely soaked and smiling wildly – mostly Greta, who “loves this type of weather.” We play tag with the rain for a bit, see a ground rainbow, then finally make it to what I can only describe as the best Airbnb to ever exist.
We enter the glorious estate and lay claims to bedrooms and showers. Ramona and I struggle to work the record player, then realize Charles and Ishaq tried the same thing half an hour earlier with no success.
Record player: 1. Me and Ramona: 0
After Charles and Ishaq return from grocery shopping, we start making dinner. Music is blasting (from a speaker😔) and spirits are high. The sun is setting, the sky is beautiful, and the fireflies come out.
General merriment
We eat mac and cheese, turkey bacon, salad, watermelon, and banana/olive oil brownies, and stay up all night watching 21 Jump Street, playing card games, and just talking. It’s ok, we have a rest day tomorrow.
1 I actually wrote a full essay praising Buc-ee’s my junior spring.
Liberty, KY to Mammoth Cave National Park, KY – 88.6 mi, 5,465 ft
Today was our longest ride to date — 88 miles — and I woke up in the morning not looking forward to it. It was going to be my third straight day cycling and my left knee had been bugging me more and more over the course of the last two days. Moreover, after a discussion the previous night about trying to actually leave earlier in the morning, the team firmly resolved to get on the road by 9am. I haven’t seen the doctor about it yet, but I might be allergic to waking up so early.
So, after a speedy pack up process in the morning, we got an early (by our standards) start to the day and I got to biking. The rolling hills of Kentucky went by rather uneventfully until I came up on a small stream that I tried to cross on my bike. After I fell in, what did I look up to see but Joseph recording my stream crossing attempt and laughing to himself. This guy really waited 20 minutes at the stream just to capture everyone’s crossing attempts. (He did actually yell out for me to dismount my bike and cross normally, which I didn’t hear because I had my earbuds in 🙊).
Bro is cackling at my downfall
Once everyone behind me crossed the stream (without trying to pedal through it and falling off), Joseph asked us where Greta was. We were sure she was ahead of Joseph, but he was adamant that she hadn’t passed him. After gaslighting Joseph for a few minutes, we realized that Greta maybe took a wrong turn after the rest of us lost sight of her and we called her. She had in fact gone down the wrong road while calling her mom and biked an extra four miles. So we all owe Joseph an apology for making him question his own sanity.
After the rest stop, Greta and I biked side-by-side and started chatting. We rode together for the rest of the day. This actually was great for staving off the biking boredom that I had been dreading for the day and I’m definitely going to employ the “yap ride” technique on these longer mileage days. We talked about silly topics, like religion and making friends, and deep topics, like if we would get along with twin versions of ourselves and whether we’d marry into the British royal family.
Our second rest stop of the trip was possibly the best rest stop we’ve had yet. Ishaq and Ruth got Lee’s Fried Chicken and lemonade. They made the mistake of allotting chicken by number of pieces, so I claimed the two largest pieces in the entire bucket. A few of the others went to the coffee shop and met a bunch of interesting people. I joined a few others in the book shop and bought a book.
The food tided us over until a late lunch, when I ate my two sandwiches for the day. To keep things interesting, I’ve started making one normal sandwich and one abomination sandwich every biking day. Two days ago, Ruth made me a diabetes sandwich (peanut butter, golden Oreos, Hersheys, sour patch kids, marshmallows, and jam) and it was actually incredible and got me through the hills. Tuna, sour patch kids, and hummus was another surprising yet resounding success (others disagree; they are wrong). For today, I had asked everyone to name a random sandwich topping and assembled the resulting peanut butter, crushed red chili flakes, goldfish, apple slices, and parmesan sandwich. Unfortunately, this disaster looked to be my first sandwich DNF of the trip.
Diabetes sandwich from two days ago; I did not take a picture of my sandwiches today
Greta and I yapped until we reached our final destination, Mammoth Cave NP Campground for the night. We finally got to pitch our tents with daylight left and made a fire! After compensating for our poor fire-starting skills with plenty of lighter fluid, we cooked corn on the cob, sweet potatoes, and burger combinations in the fire while everyone took turns telling scary stories. I finished my thought-to-be-DNF sandwich. It wasn’t so bad actually — I think all the crushed chili flakes got concentrated in one bite I had at the rest stop. The indomitable human spirit triumphs again.
At long last
Dinner 😋🏕️
Boo
Double blog! Ruth had such a fun day riding in the car with Ishaq today that she has decided she wants to hijack my blogging day and write her own events of the day. So, I’ve kept my musings short and I’m tapping Ruth in. In exchange, I’ll be popping in to Ruth’s blog tomorrow to rave about Buc-ee’s.
Ruth here! And now for the better blog…
Uh oh. Why can’t I breathe??
This was my first thought waking up in the church in Liberty, Kentucky, where we spent the night. I’ve been battling a cold for a couple days, but something changed today. It went from being uncomfortable to becoming semi-serious. I thought to myself, I probably shouldn’t bike. But I couldn’t decide, and I really didn’t want to miss a whole 85 miles, so I got ready for the day, staying in my pajamas for as long as possible. When I couldn’t prolong it any longer, I announced to the team that I didn’t think I could bike. Everyone was very supportive, probably because they care for my health more than I do, let’s be real. I took on some driver roles and helped Ishaq load the car and fill waters, then I sat in the van and mentally prepared for the next super serious role I’d have to take for the rest of the day – passenger princess.
Ishaq and I started off by getting gas, because someone forgot to fill it up the day before (cough Greta cough). We then went to Save a Lot to buy ingredients for our hobo campfire dinner at Mammoth Cave Campgrounds. Save A Lot didn’t have some essentials, like marshmallows, aluminum foil, and firewood, so we planned on stopping by a Walmart later on. We made it to the rest stop and watched Sonic 3 on Ishaq’s iPad until bikers showed up to refuel. Now, this boring pattern ought to have continued through the rest of the day, but Ishaq the goat discovered a Lee’s Famous Chicken shop nearby and bought a 16-piece bucket for us all. He also spiked one of the water tanks with lemonade powder and ice. We parked on a main street in Campbellsville, a hidden gem in the middle of Kentucky, and waited for bikers to show while munching on our own chickens, sipping lemonade, and proceeding with Sonic 3. Once the bikers arrived, we all munched together, except Tian who’s vegan.
I also discovered an adorable bookstore across the street and bought my summer book #2 for $3.50. Sarah, Charles, and Greta are all copycats and followed me in.
cute bookstore in Campbellsville
We declared this the best rest stop of the trip (crazy that I’m agreeing with Charles, I know).
Once the bikers had semi-digested, they headed off, leaving me and Ishaq behind yet again. We went to a bike shop to fix one of our broken pumps, and instead ended up trading our pump with the owner’s personal pump from the 90s for free. Then we went to Walmart and had too much fun perusing the aisles. Ishaq got his Sprite, and I got the rest of the important stuff (jk jk). We still couldn’t find firewood but figured Mammoth Cave Campground would have some. As a result of our jovial time at Walmart, we were very late to the next rest stop. But it was at our favorite place, Dollar General, so bikers had already gone inside and bought their snackies and peed and whatnot. Ishaq declared the breaks were getting too long and shooed them away.
We drove to the next place and proceeded to watch more Sonic 3. The bikers rudely interrupted us demanding lunch, which we begrudgingly handed to them. Ishaq’s friends called so I got kicked out of the car, and I sat with the bikers and listened to tales from their harrowing journey.
Once everyone left, we went to the final rest stop, a Dutch-themed place with ice cream and other desserts. I got a pumpkin loaf that reminded me of a bakery from my hometown (shoutout to Fornax), Charles got his signature float, Ramona probably also got the same thing since she’s been on a soda bender recently, Sarah was disappointed by her pumpkin cream cheese chunks, Joseph is boring and just got vanilla ice cream, Greta got toothpaste mint chocolate chip ice cream, Tian ate her vegan chili, and I don’t remember what Ishaq got. Sarah got mistaken for one of the Amish workers, I stole 16 plastic utensils, and Greta made new stranger friends, per usual.
Amish horse drawn carriage spotted!
Once everyone finished, Ishaq and I kept driving until we reached Mammoth Cave. We bought some firewood and set up tents until the bikers finished their travels for the day. Joseph and Charles struggled to start the fire, but once it was ready we threw in some foil-wrapped corn, sweet potato, and hobo onion + carrot + patties (tofu for Tian because she’s vegan). While eating and making s’mores, we told impressively crafted ghost stories, except for the fact that several people didn’t think of endings and just stopped telling the story right at the denouement. What happened to the butler, Ishaq?!?
I have gotten into the (bad) habit of using fellow Spokies as alarms. I woke up and saw Ramona still in bed. I fell back asleep and repeated this process 4 times before Greta (bless her) barged into the room, and woke everyone up. Greta soared up the list of top Spokes drivers today because she made everyone oatmeal for breakfast. Sometimes I forget how such a simple breakfast food item could be so yummy with the right toppings. Speaking of being the top driver, she accomplished something phenomenal, making everyone pack their lunches the night before. I knew how much time doing errands the night before saves, but I haven’t gotten everyone on the same page. However, I learned that building relationships and trust is important in order to influence others (cue evil laugh). I was astounded by Greta’s magic, and very VERY pleased.
Spoon is Ramona
The first 30 miles passed like a breeze, but soon after I faced a very unfortunate dilemma. I needed to use the bathroom. Not only that, I needed to poop without any toilet paper. At first, I wasn’t panicking because I had been in this position many times before. I simply need to find a gas station or an unsuspecting soul mowing their lawn and borrow their bathroom (I know, I know, entering strangers’ homes is not the smartest idea). As I trudged along, I spotted a gas station to the left of the road, but I hate crossing busy highways. I moved on hoping to find a gas station on the right side of the road. Kentucky is a state of barking dogs who hate bikes. Lady Luck showed her face a few miles later. An old lady was sitting on her porch. However, her barking dogs scared me away and I didn’t get a chance to ask about the bathroom. After a few more miles, panic started to set in. Around the corner, I encountered an older gentleman with 3 barking dogs. Still, my desperation encouraged me to ask him about his restroom, to which he replied, “We don’t have water right now.” I left, disappointed. Soon after, I realized I should have asked for some toilet paper. After a couple of hills, I broke down. I NEED TO USE THE RESTROOM. I couldn’t see any houses for a mile, and then finally, I saw a gated home with a car parked outside. I thought to myself that someone must be at home. I unlatched the gate and rang the doorbell. Multiple times. All the while thinking that I am going to be shot for crossing into private property. The baby toys in the yard gave me hope that this family wouldn’t hurt me. But most animals are known to be protective and defensive of their young. No answer. I got back onto the road in pain. I don’t know how many more pedals I got in before I threw my bike on the side of the road, squatted on the side to relieve myself, and tried my best to avoid the 3 leaved poison ivies. I held my breath hoping that no cars would come down the road. It turns out, dried leaves are great toilet paper. As soon as I finished my business, I skedaddled away so no one would be able to tell that the poop on the side of the road was human and not dog poop.
I enjoyed lunchtime at rest stop 3, but the heat was getting to me and I was having a slow day. Meanwhile, Charles ate one of the crazy sandwich concoctions that Ruth made for him the night before. Greta was interviewing for everyone’s Rose Thorn Bud of Spokes for her blog. Ishaq was nowhere to be seen because he was a solo bird today.
The next stretch to Dollar General was unbearable. My legs weren’t pushing as it usually does and I couldn’t find my cycling rhythm. I could feel my vision getting blurry as I pulled up to a stop sign on a hill. At the stop sign, I saw a car moving towards me as I tried to turn left. I didn’t stop. Surely, the car would stop for me. But the car didn’t. The car got closer and closer. I blinked at the alarming sight and my mind suddenly cleared up. Oh no, what am I doing? The car swerved and screeched past me. Whew. That was a close call. Yesterday, I also had a close call with a van on the wrong lane who was driving straight towards me after a bend. However, this close call shook me more because I was in the wrong. I should have stopped at the stop sign. My lack of mental faculties frightened me.
I reached the Dollar General rest stop 4 with a sense of relief. I asked my fellow Spokies for advice on relieving dizziness. I was pampered with chewable electrolytes and an energy gel by today’s driver Greta. She asked me if I wanted to get driven. A wave of relief washed over me. I almost shed a tear, but I cried on this team too much already so I kept it in. I have done distances as long as today’s route before, so the fact I couldn’t finish the route was very disappointing. I wanted to push for 10 more miles. If the rest of my team could do it, why couldn’t I? But rationally, what is the point of biking for a few more miles on a random day in Kentucky when I know I am not feeling my best? For one reason or another, today is not my day. My mind and my body were at their limits. And so, I retreated into the car, thankful that I didn’t have to bike the rest of the 30 miles.
At rest stop 5, I took a nap while Greta went for a run (she is crazy). When I woke up, the rest of the team arrived after conquering a crazy hill on their way. I was grateful that I didn’t have to battle that hill today. Ruth arrived all sniffy, but feeling powerful. She has been sick for the last few days so I don’t know how she has been managing.
We wrapped up the day at the Liberty Assembly of God Church. Ishaq broke a vase when he arrived at the church. I don’t know how he managed that, but the church was kind and let it slide. Greta made us an amazing meal of chili while Ramona made cornbread and Ishaq made rice. I did some pre-eating cleanup while Ruth and Charles took care of the post-eating cleanup. Sarah gathered laundry and Joseph made the route for tomorrow. We all made sandwiches for tomorrow and had a productive meeting to set our leaving time as 9 am. Spokes 2025 to my surprise has slowly become a well-oiled machine. There are still creaks and clunks here and there, but everyone is pitching in to make things happen. I realize that when I struggle against the current, I gasp for air, but if I float in the rushing waves, I may be brought to shore. I need to choose carefully when to fight or float, or I may drown.
I tucked into my bed next to Ramona. She seemed to be the only team member immune to my snoring. I drifted to sleep not knowing that the sleep demon was out to get me this night (I fell off my bed).
MIT Spokes 2026 