Hi, Ishaq here 👋. Happy first of July and have Tour de France eve eve eve eve. What a day today was. The pace was slow, the vibes immaculate, and the falls even more so. All in all a chill century ride with loads of fun time.
Our journey begins in Sedalia, Missouri where we hop back on the Katy trail, where we’ll stay for pretty much the rest of the day. But we had a nice rest stop at a cafe where I got a large pineapple limeade Italian soda. Delicious way to instantly hit my daily recommended added sugar intake. But continuing on we hop back on the trail and start playing Mr. White. Our favorite gaem for the day works by havign us all pass around Charles’ phone and getting a word. All civilians have the same word, 2 people, the under covers, have a different word, and Mr. White gets no word. No one is directly told their role except Mr White and we all have to go around giving clues in order to vote out Mr. White before they get the civilian word and vote out the under cover members. On the other hand, the goal of Mr. White and the under cover members are to survive as long as they can.
Now that you know the game, you can begin to understand just how I was repeatedly wronged over the course of this ride. Every time my turn rolled around I’d drop the most elite hints and no one would get them. I personally think its a skill issue. For example, I had Lord of the Rings as my word, so I, with a very sensible line of logic, said “Professor X” (Professor X -> Magneto -> Ian McKellan -> Gandalf). Little did I know, none of the other spokies know X-men! Actually criminal. So I made it FAR more simple for round 2 and dropped “Eagles” (Gandalf always calls the eagles to save the day in LOTR). Once again even the so called “LOTR readers” didn’t get it. I was ultimately voted out for my “suspicious answers” and we civilians lost the round ☹️. Even worse, Ruth’s insufficient knowledge of the intelligence of aquatic mammals threw me on the chopping block again (She claims whales aren’t smart).
In the middle of our grand group ride a few whoopsies happened. First off, I sadly slipped off the trail, took a ride in the bushes, and fell back on to the trail. Really tough, I though I was going to survive spokes unscathed, but I have now acquired scrapes on my right knee and elbow. The team, of course, laughed at me, however, my fall was topped by Charles just a couple of hours later. While setting up a new game of Mr. White, he clipped a metal post and was launched off his bike. He lied there, motionless, all of us thinking the worst. He says he hit his head and the worst was spinning but recovered as we ushered him to a nearby table. He actually re-scraped an old scab on his elbow so we hit it with the wettest stingiest alcohol swab which had him squealing in pain. Once we were sure he was okay we all had a good laugh about the sound of the fall and the scene we observed in the aftermath. Maybe we’re horrible people for finding joy in the misfortune of our friends. Maybe we are just a generation conditioned on epic fail complications 🤷🏾♂️. Either way, its funny because we were all okay in the end.
After tending to the wounds of the fallen, we stopped playing Mr. While and I was now incredibly tired of biking for the day. This is where I innovated. Using two bungee cords I secured my iPad to my handlebars to enable a peak watching experience on the bike. Granted I did not want to watch anything actually good that would require mental energy to enjoy so I put on the Netflix adaptation of the popular game series Devil May Cry. I was very disappointed because at no point in the 4 episodes I watched did a devil cry. But, I suppose thats what makes it interesting: maybe a devil will cry, maybe not 🤷🏾♂️. The other spokies were all haters, thinking that I would fall or my iPad would drop, but I literally have a degree in engineering from MIT so pretty confident in the setup. I followed Ruth and Ramona because the iPad partially covered my bike computer.
At the end of the day we rode into Kansas City and I hada great time zooming down the city roads at sunset. We got to our large Airbnb where Sarah made us all grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner, then we spokies dispersed for our bedtime endeavors.
Jefferson City, MO -> Sedalia, MO — 69 mi, 3250 ft
Our Spokie Sarah kindly offered to take my place on my previous blogging day because I was injured and couldn’t participate in MIT Spokes’ first century (100 miles) ride (a future sneak peek: I eventually completed my first century on day 27). Sarah asked if I had blogging pride to decide if she should take over my scheduled blog or if we should switch blogging days. Initially, I thought I had zero blogging pride. One less blog to write! But alas I realized I had too much pride, and therefor I wrote the day 26 blog.
I thought today would be my recovery bike ride after a couple of days of being a passenger princess, but it turns out that Charles’ birth hospital was on the route of my next driving day so Charles and I switched driving days. Now, we have another rare driver’s blog, from me!
We woke up today to amazing berry-filled oatmeal courtesy of our host Sarah. She is honestly everything I want to be. She is artsy, even-tempered, calm, and reads the room very well. She also gave us a gift that we will pass down to the future generations of Spokes as an heirloom. While I ate breakfast, I started packing up all the food boxes and the cooler. I don’t believe that a driving day is all that restful on Spokes because you become the morning cleanup crew and the evening meal planning crew (if we need dinner). I aspire to be the kind of driver who can get everyone on the road as quickly as possible, but I cannot be bothered to boss people around at this stage of the trip.
Just as we were getting ready to leave, our host Sarah gathered everyone for a group picture. I double, triple checked the rooms to make sure we didn’t forget anything. My biggest fear is leaving something behind that someone cares about. Oops, mayo and otter pops from my last driving day. The devastation in my fellow Spokies’ voices is something I don’t want to deal with again.
After pulling out of our host Sarah’s driveway, my first task was shopping at the supermarket. I spent an ungodly amount of time in the supermarket because there was so much going on. I get overstimulated in supermarkets and my brain gets so confused. I visited 4 supermarkets on this driving day because I kept forgetting ingredients and I had to pick up bananas for Charles which he doesn’t even want lol. I also got into an accident in the parking lot of a supermarket, but to not incriminate myself, I shall not delve into the details.
I missed the first rest stop due to grocery shopping and dinner planning. I met everyone at the second rest stop at a cute coffee shop where some of us had lunch. Joseph always seems to be the last one to leave, including from this rest stop, because he enjoys taking his time. Still, I am astounded by his ability to always catch up with the team. Good for him.
The third rest stop was Dollar General, and I was able to share some strawberries I bought with the crew. We were waiting for Charles and Greta to show up when they arrived with bright red blood on Charles’ leg. Turns out, they crashed into each other which left Charles with multiple wounds and Greta with a painful pinkie and bump on her leg. Luckily, I pulled out all the medical kits earlier this morning so I was prepared to give our wounded Spokes members everything they needed.
Cool sights discovered by bikers
Greta’s hand hindered her biking so she joined me in the van at the fourth rest stop. We made our way to the Kingdom Life Church, where we would sleep for the night. We met Pastor Steve and his wife Anne who took us on a tour of the church which had comfortable chairs set up like pews in their sanctuary. Needless to say, my sleep was heavenly.
A storm was brewing in the distance and the church had no showers. I turned on my logistic brain and sent our first bikers, Greta, Joseph, and Sarah to shower first in Pastor Steve’s home. Greta also planned to go to urgent care to check for fractures in her hand (there are no fractures yay). Pastor Steve and Anne also offered to do laundry for us! The rest of the team pulled up and helped unload the car in record time before the rain started. The rest of us then all got shuttled by Anne to her home and finished our shower lineup. But wait, I was still in the shower when some Spokies got shuttled back. How are we going to cook dinner? I sent some instructions for dinner in the group chat after I got out of the shower, fully not expecting any meal prep to be done. To my surprise, when I returned to the church, almost everyone was in the kitchen. I had help preparing red Thai curry with salad and leftover pasta from last night. I smoked the whole kitchen because I cranked the heat up. Ramona’s rice became porridge because we didn’t have a lid. All in all, dinner was served and the curry turned out well.
While dinner was getting cleaned up, Ishaq and Ruth were cooking up a storm with the drums on the stage of the sanctuary. Driving days always mentally exhaust me, but I am happy I won’t have to do it for a while. I snuggled into my sleeping bag and wrapped up another great driving day.
St. Louis, MO to Jefferson City, MO, 125.1 mi 3840 ft or 74.1 mi 2239 ft
The sun rose at 5:40am over St. Louis; me and Greta rose at 5 am sharp. We had a long day ahead of us. 130 miles ahead of us. No joke.
I did not get a picture of the sunset, because I was busy getting ready: losing a glove, finding my other pair of gloves, then finding the lost glove again and other stuff of that sort. But we rolled out at 6am sharp. It was surprisingly warm, but we were optimistic. The plan was for us to bike self supported for the first 50 or so miles, then meet up with the rest of the group, who would leave afterwards and shuttle ahead to reduce the milage. (Huge thanks to Nora and Alex for making this happen!)
The team with our hosts in the morning ->
So that’s what we did. We started off going through St. Louis, seeing more parts of the city we explored yesterday, when the sun went away and it started raining. Not heavily, but consistently. This was new. We were used to the afternoon thunderstorms, but now we finally got a simple rainy day. At around mile 27 we got on the Katy trail… where we would continue for the rest of the day. The Katy trail, which used to be part of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (also known as the Katy, this is where the name comes from) at 260 miles total distance, mostly by the Missouri river, is the longest developed rail-trail in the US. It is fine gravel, used by cyclists, runners and walkers, with occasional bathrooms and benches maintained. No water fountains, but we asked for some at a restaurant and also realised that we don’t really drink nearly as much in the cool rain. In the rain, the gravel got nice and mushy, which had the effect of reduced speed and muddy backs.
Mile 80 marker and funny looking plantsThe bustling restaurant which kindly filled the water bottles of two muddy cyclists.Greta and the dirt on her back.
Despite this gloomy atmosphere, we had a great time! We chatted, played some tunes on Greta’s legendary hanging speaker, including The Sound of Music soundtrack in its entirety, as well as playing the Picnick game – a great invention and amazing way to pass the time. (If someone already explained it in their blog or if you know what it is, feel free to skip ahead.) The way it works is one person comes up with a criteria to decide if a noun is YES or NO (eg. is alive?, had more than 8 letters?, etc.). Then the game alternates between them saying something they can bring and the other person asking if they can bring something else. The goal is for the other person to guess the criteria. I struggled on Greta’s criteria for more than 10 miles and did not get it. You can ask her about it. She got mine much faster, so I can tell you that the criteria was all words with and even number of syllables.
We also took in the scenery, saw some crazy blue birds and tackled a fallen tree. Mud was everywhere. (I later found sand in my washed bibs.)
blurry Missouri rivergreta tackling a fallen treemuddy shoes
Anyways, I think it was around mile 60 when we met up with the car for some lunch. We had packed a bunch of snacks, but its really nice to have actual food (dinner leftovers!). Time until lunch had flown very quickly, but afterwards it slowly started to slow down. Luckily the sun came out for a bit and Ishaq and Tian – our driver and passenger for the day – brought Greta some (lukewarm gas station) coffee.
lunchthe sun!greta, ishaq and the joy that coffee brings
We kept meeting up with the car until around mile 108, when Greta shuffled to our destination to take a call and I was left on the trail with my own thoughts. The sun had dissappeared again, my butt was hurting and my legs were done with this. The air was eerie and my podcast (about espionage) did not help (and there were way too many ads). But I persevered – changed my hand position on the handlebars too many times and worked on my leftover snacks.
s-patch-es and cinnamon toast crunchme and my snackslast i saw of the sun
Last miles went by slowly. Occasionally I thought I would be on this wet trail forever and contemplated making contact with the birds or bunnies. But that was not neccessary, since I did, in fact, make it to Jefferson City. Surreal. Crazy. Iconic.
Jefferson City rest stop on the Katy trailThe second to last climb – a spiralJefferson City
The sun set at 8:40pm over Jefferson City. I rolled in at around 8pm. Not that you could see the sun – for the most part, I could not be sure it was there. But I was sure that there was me, outside, on the Katy trail, scaring squirrels, frightening bunnies and thinking too many thoughts. Maybe I was the sun. My sun for that day was me. (read again: thinking too many thoughts)
Our rest for the night was Sarah’s place. And it was an amazing place for resting. I got hosed down, devoured dinner, got cuddles from Barbara (see below), showered and fell right asleep. I know some people stayed up to play some game, but I actually have only a very vague idea about how the rest of the team’s day had been. There is only so many hours in a day. And today, I spent them all biking.
Me and Barbara on the couchBarbara on the couch
(I don’t think a dog had ever cuddled up to me like Barbara did, missing her already.)
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 :((
MIT Spokes 2026 