MIT Spokes 2026

Author: MIT Spokes

  • Day 12: Big A(hh) Mountain

    Day 12: Big A(hh) Mountain

    Tazewell, VA to Breaks Interstate Park, VA — 72.59 mi, 5,103 ft

    Even if 72 miles looks short relative to some of the other distances we’ll be covering this summer, today was a longgg day for a variety of reasons. If I had to think of one, the only downside of having such a beautiful house to ourselves (generously provided to us by the Main Street Methodist Church) is that we had spread things everywhere, so it took us an abnormally long time to get going (yes, even more so than usual). Aarushi volunteered to take charge of breakfast since it was her driving day, so the rest of us focused on getting ready and packing all of our camping equipment we took out as our bedding for the night. I also helped by making eggs again, this time without an absurd amount of bacon grease as I had done the day before — I do think the bacon grease version tasted better, even if it definitely gave us all some heart disease. 

    We set up on our glorious dining table once more with a little more of a rush, trying to finish so quickly so we could hit the road. We had so much food that we couldn’t fit it all in our cooler, so it was also just a lot of us stuffing our faces as much as we could so it wouldn’t go to waste.

    Drew chugging OJ and our breakfast spread

    After saying goodbye to Teresa, who has been such an amazing host and person to us throughout our stay, we took off. Drew and Tatiana had to mail their postcards, so they split off from the rest of us initially. However, pretty early on, we made a wrong turn and had to backtrack, meeting up with them again and climbing up the first (of many) hills of the ride. We split up a bit from there, as I decided to go at a relatively chill pace to prevent my ongoing hand strain from getting worse and biked alone for a bit. There were a lot of dogs that we passed by (ominous foreshadowing) and the weather was beautiful. Watching the movement of clouds became a new way to pass the time.

    Gorgeous first stretch

    I joined back up with Nate, Carmen, and Nunu, before soon arriving at the first rest stop, which were some bleachers by a park. Before leaving together, Nunu had the fun idea of creating a group call so that we could all hear each other during the ride, which lasted approximately 5 whole minutes before it was cut off. I really appreciated Nate relaying upcoming cars after they already passed me (because of the delay lol). 

    The call was helpful though because I realized via the call that Tatiana and I had left our water bottles at the rest stop!! We pulled over to get them back with Drew, and then continued on our way. We soon came onto a gravel trail that had a huge downed tree spanning the entire road. After shuffling our bikes through the tree, we reunited once more with the rest of the crew as we came to the realization that the next part of our route was marked with a scary “Private Property: No Trespassing” sign that halted our progress. This was likely an unintended consequence of a last-minute route change by Aarushi the night before in an effort to cut out some gravel and elevation. We considered backtracking or adjusting the plan since none of us trusted the area (a common theme of the day), but Drew scouted out the area and deemed it reasonable to pass — especially since the route was marked as a state route in our navigation services. We quickly maneuvered around the gate, dashed across the trail, and got out ASAP before anyone could catch us. A bit stressful, but that was just the start.

    Big tree in the path

    Of course, the next road was also an EXTREMELY bumpy gravel section, which was not a fun experience as I had to pee the entire time. The area remained a bit sketchy as well, since we had to navigate some smaller side roads that continued to have a lot of dogs. We made a conscious effort to stick in groups as a result. Over the course of the day, I saw a black lab chase Carmen and a smaller dog run onto the busy road to chase us (foreshadowing again), and we hadn’t even crossed into Kentucky yet where the dogs are supposedly the worst 😨

    Sketch gate and group riding

    Before our lunch stop, Carmen and I took a bathroom break at a very nicely air-conditioned Family Dollar and arrived at the Church later. Lunch was the usual, sandwiches spiced up by the last of our pickles and roasted bell peppers. I really needed to fuel up for the next climb: Big A Mountain (read: Big Ahh Mountain), the namesake of this post. I threw in an extra Uncrustable for energy. 1500 ft elevation gain, 6 miles… I was not looking forward to it. 

    I left with Nate and Carmen, who quickly dropped me as I chugged along the next couple of miles in 1st gear nearly the entire time. It honestly wasn’t as bad as I thought, since it was mostly gradual elevation gain and my body fell into the rhythm of “just keep going.” I forgot who used the analogy of a train chugging along, but I do now understand their pain. Joining back up at the top, the three of us took on some crazyyy downhills to the base of Big A Mountain, filled with scary blind turns and holding onto my brakes for dear life. Although beautiful, the drivers were honestly some of the scariest parts of Spokes so far, especially on the narrow two-lane highways. You never know when they decide to risk their lives and your own by passing into a blind corner, or when they do the opposite and stick behind you for miles, despite waving for them to pass through clearer stretches. 

    After Big A Mountain, it was a net downhill stretch to our final rest stop. Here, I felt like I was in some exotic rainforest instead of middle-of-nowhere Virginia. Lush green ivy-covered trees dominated the landscape, the humid heat was an ever-present sensation, and we could see the towering rainclouds peaking over the tree canopy. I looked at Carmen and said, “I actually hope it rains,” and not even 5 minutes later we feel the heavy drops coming down. Thankfully, our rest stop was a mile away, so we only became mildly soaked and got to watch the downpour from the safety of a convenience store overhang.  Apparently this day is when Spokes 2025 experienced a downpour as well at this approximate point, so we were twinning! We waited for Tatiana and Drew while we finished off our jelly stash. Nunu and Aarushi shared a crazy story about sneaking their way into a concert in the meantime as well. After the rain stopped, we could see the road start steaming, which was also a really cool sight.

    I drafted Nate and Carmen for the last flat stretch before coming to the last 3 climbs of the day, and they sure were something. Where Big A Mountain was a slowburn romance, the final hills were a series of heartbreaks. Once you finished one, there was still more to come, and my legs were not happy with the constant pedaling. Needing to stop more often, I also took some more time to appreciate the view, killing two birds with one stone. 

    Not quite sure about the “Grand Canyon of the East” claim, but Breaks Interstate is beautiful!

    I finally arrived at the campsite where Aarushi and Nunu had amazingly already set up everything (we were worried about rain initially but the timing worked out). 

    Once everyone had arrived, we quickly packed ourselves into the car to drive to Mi Rancho Mexican Bar and Grill, a restaurant in Elkhorn City, KY, that had kindly offered us a free meal on our journey. We were greeted by Taylor, the owner, and were immediately served some of the BEST food we’ve had on this trip. The chicken fajitas were demolished and the lemonade was downed. Thanks again to Mi Rancho for an amazing dinner! 

    Yummy food! Ft. Aarushi shamefully hiding her UC Berkeley shirt
    Our creative solutions to locking all of the bikes together and fitting 7 people into 5 seats

    On our way back, we queued some bangers to listen to, including:

    • Take Me Home, Country Roads
    • Take Me Home, Country Roads (Japanese ver.) (highly recommend everyone listen to once)
    • Fireflies (after we saw some fireflies, of course)
    • Titanium (with Aarushi and Drew’s amazing singing)

    I don’t think I’ve ever listened to Take Me Home, Country Roads more than this summer so far. I think this song will always bring me back to this unique period of time, where suddenly the normal responsibilities of everyday life disappeared and yet new challenges came to be with these special people I get to call my team. Thank you all for making this crazy ride easier with all of your bright personalities and memorable moments. I find myself rambling on these blogs because I truly don’t want to forget every moment, even if they are quite mundane. 

    Anyways, keep an eye out for tomorrow’s blog, which unfortunately was a day I would like to forget a bit more… I think it’ll be an enjoyable read at least.

    See you soon, 

    Caroline

  • Day 11: Playlist Across America

    Day 11: Playlist Across America

    Learning Festival in Tazewell, VA — 0 mi, 0 ft

    We needed this nice calm day in the midst of the chaos of the days before and after (spoiler alert). Our team woke up in the huge church-house which we were inhabiting alone and LARPed* as a big happy TV-show-esque friend group who lives in a mansion together and has nothing to do but hang out as we leisurely cooked the most beautiful breakfast together, with Jack Johnson’s “Banana Pancakes” playing in the background. Our spread consisted of pancakes (plain, blueberry, and caramelized banana) and bacon (cooked by our very own Bacon Carmen!!!) and eggs (scrambled in an extremely generous amount of bacon grease) and buttermilk biscuits and grapes and strawberries and applies with creamy peanut butter and milk and orange juice and Fanta (for Drew) and Sprite (for Nate). We keep eating like we burn 4000 calories a day, except today was actually a teaching day!

    Today’s learning festival was at the United Methodist Church in Tazewell, Virginia. It’s a small learning festival in a small town, which means we could really feel the effect of our learning festival .Sometimes I forget that what to us just feels like a day of babbling about random chemistry concepts and asking kids to stop making balloons out of their nitrile gloves is actually a day that kids have been counting down the days for and remember for the rest of the year until Spokes 2027 comes. Just hearing these words from a few of our students made the entire day worth it for me, despite the significantly lower team energy and morale from yesterday. I have so much respect for all the teachers I’ve ever had; I have no idea how they find the will to keep showing up every day full of energy for just a couple intermittent words of thanks. Pretty sure this is called breadcrumbing, but wow it really works.

    • Carmen and I teach a workshop on chemistry through a cool color change iodine reaction for the older kids and a workshop on genetics through a design-your-own-monster-child crafting activity for the little kids

    Carmen and I teach a workshop on chemistry through a cool color change iodine reaction for the older kids and a workshop on genetics through a design-your-own-monster-child crafting activity for the little kids.

    At lunch, I did a grand show and tell of all my scrapes and bruises from yesterday’s tree crash with a tall tale about getting attacked by a grizzly bear as I biked on a road in between a mama bear and her cubs. Nobody questioned me, and I can’t figure out if it was because kids are so easy to lie to or if they just didn’t care enough to ask. Then, because it was such a hit at the last learning festival, we threw Nate and Drew under the bus again and told all the kids that they will race them in the church parking lot. Let it be known that they both actually tried and still lost, and let it be known that as they did their 20 punishment pushups there was a circle of kids dancing around them with Ls on their forehead to make sure Nate and Drew really understood that they were freaking losers. Then we took the kids inside where Drew played a beautiful piano rendition of Let it Go as the kids sang along, before finally resuming the workshop.

    I took my first nap of Spokes at the end of today, after ten days of nonstop action and ten nights of barely seven hours of sleep. Feeling restored, Tatana and I decided to join the ladies group of the United Methodist Church. Many of them had grown up in Tazewell and have been friends for fifty years now, supporting each other through the highest highs and lowest lows of life. They welcomed us very warmly, and we shared prayers for the people in our communities and blessings for everything we were feeling lucky about (mine was my team, retweeting nunu’s love letter). Although I’m not very religious, I’ve been starting to understand the human connection and structure and third space and love that church provides, and why no matter how small and secluded the towns we pass through are, we can always find a church to stop and take rest at. 

    This was the first time on this trip where we got to chat with and paint a picture of the lives of people in the towns we were passing through beyond our hosts. Since everybody has been sharing the real main reason why they joined Spokes on the blogs recently, I’ll let you all know that mine was exactly this: to get to know people across America whose life paths mine would not ordinarily cross with, to understand their stories and struggles and dreams. 

    In that vein, I’ve been collecting a playlist of Favorites Across America. I’ve tried to ask every stranger I’ve felt touched by on this trip what their all-time favorite song was as a kind of souvenir of the summer, and here are the results so far.

    • Great Gig in the Sky, Pink Floyd – Yasmin, Judge Faruqui’s intern who stuck by my side for a rough first learning festival
    • I Like Me Better, Lauv – Jen, who gave us plenty of advice we’ve been following after hosting years of Spokes teams
    • Miracles, Jefferson Starship – Jimmy Baker, an angel who fell from the sky at a gas station near Luray, Virginia and donated us a thousand dollars on the spot
    • On the Nature of Daylight, Max Ritcher – The one and only GOAT Pam
    • Truly Madly Deeply, Savage Garden and Time, Pink Floyd – Chrissie and Dirk, who took us on a river adventure and cooked us an incredible pasta bar complete with s’mores for dinner
    • Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan – Theresa, our current host in Tazewell with the warmest and kindest heart

    LINK: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1z0IdXR7hqCHqFuielSLBx?si=4c20a1a17a45496b

    Please note that I’m not a diligent enough person for this list to be comprehensive; there have been so many people that only in hindsight I’ve wished I had asked! 

    Sending lots of love to everyone we’ve met,

    Aarushi ❤

    GOODNIGHT !

    * Live Action Role Play, a favorite hobby of mine as introduced by my dear friend Ria Verma

  • Day 10: another nate blog where half the team gets SAG’d out

    Day 10: another nate blog where half the team gets SAG’d out

    Blacksburg, VA to Tazewell, VA – 83.38 mi, 4744 ft

    One day I’d like to have an uneventful blog day but today is not that day.

    We woke up today at 6am for what would be our second longest ride so far: 83 miles to make up for our short 40 mile ride yesterday. I spent a lot of the morning rummaging through my stuff looking for my wallet. Because of his track record with misplacing stuff, Drew’s stuff also fell victim to some rummaging. This is not very important, especially in comparison to the events of this blog, but this was very eventful for me because I never lose stuff. Anyways, turns out it fell out of my backpack in the car yesterday while I was driving. 

    After getting ready, we ate some oatmeal and eggs graciously made by our amazing host Ann who is a super cool cyclist who did a tour across Illinois at 14. In total, we spent 1 hour and 45 minutes getting out the door, which might be a record for the team (😢). 

    Mornings are hard for Caroline.

    As we left, our main concern was Nunu’s bike. The chain had fallen off twice in the last 20 miles of yesterday’s ride. Drew and I diagnosed the bike with “misaligned derailleur” and did our best to fix it the night before but I still need to watch a YouTube video on how derailleurs work so I had very little trust in our handy work. 

    Caroline (who can’t drive) was taking her unofficial driver day today (smart) with Tatiana’s driver day, so it was just Drew, Carmen, Nunu, Aarushi, and myself on the road. We biked out of Blacksburg through the Virginia Tech campus (which is super pretty, lots of white stone + gothic vibes similar to Yale/Princeton/West Point). Yesterday, while Nunu was fixing her chain on the side of the road, someone pulled up to her and asked her if she was okay. When she said she was fine, they drove off and yelled “Go Hokies1, beat MIT”. I’ve been thinking about that line all day because I can’t think of any sport or activity in which MIT and Virginia Tech compete against each other. 

    We took the first couple of miles pretty slow since the rest of the squad was tired from yesterday’s ride (which I was driving for). Fun fact: yesterday was the first day I wasn’t the first one to finish the ride since I was driving, sad stuff. While everyone else was trying to take it easy, I was physically itching to go faster and had to let Drew move ahead of me to set the pace so I could fight the urge to speed up.

    We continued our ride for 20 miles passing through some lovely greenery, along rivers and rapids (+ a swing for jumping into the river that we had to drag Nunu away from), and up some not so fun climbs. 

    The lovely views at the start of today’s ride.

    At some point during these 20 miles, Aarushi and Carmen had fallen behind Nunu, Drew, and I. While taking in the lovely river views, Carmen reappeared without Aarushi. We continued waiting but she never appeared, and with no cell service to see where she was at we decided to continue onwards assuming she was taking a break. 

    It wasn’t until we had nearly reached the rest stop that we ran into Tatiana going in the other direction. She let us know that Aarushi had hit a pothole, biked off the road, and ran into a tree, and that she was going to go SAG2 Aarushi out.

    As Tatiana sped away, we continued to the rest stop where Caroline reassured us that Aarushi was okay, but was banged up and (understandably) not going to continue the ride. After refueling and waiting for ~25 minutes for Tatiana and Aarushi to return, Nunu, Carmen, Drew, and I decided to continue biking since we had a long bike ahead of us.

    It was a good thing that we didn’t wait because meanwhile in Tatiana/Aarushi-land, Tatiana found Aarushi on the side of the road scraped up with a dent in her helmet and the handlebars of her bike bent. They decided to take the bike back to Blacksburg (the starting town) since there was a Trek Bicycle Shop (the company we bought our bikes from) in that town and no bike shop in Tazewell (the destination town). 

    At this shop, they were able to make use of the 1 year warranty on our helmets to get a fresh helmet and also get the handlebars repaired. Unfortunately, they were also told that the derailleur barrel adjuster on Aarushi’s bike was broken and that the Trek shop wouldn’t have the parts to repair it for a week. The Trek shop mentioned briefly they could try another shop in town called Hokie Spokes, but Tatiana and Aarushi weren’t immediately planning to go there. 

    The state of the Spokes universe at this point of the day is as follows: Nate, Drew, Carmen, and Nunu are biking 20 miles to the second rest stop where lunch is planned; Aarushi and Tatiana have partially repaired Aarushi’s bike and are now going to a coffee shop; Caroline is waiting at rest stop 1 with the cooler, water, and food since the minivan can only fit two people/bikes at a time. 

    Around mile 30 (halfway between rest stop 1 and 2), the biking group came across a Dairy Queen and found it necessary to get some ice cream. This was also convenient since it would give the drivers more time to figure out how to get food/water/lunch to the second rest stop. 

    It was around this time that we bikers decided to check the weather and noticed that some thunderstorms had crept up on us and would be hitting us in ~30 minutes. We decided to push to the next town along the route (approx. 4 miles away) and try to wait out the rain there. 

    Enjoying ice cream while clouds loom ominously in the background. 

    We made it to the next town and found a church with a small roof above its front door to take cover under. We took cover just in time because within a minute of us getting under the roof it began thundering and pouring rain. 

    We had taken cover around noon and saw on the forecast that it would be raining until 2pm, so we decided to hunker down. 

    Taking cover from the rain on the front steps of a church in the town of Narrows, VA. 

    During this time, Aarushi and Tatiana were still grabbing their coffee in Blacksburg. As they walked up to the coffee shop, they looked at the shop next door and lo and behold it was the Hokie Spokes bike shop. They ended up bringing Aarushi’s bike in and got it fully repaired. In the process, they also received two generous donations after two passersby overheard the Spokes story: $41 from Bruce and $20 from Wendy.

    After finishing up in Blacksburg, the two of them started heading towards the first rest stop to pick up Caroline who had been waiting this entire time in the rain. 

    Meanwhile, at 1:45pm, the four bikers woke up. The four of us had all fallen asleep on the cold, hard concrete outside of this church while waiting out the rain. Luckily, we woke up to clear blue skies. After a bit of stretching, we continued towards the second rest stop 8 miles away where lunch would be happening. 

    Waking up from a nap on the concrete dazed and confused.

    By some miracle, all 7 members of the team converged on the second rest stop at mile 44 at 2:30pm. This was largely made possible after Caroline, Aarushi, and Tatiana worked some magic reorganizing the minivan and bike rack so that it could hold 3 people and 3 bikes. At the rest stop, we all enjoyed our usual sandwich-based lunch. 

    At 3:30pm, we were back on the road, but not before the second member of the team fell victim to a SAG. This one was much less concerning, Carmen just really needed to use the restroom and the nearest spot was a gas station 13 miles away along the route. Tatiana ended up driving Carmen + her bike to the gas station while Nunu, Drew, and I biked over and met her there.

    From there (mile 57), the four of us reunited to bike the remaining 6 miles to the last rest stop at mile 63. 

    We biked along a road literally called “Scenic Highway”. It lived up to its name.

    Throughout the day, Nunu had been dealing with some knee pain and, after some climbs leading up the last rest stop, it got to the point that she was feeling sharp pain with every pedal stroke. 

    Tatiana had dealt with some knee pain leading up to the summer that ended up taking focused strength training and physical therapy in order to resolve. Additionally, she had been told by the PT who did our bike fittings (Brendan at Cycle Life PT) that sharp, repetitive pain should be grounds to immediately stop biking. As a result, Tatiana strongly recommended to Nunu that she should call the ride there. 

    After doing some stretching, however, Nunu felt like her knee wasn’t hurting anymore. We decided that she could keep riding but that if at any moment she felt the knee pain return, she would be SAG’d out. Nunu ended up biking two more miles to mile 65 before being SAG’d out due to the sharp knee pain returning. 

    I have a lot of respect for her decision to SAG out. While it may seem like an obvious decision from afar, a SAG out is a dreaded ending to a ride for anyone on the team. Getting SAG’d out feels like the accomplishment of “biking across the country” being chipped away, making all the hard work less worthwhile. Obviously, this isn’t actually the case but in the heat of the ride it’s hard not to feel this way. It’s worth pointing out that the decision to let Nunu keep riding was only reached after a long discussion that included a few tears. 

    By the end of the day there were only three bikers on the road. Carmen, Drew, and I biked the last 20 miles relatively uneventfully, albeit slowly. Meanwhile, Tatiana shuttled Caroline, Aarushi, and Nunu to the end point.

    When we arrived at Tazewell, we were warmly greeted by Teresa who works at the Tazewell United Methodist Church – the church that was graciously hosting us in their house-turned-office, and would also be where we would run our learning festival the next day. We were welcomed with warm pizza, fresh fruit, juice, sodas, and a fridge stocked full of food for breakfast and dinner the following day. I don’t think I can effectively convey how kind Teresa was to us, nor how admirable her work with members of the community facing hardships is.

    We wrapped up dinner and unpacked our sleeping bags and sleeping pads to get ready for bed. After a long, chaotic day, the best part of the day might’ve been getting 9 hours of sleep before tomorrow’s learning festival. 

    – Nate

    1 Hokies are the mascot of Virginia Tech. Unless they’re talking about a Hokie Pokie, I don’t know what a Hokie is. 

    2 Def SAG (verb): a.k.a SAG out. To get picked up by the (Support And Gear) car during a ride, usually to be driven to the end point. 

  • Day 9: Hopeful Wanderers

    Day 9: Hopeful Wanderers

    Roanoke, VA to Blacksburg, VA – 40.5 mi, 3,294 ft (~48.5 mi, ~4,794 ft counting our hiking adventure)

    Today marks the first day that anyone on the team has cooked! 

    The winner of this title is Nate Mustafa, who valiantly prepared an entire carton of fresh chicken eggs (courtesy of Dirk and Krissie) in Steve and Debbie’s kitchen to accompany our delicious breakfast. Simultaneously, our team engaged in a serious discussion. Should we use the extra time on our 40-mile day to hike the McAfee Knob?

    At first, the team was leaning towards no, but as soon as Steve informed us that it was the most-photographed spot on the Appalachian Trail, we quickly buckled down and decided it was necessary.

    Today also marks the first day a host has ridden the bikes with us. Steve has been a cyclist for a large portion of his life, and said that he would ride the 20 miles with us to the beginning of the McAfee Knob trail. Steve is the goat, and his awesomeness is immediately clear by his cycling jersey, which says that “a cycling grandpa never gets old.”

    I like to envision what life is like as I bike through the towns we pass. On our way to the trail, Aarushi and I imagined living in Roanoke and fanatically supporting our home team, the Hokies. We asked Steve to tell us about his grandchildren and his biggest life advice (to stay fit as you age!) so that we could better paint the picture of a Virginian.

    Once at the McAfee Knob trail, we quickly said goodbye to Steve and switched our mode of transportation, now transforming into a goofily dressed hiking squadron. After 4 miles, some deep yapping with Caroline, and a comical game of addressing people on the trail with silly phrases beginning with the letters A-Z (ie. Drew’s hit of “Some sticks fell on my head up there!” for the letter S), we finally reached the top and got to enjoy the gorgeous views and cool hanging overlook.

    Immediately, our team started chatting with the other hikers, meeting a Russian-speaking woman who approached me because of the last name on my jersey, a group of high-school graduates on their senior trip, and a big group of backpackers making their way along the Appalachian Trail.

    After our interlude, we hiked the 4 miles back to the car, and the team was overcome by an extreme wave of hunger. We tore into our sandwiches on the gravel parking lot next to the trail, noting the comical nature of our group laying out our picnic blanket on the floor surrounded by cars and our 7 identical bicycles.

    As I biked the remaining 20 miles to our final destination of Blacksburg, I felt really reflective regarding the people we had met. This trip gives our team the great privilege of being surrounded by immensely high concentrations of wanderers. People from across the world who have spent years of their lives biking across countries, hiking the entire Appalachian Trail, motorcycling across states, and generally taking on immense traverses and adventures with the main stated goal of crossing a distance. 

    We hear many of their individual stories, from our host Steve beginning a life long cycling journey with his college friend which grew into a cross country trip for both him and his son, to the two motorcyclist best friends that Aarushi and I met in a coffee shop who try and take regular bike trips, to “Coach” a middle-aged man who described the immense twists and turns that life threw at him, encouraging him to finally accomplish his dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail where he met his new hiking buddy, “Detail”.

    Though I originally thought I knew my reasons for taking on this adventure, I feel that my motivation and desires are adapting and solidifying as we get deeper into the trip. I have found myself urged to bike slower, to stop when I see things I have never seen before, like a groundhog running through a field or a prayer box on the side of a Virginian road. I want to truly spend these three months as a wanderer, experiencing the minutiae of the country we bike through and engaging with the people and nature that shape its land.

    My experiences have sparked two questions in my head in the last few days. First, what exactly is the difference between a hopeless and a hopeful wanderer? And second, why are all of these thousands of people doing it? 

    In addressing these questions, antithetical to the song Hopeless Wanderer by Mumford and Sons, which has been playing as I write this blog, I think that I would like to lean towards claiming that all wanderers are hopeful. Everyone I have met so far is on their journey to learn, to see, to experience, to do, and to accomplish. Though some of the wanderers are suffering immense hardships, I believe that people take on their journeys because of the faith that there is something worth hoping for. That the journey will provide solace or inspiration, or simply a reminder that there is beauty and kindness in the world.

    Unfortunately, the beauty and kindness of the world aren’t always enough to push through the hardest parts of our trip, especially for me, the final 750 ft climb in 3 miles to get to our host Ann’s house. What did, instead, get me through was envisioning everyone else currently biking across the country as little dots on the US map all battling their own climbs, and a healthy combination of gummy worms every 0.5 mile and a repeated “just keep swimming” courtesy of Dory from Finding Nemo.

    Eventually, I made it to Ann’s home with a proud heart, a couple of sore muscles, and only a bug or two in my chamois (rewind to me almost stripping on the side of the road when I had felt something moving earlier in the day). Nunu’s bike was only a little worse for wear, since the chain had fallen off twice and Nate had to go rescue her to help her fix it. The team was excited to gather around the table with Ann at dinner, learn about her own trip across Illinois at 14 years old, and engage in our new favorite treat, mini fruit jelly cups 🙂 Some of us enjoyed the treat more than others…

    The rest of our evening followed the pattern that is becoming our routine: chores, showers, route planning, and finally bedtime, with hearts prepared to wander the next morning again!

    With endless love,

    Tatiana ❤

  • Day 8: A Love Letter to My Team

    Day 8: A Love Letter to My Team

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

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

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

    Chasing the sunset and I wanted to take a jumping picture of everyone but I guess Nate is against fun

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

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

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

    Rest stop number 1 and rest stop number 2 where Drew took this photo of us that I think could be on the cover of a magazine

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

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

    Rest stop number 3 where Nate launched me off the seesaw and we all swung on this swing

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

    Playing Durak and Nate lost again (4th time in a row) and then we played ERS and I won, of course. Also yummy dinner from Steve and Debbie and then our kind of serious team meeting to end the day.

    I love you all,

    Nunu

  • Day 7: Dear Nate

    Day 7: Dear Nate

    Waynesboro, VA to Lexington, VA — 41.9 mi, 2,131 ft

    I woke up at 6am this morning to the sound of Nate’s alarm- I don’t bother setting one anymore because I sleep in the same room as Nate every night… at varying degrees of distance. Two nights ago, we shared a bed after a wolf spider big enough to swallow a child decided to stake a claim to my bed. Last night, however, I gathered the courage to reclaim my sleeping quarters, freeing me to toss and turn at will.

    I checked my watch and read the date, June 7 (6/7). It reminded me of a conversation I had with the youngest group of kids that came to our learning festival on Saturday. Nate and I had pivoted to a drawing activity for the youngest kids after deciding that some of our prepared discussion on electromagnetism may not be suitable for their grade level. In response to having been given a pencil, the kids immediately start drawing “67” all over their paper. The joke, being as enigmatic as it is infamous, prompts me to ask the kids, three boys, “What does the number ‘67’ actually mean?” I was surprised by the varied responses.

    Boy 1: “My mom told me 67 is a way of remembering how God created people on the 6th day and rested on the 7th”

    Boy 2: “My mom told me 67 means the devil and that I can’t say it.”

    Boy 3: “Actually! It’s just a joke and doesn’t mean anything!”

    This morning, Pam, our host, made us pancakes for breakfast- my personal favorite. We loaded the van, borrowed a truck, loaded the bikes in said truck, then shuttled to the point where the last route ended and today’s route would begin. Nate and I were sentenced to riding in the truckbed, as if our butts haven’t been through enough the past week. However, we got some beautiful views of the blue ridge mountains.

    Pam’s hospitality certainly overshadowed Shannon Farm’s lack of a clear boundary between inside and the Appalachian wilderness that left a few on our team a little shaken. We did our best to convey our gratitude and set off, albeit in different directions.

    While Nate, Carmen, Caroline, and I started on the uphill half of the day’s 41 mile route, Aarushi and Tatiana decided to bike to the local urgent care before continuing onto the route.  Aarushi had been experiencing symptoms of an ear infection that worsened overnight.

    I’ll try to convey the events that occurred in the Tatiana-Aarushi subplot as faithfully to Tatiana’s telling of their story as possible.

    Upon arriving at the urgent care clinic, 15 minutes passed, then 30, then an hour, before a nurse finally showed up to take Aarushi’s vitals. Upon being led into the patient care room, Tatiana finished an episode of Grey’s Anatomy before a nurse practitioner finally showed up to spend a few seconds peering into Aarushi’s ear and prescribing her antibiotics.

    As a native Mississippian, Tatiana’s recount of a trip to urgent care honestly sounded like it went pretty well; Though, I could see how someone less used to rural healthcare would be repulsed such an inefficient use of time.

    Next, they bike to CVS. They get there and find out that the prescription hasn’t yet been sent to the pharmacy. When the prescription finally does find itself in front of the eyes of the Waynesboro CVS Pharmacist, it does so without a signature from the nurse practitioner. As the CVS and local clinic are working together really hard to acquire the single necessary signature, Tatiana borrows a key from a CVS worker to use the building’s bathroom. When she left the bathroom emptyhanded, she probably asked herself, “Where are my sunglasses… and the key to the bathroom?” Both were in the bathroom, which was locked. 

    “Are you able to open the bathroom for us?” is probably what Tatiana asked the employee which seemed to be responsible for all customer service and janitorial duties.

    The employee asserts that only the maintenance guy who comes on Tuesday would be able to recover Tatiana’s sunglasses and the lost bathroom key. 

    Tatiana bought new sunglasses. 

    Meanwhile, Aarushi got her medicine. At the same time, the rest of us had finished the day’s 42 mile, 2000ft elevation route.

    The coincidence of these events is partially due to the supreme amount of patience that rural healthcare demands and partially due to the four of us being absolute machines on our bikes. We kept a 15 mph pace the entire time.

    I took some pretty cool pictures of Nate while we were biking. He took some of me as well, but they aren’t very good so I chose to exclude them. I’m probably better off taking selfies from now on- Nate’s not much of a photographer. 

    Speaking of Nate, I realize that the last blog I wrote contains a humorous jab at Nate which resonated as “not cool” or “unnecessary” to some, including Nate’s parents. Now, as a much more responsible individual who realizes the potential for personal damage which the Spokes megaphone enables me, I would like to make known that I have a very strong appreciation for only other male member of Spokes, Nate Mustafa.

    Dear Nate, I’m hitting new speed PRs every day that I’d never be able to hit without the pocket of low pressure air that follows you around when you bike. Thank you for being the other ambassador to play country music in the Spokes van. I desperately needed to hear something other than 2000s “in the club” music. I’m very fortunate that, when it comes time to hunker down in a soggy 2-person tent, you’re the other sardine in the can.

    As Tatiana and Aarushi set out for the day, the rest of us settled at our host’s (Dirk) home and decided that we would all take the van to go visit them at the midway rest stop. Along the way, we got coffee and even stopped at this truck stop that was kind of like an off-brand Buccees, but with Popeyes, Papa John’s, and Subway. We got Popeyes chicken sandwiches– they tasted like heaven.

    After that, we met Tatiana and Aarushi at the halfway point. I fixed Tatiana’s derailleur, which was missing gears, then we headed back to Dirk’s home. Tatiana and Aarushi arrived not to long after– most of the last half of the route was downhill.


    When they got there, Dirk and his wife shuttled us to the river where we spent the rest of the day on the water until dinner. Nate and I shared a paddleboard. Nunu, Aarushi, and Tatiana took another paddleboard. Carmen and Caroline both got these little inflatable one-man kayak things that looked really fun and had immense bumper car potential. Our time at the river turned into me and Nate taking turns paddling around with everyone else being towed by the paddleboard’s wrist strap. This went on for a few hours as we relaxed and told stories.

    On the way back, Dirk took a few of us offroading in his old jeep and dropped us off on a hill near his house where we saw this pretty sunset.

    Afterwords, we ate dinner- It was definitely the best so far during Spokes. I’ll let the picture speak for itself. 

    Shortly after, we made smores with the company of everything that has 6 legs.

    At this point, Spokes is starting to feel more like a routine of waking up, packing, biking, unpacking… repeat. Tomorrow is my first driving day, and I’m at the point where I much prefer biking to driving. I feel like biking really is the only way to simultaneously cover significant distance while still being slow enough to take everything in, and open enough to feel immersed in your surroundings. It’s interesting. I fly over this region of the US every time I go between home and Boston. I couldn’t have imagined everything that was under me. I’m very grateful to be able to experience Shenandoah this way– and there’s so much more to see.

    – Drew

  • Day 6: Kids and Bugs

    Day 6: Kids and Bugs

    Learning Festival in Fluvanna, VA — 0 mi, 0 ft

    Today I woke up to Tatiana’s usual wake up call of her muttering “good morning my cuties”, despite my best effort to try and get an extra 15 minutes of sleep. After having Pam’s generous breakfast of biscuits and grits, we decided to be proactive and get ahead of any mold that might grow in our camping gear, since we had last packed it up when it was still wet and delightfully mildewy. Except, like the intelligent MIT students we are, we unfolded and laid out our tents and sleeping pads on the forest floor, which of course is home to every type of bug you could possibly think of. Here’s a picture of one of the spiders we saw crawling on the hammock. The white abdomen must be a sack of about 100 million spider eggs, which will hatch and release thousands of carnivorous spider babies. So I doubt I will ever get in this hammock again.

    After letting the forest bugs clean and dry our camping gear, we headed to our second learning festival at the Fluvanna County Public Library. Most of us got another nap in on the ride over.

    Us crammed into our minivan before the learning festival, Caroline taking a much needed nap while Nunu captures the moment

    It was our first time doing a learning festival at this library, and I am so thankful to them and to Tatiana for making it happen. It went incredibly well, we were able to teach 70 kids from all over the county. I learned that this library is a local hotspot for families in the area to take their kids to for summer programs. Even though the Fluvanna County public library does not receive enough funding from the state to host these educational events, they are so dedicated that they’ve created an exceptionally successful nonprofit, Friends of Fluvanna, to raise money for them.

    Once the learning festival started, Aarushi and I got to teach the middle and high schoolers first, and so with them we ran our chemistry experiment lesson. All of the kids were well engaged, despite their half hearted threats to eat the chemicals and numerous questions about if they could create explosions. I must admit, this happens every time we do a chemistry workshop, regardless of the age or background of the kids. Blowing stuff up must simply be human nature.

    Ultimately their chaotic questions simply revealed their curiosity, as many of them wanted to go deeper and learn more about the specifics behind this reaction.

    This seemingly neverending curiosity was almost overshadowed by the excitement they felt over having pizza for lunch. On their lunch break, I was told, they decided it would be a good idea to race Drew and Nate, who of course lost and as punishment had to do pushups with the kids on their backs. They even decided to make nicknames for some of us, Best Guy Nate, Weird Guy Drew, and for me they chose Bacon Carmen. I couldn’t tell you why. Although now that I think about it, maybe it is because of my hair, it has a slightly bacon-y wave you could say.

    After lunch I was able to interact with the little kids, and help them make felt monsters for our other workshop on genetics. Often they would ask for help, whether it was for cutting or gluing eyes down, things that they could do themselves with the right encouragement. They taught me that that’s all they needed. Just someone to keep encouraging them to try.

    Monster Genome with kindergarteners, Drew and Nate showing the same little kids how to create EM motors
    Aarushi successfully convincing them to line up

    Initially, I had gone into the learning festival preparing to be exhausted by the end. But being able to watch as these kids cheer and shout as their experiment changes color, and leave our station with a unique googly-eyed monster created a feeling of inspiration mixed with nostalgia. They are all fascinated by a world they are trying to understand, and simultaneously I relived a time when I was just as mesmerized. It was rewarding to assist them in their reach for understanding, since it’s such an expansive time, filled with that good type of uncertainty, where you don’t know where you’re going but you have enough optimism to explore.

    After cleaning up thousands of tiny pieces of felt and parchment backings strewn across the floor, we celebrated our successful learning festival by getting ice cream at a local place. 

    Post learning festival, pre cleanup

    Let it be known that we are fans of team meetings. Team meetings everyday keeps the interteam fights away. The importance of communication and all that. So, as we ate our “spokes financed” ice cream, we had yet another team meeting. We decided that Drew and I would go pick up food for lunch, and then after, Caroline and Aarushi would go finish their blogs at the once place on the commune with wifi, and the rest of us would roll up and put away our now dry but bug infested tents. 

    It was both Drew and I’s first times at Wegman’s, and I’ve decided it’s the midwest’s version of Whole Foods, or maybe a fancy Fry’s. Sometimes you just want the cheap carcinogenic deli meat, and yet they won’t sell it to you. And they’ll always have a sushi chef in the seafood section making delicious looking sushi for Concord Market prices. Anyway we got enough food to feed a family lunch for a week, or us for two days. As a source of carbs, we got another pack of gummy worms and gummy bears, just ensuring all of us get cavities by the end of the trip. I’m sure none of you, dear readers, expected your generous donations would go toward our future dental expenses.

    When we got back to Pam’s house, we got in formation to spray ourselves with bug spray, inhaled the aerosols so no bugs would fly into our lungs, and started putting away the camping gear. There were a few high pitched screams here and there, but no one got bitten by a snake so I think it was rather successful. Luckily, I escaped halfway through to work on the bikes in the greenhouse and forced Nunu, Nate, and Tatiana to fold up the rest of the tents where the largest ants known to man decided to make a home in.

    Every night before a ride involves a huge operation, and honestly by now I think we have it pretty much down: pack up the car, shower line, dinner, etc. etc. And so that was how the rest of the night went. Apart from when Aarushi and Caroline were abandoned at the community center ~1 mile away, and instead of walking back in the pitch black over hilly gravel roads, waited for half an hour for one of us to pick them up. Very nobly but also rather guiltly, I drove them back, since I was part of the problem as well. 

    After a day of warning kids not to eat all the chemicals, I was ready for a delightful 8 hours of sleep. We’re all trying to be the goated spokes team and wake up early (6 am), to finish the ride before it gets too hot out. As a result, sometimes 8 hours is a little unattainable, especially when you get lost in writing a blog. So I think I’ll end it here for now.

    – Bacon Carmen 🥓

  • Day 5: Floatin’ Along

    Day 5: Floatin’ Along

    Rest day in Afton, VA — 0 mi, 0 ft

    Following my coincidental bike-rest-bike-rest pattern (I hitched a ride with Aarushi on day 3 as the only non-driver’s-license-bearing-individual), today was our first REST DAY!! We intended to watch a movie together the night before since we had no responsibilities the morning after, but we were truly so tired that we conked out pretty quickly. I finally reunited with my one true love — 8+ hours of sleep — and had the lovely gift of Pam’s breakfast casserole waiting downstairs with a cup of OJ. I’ve always been an apple juice person, but I may soon be convinced.

    Breakfast casserole + coffee 😋 , bikes in Pam’s home

    Speaking of Pam, let me provide some more background on Shannon Farm, the intentional community (IC) that she has been a part of for decades and where her amazing home is located! As she shared with us, it started as a smaller group looking to live together and share ownership of the land, which is over 500 acres in the beautiful woods of Virginia. It’s grown since then, and most people/families living there provide support for each other with community gardens and with various skillsets. It reminds me in a way of my living community back at MIT (House 4), so I definitely resonated a lot with their values and the method in which they try to be there for each other while maintaining some independence. Even if it seems that Shannon Farm is extremely cohesive as a whole, there are many more ICs that share even more resources. I learned about how other ICs contribute their incomes into a collective pool and how some all work in the same several businesses owned and operated by the IC. It’s a whole other world I have never thought about or been exposed to, but I can understand the appeal for certain groups of people from all different walks of life.


    After breakfast, Tatiana and Aarushi headed down to the community center with Pam to blog and conduct meetings since her home doesn’t have WiFi. The rest of us played card games inside on a picnic blanket — our initial outdoor picnic vision was thwarted by a tick spotting and the constant threat of mosquitos 😨. We tried Stab Your Friends (passed down from Spokes ‘25), which I never won, but got to eliminate Nate beautifully after being pretty terrible and getting stabbed from all over. Nate took some more L’s in Durak, a russian card game, and got “cursed” after losing 3 times in a row as per Nunu’s house rules. Whether the curse is real or not, we’ll have to wait and see…

    Stab Your Friends showdown and Durak

    I also did some quick sketches of some of our recent views!

    Shenandoah sketches

    We had leftovers from yesterday’s dinner for lunch and headed down to the community center to meet up with the rest of the team still working to also catch up on some tasks. I finally got to call my mom for a bit (hi mom!) since it’s a bit difficult to coordinate calls with a time difference with back home. After working for a bit, we decided to all head to the lake on Shannon and make use of our floatie — our specially purchased 7-person floatie all the way from Boston — in the warm weather. At the lake, we met a bunch of students from JMU also enjoying the lake. Two of them actually grew up in Shannon and shared a lot of interesting insights into how it was growing up in the community, as well as the general area! Shoutout to them for letting us use their paddle and generally being an awesome group to talk to 🙂 In the meantime, Nunu and Aarushi blew up the floatie with their lungs since the pump of course failed (shoutout again!), and we were soon all on the floatie that truly did fit 7 people as advertised (I had my doubts). 

    Locking in! and fitting 6 people into 5 (very cramped) seats

    On the floatie, we just chatted and traded stories while balancing sunbathing and staying cool. I found the half-body position the most optimal, as my torso could stay warm and my legs staying in the water ensured I didn’t get cooked alive. We got to learn a lot more about one another (one might say too much…), and ended up practicing our teamwork when we had to direct our floatie back to the dock at the end of the day. Kicking like my life depended on it, I had flashbacks to swim and kickboarding days — especially with Nate and Nunu watching and laughing from the attached paddleboard, offering only words of encouragement as the rest of us struggled — Carmen ended up pushing them away to fend for themselves. 

    Floatie!

    Alas, adrift in the lake and phoneless, we lost track of time and had to rush to Pam’s potluck she hosted specially for us, arriving about 10 minutes late. There, we were treated to Pam’s DELICIOUS mac & cheese, the cheese having been grated by yours truly + Carmen + Nunu + Nate. There was also a delectable peach cobbler, eggplant dish, and watermelon with mint that I had way too much off. There, we chatted with other members of Shannon and learned more about it while they learned more about us. There are a shockingly high number of people here that are recreational/serious cyclists! In particular, there was someone who had JUST (as in literally 2 days before) come back from a cycling trip around Scotland with his son. He also did a cross-country trip from Boston to SF. Everyone we’ve met on this trip have such interesting hobbies and insights that I couldn’t have ever predicted, even as we get further from D.C. and into more rural areas. I’m starting to think biking across the country isn’t as rare as I thought!

    After dinner, we finally fulfilled Nunu’s dream of volleyball and played a couple of games with mixed teams. By pure chance, we had self-selected into our 4v3 basketball teams from 2 days ago. Our team won (go wolves!), but we had to switch it up because of the tension between our two groups. It sounds like a joke, but I fear this sports rivalry may tear us apart. I don’t think we’ve argued more about anything else on this trip so far…

    Volleyball court and potluck
    THE peach cobbler post-consumption

    Regardless, I floundered around in my slides for a bit longer until we decided to have a quick team meeting before it got dark. We then headed up in two groups, one to the community center once again for WiFi to make AirBnb arrangements and the other back home. We also had to make some final preparations for tomorrow’s learning festival, our second of the whole trip. The grand shower line commenced, and the boy’s cabin experienced everyone’s worst nightmare: a spider in their bed. I’m not usually too bothered by bugs, but anything in my bed has crossed a line. Drew performed an amazing reenactment of Nate screaming and freaking out that I wish I saw in person.

    Last minute discussions and the source of the freak-out

    In short, there will be some bed-sharing happening. But looking forward to our learning festival!

    See you soon, 

    Caroline

  • Day 4: Country Roads, Take Me Home…

    Day 4: Country Roads, Take Me Home…

    Luray, VA to Waynesboro, VA — 62.5 mi, 3,900 ft

    Today we awoke in our campsite and EVERYTHING WAS WET!!! We had foolishly left all our belongings strewn about the campsite, including bike shoes we had to wear this morning and fresh laundry that now needed to be re-run. Although there had been no rain in the forecast, all our bike gear and camping tents were now covered with a generous layer of morning dew. After a couple of “it’s over” “it’s chopped” “it’s buns” “it’s cooked”, we packed up wet tents in wet bags and did some knee stretches (pictured below) and put chamois butter on our butts (not pictured) and I spent some time trying to pick which audiobook to listen to only to realize that not only do you need to pay for Audible you need to pay for the audiobook as well (!!) and after three hours we were ready to leave the campsite at 9 AM. 

    Realization number 1 today: America really is so beautiful. The song was literally made about this place (O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain!). We biked through rolling meadows and lush green grass everywhere and fluffy cows and houses with pretty porches and tantalizingly inviting pools. We were biking along the Shenandoah River, and when I realized that I was literally biking down the country roads John Denver was singing about, it felt like I could actually sense his deep nostalgia for the countryside and felt a surprising burst of American patriotism that I haven’t felt in a long time as he sang in my ears…

    Almost heaven, West Virginia

    Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River

    Life is old there, older than the trees

    Younger than the mountains, growin’ like a breeze

    Country roads, take me home

    To the place I belong

    West Virginia, mountain mama

    Take me home, country roads

    We kept the good vibes going for a long long lunch where we stumbled upon a perfect oasis where we had a glorious picnic, brought out our big floatie but never went into the water, and instead laid down on the grass and took a group nap. 

    Wow that was a beautiful sentence. Well-deserving of its own paragraph. Writing this blog is making me retroactively even more grateful for these moments. Sometimes you don’t realize how awesome you have it in the moment.

    Realization number 2 today: calling people and listening to them talk like a personal podcast is the hack of long-distance biking. I called my dad who is really good at debriefs and he told me the story of how he wrangled the thousand pounds of luggage I left him on his flight to California. I called my mom who is really good at reminding me of the things I haven’t done and she talked to me about how I need to eat a lot of protein and how I should become even more shameless in asking for Spokes donations. I called my best friend Albert who is really good at laughing and he told me about this new TV show Girls that he’s been watching and indulged me in my fantasy of daydreaming about all the things we will do when we both live in the Bay Area together post-grad. I called my other best friend Ria who is really good at talking in general and she didn’t pick up. I called my friend Maanas who is really good at giving advice and he gave me some more wisdom from his post-grad bike trip from UT Austin to Alaska. I called my teammates Nunu and Tatiana so we could talk even more while biking even though we already spend every single waking hour together. Becoming a Caller is actually one of my goals this summer. It’s such a good way to keep up to date with my friends lives as we all move to different corners of the world, and I am so notoriously bad at keeping in touch with friends that I don’t see regularly that it is a serious fear of mine that the strong friendships I’ve built in college will fade with inactivity. If you’re reading this, please feel free to call me anytime this summer!!! 

    Our ride ended in Waynesboro today as our next host, Pam, picked us up in her truck over the mountain to her house. (Don’t worry, we will resume biking from Waynesboro again in order to have a contiguous route across America). 

    When we arrived at Pam’s place, we were greeted by a literal enchanted magical fairy forest. Pam lives on Shannon Farm, a hippie community founded in 1973 and where she has been a member since 1979. My goal in graduate school at Berkeley is actually to become a hippie so this was an amazing pregame for me. As we gathered around the dinner table and feasted on the delicious barbecue pulled pork sandwiches and potato salad and baked beans and corn on the cob she had made for us, we asked her about her life and her community.

    Pam hands-down has lived one of the richest and most colorful lives out of anyone I’ve ever met. She was an activist protesting the Vietnam war in her college days, she’s been a nurse in clinics, peace walks, and wilderness all over the world, she’s raised two amazing children, she’s gone to Africa multiple times to rehabilitate chimpanzees and baboons and monkeys, she was the chairman of a primate sanctuary in North Carolina where she met Jane Goodall, and most admirably, she greets every person and experience she meets with a beautiful and warm and open heart. Pam, you are truly an inspiration to all of us, and I can only hope to internalize and pass forward some of the warmth you have shown us. 

    I forgot to bring my journal on this trip so I’m going to end my blog journaling to you all with some personal thoughts. This is the first time I’ve been a part of a team in my life, like not just a school group project or a friend group or workplace type team but a true, blood-sweat-and-tears sports team. We are all bound by this shared and really difficult mission of somehow biking across America, and I can already tell that by the end of the summer, we will know each other in different ways than the rest of the people in our lives are used to seeing. It’s also insane how competent everyone on the team is; everyone is constantly working to lift the entire team up and doing more than their share of work during tired evenings and rushed mornings. I’ve never experienced being the one that feels like they aren’t pulling their weight, especially because I didn’t come in knowing any special skills relevant for this trip like fixing bikes and mounting overhead storage on the car and efficiently packing gear and all. On top of that, I’m definitely one of the slower bikers, and I found out today that I’m apparently the slowest to get ready in the mornings too 😭😭

    Fighting these feelings of inadequacy is something I’ll definitely have to learn this summer. It’s good in the sense that it means I really am doing something that is out of my comfort zone, because I actually never do things that I’m not good at. It’ll be a learning experience to first just accept my weaknesses as they are presented to me (putting aside my pride, the biggest of my seven deadly sins) and then actively work on them for the betterment of the team.

    I do have a few goals I’ve been thinking about for this summer. One I already mentioned was to become a Caller and learn how to stay in touch with people. Another is to complain less. As the people in my life (especially my dad) can attest to, I enjoy complaining, but I enjoy complaining more as a shared activity, like let’s all complain about how annoying something is. But it’s really not the same when nobody else on the team is that into complaining so then I just seem like a big chud. I’m not going to list too many goals already on Day 4 because a laundry list of goals is ripe for falling through on all of them, so tune in for my next blog, every Thursday.

    Thank you for the many people who have been donating and supporting and keeping up with our journey, I love you all!!

    Aarushi ❤

  • Day 3: Pool & Pool

    Day 3: Pool & Pool

    Linden, VA to Luray, VA — 31.8 mi, 2303 ft

    Today was a beautiful day, marked by sunshine, side quests, and the kindness of strangers. 

    We began the day with yummy oatmeal prepared by our host Jen, licks from her cute dogs, and a car ride courtesy of Jen’s husband Tim down the gravel mountain that Carmen, Drew, and Nate had painfully climbed the night before. This was my first day biking since I drove the day before, so I was feeling a huge mix of nervousness and excitement.

    As we departed, I got into the groove and started really appreciating the nature around me. Virginia is so pretty! Cows! Hills! Uh oh… hills… The hills were killer, but I began to enjoy them and appreciated Drew’s company, especially as we discussed music and his piano skills. 

    When we came to our rest stop, my first reaction was a bit disappointed, as we were sitting at a gas pump with no overhang and no shade. Alas, the universe had other plans. A few minutes into our rest stop, a car pulled up next to us, and a man came out with curious questions surrounding our trip. He asked what we were doing and why, and suddenly asked if he could donate to our cause. When he started pulling out his wallet, I assumed that he wanted to donate $20. Instead, our team received a ONE THOUSAND DOLLAR donation from a kind man named Jimmy Baker on the side of the road in Virginia. Hello??? Crazy plot twist. Not only this, but Jimmy also offered to buy us food later in our route. The day seriously reminded me that we often assume strangers are far less kind and generous than they actually are. People are seriously awesome, and I have such gratitude for the countless friends and strangers who have already helped us along our journey.

    After this, Drew and I kept pedaling on our short ride, with a slight detour to swing on a beautifully placed swing set and enjoy the Virginia views. The rest of the route, we moo’ed at cows, listened to music, and finally noticed our road turn into a side gravel path. As we pulled into the entrance of our campground for the night, we were greeted with a magical sight. After hours of tough uphill climbs, we suddenly saw a glistening blue pool in front of us, tantalizingly calling for us to jump in.

    Immediately rejuvenated, Drew and I raced to our campground, excited to drop off our gear and celebrate with our friends. The group informed us that the pool wasn’t even the extent of our luxuries; we also had clean bathrooms, a jumping pad on the property, AND a place to play volleyball! Living the good life.

    After a lunch break and some camping gear setup with extra tent troubleshooting courtesy of Nunu, we jumped in the pool, excited to finally relax. Our adventure quickly turned into 4v3 basketball, where my 4-person team was winning 5-2 until I had to reapply sunblock, and suddenly the score did not look too great for my team…

    Nate put it perfectly: “It’s all haha until you’re the one that’s buns.”

    After swimming, a few of us basked in the sun, played volleyball, and walked over to the jumping pad, which was, in fact, a huge blown-up tarp that you could jump on. You’re getting the vibes. Literally the best day ever. Sunshine and rainbows.


    And you know what could make it EVEN better? I had called the town a few minutes away from our campground yesterday, and a pizza place offered to donate us a few pizzas for today’s dinner!! Wow. Miracle.

    At this point, Carmen, Aarushi, Drew, and Caroline went to the town to pick up groceries, the pizza, and some medicine, while Nunu, Nate, and I stayed back to blog and finish up some tasks. Before we began, though, we walked around the property and noticed a POOL TABLE! Not to be confused with the earlier swimming pool (you get the blog’s title?). Obviously, we had to sneak in a game where Nate and I lost to Nunu through Nate’s devastating sinking of the black ball a little too early in the game. Our loss encouraged us to finally lock in on our tasks.

    Nunu actually made this shot…

    When dinner arrived, I truly felt bliss in my soul as we devoured the topping-ladden pizzas and washed our food down with Aarushi and Carmen’s EXTRA surprise of Lofthouse cookies. I’m telling you, we’re spoiled. We also battled against Drew’s spilled Lemon-Lime gatorade, which suddenly created a “pee” trail traveling down the bench.

    We knew, though, that the day after was going to be tough, so we decided to use some of the remaining daylight to clean the car, pump air into our bikes, finish setting up our campsite, and do our laundry. 

    Quick side note: we actually have the best team ever. Everyone is so helpful and wants to work hard to make sure everyone has a good time. I have noticed that our team is very kind, and I really feel like everyone is trying their best to work as a group and appreciate each other. We laugh a lot, and it has really been making this trip amazing so far. I also feel like everyone has their distinct roles, which make our team function well. For example, I consider myself the Morning GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) because I am the only certified morning person and get everyone moving at 6 am. See below for my opinion on everyone’s roles:

    • Nunu: Organizational GOAT (our car is pristine, our stuff is perfectly organized)
    • Nate: Car and Gear GOAT (always locks in on the bike rack and top storage)
    • Drew: Grocery GOAT (best food ever is always present)
    • Caroline: Laundry GOAT (walked all the way up the hill 5 times to do our laundry)
    • Aarushi: Housing GOAT (effortlessly found us a new campground and free Airbnbs)
    • Carmen: Route and Bicycle GOAT (knows everything, pumps everyone’s tires)

    Of course, all of these roles overlap between team members, but still, having people who are great at the tasks has made life so much easier.

    After our work session, everyone took showers, finished the next day’s route, and slowly went to their tents to sleep. Aarushi, Nunu, and I shared the 4-person tent; Carmen and Caroline shared a 2-person tent; and Nate and Drew shared a 2-person tent. Awesome.

    My last comment for this day is that my awesome boyfriend Noah organized the cutest surprise ever for me this summer. He got all of my friends and family to write me notes, and collected 75 notes for me to open in the 75 days of the trip. Just before going to bed, I opened my third note, and it was from a friend, Sam Hughes. Thank you to her, to Noah, and to the many people who have written to me, even if I haven’t opened yours yet. I look forward to reading the notes from you guys every day 🙂

    All my love,

    Tatiana ❤