If Virginia was Big A mountains, then Kentucky is the fairy forest.
The mountain we climbed just a few days ago ->
If you move away from the towns, gas stations and highways, you can take the much calmer single lane roads. The roads go up and down, turn from asphalt to gravel. They will take you into a deep, dark, mystical forest.
the houses we left behindleading us into the forest
The forest is humid and warm. There is water vapour in the air. It mixes with the sweat on your skin and makes it shine. You can almost always hear some type of water around you – a stream gurgling down the slope or water dripping from the rock wall by the road. Every once in a while there is a waterfall. The river that flows through the forest is brown, almost sand coloured. You hear birds and see yellow butterflies and maybe even a deer or two. Everything is green. The leaves create a tunnel around you. Even the road is turning green. The moss and some crawling plants are slowly taking over the road.
These single lane roads weave together a couple of houses, little settlements almost. There always seems to be a stream or a river running by them. The people living here keep chickens and grow corn in their backyards. They are kind. They ride quadricycles, wear tattoos and keep (mostly caged) territorial dogs. The kids ride quadricycles too and the dogs really don’t like cyclists.
If you go through the fairy forest, expect to get some rain, if not from the skies, then from the trees above you. But it is a calm and weirdly soothing place.
We were going through the fairy forest, when we stopped by a little church, and that is when the plot thickened.
the little churchwhere the plot was about to thicken
So, the situation. Our plan was this.
The church rest stop on top right (a tree with a table), then a dashed (meaning gravel) road (with hills), named aptly Confluence-Shoal-Sizerock Rd to Sizerock.
very steep ascent
However, once I made it up a very steep ascent to the Spring Rd crossing (see blue X), I was faced with two roads in the right direction.
Luckily, there people hanging out by some pickup trucks and quadricycles there. I asked them, which road could lead us to Sizerock.
And, while they seemed unsure about how to get to Sizerock, they did know that one of the roads was a dead end and the other one, which they had taken themselves, was flooded. Now, this was not good news. I could not figure out exactly what had flooded, but it was probably something in the area in the map marked with purple blobs and question marks. The water that had been all around the road in the morning, was now taking over the road. After some more talking, they advised we take the Hell for Certain Rd to get to Sizerock.
I debated just going for it and maybe walking through the floods, but my wiser self won and I decided to trust their judgement on whether I would pass the floods or not.
Equipped with this knowledge, I returned to our little church and we did a reroute (pictured right).
We were lucky there were easy reroute options. We swapped one gravel road for another (it was indeed named Hell for Certain Rd). And it is a good thing we did.
The car on a fairly good part of the road.
There were no floods on this road, but even without that, it was not easy. Not for the cyclists nor the car. Some took advantage of shuttling in the (fully packed) van, but we were lucky Joseph had the car in good hands. Ups and downs and sharp turns, and puddles and potholes, but we made it to Sizerock, also called Hell for Certain.
And, with the arrival at Hell for Certain, we had made it out of the forest.
We ate lunch, Charles climbed a tractor, we biked some more, did a fun stop at Dollar General.
CharlesTaking over the dollar general
Then we got thunderstormed on and arrived at our home for the night during golden hour.
Rolling towards the destinationI took this picture of the fields after the rainRuth took this awesome selfie
There we were greeted by a very friendly cat 🙂
catthanks Ruth for the pictures!!!!!i heart
And that is it! Thanks for reading and I promise we are trying to get back on schedule for the blogs!
I did not want to get up this morning. We just spent the last two days cycling long distances through some crazy mountainous terrain and heavy downpours. That’s not even mentioning the nasty crash I had on our day leaving Roanoke (Day 8) in which I probably fractured a rib! I was, shall we say, pooped. We had a learning festival today which started at 10, so I had no choice but to painstakingly make my way down the stairs of the Harmony House BnB to the breakfast table, all the while my knees were weak and my arms were heavy 😔. Ishaq’s bike had broken down the day before (he stopped being able to shift gears), so he had to drive two hours one way to get to the nearest bike shops in Lexington, KY. We decided he would drop all of us off at the learning festival site, the Challenger Learning Center, and then he would leave Tian to run the Machine Learning workshop alone while he got his bike fixed.
Our host Sherry cooked us a tasty casserole for breakfast, but Sarah, my bottle rockets workshop partner, thought her nut allergy was acting up even though the food didn’t have nuts. She took some Benadryl to prevent an allergic reaction, but it also made her super drowsy as a result. This all meant that Sarah was also out of the picture for bottle rockets and I would be running it solo. I was a little worried. This was going to be my first learning festival without kids from a correctional facility (we didn’t do an official bottle rockets workshop in Tazewell), and there was a variety of kids of all sorts of ages from kindergarten to 9th grade that we had to attempt to cater to in separate groups. I didn’t think our curriculum was advanced enough for the older kids, so finding out I had to run it solo all of a sudden gave me some anxiety.
I had a job to do, so I tried to set aside my worries and embrace my life philosophy of ignoring any fear and embracing adversity, or as us kids like to say, “F**k it, we ball”. I started off with the youngest group of kids and the kids progressively got older as the day went on. The first two workshops went amazingly. I was able to keep the kids engaged for the entire hour and they had a lot of fun launching the rockets. With the last two groups, however, my curriculum fears were realized. I blasted through the lesson too quickly because it was so simplified and when we all went outside to launch rockets, the kids weren’t as excited, and it seemed like a lot of them had even done bottle rockets before. In comparison, I launched my first bottle rocket a month ago! I had pretty big gaps in time between the end of my lesson and the transition time, so I initiated my last-ditch strategy of hypersocial activity. I talked with the kids about a variety of subjects, like what their aspirations and plans were, college stuff, what life was like for them, if they wanted to stay in Kentucky, etc. And it worked! My workshop may not have been engaging enough for them on its own, but hopefully they took something away from all of my talking.
Most of the other workshops ran pretty smoothly, except for 3D Printing… it’s definitely the most logistically difficult workshop to run, since Charles and Ruth run prints for all of the kids. For those that don’t know, 3D printing is a time-intensive process, and having to give 40+ kids each their own prints is super difficult. I know Charles stayed up late the night before troubleshooting the printer and the two of them spent over an hour after the last workshop ended trying to give kids their printed objects, but not everyone ended up getting their stuff. This process is still definitely a work in progress, and I hope they can find a solution to this that’ll leave everyone happy.
Me helping a kid prepare the bottle rocket
Bottle rocket go boom
Tian teaching the chlidren
Greta being engaged in her own activity
Charles showcasing the POWER of 3D printing
After all the workshops ended, we were given a tour of the Challenger Learning Center, and its actually amazing. They run simulated space missions where a classroom of kids has to work together to ensure the mission is a success, with a level of detail and complexity that mirrors a REAL space mission. I love stuff related to exploring space, so I feel a great sense of appreciation for the amount of work that the staff have put into immersing kids into a SPACE MISSION of all things. WHERE WAS THIS WHEN I WAS YOUNG????
Us being shown the Mission Mars activity
Ruth learning how to operate a robotic arm (her thesis was on this btw)
Ramona being the master communicator
The awesome mission control room
Afterwards, they took us to an exhibit space where they had a 1/10 scale model of a rocket and a bunch of cool demos and games for kids to check out. We spent way too much time having fun in this space.
Us playing around in the exhibit
Ruth playing a game
Me setting a new high score in the game
Sarah crashing a plane in Microsoft flight simulator
Ishaq the astronaut
We eventually got back to the BnB where we were catered some delicious Italian food, all provided by the CLC! We all sat down at this dinner table, and I kid you not, we sat eating and chatting for five hours. The conversations just kept going and going and going and going. Those are the kind of moments I live for.
Tomorrow is my driving day, so I get more rest haha (it was genuinely one of the most stressful days of the trip for me, off-roading for over an hour in the Pacifica after avoiding a flooded road hit different). See you guys in my next blog, where we cross into Illinois and I can finally talk about a cycling day!!!!
Today started at 3am when I sat straight up in my tent and started screaming for someone to come help me get out. After entertaining my tentmate Ruth and terrifying the rest of my teammates (including Joseph, who, thinking I was being attacked by a bear, started screaming along) I went soundly back to sleep until our wake up time around 8am.
Besides my exciting pre-dawn shenanigans, today was a relatively uneventful day. Cloudy with occasional rain in the morning, we made our way across the Virginia border and into Eastern Kentucky. One of the things I like most about biking as a mode of transportation is that it’s slow enough to take in on all the sights around us. I’ve rarely travelled to areas as rural and secluded as what we saw today, so I spent a lot of time contemplating what life might be like out here. There is so much beauty in the winding creeks and appalachian foothills, but life also seems harder here than it is back home. I’m coming to appreciate all the urban conveniences I usually take for granted.
Waiting out the rain at a rest stop
DAIRY QUEEN
I spent most of the day thinking about the land we were riding on, and just how much bigger our country is than the slice of east coast life I’m used to. Somewhere along the way, though, my mind turned inward and I started thinking about the ways this trip was shaping me. I realized the things that had been hardest for me on the trip hadn’t been what I expected, and neither had the things I’d most enjoyed.
Overall, these first two weeks of Spokes have been some of the best in my life. I had thought the most difficult parts of the trip would be how gross and dirty we were. In reality, the most difficult part of the trip so far has been.. ummm… saddle sores? which was not something i even knew existed? something i wish i still didn’t know existed?? other than that, i’ve been most challenged confronting my fear of unleashed dogs and figuring out how to manage the dynamics of conducting life constantly surrounded by 7 other people (answer: with a lot of laughter!) I’ve absolutely loved meeting our hosts and other locals, each one of which has expanded my perspective on what the future could hold. I’ve also been cherishing all the small moments we spend together as a team, whether at rest stops, cooking dinner, or even when we’re all grumpy and bleary-eyed in the morning. It’s a privilege to see each other through our highest highs and lowest lows, and I feel like I’ve personally bared down to my realest self more quickly than at any other time in my life.
I wanted to get the rest of the team’s perspective, so I asked everyone to go around and share a rose (highlight), thorn (challenge), and bud (something to look forward to) from the trip so far. Here are their answers:
Sarah
Rose: Seeing a lot of greenery that I’m not used to since I’m from the desert. Also seeing wildflowers and butterflies and rivers. Thorn: climbing ginormous hills and not knowing how to shift my bike gears. Bud: visiting national parks in Utah.
Joseph
Rose: the time the team has spent hanging out together so far. Thorn: my seven day streak of horrendous sleep that forced me to take an extra rest day. Bud: when we finally get into a stable enough routine that we can do a bunch of fun stuff during and post ride
Tian
Rose: all the nice people we’ve met along the way who have offered their homes, showed us their communities, and made us delicious food. Thorn: managing both physical and mental fatigue from day to day. Bud: The rest day learning festival combination in bowling green (extra rest!)
Charles
Rose: this sandwich/ getting to hangout with all of ya’ll and the fun moments we have over dinner and breaks. Thorn: butt pain and neck stiffness. Bud: buc-ees!!
Ramona
Rose: having a very different routine and set of responsibilities and things to worry about that is completely unrelated to what I do and worry about during the semester. Thorn: less time than I expected to think about life and whatnot… scared the summer will pass in a blink and I’ll be launched back into chaos. Bud: excited to see more places and experience what “real” heat it
Ruth
Rose: meeting the hosts and eating their foods (learning about their lives, sitting at dinner and talking with them). Thorn: sleep. Bud: better sleep
Ishaq
Rose: getting to the top of the hill in Shenandoah. Thorn: climbs are still hard. Bud: being better at climbs when we get to the Rocky Mountains
Howdy hi y’all, Ishaq on the blog today and what a day it was. The team (well actually mostly me) was pushed to the brink mentally and physically, and once again reminded of the cruel reality of this world. But at the end of the day maybe of greatest enemy is the one thing we cant escape from… ourselves.
This day began like any other, despite my incredible Garmin sleep score of 90, we had a lazy morning, ate breakfast and packed our car, saying goodbye to our wonderful host Theresa and the quaint little town of Tazewell VA around noon. We expected a little rain, but nothing too bad so we hit the road with our rain coats. I was determined to make the day an easy one, so I employed the elite biking strategy that makes you 10-20% more efficient on the road: drafting Greta for 40 miles. Life in the draft is a nice one, you have the person in front pedaling away while I could just sit there taking in the sights and occasionally putting some wattage. Further, the climbs felt like easy mode. The draft helped less here, but Greta’s pacing simply couldn’t be beat. For the first time miles long climbs didn’t mean contemplating existence and cursing the earth for being bumpy, and not gonna lie I was feeling a little cocky so I decided to see how long I could go without shifting my front derailleur to the small ring (became a low cadence, high resistance warrior on all the climbs).
I finally was forced to shift when climbing the aptly named Big A Mountain (it was a big mountain after all), but sustained my riding bliss right up and through the summit. Now for the descent, but… tragedy strikes! When I go to shift up my chain fell off my cogs. So I go through the process of getting my hands a little dirty to get it back on and keep riding.
While descending we were hit by a massive rainstorm, each drop hella painful as we zoomed at 30 mph down the mountain roads. The next rest stop was right at the mountain base and we took shelter in the Honaker Community Center. Rain was coming down hard and Greta somewhat jokingly suggested that we should just stay there for the night. Lowkey it was a great idea, it was pouring rain, we had another 30 miles to go and the community center has bathrooms and a kitchen. The one down side is that the next day would be turned into a 115 mile ride to get to Hazard, Kentucky in time for our next learning festival. After an hour of deliberating, I was hopped up on endorphins and good vibes with a reckless abandon for the wellbeing and sanity of the team, making me a fierce supporter for a 115 mile ride. The team was split evenly: four for staying four for going.
Sanity was decreasing, then, in proper deus ex machina fashion, a staff member of the community center rolled up outside and told us we couldn’t stay the night inside and wed have to be in an outdoor shelter down the road. After seeing it, the team said heck nah and we geared up to bike the rest of the way to Breaks Interstate Park. Joseph and Charles leave. Ruth isn’t feeling well (ruth’s edit: this is a lie, I went to help with the tents) so she hops in the car with Tian. Ramona and Sarah then depart, however they start going the wrong way! Greta and I were about to take off, but tragedy strikes again! Greta can’t find her phone! I hop on my bike to go look for in the community center with her, then tragedy again again! My front shifter isn’t working!
I call up Ramona for some quick maintenance and we start trying to track Greta phone because it wasn’t in the community center. After some tinkering we determined my front derailleur had become horribly misaligned somehow and I was no longer able to shift to the small ring. And with some nifty find my iPhone tracking we saw Greta’s phone suspiciously traveling our route. After a quick phone call we determined that Joseph had stolen Greta’s phone and sabotaged my bike in an attempt to prevent the both of us front being first to the national park! Absolutely diabolical. Well, this is half true, he did accidentally take Greta’s phone (not even realizing he had it when we were clearly looking for it before he left), but my bike breaking is still a mystery.
Tian is driving, Ruth is in the car, with no room left, I have but one choice: Ride the last 30 miles using my broken bike. A challenge, yes, but one that I had the determination to complete. By this point everyone but Greta and I had left, we started cycling and instead of cheating in her draft for another 30 miles, I took the lead and I start dashing. Just a few miles in, Greta asked me, “Can you keep this pace for 20 more miles?” I simply shrugged and said “Let’s find out.” It was then, on a broken bike, that I hit my fastest 5 mile, 10K, 10 mile, 20K, 30K, and 40K pace (peep the Strava) averaging 20 mph for a long stretch through the rolling hills of western Virginia.
Our final challenge? Three large hills at the end of the ride to enter the park. I, of course, cannot shift down. By this point Greta and I have caught up to and passed every other biker on the team. I forced all of my weight and all of my strength into the pedals as an ungodly slow cadence, swerving side to side just to reduce the grade ever so slightly. It began pouring after the first hill. I was exhausted, legs aching, heart pounding, thinking I’m certainly not qualified to carry these boats, let alone the logs. I pulled out my phone to call it quits and get Tian to come pick me up. No service. As said in the critically acclaimed drama set in the Star Wars universe, Andor, “There is only one way out!” I hopped back on the saddle and continued to sluggishly grind my way up into the park. On nearing the end, right before the park entrance, the rain cleared and we were beholden to a beautiful view of the mountains and the setting sun on the horizon. As the rest of the team caught up we had one last group hype session to get ready for the last stretch of the climb. I gave a short speech. The content? I cant remember. The result, however, was six bikers devoted to finishing strong on what may have been the craziest day of our trip so far.
We rolled into our campsite, Ruth and Tian having already unpacked and pitched tents, I took a shower and retreated to my tent, for my crucible was now over and I yearned for nothing more that the sweet comfort of my dreams. But… A car rolls up to our campsite, its a park ranger and they tell us the worst news: we had set up on the wrong site! But it was fine because no one has booked it and I didn’t have to move my tent and simply went to bed.
Oh and we totally saw a bunch of cows earlier in the day that kept blocking the road, but it didn’t narratively fit so here’s some pictures for funzies.
yo yo YO!!! sarah “schmitty” schmitt is BACK again, this time from the learning festival perspective! 🧪
for our 2nd learning festival, we are near the northern virginia border in the lovely town of tazewell, specifically the main street united methodist church! since i was the driver yesterday, and was (not supposed to, at least) run my learning festival today, i had plenty of time and energy to spare to prep for a high quality blog post.
our lovely home for the past 2 days, the main street united methodist church!
i started my day bright and early at 7:20am so that i could shower and hit the cafe across the street i had been eyeing on apple maps since the day before, “the well” coffee shop on main street. i got my 4th iced chai latte of spokes (yes, i am counting), as well as a bacon egg and cheese on an everything bagel 🥯 i brought my laptop with the intention of doing work, but my hands ended up being too greasy (and maybe i was being a little lazy, too) 🙂↕️ at some point, joseph pulled up and copied my exact order. i know i have good taste, but it doesn’t hurt to be a little original…🤷🏼♀️
around 9am, we made the treacherous, extensive journey of a few hundred feet back to the main building to start helping our teammates set up for their respective learning festival activities. for those of you who don’t know, when we were planning for spokes, we split up into 5 groups (some pairs, some not) to make 5 separate lesson plans. learning festival coordinators pick 4 of our lesson plans they want to run, and the 5th person/group ends up as “floaters” to help with overall flow. spokes 2025 lesson plans are:
sarah/joseph: diy bottle rockets via the baking soda and vinegar reaction 🚀
greta: states of matter, with melting ice and “oobleck” (a “non-newtonian fluid”) 🧊
ruth/charles: 3D printing + pens 🖊️
ramona: cryptography via simple caesar ciphers 🕵🏼♀️
tian/ishaq: machine learning and AI 🤖
for this learning festival, me and joseph were the floaters. not going to lie, it was nice to be pretty much brain dead for a few hours and just have fun with the kids. they all came in around 10am, and they were of all ages, from just graduating kindergarten to entering/already being in HIGH SCHOOL!!! we usually won’t have this wide of a range, so MAJOR props to my fellow spokies for adjusting their learning festivals to fit each age group. imagine trying to teach machine learning to 6 year olds…😀
charles and ruth hard at work at the computers
science of secrets!
machine learning and AI ooo
states of matter w/ greta! this got SOOO messy…
anyways, after some conversations with some of the parish adults, they eventually realize that the bottle rocket learning festival activity was in fact NOT powered by firecrackers, and are DYING to run it for the kids. since we are all for the kids, joseph and i spend the next 30 minutes scrambling our materials together (including vinegar generously donated by the church) in order to run the rockets during lunch.
lunch (also generously provided by the church) consisted of corn dogs, watermelon, carrots and ranch, chips, s’mores, and cookies!!! 🌭🍉 plus asian food(?) for our resident vegan and non-pork eaters tian, ishaq, and ruth, respectively. during the 2nd half of lunch, we took each of the 4 age groups out in shifts to watch the bottle rockets. i’m SO glad we were able to do so—the excitement and smiles on some of these kids’ faces were SO worth it. truly a reminder of why we do what we do!!! 💗
screenshot from a video taken of our bottle rocket demonstration for the K-3 age group!
once the final kids left around 3:30pm, it was time to clean and CRASH. i hadn’t biked the ~70 mile route the day before, and didn’t fully run my learning festival today, but i was still EXHAUSTED. even after (kinda) repacking the car and hosing down the now very colorful tarp with greta from her states of matter learning festival, the day was STILL not done. to keep a long story short, i made a quick, non-serious visit to the hospital the night before to get a prescription for some steroids i might need in the future (in case i get more sick than i already am, because asthma is forever the bane of my existence and destroyer of my happiness), and i still needed to pick the pills up at the pharmacy. so, i decided to tag along with and help joseph on his laundromat run 🧺
1 bottle of prednisone and detergent, 68 quarters, and 3 bags of laundry later, greta, ruth, and ramona arrive with cheese bread from the italian place a block (ok, maybe a block is generous, another few hundred feet?) away. ramona had come earlier and commandeered 1 of my quarters (consensually) for a piece of gum, but she helped put laundry (which she calls “laudry”) in bags, so we’re even. eventually, the group makes it over to the ice cream joint attached to the italian place, and we all get a sweet treat of some kind, whether it be ice cream or float, kindly paid for by our learning festival main point of contact, theresa! after hearing a few of us left our towels at another host’s place, she also bought new towels for ALL of us. so sweet 🥹💗
tarp
laundry
cheese bread! 🧀
when we return, tian is taking a nap, but the energy is HIGH in the kitchen as charles and ishaq are preparing to cook all of the breakfast food provided by the church for our stay. pancake batter is being mixed, biscuits are in the oven, and bacon and eggs are on the way 🥞🥓🍳 i added some extra hershey’s chocolate to my raspberry “rocky road” ice cream (that doesn’t contain nuts!), and got started on my blog. as of writing these sentences, half the group is on a sugar high from the sweet treats; there’s music and singing coming from the cooks hard at work in the kitchen; route planning, blogging, and 3D printing is occurring all at once in the dining room; some (one is) are snoozing upstairs in sleeping bags on the floor; most (everyone else) are eating in some way shape or form. THIS is what spokes is all about!!! 🥰
ishaq and charles hard at work
biscuits
pancakes and bacon
eggs
my attempt at a 0.5
sing greta! ishaq is trying to hide his amusement
after washing a mountain of dishes to a spotify playlist ishaq searched up called “songs white girls get turnt to” (as a white girl, it was quite alright), ruth dragged everyone into the living room to finally watch a movie, which we had been discussing doing for a few days now. it wasn’t until i sat down in a chair that i realized we we’re watching a horror movie.
i.
HATE.
horror movies.
but, for the sake of team bonding, i decided to stick around to watch “barbarian,” even if i watched 90% of it with my hands covering my eyes and ears as much as possible, and my body half turned away from the screen. after it ended, ishaq started ranting about the genre of horror, symbolism, etc., but my elbows were sore from cowering for 2 hours straight, and i was just glad it was over. he tried (for the 2nd time since staying in tazewell) to jumpscare me, and (for the 2nd time) i hit back. not sorry. i made ruth follow me to the bathroom that was 10 feet away from where we were all sleeping because i was scared of being alone. 2/10, not doing this again out of my own freewill. sorry guys. musical next time? 🎶
never. again.
i brushed my teeth, got some of the last bits of sugar out of my system by carrying ruth around and (simultaneously) attacking ishaq, sorted some of my laundry, and FINALLY laid down. we’ve only been on spokes for about a week and a half, but it’s already felt like a month. a single day feels like a few days all wrapped into one. it feels like spokes will last forever, but even between the early rises, sore legs, itchy bug bites, hilly rides, and exhausting learning festivals…i wish it did.
on that note, i am finishing up this blog the next morning, and i really got to get ready to bike to breaks. see y’all next time for…(checking the spreadsheet)…our rest day in bowling green, ky! 💚
yours truly,
“schmitty”
P.S. to respond to ramona’s slightly antagonistic statement at the end of her last blog (the one right before this one), i finished this (my day 10 blog post) at 9:25am on day 11, so i would say i was pretty timely this time around :)) love u ramona tho!
It’s Ramona again and welcome to day 9. The day started with some awesome power oatmeal that Sharon made for us. It had all kinds of amazing nutritious additions, so we we’re well equipped to start the day. I left Sharon’s and Keith’s home with some hesitation. We had had a great evening with smores and fire (read more (probably?) on Charles’ account on day 8), but I knew we had to hit the road. On paper, the day seemed chill enough – 68.2 miles and 4319ft of elevation (according to ridewithgps, our navigation devices thought it was more like 6000ft, but i think they are wrong). So we headed out from Radford! These were the views – some mountains in the background here and there, some trees, a little bit of ups and downs and cloudy skies.
:sparkles: views :sparkles:
We had a nice little break at a park, where Greta and Charles unleashed their inner childs.
Charles getting in that exercise and Greta on the swing.
… but after the first 10 to 20 miles, everything started to feel ~ slower ~
I am not even sure why, we had plenty of rest stops to refuel and get water, but the fourth cycling day in a row hit me harder mentally than any of the previous ones. I know I wasn’t alone in that. Charles was hurting, Joseph had (very wisely) decided to take a rest day and Ishaq was complaining that his butt aches. The miles, with little variation in hills, seemed to go on forever. I was watching my navigation and I swear the miles left were just frozen sometimes.
Battling my own mind, I put on some music, but in the heat, and the occasional cars overtaking us, it just overwhelmed me. So I suffered for a while, until I remembered a great invention – podcasts! I put on some Origin Story (an episode on the Doctor Who) and everything got so much better. Dorian Lynskey even brought out some laughs in me. My dad actually recommended this podcast, so I was waiting to pull this card out in exactly this kind of a situation. So, from this experience, I rate listening to podcasts a 10/10 strategy, especially suited for when no good thinking thoughts seem to be floating in your mind, so you are left with battling boredom and frustration.
I had taken a break at some point, when Charles passed me. I did catch him afterwards, and remembered that perhaps an 11/10 strategy is yapping, even for a little bit. By the time the next rest stop rolled around (with a huge hornets nest, allegedly (ask Joseph or Sarah, I did not see any hornets)) I was feeling better. I left Charles with the hornets and started on the last 10 miles of the ride.
Soon after entering Tazewell I noticed a sign for ice cream and contemplated stopping, BUT THEN I noticed the some Spokies at the ice cream spot! Telepathy! Of course, I pulled over and got two cold, sweet and glorious scoops of ice cream (pictured below).
Me and ice creamSpokies and ice cream
The spot was actually very cool! First, the ice cream hit the spot! And I’m pretty sure the girl at the shop only charged me for one scoop, so it was an incredible deal. Second, they also did floats, which Charles was very happy about. And third, through the same door, there is also an Italian food spot. (It might or might not be the same establishment, I am not sure). And Joseph noticed, it had a creative logo.
The logo, in case you want to stop by, ice cream is right there!
With that we arrived at our destination. Theresa at the Main Street United Methodist Church is kindly letting us stay. I am glad tomorrow is not a cycling day, since we are teaching! So, last item on the agenda is dinner. Lead by Ishaq, the Spokes cook crew is making turkey meatball spaghetti right as I am writing this. I better go and help them. Tune in tomorrow (or whenever Sarah will finish tomorrow’s blog 🙂 )
The stars have aligned. We have 8 bloggers but only 7 drivers (uncommon Ramona L), so today is one of the rare days when the driver is in charge of blogging! I thought this would be a good opportunity to peel back the curtain and explain some of the driving logistics that happen behind the scenes to keep our cross-country ride running smoothly.
Literally me
The driver’s day actually starts the previous night as they are tasked with unloading the cooler. This way they know what goes into the cooler when they load it in the morning of their driving day. Our hosts yesterday, Lisa and Rob, didn’t have a lot of fridge and freezer space for us, but Rob’s mom lives right down the street her fridge had a lot more room! Thanks Rob and Carol!
Since the driver gets the day off, they take on a few more responsibilities to make life easier for the bikers. This includes:
Packing the car in the morning
Refilling the water jugs
Flagging Spokies down at the rest stops
Contacting our hosts (if we’re being hosted)
Checking biker locations on Life360 periodically (safety first!)
Grocery shopping (if need be)
Getting gas (if need be)
How we’re packing the car (we limit at most 1 bag on the cooler for easy access to our lunches)
View from the driver’s seat
Every day, the route has multiple rest stops. The driver leaves each stop after the last biker departs and then drives to the next rest stop in time for the faster bikers. At the rest stops — if needed — the bikers refill their water bottles, re-apply sunscreen, snack, eat lunch, and take a break from biking.
The best part about being a driver is not having to bike 😆. Most of the time, the driving route between the rest stops is the same as the biking path. Knowing that the everyone else has to bike on the road I’m driving on definitely gave me a new perspective today. I tried to feel bad each time I drove up a hill but mostly I just giggled and felt fortunate to be in a car with AC on and music blasting while I zoomed towards my destination.
The next best thing about being the driver is the free time you get after arriving at the rest stops and waiting for bikers. Activities our drivers have done with this free time include:
Watching a show/movie
Reading
Napping
Calling loved ones
Calling not-so-loved ones…?
Blogging!
Today, the first rest stop was at a gas station. After troubleshooting a buggy bike computer for a bit, I decided to generously spend some of my free time acquiring some fundraising opportunities for Spokes.
Feeling lucky 🍀
No dice 😕
We did not win a single scratch-off. However, as the well-known statistic goes, 95% of gamblers quit before they win big. Big Spokes windfall coming next time for sure.
At the second rest stop, I discovered that the Sprite we had bought yesterday had not been completely loaded into the cooler. The team keeps teasing me because I really want to teach my own slightly unhinged Learning Festival lesson about the science of pressure. Maybe my fellow Spokies could take a lesson on pressure so we don’t have beverage cans burst in the heat!
Deformed Sprite cansCleaning up
The third and final rest stop of the day was when most people decided to eat their lunch. I hadn’t fixed myself a lunch in the morning, so I tried to make myself a very simple tuna sandwich. There was one problem, though. The can opener was in the cooking supplies box that was under another box in the trunk. I was also feeling very lazy. Greta definitely egged me on by suggesting that it was possible to open the can by smashing it on the ground.
Greta’s floor rice cake
Ice ice baby
Aftermath of our tuna can opening attempts
My “tuna sandwich”
Spokes derangement reached all-time high levels over the course of the ensuing 20 minutes. We threw the can on the ground. We smashed it on rocks. We stomped on it. We pried at a small opening with sticks. We shook out small bits and pieces onto my sandwich. Tuna went everywhere. Mostly *not* on my sandwich.
Eventually the shame set in and we called it quits on that. We all made it to the house for the night and met our lovely hosts, Sharon and Keith. They cooked us an immaculate dinner and gave us a tour of their greenhouse that Keith built during COVID. S’mores followed dinner (Ramona had her first ever smore, as well as her second and third). Our long-awaited attempt at a movie night was postponed yet another night as people cozily chatted and blogged by the fire.
Sharon and Keith’s signature fried spaghetti setup
yum 😋
Ramona’s reaction to her first ever smore
The greenhouse
All in all, a packed but fairly restful day for me. This driving thing is pretty efficient — wonder why we even bought these dang bikes in the first place 🤔
I woke up to the smell of pancakes courtesy of Dirk and Chrissy van Assendelft. The breakfast I had at their place in Lexington was some of the best I ever had.
Berries! Yum 😋
After breakfast, the team scattered to pack. As I collected my clean laundry, I felt anxious because I hadn’t biked the steep hill, which had grades up to 17%, from yesterday. Not completing something gives me immense dread. My pride also makes it hard for me to stomach that I am the slowest biker on our team.
We packed our lunches on the lawn of Dirk and Chrissy’s home as the morning sun brutally shone on us—lunches I wished that we packed the evening before. After 2.5 years of traveling the world solo, I am used to organizing my schedule however I want. However, I am learning that traveling with a group of 8, each with their quirks and needs, proves to be a very different task.
We started our ride to Roanoke down a grassy and gravel path where some of us feared for our lives. Fueled by my desire to become faster, I kept pedaling, one street after another, until I left the city. Before I realized it, I passed the zeroth(?) and first rest stop. Some of the team members stopped in downtown Lexington to snack on gelato and sit in love chairs. Usually, I would feel FOMO. However, I didn’t want gelato, and there was nothing I could do about missing a rest stop. Besides, my anxiety about completing the route was ebbing away with every mile I moved towards Roanoke. I am content with choosing to ride on.
Spoksies on a creaky bridge
I ended up playing leapfrog with Ruth for the rest of the day. I would ride in front, and then she would pass me for another stretch. I took the advice of a previous spokester (Duha) and acquired open-ear headphones. With Chappell Roan playing in my ears, my legs were willing to keep spinning the wheels. Although I was exhausted and walked a couple of hills, this was my happiest biking day.
Second rest stop! After completely missing the first 😦
When I finally arrived at the destination, I couldn’t find Lisa and Rob’s home. I meandered back and forth on the street, hoping that our driver Ishaq would pop out of nowhere to fetch me. Instead, I spotted a lady in her yard who beckoned me. That’s how I met Lisa.
Lisa ushered me into her home with utmost kindness. I met Ruth, who arrived before me. Ruth was shocked to the core when I said I wanted to shower first. Apparently, our shower order was based on the arrival order (I never arrived early enough to find out). But it calmed my anxious heart to know that I will be showering second today.
Lisa offered us a bowl of cherries. I love cherries, but I never buy them because they can cost quite a penny. Lisa and Rob were generous and offered us flautas and me impossible burgers. I even got to meet Carol (Rob’s mother) who is a big fan of Spokes. We met Rob, the creator of the Virgina Rockstar route, a trail some of us vow to do one day (not me).
Since this was the second day we arrived around 4 pm, Lisa and Rob had time to take us sightseeing. This was the first time Spokes had time to sightsee. I was so excited. Sightseeing was one part of my solo traveling I missed on Spokes. Lisa loaded me onto an artsy van Rob bought for $200 and drove us to see the largest man-made star, which happens to be in Roanoke.
Reassured by the city lights of Roanoke that twinkled in the distance, I realized I was still figuring things out. I don’t know where exactly Spokes ends and Tian begins. I’m not sure how much of the solo traveler in me can exist on this trip. But surely, once in a while, I can choose myself.
The night wrapped up sweetly with Lisa’s chamomile mint tea.
Today was just one of those days. I woke up at 1:55 am to pee, and never quite fell back asleep. Tian, our resident snorer, unknowingly kept me awake all night. I popped in my airpods and drifted in and out of consciousness for the next few hours.
At the breakfast table, we (ironically) started off the day comparing sleep scores — Ishaq was well rested with an 87/100, and Greta was close behind with a 71/100. I was the star of the show with a whopping 42/100. I was basically non-verbal throughout breakfast and car-packing due to how sleep deprived I was (apologies, fellow Spokies).
Now, I’m not sure if you read Day 5’s blog (go Joseph), but if you did, you may know that we changed our route last minute, opting for a shorter, albeit steeper climb. Due to my state of being, Greta, our driver for the day, offered to drive me to the top. I respectfully declined – I needed to tire myself out enough that I would sleep peacefully tonight.
Sad to leave Pam’s magical cottage in Afton, VA, we headed off to the steepest climb to date. With an average grade of 10% (and a maximum of 17%), this climb reached a steepness of over 2 times the maximum allowable slope of a wheelchair ramp (my dad is an architect).
Text correspondence with Father Ruth
I opted to not have my own bike computer to save the team $350, so I rotate through drivers’ computers. Today, Greta’s computer was simply not loading the route for me – I resolved to follow Ramona closely behind so I wouldn’t get lost, since we ride at a ~similar~ pace.
Me, Charles, and Joseph before I zoom ahead with Ramona
I’m not going to subject you to the same pain that I felt climbing that large hill today, so I’ll spare you the details. Just know that Ramona and I didn’t take breaks, that I felt I was going to go backwards at multiple points, and that when we finally passed the worst of it and pulled over to snack, I didn’t know if I could get up again.
As for the rest of the journey, it went pretty smoothly. All the Spokies met under a tree to eat lunch. By this time, my mood was significantly better👍. Exercising does release endorphins, after all ✨.
Me and Ramona smiling through the pain post a 17% gradeSpokies at lunch
Ramona, Ishaq, and I set out before the others. Then came the best 13 miles of the day – flat land. On this land, like a fledgling jumping out of its nest for the first time, I learned to fly— i.e. ride with no hands. I even did the wave!
We had one last climb before the house, but after a quick snackie, we pulled through.
Me, Ramona, and Ishaq smiling before the last climb
46.8 miles later and 4456 ft ascended, we made it to Dirk and Chrissy’s house in Lexington, VA at 3:30 pm— early for a change. Roxy the dog was awaiting us!
Greta petting RoxyRamona chasing RoxyRoxy with a ballJoseph passed out next to RoxyGreta hugging Roxy
Greta and Ishaq ran out to get groceries, while the rest of us took much needed showers. Once everyone was stink-free, we had dinner! A very very very yummy dinner, with stuffed mushrooms and caprese salads and protein pasta. During dinner we discovered Ramona’s love of orienteering – Europe’s favorite pastime. We also realized what a small world it is. Last week, Dirk and Chrissy hosted a Harvard pole vaulter that Sarah sort of knows. And they have a daughter at Stanford in the same department and year as my sister, who she doesn’t know at all! Pretty small world if you ask me.
Since we got to our Warmshowers so early, we could actually do fun things! We used the large foot massager in the living room. Most people hated it but Tian was ready to sneak it into the van. People made banana bread. I got sat on by Roxy. We pet the bipolar cat, Eli. Finally, we played Stab Your Friends, a card game (by Dirk and Chrissy’s nephew!) that turned all of us against each other. Charles, I’m coming for you.
The first four days of this trip have been nothing but hectic. Day 1 had me running a bottle rocket workshop seven times followed by a terrifying time being the driver in DC (how is it worse than Manhattan??). Day 2 had me cycling on gravel roads through a severe thunderstorm all the while Charles was lost to the world. Day 3’s ascent into Shenandoah National Park felt like an insurmountable obstacle with my tired body (I was one of the cheaters :p). Day 4 (my driving day) involved some scary driving through windy roads in the midst of one of the worst downpours I’ve seen in my life. But finally, we made it to a rest day… Pam’s off-the-grid house was an absolutely magical place to spend our first rest day. Greta said enough about the awesome person that is Pam Mendosa, but her place was just so awesome that I couldn’t write this blog without mentioning it.
Pam’s magical off-the-grid homeOne of Pam’s cats, Garlic, roaming around outsideA neighboring cabin where three of us slept for two nights
So, what exactly does a “rest day” entail? Normally on this trip, we crash at someone’s place or a campsite, eat, sleep, then pack our things up the following morning for another day of biking. On a rest day, we instead stay put in one place, both to take a break and also to get pending tasks done. For today there were many items on the agenda.
For one, all of our camping equipment was soaked from the overnight downpour at Big Meadows and needed to be dried. The team did a great job using Pam’s entire property as a place to dry our stuff.
Our tents and sleeping pads being dried outside the cabin
Ramona and I spent some time in the morning perfecting our bike cleaning technique and left everyone’s bikes looking squeaky clean.
Ramona hosing down a dirty bike
There were three more tasks that required venturing from Pam’s isolated intentional community to Charlottesville, the location of the University of Virginia and also where Ishaq grew up! Four of us (Me, Ramona, Sarah, and Charles) drove to this lovely town and I dropped Sarah and Charles off at a laundromat (Pam didn’t have a dryer).
Me photobombing the laundromat shotRamona being thirstySarah bringing our laundry back
Ramona and I went to a bike shop called Blue Wheel Bicycles to fix my broken spokes (just like me fr). After we dropped off my bike, we went to Whole Foods to return some unused fenders (the team decided they were actually fine getting wet from their tires). I called Sarah and seeing that laundry was going to take a while, went to Great Outdoor Provision co. to get myself some packing cubes (my disorganized duffel bag was driving me crazy). We may have also had some fun looking at all of the gear.
Waiting at a light in CharlottesvilleHaving some fun at the gear shopMy repaired spokes after over a month of a weird noise yayyy
Once laundry work finished up we all decided to hit up Shenandoah Joe Coffee Roasters for a work sesh on our laptops (Pam’s house unfortunately had no wifi or cell service). Ishaq spent the night at his own house and joined up with us at the cafe. After a few hours of semi-productive time and a very good fruit smoothie, we headed on back to Pam’s place and enjoyed another relaxing evening arguing over our route for the following day…
Side tangent, the route for the following day was looking to be short, but very difficult, with an over 3000ft climb and some of the steepest grades that we would see for the entire trip. We argued over a couple of potential routes for hours… I’ve been the main route planner for this trip and spending my valuable evening hours making these routes every day is going to drive me crazyyy
MIT Spokes 2026 