Day 2 - Orientation Day 2 - Charleston, SC

Wakeup: 7:00am
Hours slept: 5:55
Miles: 23.8
Time: 2:37:13
Calories: 636
Ascent: 626.6
Rode with: Out: Pastor Dan, Back: Rachael, Elaina

Breakfast cooked by Brendan!

Today started pretty slowly. I remember the scheduling and routine of last year's trip. We were a well-oiled machine. I continued to remind myself through the day to go with the flow. That's the motto this summer. Breakfast lasted quite a long time, but we soon went to the parking lot outside to do some cycling drills - stopping, communication, and handling. Easy enough and nothing major to report there - just an annoyance of another rider failing to unclip and fall into me and my bike. It happens, and me nor my bike was hurt. No harm, no foul.

Weave through the coolers!

Next, was the shakedown ride. A 24 mile loop to get used to practices and policies of Bike & Build. It reminded me a lot of last year's shakedown ride, which was one of my favorites of the summer. Much of the route was through a neighborhood with lots of trees. There was a really busy road, but we all made it fine. A few shouts at us were included. "Sidewalk" was heard as a truck paassed in the opposite direction. Thanks guy, but it's illegal. #sorrynotsorry

If you bike across country, it is typical to dip your rear tire in your starting ocean and your front tire in the ending ocean. Our start location for Saturday will not allow for that since it is just a ledge with railing, so we had our wheel dip ceremony a couple days early. Storms were rolling in quickly and we got caught in the rain. Many of the riders on last year's shake down ride got caught in the rain, but I missed it. Finally made up for it today.

Elaina!

We all got very wet

But soon we were dry again!

Dinner was provided by the local Habitat affiliate of Charleston - pork BBQ. I had a salad. For anyone who doesn't know, I don't eat pork (or a lot of things), but I know being picky has its disadvantages, and I am okay with that. So after the typical B&B presentation given by the leaders and a great talk from the Habitat affiliate, some of us headed to dinner so people could watch the Blackhawks hockey game. This was a good opportunity for me to get second dinner - Steak and onion calzone. Delish. Unexpectedly, the hockey game and the other TVs were turned off. It's comedy night at Mellow Mushroom. It was pretty bad. Jokes were crude, unoriginal, and had no flow. We promptly left. We walked around for a little while until, you guess it, the vomit king made his return! I found a gutter in the street and deposited my meal there.

Tomorrow we build!