Callahan [May 30]

The day is sunny, wide-open, and calm as we line our bikes up barefoot along the shoreline of Atlantic Beach. It is our "Wheel Dip Ceremony", the beginning of our voyage, and my folks have come and Anna, Kerrie, and Tyson have come, and we've got a full entourage as we prepare to dip our rear wheels in the Atlantic Ocean and begin our odyssey toward the frigid Pacific.

I have a combination of exhilaration and fear about the morning. Our pre-trip requirements tasked us to complete 500+ miles and a ride of at least 65 miles, but a well-placed nail, an out-of-commission tire, and the postal misplacement of my gear box left me to being 100 miles shy, with my longest ride the accidental 51 miler I did during my second week of training. It's sixty-something miles to Callahan, and I don't care how fast I go, I just want them in the bag. Mom wants more pictures and I go for the ubiquitous one of holding the bike upside-down in the air like He-Man.

The joy and pictures over--well, the joy continuing, especially with Anna and family waving there simply and saying of the Wheel Dip, "Of course I'm going to come"--we are on our bikes, tearing down A1A toward Mayport, the Ferry, and Hecksher Drive, the only continuously pretty ride in Jacksonville, into overhanging trees and water, far from box stores, risky drivers, and the side-effects of urban sprawl. I follow Alex at speeds I shouldn't be doing, 20-22 mph, whipping around small clumps and groups of riders as we crest bridges and leave the marvelous, blue-water Northside of Jacksonville with its craggy jetties and feasting shorebirds in our wake. We're among all of them for a moment on the Mayport Ferry before the ever-present fishermen and grassy sand dunes of Hecksher Drive and Hannah and Huguenot Parks--where, I tell my comrades, G.I. Jane--was filmed, until eventually we're in the foresty-rich Amelia Island and Alex and I stop for the bathroom and are led into a very exclusive country club gym for the deed and incur everyone's awe and jealousy.

Alex goes on after a while and I hang back with others; I'm not a racer, after all, and it is my longest day to date unless you count the MS150 when I was little when my dad basically pulled me the 85- and 65-mile days on the back of a tandem. We're camping in an RV Park tonight (over which flies the Confederate flag, I point out to our Northerners); someone cooks, and I'm sore and it's been a great day. Now to take that sixty miles and prepare for an entire summer of it. Bring it on...

...well, yes, bring it, but gently, and let me stretch first, ice, and do you happen to know a good masseuse?

Shakedown [May 29]

I've ridden 500 miles, Caroline, the racer from UNC, tells me she's done around 2,500. I think most people are in my boat, around the 500 line, where we are not ripped like Hans-the-triathlete with Godzilla calves... instead we are ripped... um... in our hearts?

We're diverse, with Spoorthi ("Spoo") from India who studies with Alia, the beautiful young Muslim woman who just performed Doubt at Carnegie-Melon. Leslie was on staff at the FSU Wesley Foundation -- the FSU counterpart to Stetson's Wesley House -- lost 40 pounds while training for this trip, and lived with a girl I grew up with. Zhiguang ("Z") from Singapore studying at NYU, Annie the New Jersey med student, Agata the Polish-American medical translator in Chicago, Alex student of Israeli-Palestinian relations who ran the Boston Marathon, Brandon the bearded, Floridian sailor going to study maritime law in Rhode Island. Cory, who hears about Bike & Build from Meira, while couch-surfing on her unknown couch. Kate and Anna, North Carolinians, Kate an engineer and Anna the french horn music major who is slowly learning to play all the bluegrass instruments. Hans the cabinetmaker/triathlete beast and Colin, our other male leader, a cycling guru from Durham. Chelsea, a North Carolina fine arts dancer, Luke "the machine" one of four chosen for a University of Chicago Masters-to-Ph.D study program in Greek philosophy. Cassie the indefatigable service leader from Wisconsin and Texas. Justin and Rebekkah, hard-riding Harvard students. Jill, the photographer and published poet who graduated from Flagler in St. Augustine, the oldest continually-occupied settlement in the United States. It will be a good summer.

My bike gear has finally arrived from my place in DC, having spent a few days there after my kindly former landlady thought, "Oh! Adam must be coming to visit!" So when I call about the misplaced shipment, she alerts me to its having been at her house for a few days and then zips it down via UPS to get to me during orientation. V helps me get my clipless pedals on, loosens them quite a bit, then holds onto my bike so I can clip into them, then clip out; a simple motion, but one I must do on the fly, unconsciously, or fall over.

Before we run safety drills -- quick stops, rock dodges and stuff -- Kristian, our boss here until he goes back to the office in Philly, asks if he can make a video of me while I use my clipless pedals for the first time--everybody falls, I keep hearing--"And the video would say to new cyclists," Kristian continues, "'Look! Be encouraged! Not everyone on Bike & Build is experienced!'" But before he can get the camera out I own those pedals and the drills, not falling once (though I do pedal almost halfway across the parking lot before I figure out how to clip in), and unclipping after those quick stops like a boss. Even on the shakedown ride, going through beautiful Ponte Vedra (the ride I always wanted to take, so far away and disconnected from the city with its rich golf clubs, resorts, and beachfront houses), I own the pedals and feel the bike connected all the way through me from my cleats like a good foot massage.

It's a ride most of us don't have access to in Jacksonville: small roads, not too busy, with sights and sounds and happenings instead of the box stores and conformity of car-driven, suburban America and my training. It's such a joy to be on this road, far from the bridges that would get me back home, where Cory tells me about rap artists to which he gives kudos and Alex and I talk at length about the Gaza War and John Wesley, topics on which we've individually spent an overly long portion of time. And at night, waiting for the shuttle from dinner at a local church, we monkey over playground equipment and, in a quieter moment by the slides, Agata asks me about this strange story she heard about a werewolf destroying New York...