Thursday, June 16, 2011

Seattle Orientation Day 3 & 4

Monday was not to exciting of a day.  We just had our orientation stuff again to go over how the summer was going to go and to make sure that we all were comfortable with the policies and procedures! And we went over the punishments for not following them and or riding our bikes in an unsafe manor.  The punishments went from being racked for the day all the way to being sent home.  It sounded kind of harsh that we could be sent home after doing all this preparation for this trip.  But its necessary to enforce the punishments to make sure we all make it across the country without anyone getting injured or hit by a car.  We also had skills assessments so they could see as bikers where we all stood and how comfortable we all were on our bikes.  This just amounted to us riding our bikes while pointing out debris and other obstacles like potholes that could be on the road.  We also practiced looking back without swerving all over the road.  That is so we can look back to see if traffic is coming when we are out on the road.  Dean Peterson all watched us and critiqued our riding styles and positioning on the bikes to see if we could do anything to improve them.  Then he gave all our bikes a quick look over to see if everything looked good.  Dean is a professional cyclists that we are fortunate enough to have come help us out while giving us tips on cycling and even showing us how to do maintenance on our bike.  Then we just had another free night to walk around Seattle.  I just want to get this journey started, I am getting really anxious!! Today we had a 30 mile training ride in Seattle.  This was so we could get used to biking with each other and riding in pace lines.  We had a few problems as far as keeping things going and got red flagged a lot.  So it took a little longer then it should have but other than that we all did a great job and had a great ride.  The ride made me that much more excited and anxious to start our journey across America.  I am wanting to start so bad its almost becoming unbearable!!  Also during the day we learned that this summer there is going to be a lot of “hurry up and wait.”  Its just due to programming of the summer and the friendships since we have to hurry up to get some places but then have to wait to either leave or start. But this ride and the 4 day orientation just showed me how amazing this summer is going to be!  We had a kick off dinner at an Italian restaurant and then had rest of the night off, but since tomorrow is the first day of biking we spent most of the night packing all of our stuff up and getting our bikes and bags ready!!  Tomorrow is going to be the start to the greatest journey of our lives!!

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