First Road Update!

Day 2 of orientation in Nags Head, NC. We're being housed by the awesome folks at Nag Head Church, which can be slightly daunting when there are 30 of us with bicycles! But the church is really nice; some of us are sleeping in the nurseries and others in the chapel. Plenty of room.

Yesterday Emily (who picked me up in Richmond and let me sleep on her couch) and I arrived before 1pm, and everyone trickled in til about 2:30. We had check-in, did an icebreaker out on the sand dunes, had some meetings to go over stuff and painted the trailer. Sadly the trailer did not quite survive to the morning... The not-quite-dry paint dripped to the ground but this is soon to be remedied. Still looks pretty awesome.

This morning we went to Outer Banks Bicycle where Chip taught us a ton about bike maintenance. Then we got to go for our first group ride, about 22 miles around Nags Head. We were led by Jack McComb, pretty much the cycling expert of the Outer Banks. At 65 yrs old and after a recent surgery, this guy is still hard core. He plans to go across the U.S. for his 70th birthday, with a paceline that averages about 120 miles a day. If I'm half that cool at 70 I'll be happy.

Speaking of 120 miles a day, apparently the mileage listed online has been slightly changed. We now have 5 days over 100 miles, and one day (leader Scott is really proud of this one) that is 124 miles into Colorado Springs. Yowza... Can't wait. :-)

But I digress. So on the ride today we went to the Bodie Lighthouse and heard from John Gaskell, 92 years old, who has lived and worked at the lighthouse for decades. He has an autobiography out and given the brief time we had with him and the amount of extraordinary history we heard, I'm willing to bet it's worth reading.

After showers at the YMCA we are now waiting to have a big potluck dinner tonight. I'm on presentation duty tonight but as it's the first one, we're sort of playing by ear. Tomorrow morning we dip our wheels in the Atlantic and set off for Swanquarter.