Bicycle Tuesday - Now in 4D!

Bicycle Trivia Time!

In keeping with planning for my Trivia Night Fundraiser, here are some bicycling trivia facts:

What is the price of the most expensive bike ever sold at auction?
$500,000 for the "Butterfly Bike" designed by artist Damien Hirst and ridden by Lance Armstrong during the final stage of the 2009 Tour de France.

What is the fastest speed ever achieved by a bicycle on a flat surface?
166.944 mph, set by Fred Rompelberg in 1995 while slipstreaming behind a dragster at the Bonneville Salt Flats.

What is the fastest speed ever achieved by a bicycle on a flat surface (unpaced - no slipstream)?
83.13 mph, set by Sebastiaan Bowier in 2013 in an aerodynamic recumbant bicycle in Battle Mountain, Nevada.

Which annual bicycle race takes riders from Oceanside, CA to Annapolis, MD (on the current course)?
The aptly named Race Across America. Most winners complete this race in under 10 days!!!

When was the first "human-powered land vehicle" created?
1418 by Giovanni Fontana.

No, this was not it.

The majority of a bicycle's parts exist in which bicycle component?
The chain.

How many bicycles are estimated to exist in the world?
1 billion, with 400 million of them in China alone.

The term "bicycle" was coined in which country?
France in the 1860s.

Who was first to circumnavigate the world on a bicycle?
Noone... that would be fairly impossible (without an amphibious bike)! Nevertheless, we do know that Fred A. Birchmore circled the globe by bicycle in 1935, using a boat for those pesky pond crossings.

What is the largest/longest network of bicycle trails and greenways in North America?
The La Route Verde in Canada, containing roughly 2,500 miles of trails.

Thanks for reading! If you're interested in more trivia, please consider coming to my Trivia Night Fundraiser on March 27th in Grasonville, MD!! More details are on the Trivia Night page!

Full Steam Ahead

(I get really excited about installing door sweeps!)

Hi everyone!  I just wanted to share a little update on everything that has been happening in the big run-up to Bike & Build (starting May 16th!).  A lot has happened in the past week, so let me try to consolidate:

• Last Saturday, I met up with a group of 8 Bike & Builders to spend 6 hours with Rebuilding Together in Alexandria.  What an awesome crew!  I spent the day with 5 B&B alumni (including my girlfriend, Emily) and met two 2014 riders, one of them being on my Southern US (SUS) trip (hi JoBeth!).  We caulked, painted, and installed door knobs at one of RB's foreclosure condos... not bad for a day's work!  That's 6 of my 10 required sweat-equity hours complete!


• As I previously posted, I do have my B&B bike now.  She is sitting pretty in my work office, encouraging me to go on rides after work whenever I can fit in the time.  With everything else going on, it's tough to find time to complete those 500 pre-trip miles, but I'll get it done. :)  I'm currently 21 miles in, so only 479 left!


• Planning is going great for my upcoming fundraisers!  On March 7th, there will be a Bike & Build Booster in Riverhead, NY, which is being organized by my wonderful mom and sister, and on March 27th, we have a Trivia Night Fundraiser here in Maryland at the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center.  Please see the links on the side of this page for more info!


• Finally, I am excited to share with you that my fundraising has surpassed the 50% mark!  In fact, I'm currently at 57% of my minimum fundraising goal of $4,500 for Bike & Build!  Let's get that all the way up to $4,500 and then some!!! As I've said before, running the Bike & Build trip only takes about half of the total fundraising amount and the rest is given to affordable housing groups to support them in their work.  Any extra fundraising that we can raise together will go straight to worthy affordable housing groups (and I will even get a say in choosing which ones get it!).

That's all for now!  Thank you again to all of my wonderful donors!  The next round of thank you cards will be going out shortly. :)

The Bike & Build Work Crew (2/15/14)

Bicycle Tuesday - Part 3!

It's part three of my Bicycle Tuesday series!  This week, it's all about terminology!

Source: www.aarline.info

How much do you know about bicycles?  Do you know the difference between a derailleur and a hanger?  How about a bottom bracket versus a headset?  Here's a short list to start you off:

Bicycle Parts:
Bicycle - Alternative mode of transportation, which gets you places faster than walking and in less comfort than a car.  May be an enemy or friend, but either way, you will either let it rust away or manage to invest a fortune in 'upgrades'.
Tire -  (also spelled Tyre) The rubber bit around the wheels that keeps you from sliding around too much while you're riding and provides a minimal amount of shock absorption.
Inner Tube - An unholy contraption designed to hold air within the tire and to develop a leak at the worst possible time.
Rim - The first line of defense in an accident against the rest of the bike being destroyed.  Yeah, they get bent a lot.
Saddle - Saddle sores, need I say more? You sit on it and will eventually patch it with duct tape or electrical tape instead of getting a new one.
Fork - Holds the front wheel on and hopefully straight. I could go into detail about mountain bike shocks, but this is a road bike blog, right?
Handlebars - Strange curvy thing that you hold onto for dear life while pedaling over sand and snow.
Brakes - Hopefully will stop the bicycle before you roll through that stop sign into oncoming traffic. Occassionally squeak.
Chain - Incredibly important part of making sure that any pants that you are wearing while riding will end up greasy and shredded.
Chainring - The forward gears on a bicycle (Don't ask me why they decided on the name).  Likes to eat exposed ankles.
Cassette/Freewheel - The aft gears on a bicycle.  Incredulously expensive.
Derailleur - Moves the chain around so that you don't die while trying to pedal up a very steep hill.
Shifter - Moves the derailleur thingy in some crazy assortment of gears and levers.
Pedal - Your foot goes here.  Varieties include 'platforms' which will end up smacking your ankle after a large bump and 'clip-in' pedals which will cause you to fall over whenever you stop.

Other Terms:
LBS - Local Bike Shop.  They always take good care of you, so please make sure that you take care of them by buying parts locally.
Helmet - Keeps you alive and protects against brain damage in your eventual crash.  Please always use one.
Drafting - Getting as close as you can to the rider in front of you to minimize air resistance and to ensure a group crash party.  Pray that your fellow riders have not had beans for lunch.
Aero - Short for aerodynamic, or the idea that the more money that you spend on a bike to make it look even stranger than normal will result in Superman-like powers of flight.
Bolt Cutters - The enemy of any cable lock.  Just don't use cable locks in a city... ever.
U-Lock - The crusader of justice in the fight against aforementioned bolt cutters.
Armstrong - You know which one I'm talking about.  Extremely polarizing in the bicycling world these days.
Shelden Brown - A bicycle mechanic, technical expert, and a god amongst the cycling community.  You should really check out his website and see his own bicycle glossary, which is a lot more serious than this one :)  Rest in peace, Sheldon.

I hope that you enjoyed this list.  Yes, this is not an overly-serious list, so let's not have any heated arguments!  I might even make a serious glossary one of these weeks.... Cheers!

First Ride (Wow, It's Cold!)

I finally took my new Bike & Build bike on a test ride!  Knowing that a winter storm was on its way, I left work before it got dark to ride my favorite nearby trail, the Kent Island Cross-Island Trail.  Although I brought workout clothes to work with me to wear, I quickly realized the error of my ways when I hopped on the bike and started pedaling... boy, did my feet freeze up quickly!  Next time, I shall remember to wear my thick SmartWool socks and not my thin work dress socks (sigh).

Check out those white handlebars!

Nevertheless, I toughed out the miles in below-freezing temperature and ended up putting on a solid 11 miles on my first ride.  As you might know, I have 500 training miles to complete before I start on my Bike & Build journey, so now there are only 489 left to go!

By the way, coming from a mountain biking background, I'll first say that this Giant Defy 2 is a true work of art compared to the heavy, rugged frames that I'm used to.  It takes so much less effort to get up to speed and cruise than on a mountain bike (even with road tires), which is fantastic on the paved Cross Island Trail.  On the other hand, those bumps along the way sure hurt a lot more!

Bicycle Tuesday - Part 2

Bicycle Tuesday! Part 2!
(a.k.a. "The Bicycle Strikes Back") 
(a.k.a. "Bicycle 2: Judgement Day")
(a.k.a. "My Bike Has Arrived!!!") 

My Bike & Build bicycle arrived yesterday!  Although I felt bad for the delivery man who walked the box up to the second floor landing of our office, I was thoroughly excited to see the Giant box (bad pun intended...) finally here and in one piece!

Bicycle waiting to be unpacked in my living room.

While I couldn't just leave work to go assemble the bike, you can bet that I did the moment that I got home!  Although I love to tinker and assemble new 'toys', thanks to the folks at Bokoo Bikes in Chanhassen, MN, the bike came almost fully assembled.  All that I had left to do was to attach the handlebars, front wheel, seat, and pedals...

Bike out of the box, ready for unwrapping and assembly.

I've never made any You-Tube videos before, but on a whim, I decided to create my first-ever time lapse video of my bike assembly.  The photos were taken at a 10-second interval and are replayed at a 0.5-second rate.  Enjoy!

 

Finally, here's the bike!  By the time my trip is done this summer, she will have over 4500 miles on her.  Not bad for a bike that's only 7 months old!  Now I need to find some time to start riding those 500 training miles...

Fully-assembled 2014 Giant Defy 2

On another note, I made a quick bike fitting using Competitive Cyclist's Bike Fit Calculator.  While I will still be getting my bike properly fitted by my local bike shop before the trip, this online tool is a great aid in getting your bicycle roughly-fitted to your body measurements.  If you've never had your bike fitted (and I mean more than picking the frame size), I highly recommend that you check it out!

Bike Mail

I just got word yesterday afternoon that my summer steed, a Giant Defy 2, is on its way!  I'll say that my mountain bike is definitely looking forward to having a sleek and light-weight younger brother to keep it company (or is it sister?  I don't know yet!).  Thanks goes again to Giant Bicycles for helping with the price of our bicycles as a B&B corporate sponsor, to Bokoo Bikes for assembling and packaging our bikes and providing great deals on gear, and to all of you who have donated to the cause so far!

A new bicycle is on its way!

As the summer gets closer, I can only manage to get more and more anxious about wanting to get out on the bike and on the road.  While I cannot yet even begin to imagine what my summer is going to look like, I can say that it will be very hot, exhausting, filled with hard work, and (most importantly) incredible. If nothing else, I am excited to find out what's in store!

After first making a map of my bicycle's shipping route, I got on the map kick and decided to map the Bike & Build Southern US (SUS) 2014 route!  Sadly, MapMyRide decided to crash and not to save the route, so I'll have to make it again another time, but I did get a nice screenshot first!

Bike & Build SUS 2014, courtesy of MapMyRide

Bicycle Tuesday

Wooh, February, where did you come from?!  Hold on a minute, how long ago was New Years?  Yup, that passed by quickly!  Well, it does seem like time is speeding up these days.  With preparations for Bike & Build (many hours wasted in silly research), planning for fundraisers in MD and NY (details soon to be announced!), volunteer work at the Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre, band practice, time spent with friends and my girlfriend Emily, and my normal 9-5 job, there is just not enough time in the day to squeeze in all that I would like to!

Thankfully, this road has been fairly smooth so far.  My Bike & Build steed is on order (a Giant Defy 2 road bike) and today I get to thank all of my wonderful supporters for helping me make it past one-third of my minimum fundraising goal of $4,500! There's still a long road ahead, but I'm going to continue working my butt off to raise funds and awareness for affordable housing while keeping up with all of the other excitement in my life! To everyone who has donated and to everyone that has wished me good luck, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is so refreshing to have everyone supporting me on this major undertaking, and I couldn't do it without you.

Wrapping this intro up, I'd like to thank my roommate Katey for taking the time to help me with an impromptu photo shoot for Bike & Build fundraising pictures.  While I've never been accused of being particularly photogenic, I'll let you decide what you think:

Now, without further adieu, here's Bicycle Tuesday!  I'm adding this in to my blog to showcase the first half of the Bike & Build equation, the bicycling!  Whether it's a small quip about bicycling, a picture from another website (my graphic design skills are minimal, at best), or some other random tidbit, this is one feature that I hope to continue on a weekly basis on this blog!

This week:

"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle."
~ Ernest Hemingway

"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live."
~ Mark Twain

Source: http://xkcd.com/880/

An Open Letter to Webbies of All Ages

As I've been planning out how to raise awareness for my Bike & Build trip, I've contacted a lot of different people and talked to a number of different groups and organizations about my trip. Going out on a limb, I sent an email to the webmaster of Webb Institute, my Alma Mater, to see if Webb would be interested in joining with me in raising awareness for my trip by featuring me in one of their "Alumni Spotlights." Lo and behold, they agreed!  To be featured in an alumni spotlight, I needed to write an article of no more than 250 words, which would be linked to on the home page of Webb's website after garnering the appropriate approval.

As I sat down to diligently write my article for the website, I quickly found that I could not write just 250 words.  In fact, I went far beyond my 250-word limit.  Well, I took that long article, chopped it down, tweaked it a bit, and that is now viewable HERE.  Thankfully, I still held on to that original article and now I shall post it as an open letter right here on my blog.  While many of the things said in the article are duplicated elsewhere on this website, I thought that some people might like to read the original.  Here it is, for everyone to see:

"

It hasn’t even been 4 years since I left Webb and took my place with DRS Technologies as a Junior NA, but I’ve already been faced with another decision almost as life-changing as saying “yes” to Steven Ostendorff in 2006, regarding my acceptance to Webb.  A year ago, I was wondering how I’d be able to run my second-ever 5K after a long winter’s rest, but now I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to manage riding a bicycle across the US.

I’ve been active since Webb in volunteering on a small scale, such as working with a local theater and miscellaneous small events, but I’ve yet to do something that will take me away from my job and everything comfortable in my life for any significant amount of time, not to mention a few months.  That was until last October, when I first heard about this charitable organization dedicated to the need for affordable housing in the US by raising funds and awareness through yearly cross-country bicycle trips.  This organization is called Bike & Build, and the prospect of riding in one of their trips took hold in my brain and festered for only a couple weeks before I finally decided to commit 100% to it.

I will not be alone on my upcoming cross-country trip.  Every summer, Bike & Build arranges for 8 different groups of up to 34 cyclists (each) to cross this country from east to west in support of affordable housing.  As part of the Bike & Build Southern US (SUS) route, I will be riding across the US on bicycle from Jacksonville, FL to Monterey, CA (approx. 4060 miles).  During this trip, we will be not only be spreading awareness of the affordable housing crisis in every town that we come to and continuing to raise money for the cause, but we’ll also be stopping to volunteer our time at 12 separate affordable housing build sites along the way.  Over the course of the summer, I look forward to spending a total of 17 days building and 56 days riding from town to town (an average of 72 miles per day).  Along the way, I will be writing journal entries and posting pictures on my blog at http://crosscountrydan.blogspot.com, so please stay tuned for stories from the road!

I’ve been reading about student volunteer work in the WebbNews and I think that it’s a wonderful thing!  I’ve had the chance to help out at a few events during my time at Webb, but in retrospect, I could’ve done much more.  I highly encourage all Webbies, past and present, to get involved in your local communities and become aware of the world issues around you.  It is not only important that we stay on top of the big social issues now, but that we continue to do so throughout our lives.  I don’t know if one person alone can make a difference in the world, but if we all embrace the task of change on a personal level and do our best with what we have, I believe we might just make a collective difference.  I challenge everyone to consider this and to make the decision to start making that change from the inside out.  Find out what needs to change in you, then when you make those needed changes, you’ll be able to see more clearly about the true change needed in the world around you and how you can help.

Yours Truly,

Daniel Snyder (’10) 

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