Poughkeepsie, NY

Hi all - writing from the library at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY. We biked into town at about noon today. We only had about 30 miles of riding so we're here early and have a lot of time to hang out. Most of my stuff is still in the van which is en route so I can't upload any new photos just yet. However, yesterday on our longest, hilliest ride yet (from Agawam, MA to Kent, CT) a few of us stopped to get lunch somewhere off the beaten path and ended up talking with a photographer who has some connection to CNN. He took us all outside the sub shop and took some photos -- hopefully hooking us up with a story on CNN. This all ocurred AFTER the sub shop have us 25% off and a woman handed us a $20. All in all, we each paid $2 for lunch and got B&B some good advertising.

So that was the good news for the day. The bad news is that one of our riders, Derrick, took a pretty nasty spill shortly after breaking away from the pack around mile 40. He was going about 30mph when his waterbottle came loose and in an attempt to adjust it he swerved and hit some gravel sending him off the road and hard onto the ground. By the time the rest of us arrived Derrick had already been picked up in the van and driven to the Kent School, cleaned up, and given crutches. He decided he wanted to go to the hospital to get it checked out even though the school trainer thought it was probably only badly bruised. But he really couldn't even walk, and the X-ray ended up showing a broken pelvic bone. Everyone was really sad this morning when the leaders told us -- Derrick's parents were on the way to come and take him home. He won't be riding with us anymore this summer because of a minimum 6 week recovery time, but he's already said he will ride next summer instead. We all really had only started to get to know each other, but because of the tasks we were conquering everyday, we all felt a lot closer than we would have been in any other situation. I will miss Derrick a lot, and hope for his speedy recovery. You can send well wishes to djt8n@virginia.edu.

Despite Derrick's unfortunate fall, the ride yesterday was actually really great and forced me to push my limits even farther. I have never felt burning in my muscles that long or that strong. I was almost reduced to tears mutiple times, but knowing everyone else was feeling the same, I pushed through and was so impressed by everyone. Gotta run now, but more pictures will come later when I get the chance to upload.