Day 5 – Laundry, Bike Keys and a Day Off

So after a long, wet, bone chilling day on the bikes Tuesday the team had a well deserved day off in Seattle yesterday. We were split between the homes of two incredibly accommodating people, basically filling every nook and cranny of both homes and exploding with wet gear and tired bodies in all directions. These hosts, are good people. We can’t express enough gratitude to the wonderful hosts along the way, schools, community centres, churches, bike shops, homes and all!

The crew headed out on the town, talked to a lot of people about the ride and microcredit, and took a bunch of videos for our new video contest. Global AFC has launched a contest with Memelabs at www.memelabs.com/globalafc, asking people what THEY would do to change the world. We’ve already gotten some great responses that will be up soon, check out the link above for all the details and maybe win $500 for the cause of your choice!

Upon arriving back at the apartment our group was staying in, it quickly became apparent that the washer and dryer, despite running for 24 hours straight, were NOT going to make it through our monster pile of wet, dirty laundry from the day before. So at 10pm, even with an impending 5:30am wake-up, headed out to the 24 hour laundromat. With the help of Anna’s boyfriend who had come to Seattle to visit her, they managed to save the day and get everything clean and dry (if not yet sorted) in the wee hours before bed!

Just when we though the crises were over for the evening, we managed to figure out that one of the riders had locked several bikes together and in all the laundry kerfuffle the key had disappeared. This is a problem. And it was very late, with a MUST catch ferry heading out at 8:30.

So at 1 in the morning we find Isaac and Jessica carrying three locked bikes to meet the 24 hr locksmith in a dark alley (all sounds VERY legit, I know). $140 and one expensive lock drilled open later, we were set to catch 5 hours of sleep before these guys ride 100 km + this morning. And this was a rest day…

I leave it here – I’ve been supporting the riders the first few days and have to get back to Vancouver to check in on the rest of our programs and projects, and it was a bit of a heart-wrenching goodbye to see them off at the ferry today. They should be just back on the road now, on their way to McCleary (of all places), where city hall has instructions to give us the keys to the community center.

Send the crew some good thoughts – we expected a lot for sure, but they are a truly inspiring and amazing group and I’m incredibly proud and honoured to have them as this year’s Riding to Break the Cycle team.

Shawn

PS We found the bike lock in the morning…for insult to injury