Orientation, Build Day, and Farewell to Atlantic Ocean

So before Orientation really started Aksh (oldest brother) and I came to Charleston two days early. Staying at a Hotel turned out to be an awesome decision compared to the the original plan to camp out with some riders before Orientation since I learned during Orientation about the miserable time they had with the rain. The one day that Aksh and I had in Charleston we covered lots of ground going to Sullivans Island, Isle of Palm, and Fort Moultrie. The beaches were awesome since they weren't too crowded and you could see nearby dolphins swimming in the ocean.

So far for Bike and Build we have had 3 days of Orientation, a build day, and our farewell to the Atlantic Ocean as we biked 56 miles out to Moncks Corner, SC. So lets just break it down in that order.

Aksh dropped me off early at the Church where Orientation was going to be held on May 24th where I met my fellow 31 riders. I got there relatively early and got to meet everyone as they filtered in slowly. We started off the day with some ice breakers. There were multiple presentation about the organization, bike maintenance, bike safety, chores, daily schedules, and so on. Following presentations we had dinner and some time to just relax and get to know each other better. The following day we had our shakedown ride to Fort Moultrie which was about a 20 miles round trip. I got to check out the cannons again at the Fort but didn't stay to long, leaving well before many other riders. The rest of the day we basically had to ourselves which was pretty awesome since we had a 1 am curfew since we were building the next day.




So for our first build day we woke at 7 am and got ready with our bike and build t-shirts and ate breakfast. The shuttles took us to build site around 9 am to redo the roof aka re-shingling the roof in one day! It was kind of fun being up on the roof the whole day and we were extremely lucky it did not rain. The local news station came to the build site and the news report can be seen below.. check it out!! Following the bike lawyer that gave us the bike safety presentation sponsored a dinner at Sticky fingers where I scarfed down 5 pulled pork sandwiches along with chicken, some beans and of course coleslaw.




So the day after our build day we officially set off to the Santa Cruz. We once again went to Fort Moultrie to say goodbye to the Atlantic Ocean and biked to the Moncks Corner, SC which was a total of 56 miles.




The day couldn't of been any better and it was an incredible feeling to finally being this journey. We took a lunch break around 23 miles eating the left over donated food that we had been eating the last couple days. The last leg of the ride was a little difficult as I ran out of water and rode solo into the wind. I arrived at the second behind the first group of riders.



We rode another 3 miles to a nearby lake, which felt amazing after today's ride in the hot and humid weather. We ate dinner, showered, and of course drove to Wendy's to get some frosty's before we hit the sack, which I am going to do now. Already past curfew by 30 minutes so I got to get some sleep before the 65 mile day ahead to Sumter, SC.. so goodnight.