my biking history. or lack there of.

So. Where to start. My name is Megan. I grew up in a small town in Northern Michigan called Bear Lake. I graduated with a tiny class and loved every moment of it. I played several sports, but I never biked further than maybe 10 miles. Lynn's house, Kampvilla RV Park (Have you seen the Big Yellow Dinosaur?) and or maybe the softball fields.

I went to Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan where I earned a Bachelors degree in Criminal Justice. During this time I worked at Mickey’s Day Care on Packard st. in Ann Arbor, bd's Mongolian Grill in Downtown Ann Arbor and The Saline Rec Center.

While swimming at the pool one day, I decided I was going to do a Triathlon. I lifeguard everyday for a group of Triatheletes, Ironmanist, and the long distance swimmers. Randomly unplanned I went to the bike store. I never thought I would come home with a bicycle. I was just looking. Well, I came home with a bicycle that cost more than my car was worth. I of course hid the price of the bicycle to my father for months. I mean, It cost more than my car. He would kill me. But one day he went to the bicycle store, and guess what; they don’t sell road bikes under $900.00 and even at $900.00 don’t expect it to come with road clip pedals, road clip shoes, a air pump, helmet, bike shorts, bike jersey, carbon water bottle cage and aero bars. I was caught.

Phew, one parent down. Grandparents and mother still to go. Okay, so I just told my grandfather. He was okay with it, I mean he has $1,000 saddle bags on his "bike" (granted its powered by gasoline). Grandmother was not impressed. Not impressed at all, I could bike way faster than her now. She thought id never ride with her again. My mother was just upset that I didn’t buy a new car instead. Typical parent. Geesh.

I’m not going to lie, I bought the bike and maybe rode 600 miles the WHOLE summer before snowfall. So, it definitely cost more than a dollar a mile that summer.

The next summer I started riding more. By riding more I mean maybe 1000 miles the whole summer. Phew, at least the bike was no more than $1.00 a hour at this point. But still, I thought id use it more.

I took the bike ALL the way to Ocean City, MD (,Worcester County, 21842 LOL.) and rode it occasionally. Did my first metric century near the end of the summer, and re fell in love. When I did this bike ride I didn’t really instead to ride for 64 miles and left my cell phone on coffee table. When I returned 4 hours later my roommates were seriously worried for my own good. They thought how I could still be riding my bike for 4 hours. But it was amazing. To bad summer was almost over. I Moved to Ocean Pines for a month, continued to do 40 - 60 miles on my off days until I moved back to Michigan and was welcomed with snow.

In May of 2008 is when I really started enjoying my bicycle more. I moved back to East Coast and lived in Roxana, DE for 6 months. DE had bike paths on some roads, can you believe it. In the Early summer, everyday after work (where I rode a mountain pedal bike for 10 hours) I would come home and do either a 18, 24, 29, and or 33 mile loop. Then one early July day, my car had its last mile. For the next 4.5 months I rode my bike EVERYWHERE. This is when I became a bicycling addict. The first couple days were rough, how am I going to get all my gear to and from work everyday, ugh I thought this is going to suck getting to work sweaty to just get sweaty again biking, and I don’t wan to get up early. But these thoughts were gone after a week. I loved it. Bicycle commuting was peaceful, self rewarding and energizing. It was a 14 mile flat pedal to work and then again back from work. By August, I was biking everyday after work again. Either a 18, 24, or 29 mile loops. I did a lot of metric centuries on my days off and a couple centuries. I rode to explore, to go to the beach, to go grocery shopping, to go to court (now this was a little more difficult, but hey it made me pedal faster so my suit didn’t creases), to get ice cream, to do EVERYTHING. It was amazing.

I moved back to Michigan in October and started working the very next day. Now 8 hrs in the state is no time to find a car. I also had no time to figure out how long my pedal was going to be. I think I arrived in Milan at 8pm on a Tuesday and I worked at 530 am on Wed. Not knowing how long it was going to take me, or how long it was to get to the pool, I left 2 hrs early. I was so early. It was 14 miles the route I went to the pool, but hilly, crappy gravel roads, and dark. I did that for a couple days. Then I started working at my other bd's Mongolian grill in Ann Arbor too. It was 28 miles from my Milan house on biking roads and 11 from the Saline Rec Center. I did this for weeks. It started getting chilly, darker, and not as fun. It was not as easy to commute by bicycle because the temp was not right, I didn’t have a rewarding job, and the roads are in horrible condition. I wanted to still love and have a passion for my bicycle. So....I broke down and got a car.

As spring 2009 came. I began to love the idea of biking again. I didn’t have much time to get on the saddle. But I put in a few miles. Then one day I decided to Google cross country bicycle fundraising. I came across Bike and Build. Full for the summer. MS bike US. FULL. Fuller Center for Housing bike trip. Almost didn’t click it. Figured it would be junk, I certainly never heard of whatever it was. But I did. From the first page, I fell in love. Did some research and knew it was meant for me. I didn’t think I would register for a bike trip that week; I was just looking into it. But my heart fell for this trip. And I can’t wait for it to begin.

Now…. It is Time for…. fundraising and pedaling.