An update from Valley Forge.

Whew. What a day.

Mike and Tyler here from a dorm in Valley Forge, PA. We're spending the night here in a nice little room waiting for a crew to assemble to play some ultimate.  Today was the longest ride we've been on as a duo. The ride was scheduled to be about 60 miles, but we got lost a couple times and actually rode about 67.  Without including the unintentional detours that we made, click here to see the route.

Leaving Princetown this morning, we rode about 20 miles of neighborhoods that reminded us of Connecticut. It was more scenic than our first day by far.  We stopped for a break on the Delaware River in a town called Lambertville, NJ.  Lambertville was a quaint town with a friendly atmosphere and nice old buildings everywhere.  After changing a tire and filling up on GORP, we pushed onward into Pennsylvania.  This part of the ride was really nice.  We had a set of rolling hills and some sweet down hills where we topped off at around 38 mph.  We rode with a group of friends for most of the day keeping pace together and pushing each other up the hills by encouraging each other when getting tired.  We have also mastered the art of drafting which has seriously helped us trade off rest periods on the flat and downhill portions of our rides.  Finishing the ride today felt great, and i know that dinner tonight will feel even better!

Last night was also worth mentioning briefly here.  Each night, the Climateride organizers have scheduled speakers to address the riders and general public about Climate Change and the development of activist efforts nationwide.  Last night, Betsy Taylor, president of the 1 Sky campaign, spoke to us on the Princeton campus about the importance of forming a collective, youth-led movement demanding big changes from the U.S. government in regards to its energy policy.  Her speech was quite inspiring, and the question that followed were extremely interesting.  People raised their hands and after a short introduction about their job/position and hometown launched into questioning.  The questions came from highly informed people (also climateriders) who were mostly working directly in the business of promoting/developing renewable energies.  They inspired some great discussions that continued even after filing out of the hall.

We will also be posting pictures from the first few days of our trip tonight.  So stay tuned, we've got some nice ones. 

Tyler and Mike