Van Duty, Episode 3: Food Van Edition

So, for my first two turns in the vans, I was in water van. This time, I was in food van for the first time! Riders were going from Edwards to Carbondale.

Riders were going to parallel the I-70 corridor until Glenwood Springs, then head south on a bike path to Carbondale.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but the job of the food van is to transport everyone’s duffels and backpacks and to feed the riders for the day. Typically they will go out and get food and then meet the riders on the road somewhere, unless we have a short day, in which case we might just eat at the host. We have no budget for food, so all of our food must be donated.

Asking people for free food to feed 25 cyclists isn’t an easy job… giving out your product for free is obviously horrible business. And when you have 25 hungry people depending on you, it can be stressful. I was a little nervous!

I was food van passenger, and Sarah was driver. Our job began as soon as the alarms went off, when it was our job to pack the vans. We had to pack 25 duffels and 25 backpacks, along with all of our other assorted gear: water jugs, bike maintenance stuff, random shoes that people forgot to pack in their bags, etc.

Sarah!

We basically just stuff the back of the van with duffels, then put the backpacks in with more care (people’s laptops are in there). Our stuff takes up the whole van except for the front row, which later fills with food. We also have to put the van drivers’ bikes on the roof. We worked quickly and packed everything up while riders were eating breakfast. It was definitely an upper body workout!

As we were taking stuff out to the vans, I accidentally did something stupid… I unpropped the door to the room we were staying in… the door locked behind me, and we didn’t have the keys. Luckily no bikes were in there, but people’s personal stuff was. It was almost time to leave. We quickly called our host contact, but at 8 am on a Saturday it was no surprise that he didn’t answer.

Having no other choice, we continued on with our morning routine, did our dedication circle, and sent the riders off. The vans hung around for a bit in hopes that we’d hear back from our host, but we didn’t. We had no choice but to head out, and figure out how to get back to pick up our stuff later. As usual, we'd be "doing it live."

The tricky thing about food van duty is deciding a strategy. You want to locate the place along the route that will have the most chance of giving you food donations, i.e. a well-populated area. At the same time, you don’t want to get too far away from riders that you won’t be able to catch them in time for a reasonably-timed lunch. (That results in hanger.) You also have to keep in mind that most food establishments don’t open until 10 or 11 am. It’s a risky business, and you kind of just have to weigh your options and come up with a plan of attack.

Since our day was pretty short (60 miles) we didn’t have to worry about meeting up with riders, because we could just feed them at the host. Our options were: stay in Edwards, head straight to Carbondale, or stop in Glenwood Springs, which was 15 miles from the host. We decided not to stay in Edwards because it was a pretty small town and nothing was open yet, and decided to hit up Glenwood Springs because we were going to need to get dinner donations in Carbondale.

The drive on I-70 was INCREDIBLE. Hands down the most beautiful drive I’ve ever been on in my life. It was a windy road through Glenwood Canyon, which is supposedly of the 10 most beautiful canyons in the world. The highway is raised because of flooding issues they had about 15 years ago. This section of highway is the second-most expensive highway to upkeep in the country because of its raised nature and Colorado’s weather. Sarah and I were freaking out the whole time about the amazing views. (Seems to be a theme on my blog that Sarah and I freak out together a lot). I had to remind her to look at the road. Cue the millions of pictures I took from the passenger seat.

The drive went by quickly because it was so great. By the time we rolled into Glenwood Springs, it was 10:00 on the nose. Perfect timing!

We were happy to see a ton of cars around, meaning business was booming in Glenwood Springs and people might have food to spare. However, it was a Saturday, and weekends usually mean that managers aren’t in and employees can’t get approval for donations.

We first went into Subway, and Sarah did the pitch. As we feared, the manager wasn’t in. However, the very nice employee gave us his cell phone number. I called and got his voicemail, so I left a message, thinking he definitely wouldn’t be bothering with my request on his Saturday morning/ day off, and not expecting a call back.

Sarah before going into Subway. We bring the binder so we look official! ;)

We headed to another restaurant that was too busy to talk to us (they had a line out the door), and then we headed back to the van to drive to another part of town. As we were about to get in the van, I got a call from Subway’s manager! I thanked him for calling back and repeated what we were asking for. To my amazement, he said, “sure, what do you want?” I said... 25 boxed lunches? And he said ok. Just like that we had fed the entire team!!

I specified that we have three vegetarians, and he then called the store and gave his employees instructions on what to make for us. The situation could not have been more ideal! We waited about 30 minutes for them to make the boxed lunches – each had a 6-inch sub, a bag of chips, and a cookie.

While they were making the subs, we got a call from the water van, who had gotten in touch with our host. They wanted to know if we could go back to retrieve our stuff from the wrestling room. There was no way we could because we were 40 miles away and waiting for our food.

Since we already had food for the whole team, we made the quick decision to have the water van go back and get the stuff and have us take over water van duty for the second water stop. We had Subway fill our giant water cooler for us and as soon as the sandwiches were ready we carried the giant boxes out to the van and booked it back to mile 45 to meet the riders.

Us in the canyon while waiting for riders :)

The two giant boxes of Subway we got for the team!

Unfortunately, no one had cell service in the canyon so we had no idea where anyone was. The best we could do was guess based on what time it was. We set up the food and chalked “4K food + water” so riders wouldn’t miss the stop, but got kind of worried after 30 minutes of waiting. Finally we saw a group show up and we cheered them in as usual. They were confused to see the food van instead of the water van but quickly forgot their confusion when they saw the food, instead focusing on devouring it (I told you people become animals at water stops). Riders were pleasantly surprised that they got lunch before noon, because that rarely happens.

We stayed at the water/food stop for a good hour, until the water van came back and took over for us. At that point we headed to the host and unloaded the van (again, quite a workout). The first group arrived, and we headed back out to look for dinner donations. It was only about 2 pm, but that’s a slow time for restaurants so we figured it’d be a good time to ask for donations.

Sarah and I had some good luck again. At Domino’s, the manager agreed to give us 6 pizzas, two containers of breadsticks, and 1 thing of cinna-stix (our riders go nuts for cinna stix). We already had a donation set up at a local pizza place for 4 pizzas, and a grocery store gave us $25, which we used to buy fruits and veggies. We were pretty proud of how well we maximized this $25.

$24.94. That's what I call efficiency!!

Thank you Domino's!!!

We figured 10 pizzas and a bunch of snacks was more than enough to feed the team dinner, so we went back to the host and our job was done for the day before 3:30 pm! Yay!!

That evening we went to Aspen at the request of Nitkin, who just spent a year living there. He wanted to show us how cool it was. First we went to the Maroon Bells, which were awesome! They are one of the 14000 foot peaks in Colorado and are named that way because, well, they look like maroon bells. 

It was really pretty and we ate our pizza up there. We also gave some pizza to hungry backpackers. Then we headed back down to Aspen.

Aspen was definitely a neat town with an interesting vibe. There were really rich people coexisting peacefully with Colorado hippies and ski bums. The town center had Prada, Burberry, bike shops, and tourist T-shirt stores all next to each other. We got ice cream at a super expensive ice cream shop and then sat outside enjoying some live music by students of the Aspen Music School. Nitkin left us to meet up with his friends, who lived all over town.

Eating our ice cream; Gavin being a goof as usual

Live music :)

Kids playing in the fountain in Aspen

Meredith and Zach demonstrating what to do if you see a bear.

On our way back we saw these homeless guys and Gavin hopped out to give them a whole pizza. :)

It was a successful day in the food van! Although I was nervous about the pressure, it all worked out, and we got plenty of food. I felt like a mama bird feeding her helpless youngsters. :) Carbondale and Aspen were great too; I really love this part of Colorado!

After this, we had only one more day in the amazing Rockies!! Check back for updates on that :)