Wanted to give everyone an idea of the people I've spent the last 70 days with: my 4K family. All are incredible people, and I am honored to know them. They are going to go out and change the world. So I thought I'd share a few blurbs about each person's personality, their role on the team, memories I have with them, etc. I think it will also be fun for my teammates and me to come back to later on to reminisce. If you want to read about each rider's personal connection to cancer and their reasons for doing the ride, click on their 4K page link. Turned out I had so much to say that I had to split the team up into 4 posts.. so here are the under-21 girls!
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Jen Macko
Age: 20
Hometown: Maryland
Jen! Just thinking about her makes me happy. Jen was voted Best Attitude and Most Smiley, which is totally accurate. She was always in a super bubbly mood and brightened everyone's days just by being herself. She likes to think out loud which I think is really funny. She can also be a bit of a space cadet sometimes (don't worry she agrees), which we always found funny, but in all reality yes she is smart. And also one of the fastest girls on the team! Go Jen!
Jen can be found doing goofy things almost all the time; she's never afraid of getting dirty and I thought it was funny how she just laid down anywhere on any surface to rest. She could also be found making frequent bathroom breaks on the side of the road because is very health-conscious (she shares my obsession with fruit) and she drinks a ton of water. Or, you might find her hiding inside a rock in Arches National Park:
She always has a really cute face when she is caught doing something silly:
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| Jen being silly even after she fell |
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| This puddle was from the rain but Jen looked down and said "Am I leaking?" |
And she goes to College Park so I get to see her and go on more bike rides with her! Yay! Here's us attempting to spell out UMD in Moab:
Also, props to Jen for being the team's on-the-road photographer and posting lots of artsy pictures of us on Instagram. (You can check them out on the team Instagram account, @4KPortland, or on her personal account @guhjen)
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Angelica Scanu
Age: 19
Hometown: Golden, CO
Angelica fell more than anyone else on the team... unfortunately, before the trip, her bike was stolen, and she couldn't get a new one until the day before we left Baltimore. Not only that but she had to get a guys bike instead of a girls, because that's all the 4K had left. That meant she was not comfortable on her bike at first, and it took her a while to get the hang of the clip-in pedals.
Falls were common when she was getting on and off her bike, and poor Angelica had recurring scrapes on all her joints for most of the summer. She also took two bad falls at 20 mph that sent her to the ER for X-rays. The second one gave her a concussion and she wasn't able to ride the last 5 days of the ride.
Falls were common when she was getting on and off her bike, and poor Angelica had recurring scrapes on all her joints for most of the summer. She also took two bad falls at 20 mph that sent her to the ER for X-rays. The second one gave her a concussion and she wasn't able to ride the last 5 days of the ride.
Aside from her susceptibility to falls, Angelica really persevered and improved so much over the course of the ride. I give her major props for riding a guys bike, because the guys bikes lack the third ring of gears that the girls have that makes it easier to pedal up hills. She struggled with the hills at the beginning, but she started getting this determination to get up them. You could see it in her face and her stance when she passed you. By the end of the trip she was pushing her group's pace and keeping up with the faster guys a lot of the time. I think everyone was really impressed with her.
Angelica and I shared a special connection: our Italian heritage. We frequently bonded over our love of tomatoes and by speaking Italian to each other and confusing the rest of the team. Here's a relevant photo of Angelica cutting tomatoes:
One of my favorite memories with Angelica was when we stayed at her house and her parents cooked us a ton of awesome food (read: Italian!!!) and threw us a fun party. Angelica's friends and neighbors were awesome and very welcoming. Here's Angelica with her family at their house:
And here's the two of us imitating this stuffed fox in the hunting lodge in Arapahoe:
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Gina Eichert
Age: 20
Hometown: Towson, MD
Gina - usually our first thought about her is her height :) She's tiny at 4'11". I thought my bike was small until I saw hers. I asked her if they had to go into the kids' bikes for her. Her bike was too small to have a second water bottle cage, which is why she has that water bottle sticking out under her seat. Actually that water bottle tried to kill me several times when I was biking behind her in Hells Canyon and it launched itself right in front of my tire -- not once but twice. I somehow managed to dodge it once and run it over the second time without crashing, but that water bottle was definitely out to get me.
Gina may be small but that's no indication of her personality. She's really outgoing and loooves to talk. Obviously she gets that from her Italian side, which we had in common. She also comes from a background of being a serious triathlete (she started the Triathlon club at Towson!) and was definitely a strong cyclist coming into the ride. She had some persistent knee issues throughout the ride but she was usually at the point of tears before she could be convinced to get off her bike. She is very perseverant.
Riding in Gina's group typically meant mandatory talking the whole time, required stops to pet any and all horses, and a lot of fun. I rode with her on one of the centuries and it went by crazy fast because we had such a good time.
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| She may be small but she's full of energy. Here she is obviously actively engaged in a water gun fight.. and running on the wrong side of the road? |
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| Gina and I at Party City, getting ready for the 4th of July |
Also, the entire team is sure that Jared and Gina are going to get married. As a couple they were nicknamed The Princess and The Pea.
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Chelsea Robinson
Age: 20
Hometown: Frederick, MD
I talked about this at the very beginning of my blog but not everyone was reading my blog at that point, so I'll recap: Chelsea's one of my roommates at UMD, and this year will be our third year living together.
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| Us with our other roommates in our apartment |
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| Our roommates even came to see us off on Send-Off day :) |
We both have a similar love for activity and adventurous spirit. Basically this is what went down one day:
Me: "So Chelsea, I'm thinking of doing this crazy thing this summer: biking across the country."
Chelsea: "Oh wow, really? Hmm, you know, I don't really have any plans for this summer. That sounds cool. Mind if I join?"
And that's how Chelsea and I ended up on 4K Portland. Chelsea's mom has been going through treatment for breast cancer so the cause was definitely important to her. It definitely helped to have someone to train with, and we went into the ride knowing we at least had one friend.
Chelsea is very determined and hard-working in everything she does. She's a total Type A, super organized and clean (I know this because I live with her), and very smart and studious. She's known she wants to be a doctor for years, and has already gotten into medical school and will be going to George Washington Med School next year. Right now she works as a scribe at Shady Grove Hospital and works long, stressful hours there, including overnights, on top of her tough school schedule where she still earns top grades. At first she had some doubts and worries about whether she could really bike across the country, but I was never concerned. I knew she would put the same dedication into this bike trip just like she does everything else. And she did!
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| We made it!!! |
On the ride, Chelsea was a leg leader with me, so we worked together a lot to find hosts, food, and showers to make sure riders were happy. We also helped fill in a lot of gaps on the other two legs and together with the other leg leaders we managed to make sure we never went a single day without showers! Luxury living!! Yay us!
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Meredith Willson
Age: 20
Hometown: Annapolis, MD
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| Decked out for the 4th: Her shirt says 'Pure Country' |
Mere-bear!! I called her Mere-bear, but I was one of the only ones that did so I guess it wasn't really a nickname. Anyway, Meredith is one of the nicest girls I've ever met. She is smart, caring, thoughtful, and funny. When you're out on the road every day and it's hot/humid/raining/hilly/you got a flat/you name it, it's easy to complain. But Meredith never complained. She was a total trooper, and she's most commonly seen laughing at something.
Meredith also goes to UMD and I did meet her before the ride, when she organized the 4K/UMD Tri club training ride to Annapolis. I was pretty intimidated by her at first because I knew she was on the Tri team and was an awesome athlete. But Meredith was totally nice, EVEN when Chelsea and I managed to get three flats on that training ride.
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| When we finally made it to Annapolis |
On the 4K, I liked when Meredith was in the water van because she went overboard cheering on riders, by frantically jumping up and down in the middle of the road when riders were still a half mile away, and by wearing outfits such as this:
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| Meredith, that's not how it goes... |
Meredith also did a lot of work as a leg leader for the third portion of the trip with Gina. We wouldn't have gotten to Portland without her! She was also among the crazy half of the team that went swimming in the Pacific when we got there (it was freezing)
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| Meredith and Zach after their polar dip in the water |
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Julie Ansorge
Nickname: Gucci
Age: 18
Gucci!!! Julie was the baby of the team. She's actually 19 now but she was still 18 at the end of the trip. On Day 1 Julie says she had barely trained for the ride, was terrified and was sure she couldn't do it. She was supposed to do this trip with her friend, but her friend backed out only a few days before the trip.
Day 1 wasn't easy for anyone, with 72 miles, rolling hills and a tough climb at the end, and Julie says there were multiple times where she was near tears and really close to getting off her bike and calling her mom to come pick her up. It took her a really long time to get up that last hill, but Meredith stayed with her every step of the way. Finally they made it. Completing Day 1 was a major milestone... and Julie held off on calling her mom.
Day 1 wasn't easy for anyone, with 72 miles, rolling hills and a tough climb at the end, and Julie says there were multiple times where she was near tears and really close to getting off her bike and calling her mom to come pick her up. It took her a really long time to get up that last hill, but Meredith stayed with her every step of the way. Finally they made it. Completing Day 1 was a major milestone... and Julie held off on calling her mom.
The rest of the week was still a struggle for her and there were still points where she wanted to give up. But everyone was pushing for her and we knew she could do it. With a lot of encouragement and her own willpower, she made it through the Appalachians and onward.
As the weeks progressed, Julie became a stronger and stronger rider and was super fast by the end! Not only that but she also came out of her very shy shell and once she warmed up to us her true personality came out.
As the weeks progressed, Julie became a stronger and stronger rider and was super fast by the end! Not only that but she also came out of her very shy shell and once she warmed up to us her true personality came out.
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| Casual nap on a banister (4K OK) |
Turns out her true personality is very outgoing, goofy, and involves a ton of jokes. That we loved. Every day Julie's mom texted her a joke, and every day she would share it with the team. Most of the time the jokes were terribly corny, but the way Julie told them, cracking up practically with tears in her eyes, made them hilarious. We all miss Julie's jokes a lot.
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| Julie and I in Yellowstone. Check out her tan lines!!! |
Now for her nickname... ok I'm actually not entirely sure where it came from, but I think it was because she would say "That's Gucci" in place of "That's good" or "that's cool" or something similar. Then people just started calling her Gucci! (4K people please correct me if I'm wrong...) What's funny is that when we met Bike & Build in Idaho we found out that someone on their team was nicknamed Gucci as well. How strange is that? Except their Gucci was a guy.
In keeping with her status as the baby of the team, Gucci's spelling skills left a little something to be desired ;) And she would sometimes be heard whining "I'm booooooored" if you weren't entertaining her to her standards. But she would entertain us when she was in the water van - she won Best Water Van Passenger because whenever you saw Julie's smiling face in the water van window it was just impossible not to be happy.
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