Katie MacDonald - Bike the US for MS
It's been almost two and a half weeks since we dipped our tires into the Pacific Ocean, and I am still missing the trip like crazy. So much has happened in the past few months, with almost no transition time in between for me to fully process what's happened. I finished grad school in May, went to my graduation ceremony, and then the next day drove out to Bar Harbor to start the ride. After the ride ended, I had only two and a half days on the west coast before I flew back to Massachusetts and moved into a new apartment and started a new job. It's been crazy, but what an amazing few months it has been. The day after the tire dip, I packed up all of my stuff, shipped my bike to Boston, and then Austin and I took a bus to Vancouver to spent a couple days with his family. We had a great time, and managed to fit a lot of sightseeing into one day. We rented bikes and rode around Stanley Park, got gelato at Bella Gelateria, saw the Olympic Torch, and walked around Granville Island. Not going to lie, was really missing my Trek during the ride through Stanley Park - my rental bike only had 3 gears. When I got back to Massachusetts and moved in to my new apartment, the air conditioning, fridge, and shower didn't work, and I didn't have a bed yet, so it felt like I had extended my camping trip a bit longer. When power was restored, and my fridge was working again, I went to the grocery store and was blown away by all of the cooking options that came with having refrigeration, an oven, and a full sized stove. PB&J tortillas are definitely still on the menu though. I thought I would be sick of them, but somehow I'm not! Work has been great, and I am loving my new job, although it has been difficult to transition from biking all day to sitting down all day. I was so excited when my bike finally arrived on Aug. 15! I was able to assemble it myself, and just took it out for my first long ride since the trip. I rode 60mi yesterday, to Cambridge and back, and it was such a good feeling to be back on the bike. I've already been thinking about bike tours that I could do next summer, so stay tuned! There are a few people that have donated since May, so I wanted to give a shout out to Megan, Courtney, Carolina, Nancy, the Todds, and Alex. Thanks so so much to everyone who donated! As a team, the Northern Tier raised $79,245, which is an incredible number. Back in one of my blog posts from Montana, I mentioned that two cyclist from a Bike and Build team had been involved in a devastating accident in Idaho. I didn't write too much about it in my blog at the time, partly because I didn't want to worry my friends and family back home, but mostly because I just didn't know what to say. Mike Platania, a program manager at Bike the US for MS, and Jen Cherry, fellow Northern Tier cyclist, have a much better way with words, and both wrote great write-ups about the accident on their blogs. I highly recommend checking those out.
I recently discovered that there are GoFundMe pages that have been set up to support Laura's road to recovery, as well as Anne's family as they deal with their tragic loss. If anyone would like to support them, the links are below.
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katie macdonald
Summer 2016, I biked 4,295 miles, coast to coast across the USA to raise money and awareness for MS. March 2017, I biked self-contained from San Francisco to San Diego with my friend Carissa. August 2017 I connected the dots and biked from Seattle to San Francisco. Summer 2018 I am heading to the UK! Follow my journey here! Miles biked for MS:
6,800.13
Updated August 27, 2018 Archives
January 2019
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