We had planned to have a Bike and Build prom in Trinidad, CO and began asking one another on the days preceding the prom.
Claire and I decided to ask Brynne to prom (due to Brynne's hottness and the surplus of lady riders).
Of course the importance of a creative prom invitation can not be over stated.
Mid-ride, Claire and I stopped and hid behind some trees to write "Brynne, Prom?" across both of our butts.
Then we waited until we could impose ourselves upon Brynne's riding group and isolate her for the Big Question.
When it was just us three and traffic cleared, Claire and I sped up and biked in front of Brynne, pulling down our shorts revealing our butts and the corresponding question.
Of course she said yes, and we had a roadside party in celebration of our fanciness.
It should also be noted that the prom was cross-dressing themed...
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
An amateur geographical survey of the US from the perspective of a bicycle
This is a paper I wrote for a Geography 100 class at BSU,
the prompt was: describe your favorite PLACE
the prompt was: describe your favorite PLACE
South Carolina,
California, and Everything In-Between
This
summer my favorite place became the United States; specifically (but still
generally) the route I took from Charleston, SC to Santa Cruz, CA. As I rode my
bicycle across the country with my 29 teammates I saw some amazing geographical
and cultural changes. Some changes were gradual, going by unnoticed, and some
were sudden, drastic, and disorienting. I spent the summer biking for
affordable housing with a group called Bike and Build and I experienced every
geographic change from the East to West coast from a bicycle.
I
spent five days in Charleston and immediately recognized the change in
humidity. I stayed in a marina and took some time adjusting to being near the ocean.
Walking around the marina I saw a dolphin, turtles, many fish, and many more
bugs. Charleston was very flat and nice to bike through except for railroad
tracks at strange angles (a cyclists worst nightmare and cause of my first
crash), and poor road conditions such as potholes and drains. We ceremoniously
dipped out back tires in the water of the Atlantic Ocean as we headed out the
first day. Leaving Charleston and biking through the rest of South Carolina and
then Georgia was extremely hilly and forested. Trees and other plants hugged
the roads in Georgia. Going from Georgia into Alabama I learned that there was
a drastic cultural shift in the concept of dog ownership, as nearly none of the
residents cared to chain or fence their dogs, dogs which chased bicycles and
got progressively more mean the further we got into Alabama. Leaving Georgia I
hit a dog on my bike and had my second and last crash of the summer. The dog
was fine, too bad I ended up unconscious for a minute while my friends called
me an ambulance.
Mississippi
was another beautiful, very green, state. I noticed an invasive vine throughout
MS, which I later learned is called Kudzu. It covers all other plants and trees and
creates a rather Dr. Seuss inspired landscape that I swerved on my bike more
than once to stare at. Arkansas
was beautiful and very similar to the states before it. Known as the rice and
duck capital of the world, Arkansas proved to be full of character, and
human-sized mosquitoes. As we rode into Oklahoma, however, things changed for
the worse. It was a decent state for the first couple miles that still looked
like Arkansas, but suddenly all plant life around us died as if the apocalypse
was something that had been going on for a while in OK and the rest of the
world was just starting to catch on to. Oklahoma is a geographically large
state, what this means to a cyclist is this: you’re going to be there for a
while. Our daily mileage increased throughout OK and stayed high through the
panhandle of Texas. With two century (100 mile) days in this region and 80-90 mile
days the rest of the time, there was no way we were going to like this part of
the country. To make it better, Mother Nature provided us with spirit-crushing
headwinds as well as hellish heat up to 114 degrees. We also noticed a
worsening of road conditions with hills, construction, and less-than patient
drivers. The prevalence of gargantuan trucks should also be noted here.
Needless to say we didn’t have high standards for the next state and were
immediately won over by the small corner of New Mexico we rode through. All it
took was a tree every 20 miles or so, and some degree of scenery. I think the
real advantage of New Mexico was simply the fact that it wasn’t Texas.
I
should mention that we took the scenic route across the country, and right
about here is where the ridiculousness begins. We biked up a fragment of New
Mexico into my entire team’s favorite state, Colorado. We arrived just a day
after the fires had been put out and didn’t notice any smoke during our rides,
just a lack of oxygen from a sudden increase in altitude. Our first mountain
pass in Colorado was Cuchara pass at 9,995 feet, painfully close to 10,000. I
had to ride twenty yard increments and stop to catch my breath because I was so
new to the increased altitude as well as the increased ride difficulty. We
quickly learned that Colorado had a funny way of sneaking mountains between
each town we had to ride to. There is no experience quite like biking towards a
mountain range, thinking to yourself “I have to go through that somehow,” and
then doing it. Unanimously my team named our ride over Independence Pass as our
favorite ride, riding from the beautiful Twin Lakes, CO (a place with next to
no light pollution and the best view of the stars I have ever seen), to the
ritzy and pretentious resort town of Aspen with a reputation for celebrity visitors and skiing. We climbed to 12,095 feet from somewhere in the range of
8,000 feet. Filled with joy and terrifying the families that had driven there,
we had a dance party atop the pass once everyone arrived. We danced amidst
patches of snow in an area designated as sensitive tundra; we biked to a
different climate in one ride-day.
We
forgave Utah for being a desert because it managed to still be pleasant to look
at, beautiful even. Biking into scenery that included the amazing and signature
red rock of Utah, as well as some amazing climbs and descents into Mars-like
valleys. There was a drastic shift in driver culture on our first ride in Utah. Immediately upon leaving CO we got onto a highway with a reputation that
preceded it, Highway 40. Commonly used by oil drill workers and almost entirely
huge truck drivers, this road was not a hospitable one for cyclists such as
ourselves. We experienced every form of driver harassment, ranging from
yelling, to throwing food, driving as close to us as possible and off the road
a couple of times, purposefully accelerating to blow exhaust from their trucks,
honking and every other form of unfriendliness you care to come up with. We had
three days on this road, I could only stomach two days and spent the next in
our support van worrying about my teammates as the road worsened with the new
obstacle of single-lanes due to construction.
We
rode through the driest part of Idaho, which made my job of convincing everyone
to move here much harder. The desert was quickly forgiven however by the
once-again dramatic change in driver attitudes. Idaho drivers right from the
state line gave us more space on the road, waved at us more, and all around had
Utahans beat for niceness. Biking into Boise confused my teammates even though
I had done my best to make it sound like the mid-desert oasis it really is.
Soon enough we were back in the desert, Oregon desert. This confused some of my teammates which only knew about the Oregon that existed in Portland,
they anticipated a rainforest and got a desert. We spent one night in Oregon in
a town called Wagontire, with a population of one. We spent that night
convincing the one man that lived there to like us, as he had formed a negative
opinion from the group that was on our route the summer before.
California
was all kinds of Geographic insanity. The beginning was still desert, and
startlingly cowboy-obsessed. We biked along a 15-mile Alkali lake at one point.
With a pH too low for any living organisms, it was just a bright blue, barren,
salty, smelly, and disorienting lake view. It was beautiful to ride alongside
but didn’t make any logical sense to me so I spent the majority of the ride
being confused by the scenery rather than enjoying it. We also rode along many
salt flats, giving me the impression that we were biking on a different planet,
especially disorienting when we saw random signs warning us of loose Bulls
which seemed like anything but a native species, extraterrestrials seemed more
likely. We rode through Lassen National Park and had another rare experience,
this time we rode over a volcano, a dormant one but still, a volcano! Some
riders even hiked to the top of the volcano once they finished biking to the
top of the pass, where they managed to find patches of snow to slide down. We
climbed somewhere in the range of 6,000 feet that day. The rest of our time in
California we were supposed to steadily lose elevation as we approached sea
level, and yet CA managed to give us some of the hardest climbs of the trip.
One day consisted of 60 miles of climbing. We rode over an extremely steep
mountain pass on our final day and later in the day were slapped in the face
with an 11% grade hill, or more accurately called a wall.
The
final three miles in Santa Cruz we rode as a team, which resembled something
worse than herding a group of cats towards a pool. We arrived at the beach
welcomed by the locals, yelling solely because they heard us yelling, and our
family and friends blocking traffic for our final turn into the beach. We
sprinted as a group into the cold water of the Pacific and sang songs
ecstatically as we danced and hugged in the water, singing songs that had
become signature to our trip. This repertoire included some Katy Perry, the
Killers, and that one song ‘Call Me Maybe.’ That night we gathered around a
bonfire on the beach for a final group goodbye. The only geography that I was
aware of on that last night with my team was; the heart-stopping realization
that we had ridden our bikes there from Charleston, that we had conquered
insane mountain passes and other immensely insurmountable obstacles along the
way, and that within hours and days each of the people I had grown to love so dearly
that summer would be returning to their homes and scatter back across the US
like a handful of marbles falling to the floor. After everything we had gone
through that summer, within days I would be without the people that had given
me the most beautiful experience of my life, and all of those obstacles we
had biked over would divide us geographically until the day we all end up
moving to Colorado and living together in our own Bike and Build commune.
So the summer is over
AND, I never posted during my trip.
This is not one of my biggest regrets since I wouldn't have traded the way I spent that time for anything in the world, but I do feel guilty for keeping this adventure all to myself.
I'll do my best, with school now back in session, to post some things about this summer.
Feel free to chastise me if I do a poor job.
This is not one of my biggest regrets since I wouldn't have traded the way I spent that time for anything in the world, but I do feel guilty for keeping this adventure all to myself.
I'll do my best, with school now back in session, to post some things about this summer.
Feel free to chastise me if I do a poor job.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
SO MUCH GOOD NEWS
My bike is ordered and on it's way to it's new long-term relationship [with me]
AND
Bricolage (a superfantastiwonderfulgreatacular local gallery/workshop) will be housing my fundraiser!
check out the event page: http://www.facebook.com/events/310097099051546/
YOU'RE SO INVITED IT'S UNBELIEVABLE
AND
My freakishly talented friend Matthew Wordell made a flyer for the event that will make your eyeballs applaud
<----- just LOOK at how cool that is.
AND
Tomorrow is FACEPAINT FRIDAY
AND
This is all just too too great.
AND
Bricolage (a superfantastiwonderfulgreatacular local gallery/workshop) will be housing my fundraiser!
check out the event page: http://www.facebook.com/events/310097099051546/
YOU'RE SO INVITED IT'S UNBELIEVABLE
AND
My freakishly talented friend Matthew Wordell made a flyer for the event that will make your eyeballs applaud
<----- just LOOK at how cool that is.
AND
Tomorrow is FACEPAINT FRIDAY
AND
This is all just too too great.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
$1,179 raised!
I'll be ordering my bike soon and begin legitimately training.
Also, planning for my head-shaving fundraiser is still in the works. Chances are it will be occurring sometime between March 17th and 24th... So stay tuned and save up for your chance to bid on shaving my head!
Also, planning for my head-shaving fundraiser is still in the works. Chances are it will be occurring sometime between March 17th and 24th... So stay tuned and save up for your chance to bid on shaving my head!
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
$838 raised so far
There is still time for you to get your name written on the bike I will be riding across the country this summer. Everyone that donates up to the first thousand bucks essentially gets a square inch of advertising space!
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS AMAZING OFFER BY DONATING BELOW!!
http://bikeandbuild.org/rider/6006
haha, that's not obnoxious at all...
Once I raise $1,000 I can order a bike and start training (better than I currently can on my Schwinn from the 70's). Then I need to raise $2,000 by March, then the GRAND SLAM of $4,500 by the start of the trip in May.
Maybe we can strike up a deal, I'll draw something for you for a donation? sound good?
Send me an email if you would be interested in donating for a lil somethin' extra
jesstornga@gmail.com
You can check out some of my art here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jesstornga/sets/72157627003376533/
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS AMAZING OFFER BY DONATING BELOW!!
http://bikeandbuild.org/rider/6006
haha, that's not obnoxious at all...
Once I raise $1,000 I can order a bike and start training (better than I currently can on my Schwinn from the 70's). Then I need to raise $2,000 by March, then the GRAND SLAM of $4,500 by the start of the trip in May.
Maybe we can strike up a deal, I'll draw something for you for a donation? sound good?
Send me an email if you would be interested in donating for a lil somethin' extra
jesstornga@gmail.com
You can check out some of my art here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jesstornga/sets/72157627003376533/
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Boise Bike Project
So I finally bought a membership to the Boise Bike Project!!!
I've been doing some research on the bike I'll be using for this summer. Bike & Build recommends this bike, but I've been hearing that that is too much to pay and that a carbon fork won't hold up for a cross-country bike trip. It's sounding like a steel/chromoly frame/fork will make for a safer and more comfortable ride. Some friends and the people at BBP have continually been recommending Surly bikes, either the Cross-Check or Long-Haul. I'll continue to research and request advice for this steep purchase I'll be making in the near future.
$563 raised so far, $1,000 due at the end of February. Once I reach the $1,000 mark I can order my bike, whatever it ends up being. Once I order and get my bike I can start training!! Whoever donates up to the first thousand bucks get their name written on my bike!!!! Donate now to take advantage of this ONE TIME OFFER! I should do infomercials...
"Boise Bicycle Project (501c3) is a community-oriented effort to promote the personal, social, and environmental benefits of bicycling. It functions as a bicycle recycling center as well as an educational workspace in a diverse and non-threatening atmosphere. Through education and access to inexpensive bicycles we strive to build a stronger bicycling community."I did some work on my current bike, an old Schwinn roadbike. All that's left is a persistent and mysterious squeak the guys at BBP tried for 30 minutes to fix. I've decided that I simply have a very vocal bicycle and that I shouldn't try to stifle it's creative expression.
I've been doing some research on the bike I'll be using for this summer. Bike & Build recommends this bike, but I've been hearing that that is too much to pay and that a carbon fork won't hold up for a cross-country bike trip. It's sounding like a steel/chromoly frame/fork will make for a safer and more comfortable ride. Some friends and the people at BBP have continually been recommending Surly bikes, either the Cross-Check or Long-Haul. I'll continue to research and request advice for this steep purchase I'll be making in the near future.
$563 raised so far, $1,000 due at the end of February. Once I reach the $1,000 mark I can order my bike, whatever it ends up being. Once I order and get my bike I can start training!! Whoever donates up to the first thousand bucks get their name written on my bike!!!! Donate now to take advantage of this ONE TIME OFFER! I should do infomercials...
Monday, January 23, 2012
New fundraising idea!
Once I reach $1,000 I can order my bike and start training.
My new idea is that everyone who donates up to the first $1,000 will get their name written on my bike.
So donate now to help me get my bike and have your name ride across the country with me this summer!
Donate here using google checkout,
it's super easy and they email you a receipt for your tax-deductible donation.
My new idea is that everyone who donates up to the first $1,000 will get their name written on my bike.
So donate now to help me get my bike and have your name ride across the country with me this summer!
Donate here using google checkout,
it's super easy and they email you a receipt for your tax-deductible donation.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Magnets!
I picked up my check from Bricolage a couple days ago,
I sold 11 magnets in December and made $53!!!!
Can't wait to deposit this and add it to my Bike & Build account!
here are some of my magnets that you can find at Bricolage in Boise or buy directly from me
Sunday, January 15, 2012
More details on my B&B route!
Click here to check out where and when I'll be biking through a town near you!
I am so excited for this route, it looks absolutely amazing and extremely challenging (duh).
Here is a list of some of the awesome reasons why I am excited about this route
recent date changes
I am so excited for this route, it looks absolutely amazing and extremely challenging (duh).
Here is a list of some of the awesome reasons why I am excited about this route
- I've really wanted to visit Charleston for a long time, having heard nothing but good things about it
- This route has the most build days (17), and according to B&B's website they "fund and build an entire house in the process"
- We have a build day in Athens, GA which is another awesome place friends have advertised to me
- We have a day off in Little Rock, AK
- 6 build days in Colorado Springs!
- During our build day in Rifle, CO I plan on making as many references to "my guns" (my muscles) as possible, my team will love me.
- We bike through the lovely Salt Lake City, maybe I'll ride my first roller-coaster there... maybe.
- THEN, we head into Idaho!! Biking through Burley, where my Grandma lives.
- Build day in Boise (where I live), I'll introduce everyone to my big city livin'
- I'll turn 21 in Chico, CA
- then we finish in beautiful Santa Cruz, CA where I will hopefully stay for two days extra to fully cherish and unwind from the insanity that I have survived.
I've been hearing that Mustache Mondays are a B&B tradition, I look forward to them. I would also like to add Facepaint Fridays, or any day really. Facepaint is great.
recent date changes
- was: May 23rd-Aug 17th
- now: May 24th-Aug 12th
Sunday, January 1, 2012
flashback!
Here's an old picture of an athlete and I at the
2010 National Special Olympic Games in Nebraska.
2010 National Special Olympic Games in Nebraska.
This was one of my favorite projects in Americorps, definitely the most fun.
Getting volunteer hours while dancing is the best way to do it!
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