A Riding we will go...

Day 1: New York City - Tuxedo, NY!

This morning a group consisting of Sean, Andrew, Brandt, Dan and myself woke up at 5:15 am in order to head down to the Today Show in an attempt to get some airtime for the Illini 4000. After searching all over NYC for poster board in the late hours of the night we took our markers and blank signs to decorate while we waited. The rest of the team was sleeping in before they headed to Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan for a tour.

When we got down to the NBC studio we waited to get into their outdoor plaza decorating our signs while Brandt ran to a nearby McDonalds to grab us some food. Unfortunately when it was our time to enter the plaza the security man made us leave our signs because they contained URL addresses which apparently are not allowed on signs in the plaza. We were all dressed in our team jerseys hoping to draw a little attention from the camera. When we first entered the plaza we were in the back behind a lot of people but thanks to Patrice who had shown up on her way to work we were able to move right up next to the outside stage where Blondie would later perform. We didn't make it on the camera although we may have been in the distant background on some shots.

After leaving the Today Show we headed back to Patrice’s apartment where we helped load bags into the van before heading to lunch and then over to the hospital to meet up with the rest of our team.

There was much to be done once we reached the hospital including moving our bikes from the park around the corner to the hospital and reloading the van after it had been used to shuttle bikes from where they were being stored to the park around the corner. Once the van was loaded and all of our bikes were at the hospital we fine tuned them one last time before parents, friends and a group of medical school students sent us off around 1:00 pm.

Our first day of riding was only 48 miles however included riding through and out of the city which was no easy task. Once we got out of the city traffic things eased up a little bit. A few people (including our support vehicle) encountered flat tires on this first day of riding before we reached our designation of Tuxedo, NY where we were welcomed by Pastor Dave with a pot luck style dinner and ice cream and cookies for dessert. The church was an older all stone church and was absolutely beautiful.

Tomorrow we enter Pennsylvania and should see some real northeast hills!