The Broad Street Bikers Present:

Well we finally made it.  Today was probably our most challenging day so far.  We were about 20 miles outside of Boston when it started to snow.  Signs for Boston started to appear which was a relief.  Then while travelling north on Route 1, Channel 7 NBC Boston pulled up along side of us and asked if we could pull over so they could film a special on us.  They filmed us for maybe an hour or so, then we got back on the bike and forged on.  Despite the weather we were still making good time on this 45 mile day.  A state trooper came from nowhere on the shoulder to ask the guys in the trail van, “are you out of your mind?” They told him what we were doing and how far we had come. He mentioned that he was going to the game, too. So, the guys in the van passed a brochure about the trip over to him. He wished us well and told us to be safe.  When we finally reached the outskirts of Boston, we actually needed to stop and wait until the NBC news crews could set up to film us arriving at Fenway!  Father Kevin took us the Mission Church, which is a famous basilica in Boston.  One of the Priests there, Father Phil, gave us a neat tour of the church, which was really nice!

We then set out on our last few miles to finish our journey!  We could see Fenway from a few blocks away, and we were looking for Yawkey Way.  We missed it on the first pass, and had to turn around and backtrack a little.  Finally we were there!  What a relief.  We toasted with our official Winter Classic Champagne!

Here are a few more articles, and news videos about us!

http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO132789/

http://philly2philly.com/politics_community/politics_community_articles/2009/12/30/42803/phillys_phinest_profiles_the_broad_s

Well, Day 4 is in the books and we can taste the finish line.  Today was another long one in terms of mileage, completing just under 70 miles.  As we expected, we encountered some major hill climbs today that were just impossible to complete on the bike.  It took quite a bit of walking to climb some of the mile plus grades and as seems to be normal in Connecticut, for every uphill, there is another uphill and seemingly no downhill.  It defies the laws of physics, because what goes up, continues to go up.  Luckily we didn't have to battle the wind as much today, and crossing over into Rhode Island led to more reasonable terrain.

Speaking of terrain, we had quite the interesting trip into the wilderness of Rhode Island when we turned down a trail which turned out to be more for horses than bikes, thanks Google Maps.  After fighting our way through about a mile of rough and rocky road, we came to a bridge, across with the path finally became paved.  Unfortunately, the bridge was no longer there.  We then had to back track a trail through the woods in almost pitch black darkness.  Luckily there were no cougars, bears, or other dangerous animals that live in the woods to disturb our trek, and we made it to the hotel in Warwick in one piece.

On another note, yesterday's NHL.com article was moved from the obscure blog section to the main flash story page on the nhl.com/winterclassic site.

Also, we are approaching $2000 in donations, but we aren't there yet, so if you can, please donate what you can.

Thanks and goodnight.

Today was set to be a long ride.  Knowing this we decided to set out as soon as the sun rose.  We were on our bike ready to go at 7am.  We didn't get two blocks before we realized that our timeing chain popped loose.  We attempted to fix it ourselves on the side of the road, with a little help from a near by construction worker who supplied some WD-40.  We finally decided that we couldn't fix it there, so we walked the bike back to our friend's house and got out the tool boxes.  It wasn't until 8:30am that we were back on our bike.

A few hours later our luck started to change.  We were called for three phone interviews throughout the day.  One of which was with a writer for NHL.com.  That is great news for us and the Blessed Sarnelli Community.  An article on NHL.com would be our first national coverage.

Read it here! http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=511518

AND ... we caught up with Philly2Philly.com ... check it out here and our picture!

http://philly2philly.com/politics_community/politics_community_articles/2009/12/30/42803/
phillys_phinest_profiles_the_broad_s

Connecticut is a beautiful state.  But not for bikers.  Apparently when traveling northeast, all roads are up hill.  Jason gave us the forecast this morning.  It was a high of 15 degrees.  We didn't realize how cold this would be until a few hours in, our water bottles were frozen.  But we made it here ok, and we are looking forward to tomorrow's trek to Warwick, RI.  Thank you to Lee Duda and Vinny Greco and his family for hosting us in Connecticut!

Well, after day two we are about 55 miles closer to Boston and relaxing in warmth and comfort for the next 9 hours or so.  Some highlights from today's trip include meeting a lovely lady named Thea on our walk up the tallest mountain (hill) on Staten Island, a nice ride on the Staten Island Ferry, a bit of sightseeing at the UN, and a lovely ride through the wonderful Bronx.  All was going well until we got out of New York City and we began to hit very unfriendly roads and some huge hills.  We were hoping we could do the 55 miles fairly quickly based on our pace from yesterday, but it honestly felt like we traveled over a hundred when all was said and done.  We have learned to expect hills for tomorrow's journey as well as much colder temperatures.

In news not directly related to travel, we had quite a bit of exposure today in terms of articles published by local websites and an appearance of our interview on ABC News.  The articles were published by Phinnalyphilly.com and BroadStreetHockey.com:

http://www.phinallyphilly.com/2009/12/28/phinally-philly-chats-with-the-broad-street-bikers/

http://www.broadstreethockey.com/2009/12/28/1220979/riding-a-bike-to-the-winter#comments

We also broke the $1,000 mark in donations received today and are currently around $1100, thanks to all who donated and thanks in advance to anybody else who decides to donate money to our cause.  The more we raise, the more the Blessed Sarnelli Community can help those Philadelphians in need.

But for now, I am signing off to get some much needed rest.

Today was a long day!  It started out with our family and friends cheering for us as we departed from the Spectrum in South Philadelphia at 8:30am.  When we reached North Philadelphia my phone rang and ABC Action news asked if they could catch up to us and do a quick interview.  We gladly accepted and pulled over to the nearest gas station and waited for them to come.  The next leg of the trip went very smoothly, until we took a wrong turn when we were close to the PA/NJ border.  This eventually led us to an on ramp to Route 1.  Not where we wanted to be!  So we called our trail car and had them lift us to a safer area.  The next obstacle we ran into was our first flat tire.  Manuvering around the streets of Trenton, NJ we looked at our back tire and saw it was completely flat.  Again we called our trusty trail car and they arrived with all of the necessary fix it materials.

The rest of our ride was fairly unevenful, but it was a long 80 miles to Staten Island.  This was our longest day of our trip, so we are very glad it is behind us!  Thank you to Lina Tirro and her family for graciously hosting us tonight!

Well, we were very tentative on whether or not we would find a tandem bike in time for the trip BUT WE DID!!! Thanks to the very nice and generous people at http://thecyclecorner.com/ we are now almost 100% ready to take the trip.  The next day or two we will be practicing riding the tandem to make sure we don't take a fall off the starting line.

So for all your biking and bike rental needs visit http://thecyclecorner.com/ as they truly have been a pleasure to deal with.

Well, we got a mention in the Daily News today following their article on the Flyers/Bruins game.  So we want to thank Frank Seravalli, the Flyers' beat writer for that.

Also today we will most likely be doing a test trip of our tracking system by riding to the Wachovia Center for the STH Winter Classic ticket pick-up.  So tune in anywhere around 5-5:30 in order to see how our tracking system will work.

Also, as one of our commenters mentioned, I would really like to thank Cindy Pfender who has been a tremendous help in creating the press release that we send to local media outlets, as well as, sending it out to a few of her contacts.  So thank you Cindy.

First, thanks to the Preston and Steve show for having us in studio today to promote our event and gain a wider exposure and for posting our link on their site as it has greatly increase our web traffic.  I would also like to thank Chris Shafer of Phinally Philly for his article about our future journey...although he does seem to  paint us as crazy people, he is 100% right.

Also, we can't thank enough those of you who have reached out whether it be in an advisory capacity or simply a small donation, it is you, not us, who will ultimately determine the success of this event.

This morning we will be on the Preston and Steve show to promote the event so please tune in and continue to spread the word and donate...

In other news, please check out our new facebook page for more ways to stay connected to our trip.

-Cheers

First, I would like to announce that we are now on Twitter (http://twitter.com/broadstbikers) so please follow us and spread the word of our event.

On another front, we received our first donation today from the one and only Jordan Welles, we thank you and hope that this motivates everyone to give what they can.  Now on the subject of donations, we are currently looking for a local business to sponsor our trip and offer to match the money we raise from individual donations.  By agreeing to do this you would become the main sponsor of our trip and gain the most publicity through our website and merchandise sales.

Once we are able to lock some of this stuff up we plan on adding a lot of functionality to the website as the ride gets closer.  First, look for some type of visual donation gauge to see how the funraising is going, remember, this is what its all about.  Next, once the trip begins, the homepage will be set up with a real time GPS tracker so you can follow our progress as well as see geo-tagged photos and blog posts from the ride.

That's all I can think of for now, please check back often and don't forget to follow us on Twitter.