Day One in San Francisco

After months of preparation and fundraising, we're finally in San Francisco! We left Hartford at 10:15 in the morning, and arrived at San Francisco at 3:00.


We took the BART to Citizen Chain Cycles to pick up our bikes.

The great people at Citizen Chain cycles in San Francisco put our bikes together at a very reduced price. They're the best bike shop in San Francisco!

All geared up and ready to go.

Here's Alex posing with a buffalo in San Francisco. No explanation necessary.

Biking through Golden Gate Park, and seeing the botanical gardens.

Loreen biking with the Ferry Building in the background. It was actually much cooler than it looks in the picture.

The first Coast to Coast 2010 hosts, Kristin and Katie. Alex has known Kristin since kindergarten, and she was nice enough to let us stay at her place in San Francisco. Katie, by random chance, also knows our classmate Christian. Small world, huh?

We've been up since 5:30 Eastern Time, and now it's 11:00 Pacific Time. We're ready to go to bed and prepare to leave for Villejo tomorrow.

Coast to Coast Kickoff!

One of our biggest supporters, the Dean of the School of Medicine, Dr. Laurencin, threw us a Kick-off at the Health Center. Ever since we introduced ourselves at the Valentine's Day Ball for Lea's Foundation, he's been a tremendous help to our cause. He's treating the top four fundraisers of our class to dinner, and he connected us to the UCONN Foundation so that we can get more publicity in the UCONN community. (There's also an article coming soon under the UCONN Foundation. We'll keep you posted!)

Also, Dr. Laurencin's blog has featured the Coast to Coast riders twice, and at our Kick-Off he mentioned starting some "interblog" communication throughout the summer. As a start of this communication, here's a link to Dr. Laurencin's blog, featuring a nice entry describing Coast to Coast dated May 18th:

http://libraryweb.uchc.edu/vp/archives/2010/05/index.html



Here we are debuting the official 2010 Coast to Coast Lea's Foundation jerseys. Pretty nice, huh?




We had a raffle in the cafeteria. We would like to thank the companies that donated items to us!

EMS in Manchester gave us two kayak rentals. When I handed the kayak rentals to the winner of the raffle, she was ecstatic that the rentals come with paddles, life jackets, and the EMS employees will even tie the kayaks onto your car!

Coach handbags at the West Farms mall gave us some pretty nice bags. The managers of the store pooled their money together to get us some nice items for our auction.

Also, Max's Oyster Bar (probably my favorite restaurant, with the most amazing Happy Hour deals) gave us a $50 gift certificate.

Here we are getting ready for the raffle.






This is a picture of us chatting with Ms. Dieli, who won a Coast to Coast jersey from our raffle!

Final preparations! And thanks to bike shops!

The school year is wrapping up, and we're tired after 10 months of our first year of medical school. However, in under a week, we're trading our mental exhaustion for that of the physical kind. Two days after our final exam, we're flying to San Francisco, and making our way back to Connecticut.

We've been spending a lot of time making sure that we have everything for our bike trip. Panniers, bike conmputers, bike racks, Camelbaks, panniers, lights, helmets, shoes, clipless pedals, chamois cream (look it up if you don't know what this is; it may be the most important thing that we take with us!), bike shorts, chains, wheels, tents, etc. Hopefully we're not forgetting anything!!

Here we'd like to give a shout out to some bike shops that generously donated to our cause.


Benidorm Bikes in Canton, CT, has been involved in Coast to Coast since the first ride 4 years ago. When we stopped by, we saw a newspaper cutout of the first-year riders, Ben and Jeremiah, posted on their wall. They gave us most of our supplies at a discount, and were a tremendous help by giving us advice on what we need on our trip.

The owner of Benidorm even showed us a broken bike helmet of a Coast to Coast biker two years ago. It had a huge crack along the sides, and just from looking at it, you can tell that the helmet saved her life. It shows how important it is for everyone to wear helmets while biking!!!

Zanes Cycles in Branford, CT, has donated bike shorts, bike computers, air pumps, and Camelbaks. Thanks to our amazing classmate Kate Dannheim who contacted the store and got us these donations! Kate was also one of the captains of our fundraising teams, so we can't thank her enough!

Biker's Edge in Bristol gave us helmets and bike shorts. It's a really nice bike shop right on Route 6.

The Bike Shop in Manchester, CT, gave us tubes, water bottle holders, and presta valve converters so that we can fill our tires at gas stations. The owner, Mr. Johnson, has a wife who works at the Health Center, and his daughter is a 3rd year medical student.

We're almost there! (And by "there," I mean "starting the journey.") We've spent a lot of time preparing, and we would be ill-prepared without the help we received from bike shops. Thank you guys so much for helping our cause!

WTIC 1080 Interview

Coast to Coast recorded an interview with WTIC AM 1080 this afternoon. It'll air on Sunday, June 6th early in the morning.

BBQ and Beer Brewing Contest

Coast to Coast had a BBQ and Beer Brewing Contest last Saturday. We would like to thank Dr. Belniak for letting us throw the fundraiser at his home.

Congratulations to Jared and Steve for winning our beer brewing contest, and Erica for her amazing Coast to Coast cake!

BBQ with a beer brewing contest!!!

BBQ & Beer-brewing contest
102 Taine Mountain Road, Burlington, CT 06013.
May 22nd from 1-4pm at Dr. Belniak's house (Mary's Dad).

There will be:
music
HOME-BREWED beer to taste and judge
baked goods
burgers
drinks
fun
pool
HOT TUB

Generally, it will be awesome, so please come and support the Coast to Coasters! Since this is at someone's home, we just ask that you buy a ticket from us ahead of time so we know how many are coming. There are a limited number we can sell, so contact us ASAP!

Tickets are $15, and can be bought at breaks between classes from Loreen, Alex O, Stacy, or Arturo. If you want to come, send an e-mail to aocampo@student.uchc.edu to reserve a spot!!!

Thanks,
Loreen, Stacy, Alex O, and Arturo

PS--HERE ARE THE BEERS TO LOOK FORWARD TO:

Clarke Nelson's Explosion Ale
It's is a Brown Porter Ale that's as smooth as silk. This batch blew the airlock on the carboy and splattered all over the ceiling.

Steve and Jared's Old Castle
It's a nut brown ale with a nice maltiness and some flavors of brown sugar.

Talcott Glen Brewing Company's (Isaac and Russ') Snake Mountain Hefeweizen (Bavarian Hefeweizen) We could spout off phrases like, "lingering wheat aroma", "strong head", and "hint of orange". We could talk about the yeast imported from Germany. We could tell you how good our beer is. Or, you can just drink it and enjoy it.

Class-wide Fundraiser / Update

Since the Coast to Coast fundraiser benefits the entire UCONN community, there is now a fundraiser for our entire class. We have decided to divide the class into 13 teams, and with a little bit of healthy competition, we will reward the team that raises the most amount of money (per person on the team so that there's no advantage for having a larger team). Also, the four top individual fundraisers in our class will have dinner with Dr. Laurencin wherever you want to go. More prizes will be announced... we promise!

We all appreciate your support guys!!!



Also, one of our Coast to Coast riders, Arturo Montano, wrote an entire puppet opera, "The Farflung Empire of the Soul" (including music with accompaniment and script). It was amazing, and with help from a bake sale featuring UCONN bakers, it was a huge success.