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Monday 9am - 5pm Tuesday 9am - 5pm Wednesday 9am - 5pm Thursday 9am - 5pm Friday 9am - 5pm

http://trianglebikeworks.org/, https://linktr.ee/trianglebikes

Triangle Bikeworks, 117 W Main Street, Carrboro, NC (2026)

08/31/2026

The trails are calling. TYMBR Wolves is back this fall — a mountain biking program built for riders who want to get better, get dirty, and make friends who'll drag them out of bed on a Saturday morning.

Kickoff: September 13, Carrboro, NC. No cost to join. Sign up at trianglebikeworks.app.neoncrm.com/forms/interest.

08/30/2026

Thirty-two days. Seven states. 1,500 miles.

In 2011, nine young people climbed onto their bikes and set out from Mobile, Alabama, following the Underground Railroad toward Niagara Falls. Along the way, they discovered stories of people who had been left out of the history books. And, somewhere between the heat, the hills, the miles and the hard days, they began discovering something about themselves, too.

That first tour became the beginning of Triangle Bikeworks as we know it.

Fourteen years later, the miles have multiplied. The routes have changed. The young people have changed. But the idea hasn't: **give young people a real challenge, put them in the saddle, and let them discover what they're capable of.**

And you have been part of that story.

You showed up. You donated. You volunteered. You opened doors. You believed in young people before they could always believe in themselves.

So, this isn't just a thank-you for supporting a bike tour.

It's a thank-you for riding with us all these years.

The first revolution started in 2011. We're still riding.

08/07/2026

Since 2022, the Black Farm Tour has brought together hundreds of cyclists to explore eastern North Carolina, visit Black-owned farms, learn powerful stories, and build lasting relationships.

We've laughed together, shared meals, ridden quiet country roads, and supported young people as they grew into leaders through Triangle Bikeworks.

In 2026, we're taking a pause.

Not because the story is over, but because we believe the next version of the Black Farm Tour can be even stronger, more connected, and more impactful.

If you've ridden with us before, thank you for helping create this community.

If you're learning about the Black Farm Tour for the first time, welcome. We hope you'll join us when the next chapter begins.

Until then, stay connected, share your memories, support Triangle Bikeworks youth programs, and help us continue building something that matters.

🔗 www.blackfarmtour.us
🔗 www.trianglebikeworks.org

Because this has never been our tour.

It's always been yours.

07/15/2026

Day 7 Ride — Sam vs. The Running Board, Joshua vs. Everybody Else 🚴‍♂️😄

Joshua had himself a day.

It was the last day of the tour, and that young man was riding like he knew it. Every hill, every pull, every mile—he was putting in the work. More than once I watched him fly down a hill with Little Kevin racing right behind him like they were both trying out for the Tour de France.

Turns out there was an agreement.

Attack every downhill as hard as you can. First one to the top of the next hill waits for everyone else.

That sounded like a pretty good deal to Joshua.

The morning started beautifully. Birds were carrying on conversations in the pine trees while we packed up camp for the last time. There’s something bittersweet about breaking camp on the final morning. By then you've gotten used to the routine, even the parts you complained about all week.

With the tents packed away, we headed off in search of breakfast.

The "best diner in town" turned out to be McDonald's.

Not our first choice.

Not even our second choice.

But it was the only choice for miles, so Ronald McDonald got our business that morning. 😄
After breakfast we drove to our starting point on the Trace, unloaded the bikes, and got ready to roll.

Now let me tell you about Sam.

Sam mentioned he thought his tires needed air. Turns out he hasn't aired them up in a couple days, so they're a little soft, and either I'm losing my touch or he's the cycling version of the princess and the pea.

I squeeze them and tell him they look fine. The truth is, the bike pump was buried under what looks like 300 pounds of tents, bags, coolers, and everything else we'd been hauling across Mississippi all week.

But Sam persisted.

So I dug out the pump while reminding him that those tires had better actually be low.

A minute later I hand Sam the pump and turn around to restack gear in the van.

Then I hear shouting.

Followed immediately by a crash.

Sam's bike shoes slipped on the van's plastic running board, and down he went.

Hard.

The good news is he was okay.

The bad news is his ankle definitely wasn't happy about it.

That meant no cycling, no driving, and probably no dancing at his wife's birthday celebration on Monday.

So, Coach Kinney inherited all riding duties for the day.

The kids, meanwhile, carried on like champions.

It felt like the hottest day of the entire trip. The thermometer never quite reached 100, but Mississippi humidity was doing everything it could to finish the job.

Julissa gave it her best shot, but her knees let her know early that today wasn't the day. She wisely called it after the first stop.

Little Kevin pushed through with a knee brace and the same determination he's shown all week.

And Joshua?

Joshua awarded himself the title of "Youth Cyclist with No Injuries" and rode accordingly. 😄

As I watched them ride, I found myself thinking about the bigger picture.

When you're in the middle of something hard, it's difficult to see just how far you've come.

You're focused on the next hill.

The next mile.

The next rest stop.

But from where I stood, I could see the whole journey.

These young people just spent a week doing something most adults never think to attempt.

They crossed state lines.

Pushed through heat.

Faced setbacks.

Learned when to push and when to rest.

And somewhere along the way, they learned a little more about themselves.

That's the real victory.

Not the mileage.

Not the finish line.

The growth.

I've learned a lot about each of them this week.

The funny thing is, they've probably learned even more about themselves than I'll ever know.

That makes every mile worth it.

And Sam’s tires? They were 28 psi below what they should have been. Turns out he is the prince of cycling. ❤️🚴‍♂️

Your Connection
A tour like this runs on more than legs. It runs on a support system that doesn't fall apart the moment somebody gets hurt — Sam goes down, and instead of the day ending, Kinney just picks up the front and keeps three kids moving toward the finish anyway. Gear that doesn't quit. A brace bought before day six was even over. A second adult who can step into a solo lead role without missing a stride. That's what your support actually builds — not just a ride, but a structure sturdy enough to survive an ankle.

Your Call to Action
That's a wrap on this year's Summer Experience Tour — Joshua, Julissa, and Kevin, all the way to the finish, one way or another. None of it happens again next summer without support between now and then. Give at trianglebikeworks.org and help us put the next crew of kids on this same road.

07/14/2026

DAY 6
"I'm OK With Not Going Further"

Julissa's knees hurt around mile thirty yesterday. Not one — both, which tells you this isn't something you just ride through.

Before they take off, I go to the back of the van to dig the knee supports out of the gear bag we packed and hoped we wouldn't need. Terry adjusts her seat too. It helps, some. Not enough to undo whatever's already happening underneath.

By mile twenty-five, she says she's done for the day. Who am I to argue? There's nothing to argue with.

Now let me tell you something that surprised me.

Little Kevin decided he needed a break too.

Up to this point, he'd ridden every single mile of this tour. Every one.

No shortcuts.

No easy days.

No complaints.

So, when he said he needed to stop, it got my attention.

Joshua keeps going a while longer. Seven more miles past where Julissa and Kevin pull off, riding solo into the part of the afternoon where the heat finally peaks. Then he makes his own call and turns back to join them.

Nobody told him to stop. He just knew.

I've said this before, more than once, probably to the point where some of you could recite it back to me: we're not just building strong cyclists out here. We want these kids exploring who they are, expanding what they think they can handle, figuring themselves out in ways that have nothing to do with a finish line.

Finding their own voice is part of that. So is learning how to use it — even when using it means something as small as "I'm not going further today."

I'll be honest about something uncomfortable. Some part of me still wants to see all three of them cross every mile marker on this tour, no stops, no exceptions. That part of me has to sit down today, same as the kids.

Because what happened was growth.

Three young people listened to their bodies, spoke up, and trusted the adults around them to hear what they were saying.

That matters.

A lot.

It's easy to celebrate a kid when they push through something hard.

It's just as important to celebrate a kid who knows when pushing through is no longer the right answer.

Six days in now. Six days, and tomorrow's a shorter day. Forty-seven miles.

At the beginning of this trip, forty-seven miles sounded huge.

Now everybody calls it a light day.

Somewhat quick. Somewhat easy, by whatever this tour's taught us "easy" means now.

And these three are crushing it, each in their own way — personal bests stacking up with every rolling hill, every mile that used to feel impossible and doesn't anymore. Every day they've done something they weren't sure they could do. Every day they've stretched what they thought was possible.
Julissa's knees will tell us tomorrow what tomorrow looks like. I don't know that answer yet. Nobody does.

Your Connection
Knee supports don't sound like glamorous work, and neither does fifteen minutes stopped on a shoulder while a teenager figures out what her body's telling her. But that's exactly the kind of unglamorous, in-the-moment support your giving makes possible — the gear on hand before it's needed, the time built into the day to actually listen when a kid says something's wrong. That's how a fifteen-year-old learns her own limits are worth stating out loud instead of pushing through and hiding it.

Your Call to Action
Every mile these three complete is real. So is every mile they choose not to. Help us keep both options available — the gear, the time, and grown-ups willing to pull over and listen. Give at trianglebikeworks.org.

07/13/2026

DAY 5 Ride — Kosciusko, Coffee & Buckets of Sweat
58 Miles Toward Jackson

The name got us first.

Kosciusko.

Sam and I went back and forth on whether it was Native American or Russian. Turns out it’s Polish in the traditional sense. But we’re in Mississippi, so around here it’s pronounced Kos-See-Esko.

That’s one of the things I love about riding through places like this.

Every town has a name, and every name has a story. Sometimes you learn the history. Sometimes you just learn how not to sound like you’re from out of town.

We drove in from our campsite in Houston, Mississippi, and started the day at Koty Earl’s Restaurant.
Little Kevin was up early before the rest of us, trying to capture the sunrise on video. Kids notice things we adults roll right past. The sky was doing something special this morning, and Little Kevin knew enough to stop and pay attention.

For a few minutes, it was peaceful and cool.

Then Mississippi remembered it had a job to do.

Now let me tell you about breakfast.

There was a table full of good ol’ Mississippi boys giving us the side-eye when we walked in. So I did what any reasonable person would do—I wandered over, introduced myself, and we jawed for a while.

That’s country for, “We solved most of the world’s problems before breakfast.”

They told me about logging, pine trees, the coal mine near Ackerman, and plenty of stories from the good old days. I had to laugh because I realized their good old days and my good old days were not exactly the same good old days.

They wanted to know where I was from, where I worked, and what we were doing out here.

I answered just enough to keep the conversation going without turning breakfast into my autobiography.

After breakfast, we drove about 20 miles, unloaded the bikes, and jumped back on the Natchez Trace toward Jackson.

And the heat?

Let’s just say it wasn’t regular hot.

It was “why am I sweating while standing still?” hot. 🥵

We rolled past a beautiful reservoir that almost convinced us to ride straight in with the bikes and call it a triathlon.

Josh and Little Kevin absolutely put in the work today. Both of them stayed on the pedals for all 58 miles. No drama. No big speeches. Just steady effort, one mile after another.

That’s the stuff people don’t always see.

They see the finish-line pictures. They don’t see the kid who keeps pedaling when the heat is bouncing off the pavement and the water bottles are warming up faster than we can drink them.

Sam pulled the first 20 miles like he’s been doing this his whole life—which, at this point, he pretty much has.

Then Old Man Kevin took over.

Father Time tried to catch him, but he didn’t quite get there today.

Tonight’s reward is simple: a hotel, air conditioning, showers, and another chance to make our clothes smell decent again.

Out here, that counts as luxury.

The ride is hard. The heat is real. The miles don’t give you anything for free.

But the kids keep showing up. The people along the way keep surprising us. And every day reminds me that this trip is about more than getting from one place to the next.

It’s about learning how to keep going.

It’s about noticing the sunrise.

It’s about talking to strangers over coffee.

And sometimes, it’s about being thankful for air conditioning like it was personally sent from heaven.

See y’all tomorrow… same time, same Bat-Pedal Station. 🚴‍♂️😂

07/12/2026

Day 4
That's As Far As You Go

Motel parking lot, tailgates doing double duty as tables. Yogurt cups, granola, whatever fruit didn't get smashed in the cooler overnight, and just enough coffee to convince the body it's ready for fifty-eight more miles. We circle up, talk through the route, and stare down the day like we've got this figured out.

Some mornings we do. Some mornings the day has other plans.

Last night was a hotel — hot shower, actual shave, laundry that smells like laundry again instead of four days on the road. Funny what counts as luxury out here. A clean shirt and a real bed, and suddenly I feel ready to take on the whole state of Mississippi.

Today's not about sightseeing. It's about miles, plain and simple. The Trace goes quiet early — peaceful, almost empty, the kind of stretch that makes you think it just keeps going forever.

Until it doesn't.

We roll up on a road closure. Park Police give us the short version: that's as far as you go. No detour, no negotiating. The Trace is run by the National Park Service, and closures happen — erosion, storm damage, maintenance, whatever it takes to keep the road safe. Today it's just closed. That's the whole reason.

I want to be annoyed about it. Turns out I'm not, not really. We load the bikes, drive the last seventeen miles to camp, and call it fifty-eight on the pedals and seventeen by truck. No shame in that. Even a tour needs a Plan B some days.

Here's the part that matters more than the mileage, though.
Little Kevin — that's what we call him out here, on account of there being two of us and only one of us still fits into kid-sized gear — continues to amaze me. Kid might weigh a buck ten soaking wet, and he mashes a pedal like something's chasing him up every hill.

Joshua steps up big today. Stays on it, keeps turning the pedals, shows the kind of grit you only find out you have when the road refuses to end. Julissa puts in another solid ride — keeps showing up, keeps pushing, keeps proving that effort counts for just as much as speed out here.

And then there's Sam.

Eleven years he's been doing this ride. Seventy-nine years old this summer, and he still takes the morning shift on the bike before handing off to me and climbing into the support truck for the back half. Old Man Kevin takes it from there — that's me, in case the nickname wasn't already clear.

I hope I'm still pedaling like Sam when I'm seventy-nine. I mean that more today than I usually do.

Camp tonight sits beside another lake — quiet, peaceful, almost nobody else around. If the crickets would stop holding their nightly convention outside my tent, I might actually get some sleep in this trusty home away from home.

Best part of today wasn't the fifty-eight miles. Wasn't even the seventeen we didn't get to ride. It was watching these three find another gear I wasn't sure they had left, and watching Sam roll in that morning shift like the calendar forgot to tell him something.

I don't know if we'll ever get back to ride that closed stretch. Might not matter much in the end.

Your Connection
Eleven years is a long time to keep showing up for something. Sam does it on a bike, mile after mile, well past the age most people would call it enough. Donors who give year after year are doing the same thing in a different form — showing up again, past the point anyone would blame them for stopping, because these kids are still out here needing somebody to. That kind of long commitment is exactly what keeps Sam's seat in that truck funded, and exactly what put Little Kevin, Joshua, and Julissa on this road in the first place.

The Trace doesn't care about our plans, and neither does the heat — we just keep adjusting and rolling anyway. Help us keep adjusting. Give at trianglebikeworks.org and help fund the next fifty-eight miles, closures and all.

07/10/2026

DAY 3 Ride — Thirty Was Her Plan
50 Miles, Foggy Lake Morning, and Julissa Knowing Her Number
Day three started in Saltillo, Mississippi, with a lake behind us and stiff legs all around.

Yesterday’s ride was still living in everybody’s body.

Julissa already knew her number before we rolled out.
Thirty miles.

Not fifty.

Thirty.

And she did not say it like she was asking permission. She said it like a young person who knew exactly what she had in the tank today.

I respected that.

Little Kevin was ready in a different way. One word at breakfast told the whole story.
“Vamos!”

That was his entire morning report.

Joshua was quiet-ready, which I’ve learned means he’s almost ready but not interested in giving anybody a speech about it.

Nobody’s legs had fully forgiven us for yesterday, but nobody was complaining too loud either.

Fifty miles were on the plan today, rolling out of Saltillo. And I’ll tell you this — today’s fifty felt a whole lot easier than yesterday’s sixty-four ever thought about feeling.

We started at 82 degrees.

Around here, that almost counts as mercy.

We settled into a paceline early. We call it the pull.

For anybody who doesn’t ride, here’s how it works. One rider gets up front and breaks the wind. Everybody else tucks in behind and saves their legs. After a while, the front rider peels off, drops to the back, and the next person takes over.

Simple idea.

Harder to do well.

Joshua took the front first today.

Little Kevin tucked in right behind him, and those two set a pace the rest of us had to trust. The Trace gave us rolling hills, then tossed in a few downhills just to keep us from saying bad things out loud.

Somehow, we were holding steady around 17 miles an hour.
Nobody looked like they were suffering too much.

Or at least nobody admitted it.

Then just before lunch, Julissa moved to the front.

Now remember, Julissa had already said thirty was her number.
But apparently thirty miles did not mean thirty miles hiding in the back.

She took her turn at the front and pulled the group like she had done it a hundred times. Smooth.
Steady. No drama.

Just work.

That’s the part that sticks with me.

A fifteen-year-old can say, “Thirty is what I’ve got today,” and still lead inside that limit. No pretending. No shrinking. No apology.

That’s not weakness.

That’s wisdom.

Lunch was careful today.

Yesterday, some of us learned the hard way that eating too much in the middle of a long ride is a decision your stomach will remind you about later.

I told myself I had learned that lesson for good.

Then the food showed up.

Apparently, I need continuing education. 😄

Everybody felt a little sluggish after lunch anyway. I think I felt it more than the teens did, but I’m trying to be honest out here.

The history stops got me today.

The kids started asking to pull over at the markers along the Trace. They wanted to know the stories.

Not just ride past them. Not just take a picture. They wanted to understand what had happened in the places our tires were rolling through.

We stopped at the Sunken Trace.

That place will make you quiet.

Centuries of feet, hooves, wagons, and weather wore that old path down below the land around it.

You walk through it now with dirt walls rising up on both sides, and you realize that history is not always behind glass in a museum.

Sometimes it is under your shoes.

Sometimes it is the road itself.

Final numbers for the day: 50 miles planned, average speed 15.0, top speed 27.0, and elapsed ride time of 3:23:43.

That means the kids rode every speed between “steady” and “somebody better slow down before Coach has to explain this.”

Temperature topped out around 82.

Compared to yesterday, that felt like a gift.

Now let me tell you something about Julissa.

I don’t know if thirty miles felt like enough to her by the time we got back near that lake.

Maybe it did.

Maybe it didn’t.

But I’m not the one who gets to decide that for her.

She knew her number. She said it out loud. Then she still showed up fully inside it.
That matters.

A young person who can name her limit without shame and still take the front of the group is learning something bigger than cycling.

That kind of confidence does not just appear on day one.
It gets built over time.

Practice rides. Coaches in the truck. Cold water at the stop. Encouragement when the hill gets rude. Donors who may never meet her but decide she is worth investing in anyway.
So if you’ve given to Triangle Bikeworks, you did not just help fund fifty miles today.

You helped fund a young person knowing herself well enough to lead.

We’ve still got miles of Mississippi ahead of us, and the heat will not always be as kind as today’s 82 degrees.

Help us keep the truck stocked, the water cold, and these young people on the road long enough to find out what they’re capable of.

Give at trianglebikeworks.org.

Julissa’s next thirty miles start with you. 🚴‍♀️❤️

07/09/2026

DAY 2 Ride — The Kevin Who Dropped Me
64 Miles, Alabama to Mississippi, and One Teenager With No Mercy

Day two started at 79 degrees.
After yesterday, that almost felt cool. My legs had not received that memo yet.
Today was 64 miles. My first full day of the tour. And if I’m telling the truth, my longest ride ever.

Now here’s the part where I confess something.

Before this trip, I had never ridden more than 20 miles in training. Not one time. So standing there in the parking lot looking at a 64-mile day felt a little like showing up to a spelling bee after only learning the alphabet.

But the bikes were ready. The kids were ready. So off we went.

The morning actually went pretty well. Good pace. Good legs. Everybody was riding loose, like the road had not started talking back yet.

We stopped for lunch somewhere along the Trace, refueled, and for a few minutes I thought, “Okay, maybe I’ve got this.”

Then we got back on the bikes.

Now let me tell you about Kevin.

Not me. The other Kevin.

Little Kevin.

Same name, completely different engine.

This young man played soccer before he ever got serious on a bike, and you can tell. He’s got those quick, strong legs that look like they were built for hills. Add in one summer of riding and a mountain bike season with us, and now the kid climbs like the hill owes him money.
I tucked in behind him for a while.

For folks who don’t ride, that means I was drafting. He was up front breaking the wind, and I was behind him trying to save every little bit of leg I had left.

I told myself I was fine.

I was not fine.

Somewhere on one of those rolling hills — and let me tell you, the Trace does not run out of hills, it just keeps handing you another one — Little Kevin came around me on the climb.

Didn’t look tired.

Didn’t look bothered.

Just looked back with that teenage grin and said something like, “You good, Kevin?”

Now when a kid you helped teach to shift gears a year ago says that while dropping you on a hill, it lands a certain kind of way. 😄

I can laugh about it now.

At the time, my legs were filing a formal complaint.

Not long after that, the cramps started talking. Nothing dramatic. Just that tight little warning that says, “We are no longer negotiating.”

So I backed off, found my own pace, and watched Little Kevin roll away like he had somewhere
important to be.

At one point, he was moving around 27 miles an hour.

I was moving at what I like to call “still technically riding.”

By the time I rolled into camp, I was done.

Not tired.

Done.

Kinney was there. Kevin was there looking like he had just finished a casual spin around the neighborhood. Joshua was there too, already settled in. He probably had been there long enough to start charging rent.

Nobody made a big deal about how long it took me.

They didn’t have to.

That’s the good kind of quiet. The kind that says, “We see you. You made it. You alright?”

And I was.

Mostly.

Somewhere along today’s stretch, we crossed from Alabama into Mississippi. The Natchez Trace Parkway runs 444 miles from end to end, and today we got to stand on that state line and take the picture.

For most people, it’s just a line on a map.

On a bike, after a day like that, it feels like you earned both sides of it.

Now let me tell you about camp.

There were two guys near us trying to put up a brand-new ten-person tent. They were looking at that thing like NASA had just dropped off a rocket ship and forgot the instructions.

We watched for about ten minutes before deciding that neighborly intervention was required.
We’ve got more than ten years of tent-pitching experience between us, so naturally we offered help. And by help, I mean we stood around giving a lot of advice about which pole went where and what might connect to what.

I’m not sure we made the process faster. But we did make it more entertaining.

Later, a group of motorcyclists rolled through celebrating the Fourth. Leather, tattoos, loud engines, the whole thing.
Turns out cyclists and motorcyclists have more in common than either group probably wants to admit.

Too much money spent on the hobby.

Too many weather complaints.

And stories that get better every time somebody tells them again.
That might be the whole tour right there.

Not just the miles.

It’s the people you didn’t know you were going to meet while standing next to a half-built tent, trying to act like you know what you’re doing.

And as for getting dropped by a young man I helped teach to ride?

I don’t know what else to do with that except celebrate.

That surge Little Kevin put in on the climb did not come from nowhere. That came from Sunday practices, reluctant hill repeats, mountain bike miles, and people who gave to this program without ever knowing whose legs they were building.

So if you supported Triangle Bikeworks, congratulations.
You helped build the kid who dropped me on a hill in Mississippi.

That’s not a bad problem for an old man to have. 🚴‍♂️😂

We’ve still got a lot of Mississippi left to ride. Every mile runs on gas, ice, food, water, and grown-ups willing to get out-ridden by the young people they love.

If this story did anything for you, put something behind it at trianglebikeworks.org and help us keep crossing state lines.

07/07/2026

Travel Day
6:52 AM. We're supposed to be pulling into the office right now, and instead we're still on Julissa's street, watching her come out the front door with her bag slung over one shoulder like she's done this a hundred times. She hasn't. None of them have. Not like this.
Thirty-seven minutes. That's how far behind we are by the time Joshua's buckled in next to her, both of them quiet in that way teens get when they're excited but don't want to show it yet. Thirty-seven minutes doesn't sound like much until you're the one watching the clock, and me knowing Sam's already at the office, knowing this whole tour runs on trust that we'll show up when we say we will.
Kinney had rolled in the afternoon before, and slept over in my r-pod so we could hit the ground running — ice run first thing, then the pickups. The ice run went fine. It's underestimation of travel time for the pickups that ate our cushion. That's how mornings like this go. You plan for the parts you can control and the day finds the parts you can't.
Sam's waiting when we pull up. He doesn't say much about the thirty-seven minutes. He doesn't have to. We load up, and by 8:15 we're rolling out of the lot, wheels pointed at Nashville, Tennessee — which is really just the starting line. You can say the tour doesn't begin until we get there.
Here's the thing about a road trip with three kids, two volunteers, and an Executive Director who hasn't slept enough: the miles do something. Somewhere around the state line the quiet in the back seat can sometime turn into actual conversation. Joshua's got questions about the route. Julissa's takes not of what she sees out the window like it's the first time she's seen a highway, which — which I know it's not, but maybe for the first time it's meant she was doing something of her ow accord. Kevin's mostly listening music and any conversation, which is its own kind of participating.
We'd done the prep work Thursday night — routes mapped, gear checked, the boring stuff nobody thanks you for until it saves you thirty-seven minutes' worth of a worse morning. It paid off. On-time departure, no wrong turns, no scrambling. Sometimes the story is what didn't go wrong.
Sam's sister and her husband are waiting for us in Nashville, and this is the part of Day Zero I didn't plan for on paper but knew, somewhere, we needed. Dinner at their place. Real food, real chairs, a table that isn't a fast-food booth. The World Cup's on in the background and Sam's brother-in-law asks Kevin what his opinions are about the teams. We're just people, eating together, arguing about a match none of us can control the outcome of.
I keep coming back to that thirty-seven minutes. Not because it mattered — it didn't, not really, Sam was still there, we still made Nashville by dinner — but because it's the whole tour in miniature. You plan the thing as tight as you can. You still lose minutes you didn't budget for. And you keep going anyway, because the kids are in the car and the ice is packed and somewhere in Tennessee there's a table with your name on it, even if you don't know that yet at 6:52 in the morning.
We say our goodbyes after dinner — the good kind, the kind where everybody means "next time" — and head to the hotel. Three kids in a hotel hallway at the end of the first day of something they've planned for. I don't know yet what Julissa's going to discover about herself twelve hundred pedal strokes from now, or what Joshua figures out the first time his mental legs give out and he keeps going anyway. That's tomorrow's story. Today's story is just: we made it. Thirty-seven minutes late and all.
That's Day Zero. No mileage yet, no mountains, no flats. Just a fifteen-passenger's van worth of nerves and snacks and a dinner table in Nashville that didn't have to happen but did.
This is the part of the tour nobody sees — the part before the ride even starts, where three kids trust three adults enough to get in a car and go somewhere they've never been, for reasons they're still working out. That trust doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from every mile this program's already put behind it, every ride before this one, every person who decided these kids were worth the gas money and the r-pod and the ice run at dawn.
You put Joshua, Julissa, and Kevin in that car this morning. If you've given to Triangle Bikeworks — even once, even small — you're the reason there was a car to get into. Nashville's just the first stop. There's a lot more road ahead, and we need you on it with us. trianglebikeworks.org — help us keep showing up, thirty-seven minutes late or right on time.

Triangle Bikeworks

08/31/2026

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Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm