You know that feeling on Christmas Eve when Santa Claus is specifically making a pit stop at your house and the quicker you close your eyes, the sooner you’ll be able to wake up and rip the wrapping from your presents? This was me the night before BRAK. Lying in my cozy, warm bed, staring at the dark ceiling, I ran through the mental list of what campsites were booked, what food was safely packed into our panniers, whether I should bring an extra battery bank … all the while anticipating that for the next month, I’d be sleeping on the earth, with a thin layer of polyester and nylon separating me from nature.

In mid-March of this year, I lost work in Colorado as the ski resorts made the safety call to close for the remainder of the winter season. In a moment of uncertainty, I made the quick decision to leave behind my mountain valley apartment and head home to hunker down with my family in Mount Vernon, Kentucky. Like many people in 2020, when lockdowns started happening around the U.S., I found myself with fewer distractions and more time to reflect on what I wanted to invest in. For the past three summers, I’d put all my time and energy into planning, training, and cycling with the nonprofit Bike & Build. Along with sweet memories of cross-country trips, long-lasting connections, and the crispest of tan lines, this organization ignited a spark in me that eventually burst into a wildfire for exploring on two wheels. 

With the organization, I learned how to properly research and safely map out point-to-point rides in detail, find overnight accommodations and points of interest, and secure locations of food, water, and bike maintenance. I was also inspired by the resilience not only in myself but in an entire team of individuals from many different backgrounds to come together and safely accomplish months-long rides while raising donations and contributing acts of service to affordable housing organizations along each route. Once I learned I had the capacity to achieve such a feat and how impactful the connections to nature and people would be for me, I knew I had to dive in deeper.

With all of this experience in my toolbelt and a blank canvas of an unknown amount of idle time ahead, I began to create my very own, never-before-ridden bike tour of my backyard, the Commonwealth of Kentucky. In all my 21 years in the state, I’d never been to many of its cities nor immersed myself in its natural beauty, terrain, and people that bike touring offers. During the COVID-19 lockdown, I finally had the time to research, plan, and actually see my vision of a Bike Ride Around Kentucky (BRAK) play out.

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