Of course, there are a million things it means to be an I4K rider. It's walking into ARC at 10 AM on Saturdays, smiling because we know that in a few weeks we'll be getting ready to ride at 8 AM. It's the extreme joy at playing I4K basketball, which are the most fun basketball games in the world (especially when Bradford ducks and rolls). It means skyping for team meetings, and taking "5 dozen" team photos that all look exactly the same.It means knowing that no matter what happens, someone will always have our backs. It's the joy that we'll have chore partners because of the "extreme bonding" that will happen. It's the silly smile we all get when someone says "Do you have your bike yet?," or how we all have the same feeling when we tell someone new about what Illini 4000 is. It's knowing that this summer is going to be the greatest experience of all time. For me, what exactly it means to be part of the I4K team was made really, really evident a few weeks ago, and again by Connor Ramsey at last night's meeting. When we had the first training of the semester (which was wonderfully painful!), I was sitting on the couches in the lobby of CRCE with Connor Wilson and Ashley Young, and we were just chatting about how close we all live to each other. I had just turned my phone on, and suddenly it was bombarded with 4 voicemails and 4 texts, all from my mom, saying that Dad was out biking, so she had an ambulance coming to the house, she needed to go to the hospital immediately. She didn't give me anymore detail than that, so I was obviously really freaked out! (It turned out that she had really, really awful vertigo from a deep inner-ear infection. She's doing much better now!).  Connor and Ashley walked with me through the whole time I was on the phone with her, and they still ask me on a regular basis how she's feeling. It kind of solidified for me what the whole team is like--it's a whole bunch of people, who really, really care about people they don't even know, because we all understand what it's like to see a loved one in pain. Connor Ramsey, at last night's team meeting, stated something along the lines of: People aren't donating to help you ride across the country. They're donating to help affect millions of lives. Connor's completely right-- people may be donating in our names specifically, but their donations mean so much more than that. They're for the researchers that we fund. They're for the families, who've lost loved ones. They're for the survivors that we help support. They're for all the lives lost in the fight, and for all of those still fighting. That's what it means to be an I4K-er: we want to make a difference. We want to change lives, of those people we meet and those who can potentially benefit from the work that we do. We're young, we're dedicated, and we're trying to spread hope through every conversation, dollar donated, and pedal stroke.